Skipping Town

Wednesday Bits

2012-02-01T22:29:00.001-05:00

Today, a cranky Lucia began pushing Greta’s bassinet around our bedroom while I changed Greta’s diaper. When the pushing began getting out of hand, I told her to stop, and then I carried Greta out to the living room. From there I heard her yelling at me: “I moving the crib! I moving the criiiiiiiib!” When that didn’t get any response from me, she ran out to the living room and stood there screaming: “I moving the criiiiiiiiiib! Mama! I moving the criiiiiiiiiib!” It is so hard sometimes not to laugh at these ridiculous episodes. And it is also so incredible that such nonsense can be so infuriating.

Lucia is still very much into collecting things. This summer it was stones; now it’s seeds from trees around the neighborhood. The seeds are small, smooth, and brown—quite pretty—and gathering them is the focus of our walks and, sometimes, of our time at the playground. Today we walked to music class, and by the time she got there she had about twenty of them in her bucket, which she proudly showed the teacher.

Greta has discovered her reflection in the mirror. Super cute. Lucia likes to lie down with her, and together they look at themselves.

I’m not sure why I continue to be so astonished at Lucia’s language development. This is what two-year-olds do: they learn to talk in phrases and sentences. But it just seems so amazing to hear her say things like, “I go have bathtime with Dada” and “I put paw-paw beside Bibi” and “When Dada gets home I have a cookie” and “It’s getting dark outside.”

Yesterday while we were at the playground in the late afternoon, Lucia pointed to the moon and said, “The moon! I want it.” She reached and reached and seemed only partially accepting of the fact that it was too high for her to get. Today she saw an airplane and said, “Airplane! I want it!” Again I explained that it was too high, and she stared after it mournfully, saying, “I can’t reach it. I can’t reach it.”

Greta slept through the night two nights in a row, 7pm to 6am. Knock wood etc.

The Hunt

2012-01-29T19:46:00.001-05:00

We embarked on another exploration today. We’re coming to the end of these new-town investigations—there’s one more day trip we might do, but now we’ve seen all the options at least in passing and can start focusing in on our top choices. Today we drove north to Scarsdale, Chappaqua, White Plains, and Pleasantville. Scarsdale was pristine and lovely—like a magical fairytale hamlet—but those fairytale houses were so close together it was like someone had fitted them together into a puzzle. There were no yards to speak of with many of the properties, and everything was way out of our price range anyway. For some reason I’ve always associated Scarsdale with the kind of suburbia that would inspire Richard Yates—engendering a particular sort of existential despair rooted in disillusionment, isolation, burst dreams. I have no way of knowing whether this is accurate and suspect it is not. But with house prices in the $1 million+ arena, we probably won’t find out.

There were some pretty properties in White Plains—but we were surprised at just how much of a city White Plains is, and not a very nice city at that. We felt stressed while we were there, trying to find a place to park to have some lunch, ending up in a parking garage underneath an Atlantic Terminal-like shopping center, hauling toddler and infant carseat down a city block to get to…an Applebee’s. It was not a restful place, not a place we felt we could take deep, wide-open suburban breaths. This was an easy one to cross off the list with no qualms.

Pleasantville was our pleasant surprise of the day. Gorgeous streets, tons of trees, large, beautiful homes. We found an open house and went in, and it was exactly the kind of house we’ve been looking for. Six bedrooms, ample living space, lots of character, a huge yard…and, we found out inside, a $1.4 million price tag. Alas. Pleasantville might prove to be out of our range; plus, the commute is questionable, and there wasn’t any of the walkability we liked so much in Maplewood and, especially, Montclair. But we’re keeping it on the list for now.

Incidentally, I think Lucia is getting into the spirit of the house hunt. When we left that beautiful house, I was gushing about how much I loved it, and Lucia, holding my hand as we walked to the car, announced, “I love it too!” (There were stuffed animals in the attic playroom—of course she loved it.)

Before heading home we decided to stop at a glorious suburban Target. The girls had been great travelers all day, but this proved to be One Stop Too Many for Greta; she screamed bloody murder the entire time we were there. Other than that, it was a good trip.

We’re really narrowing down now. We’re considering an exploration of Greenwich and Stamford, Connecticut, but our eyes are focusing slowly but surely on Maplewood, South Orange, and Montclair, New Jersey; and possibly Rowayton, Connecticut. The true search is going to be starting alarmingly soon, in just a couple of months…

Letter to Greta: 3 Months

2012-01-27T22:50:00.000-05:00

Dear Littlest One,

You marked your three-month birthday by hitting an exciting milestone: you rolled over from tummy to back today! In just a couple of days, you went from screaming bloody murder during tummy time to doing strong, prolonged neck lifting and, today, to actually turning over. I hadn’t even been practicing with you; you were just ready. You found yourself in the right position and over you went. Then you did it four more times as Lucia and I cheered you on. What a wonderful end to the week. (And your sister was truly excited: she grinned and laughed each time you rolled over and were concerned when you seemed to hit your head on the floor.)

You continue to be a lovely, easy baby most of the time. You are still a champion sleeper: from 7 or 7:30pm till 7 or 7:30am, with just one night feeding—sometimes at 2, more often at 4:30. You aren’t the greatest napper, and the only time you take really good naps is when you’re in the Bjorn or in my arms—which is why it’s best when we can get out and about in the mornings. When I take Lucia to playgroup or the playground or music class, you can easily nap for two hours. You’re still taking three naps on ideal days—morning, noon, and late afternoon—though you still get exhausted in the evenings and cry hysterically until we put you to bed.

You are the best little nurser. And now you’ve started clutching my shirt in your tiny fist while you nurse, pulling it toward you, and I know it must give you such comfort. I also think you’re wise: you know that when you’re nursing you have my undivided attention (well, for the most part; I’m usually reading a book to Lucia or otherwise interacting with her, but at least you have my full attention physically)—a rare thing to get when you are a second child.

You wake up happy in the morning, looking up with bright open eyes and smiling when I lean down to pick you up. Your whole face lights up when you smile. I have yet to get a good picture—the days of simply standing over a baby with a camera, poised for the perfect shot, are nonexistent now—but I will get one. I had your passport pictures taken and you’re giving a tiny smile to the camera, so that’s something.

Your favorite book right now is White on Black by Tana Hoban—a board book of white silhouettes on black backgrounds. You love a page with four button silhouettes—when this page appears, you fixate on it intently, and you begin smiling and gurgling, almost giggling. Something about those buttons just tickles you. Even if you’re fussing, if I show you that page, your face lights up.

You are just so sweet, littlest one. Cuter every day. I know you’ll be just as feisty as your sister someday but for now you are just my little baby, there for the snuggling.

Dark Days / Light Days

2012-01-24T23:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday and today, Andrew had to go into work early and stay late (late as in out-for-dinner-and-drinks late, getting home past midnight late). This meant I was on my own all day for two days—and, more significantly, two bedtimes. These days were so different I just had to capture them in a post.

I thought yesterday would be the easy day, since Kate, our sitter, had agreed to stay through bedtime to help me manage getting two babies to bed. But Greta chose yesterday to mutiny. She fooled us into thinking she was going to be the easy one by sleeping through the night—straight through, from 7:30 to 6:30. But then she napped badly all day—trying to nap, needing to nap, but napping fitfully and waking before she was ready. By 3:00pm, she was a screaming, inconsolable basket case. I passed her off to Kate and took Lucia to the grocery store for a little breather; she fell asleep immediately once we left. There was a 45-minute period of peace when we got home, and Lucia and I baked cookies. Then Greta woke up and all hell broke loose. Lucia decided to mutiny as well. It had rained pretty much all day; she’d been cooped up with a screaming baby; and she just started running wild, literally running in circles around the coffee table and then hitting my legs wildly for no reason. I felt like I should have been in that old public-service-message commercial: Stop. Count to ten. Before you pick up your child. Greta screamed throughout Lucia’s bathtime and bedtime. Thank goodness I had someone there to rock her and try to calm her. It was an evening that, were I not already mom to the little monsters, would have served as outstanding birth control. I can’t adequately capture the insanity. It was like a scary circus inside an insane asylum.

Then there was today. It was sunny and warm (well, mid-forties, which seems warm). I hustled everyone outside for a walk at 9:00am; Lucia seemed thrilled to be actually walking outside of the apartment. We spent the morning at a friend’s house with our playgroup; Greta slept in the Bjorn. When we left, we walked to the playground. Lucia ate her whole lunch on the way. Greta took another snooze. Everyone had a great nap once we got home and woke up in good spirits. We went back to the playground at 4:00 and got home just when it got dark. Lucia played calmly. Greta kicked in her bouncy chair. Lucia ate a good dinner. There was a blip when I went to put Greta to bed—lots of tired screaming—but then she fell asleep and stayed asleep while I gave Lucia her bath and put her to bed. The day went quickly, pleasantly.

I could congratulate myself, but I think the true hero in this story is the weather. Things are just better when we can go outside. Lucia’s happier. Greta naps better. I feel saner. Down, down with winter. Let’s hope this mildness sticks around.

More Exploring

2012-01-22T22:58:00.001-05:00

We headed out to the burbs once again today, this time to drive around Montclair, New Jersey. And we really loved what we saw. We’d been to Montclair several months ago on a very preliminary exploration—it’s where we bought Lucia’s very first stuffed Elmo—but this time we were looking more specifically at houses. There are some beautiful, tree-lined streets, large, interesting houses, nice-sized yards, good parks, lots of places to walk to. The schools are, I’ve read, outstanding. We went to just one open house today but are definitely putting Montclair high on the list for future hunting.

Once again the girls were great in the car. However, Lucia seems to have gotten it into her head that any time we get in the car, our destination is a playground. As soon as we get on the road, her chant begins: “Playground? I go a playground?” We did find a playground for her, since we had some time to kill before the open house; we stuffed her into her snowpants, hat, coat, and mittens in the back of the car and then traipsed through a snowy park to a great playground. Unfortunately, the equipment was all too slippery, but she still had fun tramping in the snow and watching Andrew throw snowballs at trees.

We could see ourselves in Montclair. It only takes twenty minutes to drive from there back to the city—which means we can still do city things once the kids are a) old enough to take the train in with me to a museum or event, or b) old enough to be left with a sitter so Andrew and I can drive in ourselves for evenings out.

Another successful exploration. The time for real hunting is getting closer and closer…soon we’ll have to start narrowing our focus.

A First

2012-01-20T23:35:00.001-05:00

Today Lucia, Greta, and I went out to lunch with a friend and her daughter. I was anxious about the plan—even though I’d proposed it, since I had a Groupon that was expiring tomorrow, and going out in the evening for dinner just isn’t realistic, what with Greta’s witching hour. Going to the playground by myself with both girls is pretty much the extent of our public excursions, so a restaurant was kind of a big step.

We went early and sat in a booth, and the toddlers were content with the basket of tortilla chips the waiter brought over. No one else was in the restaurant. We ordered our meals, and some rice and beans for the little ones. Greta fell asleep in the stroller. Lucia stood happily in the booth eating chips. Though she refused it at first, eventually she even ate some rice and beans. I was feeling proud, confident, powerful—out in the world! with two babies! having lunch with a friend in a restaurant, having a conversation!—when, out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly saw Lucia bend over and vomit dramatically all over the seat of the booth. And then vomit again all over the floor. And then again, either on the seat or the floor; I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.

I jumped out of my seat and pulled her away from the vomit; miraculously, it hadn’t gotten on her at all. She was whimpering but otherwise seemed fine, and almost immediately began saying “I sick! I sick!” and running back and forth along the length of the restaurant. Meanwhile, the horrified waiter brought me a towel, and then a roll of paper towels, and then a plastic bag in which to seal the toxic mess. I cleaned everything up as well as I could, on my hands and knees under the table. “Do you have kids?” I asked the waiter, who was hovering nearby. He said he did not. “Well, then, you hate us right now,” I acknowledged. He gave a little laugh but seemed mollified when I handed over a gigantic tip with the bill.

We left, Lucia cheerier than ever, waving and saying “Bye bye!” to the tight-lipped manager, running ahead of the stroller down the street saying “I sick! I sick!”, nibbling on a tortilla chip she’d taken with her.

She did not seem sick, then or beforehand. But when I think back over the day, I should have seen a few red flags—mainly, that she refused to eat any breakfast at all and refused to eat any snacks in the late morning, not even a beloved Clementine or a Nutrigrain bar. She ate nothing but a few pretzels and one or two bites of toast the entire rest of the day, but seems otherwise okay.

We may be awoken tonight with a vomit-filled crib and/or a raging fever; who knows. Those would not be a parenting first. A pool of vomit in a Park Slope restaurant, however, definitely was. You’re gonna miss this…

The Ghost Report

2012-01-18T21:38:00.001-05:00

The ghost continues to make appearances in our kitchen. Yesterday, Lucia was about to enter the kitchen but stopped short and said, “I see a ghost.” She said the ghost was at the stove, cooking soup. When she said she saw the ghost, she actually hurried behind me, as though hiding. A day or two before that, the ghost was first in the kitchen and then outside: “Ghost outside, looking for stones.” (The ghost is often carrying stones while in the kitchen.) And also recently (can’t remember the specific days) she was running back and forth from the living room into the kitchen—until she said a ghost was in the kitchen, at which point she would come to a screeching halt at the kitchen threshold and refuse to enter.

I’m really intrigued by all this, especially the idea that she somehow has understood that a ghost is something to be afraid of, something to avoid. Where did this knowledge come from? And just what is it that she’s seeing?

A First

2012-01-18T21:33:00.001-05:00

***This is the first of a new series of posts that will highlight parenting firsts in the Littell household. Of course, there is the possibility that this post will be the only one in the series. But onward regardless.***

Last night, I went to the basement to get our laundry—a load of whites—out of the washer. When I opened the lid, I was horrified to see that the entire load of clothes was mixed with a snowdrift of gelatinous slime reminiscent of an exotic breed of translucent fish eggs. The slime was all over and in the clothes; it lay in piles at the bottom of the washer like an overabundance of priceless caviar. It dissolved when I touched it, leaving no soapy or slimy residue, and it fell free from the clothes when I shook them. Nearly gagging, I threw the clothes in the washer, having no other recourse: we were out of quarters, it was 10pm—and Lucia’s blankie (pulled from her sleeping arms under cover of darkness) was in this hideous load. We had to just see it through.

When the dryer cycle finished, I opened the door with trepidation. However, I was surprised and relieved to find that the clothes were, for the most part, free of the gelatinous slime. Not so the lint trap, which was thick with it; and snowdrifts of it were all over the inside of the dryer itself. I carried the clothes upstairs and dispatched Andrew with a roll of paper towels to clean up the hideous mess.

We had no idea what could have caused this. We’d done two loads of darks prior to the whites, so it wasn’t anything wrong with the washer. Only when I began folding the whites did I finally discover what had happened: somehow, someway, one of Greta’s diapers had gotten into the laundry. The gelatinous slime was the absorbent gel from inside the diaper. Whether the diaper was clean or dirty, only God knows, and, with no more quarters and the clocking ticking on towards midnight, only a better parent than I am cares. It was all washed, is my reasoning.

This morning, I took a pair of clean white socks from my drawer and pulled one onto my foot. To my horror, my toes squished into a cold mass of the gelatinous slime that had gathered in the toe of the sock. Surely there is no more disgusting way to begin a day than this.

Washing a diaper with the laundry: a first.

Letter to Lucia: 27 Months

2012-01-15T21:35:00.003-05:00

Dear Little One,

What a run for our money you’ve given us this month. The holidays were hard on all of us: two weeks of visitors, a tree in the living room, an overload of presents—couple all this with some late-arriving sibling jealousy, an ear infection, and general two-ness and you have a recipe for an explosive finale to the year.

Things are better now that we’re back in our usual routines, though some of the jealousy and two-ness remain. It’s immediately apparent when you’re starting to go into the “red zone,” as a parenting book described it. Your whole face changes; the look in your eyes is pure challenge and defiance. You lash out with your arms, trying to push away or hit whatever offends you. Your voice pitches higher and tilts into shrill screams. We try to deflect it when we can. When we can’t, we’re trying out other ways of halting things before they get out of hand.

Fortunately you don’t direct your anger at Greta. She’s the source of much of your frustration, of course, but you seem to understand that she’s a baby and not really at fault. You might say “No Greta” when I retrieve her from a nap, or tell me to put her in the office when you want her out of the way, but you still give her lots of hugs and kisses and are, more often than not, happy to see her.

You like to show things to Greta—toys, and things you can do. “Look, Greta,” you’ll say, holding out a stuffed animal. “Look, Greta,” you’ll say, doing some sort of acrobatic maneuver. You usually offer Greta a bite of your snacks.

Your language continues to rapidly develop, and you narrate your actions constantly throughout the day. “I put it over here.” “Where’d paw-paw go? I see it! I found paw-paw.” “Read Olivia Goes to Venice.” “The baby dropped his ice cream.” “Move high chair over there.” “I’m making a stack.” You can sing your ABCs.

Favorite toys and things to do this month: Play-Doh, especially “tiny balls” (which you always say in a high, tiny voice)—tiny balls of Play-Doh that have hardened into colorful pebbles and which can now be found all over our house. Much of your day is spent arranging them, transferring them among containers, finding them, hiding them, pushing them in your stroller, or “cooking” them in a pan. Other favorites: your new doll; stuffed animals (always); small basketball; buckets; stickers; small canisters of Play-Doh you can stack; a Little People pig from your farm, which you hide around the living room; sitting at your little table to draw.

Favorite books this month: Olivia Helps with Christmas, Olivia Goes to Venice, Frosty the Snowman, Henry in Love, Madeline, Memoirs of a Goldfish.

You miss our Christmas tree. For a week or so after we took it down, you’d run over to where it was, spread your arms, and say, “No tree!” Then you’d give me a serious look and say, “Get another one.” You also seem eager for snow to arrive, though you really, really hate the cold; after a certain threshold you won’t walk on your own, and if we do manage to get to the playground you are listless and uninterested. It’s been a mild winter so far, but the cold has definitely reached us now, and long days inside aren’t good for anyone. It would be wonderful if you like the snow, but I’m not banking on it—though I did buy you snow pants just in case.

IT’S TIME FOR ME TO BE ASLEEP

2012-01-14T20:26:00.002-05:00

Greta is an easy baby. (Knock, knock, knock wood.) She is easygoing and calm, and if she prefers being held to being put on a playmat or in a bouncy chair, so be it; she’s a baby, and our apartment is quite cold, and if I were her I’d want to be on a warm person too. But Greta is also demanding, a true child of a mama who likes routine and regularity. If it’s time for her to eat, she begins screaming bloody murder with no warning whatsoever. FEED ME. NOW. The worst is when Greta gets sleepy. She becomes an insane screaming infant, face red, lips quivering with rage, crying so hysterically she ceases to let out any sound at all. She is then nearly impossible to calm, and even when she does fall asleep, she wakes up a couple of times and needs to be soothed once again.

Greta’s witching hour begins promptly at 5:00pm, just when I need to start getting Lucia’s dinner ready and a good bit of time before I can count on Andrew walking through the door. It is the toughest part of my day. There’s nothing I can do but rock her and try to get her to sleep, which is all but impossible with Lucia tagging along. I’ll go into our darkened bedroom to rock Greta, suggesting that Lucia stay in the living room; of course she says “I come too” and follows me in, jumping and chattering despite my admonitions that she be quiet. I feel for her at these times, I really do, the screaming interloper monopolizing my time and delaying her dinner.

The problem is that Greta for some reason cannot settle down for a late-afternoon nap. She naps in the morning, and then again around noon or one while Lucia naps, but then can’t let go for a nap at four or four-thirty—when she really needs it. If I could focus on Greta 100%, I know I could get her down. But I don’t have half an hour to rock her in a dark, quiet room. And so a nap doesn’t happen. And then the insane witching hour begins. Bedtime for Greta has become six or six-thirty just because she simply cannot stand being awake a minute longer, and it is both cruel to her and excruciating to us to try to get her to stay up till our preferred bedtime of seven.

Ah, Grets. I’m planning to rework her sleeping situation in our bedroom to improve things. Right now our room is very very bright, and she sleeps in a bassinet. But she is so tall that she’s outgrowing the bassinet already. So room-darkening curtains and a real crib are on the horizon. I also need to try wearing Greta for that four-thirty nap. If she’s too upset she can’t settle herself; but if I catch her before she gets worked up she might just sleep for me in the Bjorn. Here we are once again in the land of infant strategizing...

The Ghost Report

2012-01-14T20:26:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, Lucia was kicking a beachball around the living room while I nursed Greta on the couch. She was in a testy mood, and she kept kicking the ball dangerously close to me. Trying to deflect a confrontation, I suggested she kick the ball into the kitchen. “No,” she said. “Ghost.” She said it matter-of-factly. “There’s a ghost in the kitchen?” I said. “Yes,” she said. Further questioning revealed that the ghost is (still) a baby, and it was standing by the stove, cooking soup.

The Hunt

2012-01-14T20:21:00.001-05:00

Early this morning, the four of us set out in the car for more explorations of possible places to live. On the agenda today: Mamaroneck, Rye, and Port Chester, in New York; and Darien, Rowayton, and Cos Cob in Connecticut. The outstanding school districts in both areas are extremely appealing, the commute humane, the taxes much more palatable than New Jersey. We expected our trip today to shake up our top new-home choices.

But despite our enthusiasm going in, we were surprised to find that we didn’t much like Mamaroneck. There were some beautiful homes, but it seemed remote—and, in an odd way, there was a malaise hovering over the town. I didn’t see a cozy suburban life there—I saw isolation. Perhaps the gloomy day had something to do with it, but neither of us could quite imagine ourselves being happy there. Same for Port Chester. We felt differently in Rye: a really cute downtown, beautiful homes. It seemed livelier somehow; and we could better imagine a home there.

It became clear very quickly that we can’t afford to live in Darien, and probably not Cos Cob. We might not be able to afford Rowayton, either, but we hope we can—this was a really cute place, right on the water, a charming little town that conjured images of fireplaces and cozy evenings at home, hunkered down against the weather.

It was a very educational trip. These explorations really are helping us shape our search, even when we don’t go to any open houses.

The girls both did splendidly in the car. It was a long day—we left around 9:30am and didn’t get home till around 4:30pm—but there was nary a fuss. Greta slept most of the time in the car, and Lucia kept up an amusing monologue. We stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s in Mamaroneck—possibly the longest McDonald’s stint ever, between running out to the car for things, changing diapers, nursing, everyone ordering and eating, etc etc etc—but Lucia enjoyed her French fries and two chicken McNuggets and the toy from her Happy Meal. Greta spit up down the neck of my sweater, but she was still cute. We stopped at a second McDonald’s in Cos Cob before heading home so Greta could nurse and Lucia could have some ice cream. (Really, is there a better place for a toddler? Junk food, a booth to stand up in, no one around to care if she runs around.)

Lucia’s monologue truly was hilarious; at times it seemed she was just saying words she knew, calling up pieces of her vocabulary in free-association fashion:

“Snowman. Santa. [high, tiny voice:] Tiny snowman! Tiny Santa! I taking a shower. I wash face. Lots of soap. Mama, wash face. Dada, wash face. Shoes off. Wash back. Mama, wash back. Dada, wash back. Holly bush! Open it. Fish. Ice cream. Cheddar bunnies? Chocolate bunnies? I need wa-wa. Stinky diaper. Out. Out. Up. No. Playground! Playground! Park! Home see Bibi. I have paw-paw. Uh-oh—I drop tiny ball. Greta sleeping. Greta awake! Greta has paw-paw. Snack? Cake! Cake!”

A successful trip.

Two Cute Girls

2012-01-08T21:10:00.003-05:00

Let the House Hunt Begin!

2012-01-08T21:02:00.001-05:00

It’s begun: our house hunt. After saving for the past four-plus years, we are ready to buy a house. Well, we’re ready to start the process of preparing to buy a house, with the goal of moving by the time our lease is up on August 1. That seems like a really long way away, but it’s not when you factor in six to eight weeks for closing. So it’s time to start the hunt.

Today we drove out to Maplewood, NJ, a pretty town that’s surprisingly close to NYC—we got there in about half an hour, which means Andrew and I could conceivably come into the city to do fun things on nights when we have a sitter or visiting grandparents. The commute for Andrew is humane, and the community for me seems, from preliminary observations, very nice. We were anxious about making the drive with both kids, but they did great: no carsickness from Lucia, only minimal fussing from Greta, and a manageable amount of whining from Lucia that focused on her desire to go either home or to a playground. Both kids ended up asleep by the time we got to the first open house.

Andrew and I alternated going into the houses we’d selected, which won’t be a really viable way of operating once we’re actually looking to buy; but it was fine for today, since our objective was just to get a feel for what’s out there and to see what it’s like to be inside these suburban houses, looking out. We didn’t see anything that fit our idea of Our Suburban Life—the main problem in Maplewood is that the yards are really, really tiny—but it was pretty exciting to imagine eventually finding the right house on one of the pretty streets. And to realize that within a year we are going to have space, space, space. We’re looking at 4+ bedrooms, and some places even have a finished basement—all have formal dining rooms, most have fireplaces, many have dens in addition to living rooms. It is going to be glorious, just glorious.

I know we’ll have to revise our wish list eventually, but for now, here it is:

nice backyard
4+ bedrooms
2+ full bathrooms
at least one wood-burning fireplace
front porch
large kitchen
space for a playroom
space for an office
a craft room! a laundry room! walk-in closets! a hoooooooouuuuuuuuuussssssse!

We are excited. And we did find a playground for Lucia once the open houses were done, where she happily collected stones and sticks until it was time to go home.

Another Ghostly Encounter

2012-01-07T22:48:00.001-05:00

Late this afternoon, Andrew, Lucia, and I were all in the living room while Greta napped in her bouncy chair in the office. Lucia had just woken up from her nap but, nonetheless, was in a cheery mood. She was performing some acrobatics on the floor—spinning, splits—and giggling. Then, out of the blue, she looked at us and said, “Ghost in kitchen.” And then kept saying it, just as she did yesterday. “Ghost in kitchen. Ghost in kitchen.” She answered our questions consistently: “What’s in the kitchen, Lucia?” “A ghost.” “Where is the ghost?” “In the kitchen.” I asked her where the ghost was standing—by the island, the stove, the table? “By the table.” We asked if the ghost was a man or a woman, or a baby. “A baby!” “What is the ghost wearing?” “A dress.” “What color?” “Pink.” Then I asked if the ghost was carrying anything, and Lucia said immediately, “Stones.”

This was all pretty freaky. But it got downright terrifying when Andrew asked if Gray Bunny wanted to say hi to the ghost, and she held up Gray Bunny, facing the kitchen, and began calling, “Ghost…ghost…ghost…” She stood that way for a long time, holding out Gray Bunny toward the kitchen. Andrew and I were truly afraid.

An unrelated aside: Even scarier than all this is a bill from Blue Cross that came in the mail today for $138,131.68 slated as “Amount you owe to provider.” We’re pretty certain this is a mistake, since it’s billing us for 30 days of hospital room and board for the entire month of November—when I was home, sitting in our apartment, healthy and healing, Greta already born. Nonetheless, our faces were as white as they were when Lucia held out Gray Bunny for his ghostly encounter.

A Ghost Came Through the Kitchen

2012-01-06T20:35:00.002-05:00

Lucia genuinely freaked me out tonight. It was around 4:30pm, dark outside, and she and I were in the living room; Greta had just gone down for a nap in our bedroom. Most of the apartment was dark. Since we play almost exclusively in the living room, by the end of the day we usually have lights on only in the kitchen and living room. I was sitting on the couch, and Lucia was playing with something on the floor. Then, suddenly, she ran into the kitchen, looked around, and said, "Ghost came through the kitchen. Ghost came through the kitchen." She ran back to me and just kept repeating this over and over and over again, staring at me with her saucer eyes. "Ghost came through the kitchen. Ghost came through the kitchen." She said it exactly the same way every single time.

I kept asking her to explain what she meant, or say it a different way, or show me the ghost. At one point she ran to the kitchen doorway and called out to the ghost: "Ghost.....Ghost....Ghost....." I was truly frightened. I didn't know what to do. I kept asking her if she really meant to say "ghost," and she would say yes; but she would also say yes when I asked if what she actually said was "chicken" instead of "kitchen," so I couldn't fully trust her answers. I asked if the ghost was a man, and she said yes. I asked if the ghost was a woman, and she said yes. So I wasn't sure what to think.

Regardless, she just kept saying it. Again and again and again. I wanted to run back and get Greta, but I was afraid; finally I turned on all the lights and went back, finding her sleeping soundly. I hadn't realized that Lucia had followed me back; when I turned around, there she was. "Ghost came through the kitchen."

Fortunately, Andrew came home early tonight. But I had no idea he was going to, so when I heard our door rattling and then opening, I screamed. (Well, a controlled scream, so as not to frighten Lucia.)

The mystery of what Lucia was actually saying, or if there was really a ghost, remains. I've never felt a haunting presence here, but perhaps this winter will bring some supernatural to our lives.

I Walking a Cane

2012-01-04T21:02:00.001-05:00

Lucia’s been saying the funniest things lately. This weekend when Andrew and I were sitting on the couch and Lucia was amusing herself with something on the coffee table, she suddenly looked up and said, “I’m so happy!” That was pretty cute. She also says “I’m walking with a cane” and then limps around the room with her abacus as a cane; “Each one has a flower” when we’re reading Madeline; “She drank the whole thing” when she gives her doll a bottle; “Mama, where are you?”; “Where Dada go?”; and much, much more. Recently she ran into the bedroom, looked at me, and said, “I can’t find paw-paw.” It was just so clear. And yesterday we were both having some turkey breast and she said, “We both eating turkey.” Really fun to see this all in motion.

Oh, and today there was this exchange:

Lucia, randomly, while standing at her art table: “Happy birthday!”
Me: “Whose birthday is it?”
Lucia: “Markers’ birthday! They have a cake.” She then grabbed a handful of markers and observed, “Lots of them!”

However, Lucia sometimes also seems to be speaking English as a second language. Often, when she attempts to say a preposition + article construction (with a, on the, in the, etc.), she simply says “a.” So she says a lot of things like, “I put it a table” and “I walking a cane” and “Go a living room.” She sounds like a charming little European visiting our humble home.

Robust

2012-01-04T21:01:00.000-05:00

Greta had her two-month checkup yesterday and weighed in at a hefty 11 pounds, 1 ounce. She’s 23 ¼ inches long. The doctor called her “robust.” Robust! I can’t believe I have a robust child, especially since this child was born three weeks early. I sort of wonder if she’s eventually going to catch up to and then surpass Lucia. Lucia didn’t hit 12 pounds till she was eighteen weeks old. More importantly, this all means that Greta is probably going to grow into six-month clothes this winter, and all Lucia’s old six-month clothes are sundresses and sleeveless onesies. So much for hand-me-downs.

Greta is also smiling and cooing and just generally being adorable these days. She continues to run hot and cold with the pacifier, accepting it grudgingly now and then but always spitting it out just before or immediately after falling asleep. She loves to look at Lucia. And today when we were playing with her and making faces at her, she mirrored me when I stuck out my tongue, which Lucia thought was hilarious.

Happy #@!$#ing New Year

2012-01-01T21:54:00.001-05:00

I hate January 1. Always have, probably always will. Today, though, was a doozy. My parents went out to load their car so they could get on the road and head to Molly’s—and they discovered that everything in it had been stolen, despite the fact that the car was parked immediately in front of our apartment. Their GPS, their iPod, and, worst of all, their Christmas gifts for Molly and Ian. I called the cops, who came for their report, but obviously there’s nothing they can do. People who steal wrapped Christmas gifts are on the same low level of humanity as people who smash pumpkins.

Happy New Year! Fantastic!

January 1 also finds us in a new chapter of our life entitled Lucia Is Two. More will perhaps be said about this at another, less frustrated time.

Happy New Year! Splendid!

On a brighter note, my big novel revision is done, thanks to Andrew’s and our parents’ willingness to brave both babies on their own for the last two weeks. I became a regular at a nearby coffeeshop and might just have to make up some other huge project I just HAVE to work on in order to continue my daily three-hour doses of alone time.

Happy New Year! Superb!

Letter to Greta: 2 Months

2011-12-31T14:25:00.002-05:00

Dear Littlest One,

You are two months old, and such a roly-poly sweetie that you’re already filling out three-month outfits and stretching to the end of your three-month sleepers. You are smiling now, small, pleased, toothless grins, and staring intently on whoever is holding you. You are sweet and adorable and my favorite part of my day is when I bring you into bed with me for a half hour or hour in the morning, where you sleep in the crook of my arm until your sister wakes up.

And yet you are a restless baby, often unable to settle yourself; you are still snorting and grunting and straining, though not as badly as before, and it often seems that you are just uncomfortable. This may be just a baby thing, but I’ll of course ask your doctor about it. Just like your diaper rash—that you had for days and days before your checkup, and which actually required a prescription—I sometimes feel like a first-time parent with you, fumbling and not doing everything I should.

For the most part, you are doing some good sleeping: 7 or 7:30 until 12 or 1am, then 4 or 5 and then up at 6:30 or 7. This is not a guarantee, of course; some nights you can’t settle yourself and we are up rocking you for hours. And sometimes you cry off and on all evening. But we are on a path to feeling rested, more or less, or at least as “rested” we can feel with two babies.

I wish sometimes that we could spend more time just the two of us so you could have my undivided attention. But as it is, you have to accept divided attention much of the time, nursing peacefully while I talk to Lucia (or, more often these days, warn her to stop throwing or screaming etc.—you’ve inspired some jealousy, finally). It will be nice when you are a bit older and you can join in while we play, or at least sit on a blanket near us so we can talk to you.

But even if you do sometimes feel overlooked, I hope you always know that you and I have a special bond of our own: it was just the two of us in that hospital for four weeks. We got through that together. We might not ever have so much alone time but for that month, littlest one, it was just you and me.

Hours in a Day

2011-12-21T22:04:00.001-05:00

It’s amazing how many hours there are in a day when you really need them. My agent has asked for revisions to my novel, hoping to turn the current trend of editors saying It’s great, it’s lovely, but no, into It’s great, it’s lovely, here’s an offer. And she wants those changes by January 10. When she asked what my schedule was like, I just told her I’d make it work.

The truth? I have no time. Days, evenings, and nights are occupied with caring for one or both children. Even naptime, a measly one hour each day, has been decimated by my cherished new child who often stays awake while my cherished older child is asleep. Evenings, once my own after 7:30 when Lucia was asleep, are now usually Greta’s fussy time. And then I go to bed, where I alternate sleeping and nursing until I get up and do it all over again the next day.

And yet—this project has forced me to find time. I quickly revised my laissez-faire attitude of letting Greta sleep whenever and however long she wanted to during the day; I now make sure she has at least an hour of awake time before Lucia’s nap, and, more often than not, I can get her to sleep at the same time. A blessed hour—or more!—is then mine. Of course, Greta is often sleeping in my lap, but I prefer writing longhand, so I just balance my notebook on top of her. We’ve also found that Greta’s fussy time at night was mostly caused by her simply wanting to be asleep, so right after Lucia’s bedtime I swaddle, nurse, and rock Greta until she sleeps. So the evenings are ours again as well. Precious child that she is, she’s been sleeping for the past week or so from 7:30 or 8 until midnight or 1am, then nursing and then sleeping again until around 5am, then nursing and then sleeping again till Lucia wakes up at 7.

I’ve also been stealing time: high-tailing it out of the house every weekend morning, making it to my favorite café before it gets crowded even though it sometimes means leaving Lucia in her pjs, breakfast uneaten, Andrew without his contacts yet in. But with two babies, if I don’t go when I have the chance, I won’t go at all, so I am up and dressed and out the door by 8. We introduced a bottle to Greta a couple of weeks ago with no problem, so I know I'm not leaving her to starve.

And I’ve been buying time. We’ve had our sitter back a couple of times each week, and I made the somewhat obvious but also thrilling discovery that I can actually use that time as work time despite my unwillingness to leave both babies with the sitter at once. I just put Greta in the Bjorn and walk outside until she falls asleep, and then go to a café and write. Greta is none the wiser, and I sometimes even feel like I’m in grad school again, sipping coffee and writing in a notebook, out in the city in the middle of the day with all the time in the world—and then Greta stirs, or my milk lets down, and I remember I’m a mom of two and I’d better focus while I can.

It’s amazing how much I can get done when I absolutely have to do it, and I’ve been pretty productive in all my eeked-out hours. But much work remains.

Letter to Lucia: 26 Months

2011-12-15T23:15:00.003-05:00

Dear Little One,

A quick letter this month—it’s late and I need to get to bed. For once it’s not you who’s exhausting me. You’re pretty easy these days, though you certainly have your moments: refusing to have your diaper changed, refusing to lie still during said changing, insisting “Own. Own.” to put your own shoes on when we’re in a hurry to leave the house (this one’s cute, of course, despite the frustration).

You are starting to show signs of realizing that Greta is here to stay, and that Greta tends to take up quite a bit of my time. Though you’re unfailingly gentle and sweet with her, in the past couple of days you’ve often come up to me when I’m holding her and said, “Baby office.” This means I should go put the baby in her bouncy chair in the office, which is where she takes her naps. When the baby is sleeping in the office, you have all my attention. Sometimes you also say “No milk” when you don’t want the baby to nurse. The other morning when Daddy was holding Greta you chanted simply, “Baby no. Baby no.” You’re too young to realize it, dear one, but it’s hard on me, too, not to be able to give you the attention you need.

At 26 months you’re becoming shyer again, after a month or two of increased outgoingness. We went to two holiday parties last weekend and you definitely were not happy about it. At the first, the naturally exuberant hosts and their large, exuberant dog scared you immediately, and I had to hike you up on my hip (Greta was on my chest in the Bjorn) and carry you into another room, where we sat and ate a gingerbread man cookie until you were ready to emerge. At the second, you watched with interest as several older children played; but you ventured into the room with the toys only once you could have it all to yourself. At our playgroup this week, you sat near the window while three other children played with your toys. You didn’t cling to me, but you weren’t about to join in. And all I can say is, sorry, little one, but you are me. I truly hope you ultimately exhibit more of your daddy’s garrulousness and social ease; life is just easier that way. For now, though, you are happiest when you are here at home, with just us around, when you feel free to be your own chatty, funny, exuberant self.

Current favorite toys/activities: Play-Doh, stickers, drawing, Mardi Gras beads (still!), stuffed animals, Little People farm, cooking soup in your toy kitchen, books, toy stroller, collecting leaves and sticks in your bucket, Olivia, Elmo.

And with that I’ll bring this letter to a close.

Our Cute Girls

2011-12-14T21:07:00.001-05:00

Bits

2011-12-11T22:17:00.001-05:00

Little time to blog these days. I often find myself composing posts in my head, or noting something that should be a post, but then the day ends, and another day, and the posts don’t get written. So here are a few brief bits, more for my own desire to make sure things get written down than for any interesting reading for you all:

You

Lucia’s language acquisition is just careening forward these days. Today she took out some blocks and said, “I have blocks. I’m making a stack.” Just insane. What she’s having trouble with, however, are the pronouns me and you. Whenever a picture of her surfaces, we always point it out and say to her, “That’s you!” So now when she sees a picture of herself, she says, “That’s you!” I think she understands that it’s a picture of her, but she doesn’t understand that she should say “That’s me.” She does the same thing with the word “yourself.” “Do you want to do it yourself?” Andrew asked today, and then she kept saying, “Yourself” when she wanted to indicate that she wanted to do it on her own. She also sometimes just says, “Own” when she wants to do something by herself. “No, own,” she’ll say, pushing our hands away when we try to help Velcro her shoes.

Last Week

Last week marked my first few experiences of taking both girls out of the house by myself. Monday, we met a friend and her daughter at the playground, then they came over for lunch. Tuesday, I took the girls to the drugstore to fill a prescription. Wednesday, I took them both to Music Together (Greta slept the whole time in the Bjorn; Lucia danced with the teacher and hugged him, unprompted, at the end of class). Thursday I took the girls to a friend’s house for a morning playdate. Friday we went to the playground. The Bjorn and the warm fleece bunting I bought for it really are a godsend. I feel so empowered being able to just pop Greta onto my chest, and off we go.

Greta’s Checkup

Tuesday, Greta had a six-week checkup, and she has grown splendidly. She’s 9 pounds, 8 ounces, and 22 inches long—that’s 50th percentile for weight and 75th for height! These are numbers the likes of which we’ve never seen before. She’s about two to three weeks ahead of Lucia weight-wise; Lucia didn’t get to 10 pounds until she was eight weeks. In any case, those fat little cheeks aren’t just my imagination.

Christmas Sightings

There are still a few pumpkins in our neighborhood for Lucia to spot, but we’re turning our sights now to wreaths and Christmas trees on our walks. She gets very excited when she sees Christmas lights, and she is extremely excited to have such lights in our very own house. We got a Christmas tree this weekend, and though the tree-buying process vexed her—“No tree! No tree!” she said, refusing to cooperate and engage in photo-worthy tree selection activities as Andrew had hoped—she was happy once it was set up. She loves looking at the ornaments (I put lots of unbreakable ones at her level). And we wound some colored lights around the bookshelf just for fun.

Sleep

We’re getting some. Sort of. Greta gives us some good nights, some not so good. Maddeningly, she does a really long stretch of sleep in the evening—sometimes four or even five hours—but once we’re into the wee hours, it’s more like three hours. Her grunting is still an issue. The doctor said she might be eating too much (I could probably nurse another baby with my milk production), so I’ve been trying to cut her off a little, but this seems to have had a negligible effect. Each feeding is a roll of the dice. Sometimes she goes right back to sleep; sometimes she can’t settle for an hour. By 6 or 6:30 she’s usually done with her nighttime sleeping.

Our Days

Our days have been okay. When Greta takes long naps, it’s great. When she doesn’t, it’s hard. Lucia continues to be flexible and adaptable, but she’s started to get frustrated when Greta monopolizes too much of my time. “Baby chair,” she orders, telling me to put Greta in her chair; or, “No milk,” if she doesn’t want me to sit and nurse Greta. Sometimes she says firmly, “Mama sit right here,” patting the floor beside her when I’m nursing or rocking Greta. But she accepts my explanations that I’ll come over soon. And we’re having our sitter, Kate, come in a couple of days a week again for a couple of hours, which is great. Great for me to have an extra pair of hands, and I think great for Lucia to have someone play with her with undivided attention for a couple of hours.

And that’s all the bits for now. More soon.

The Newborn Report

2011-12-03T14:54:00.001-05:00

Friday morning, I woke up in a pool of milk. The front of my shirt was as soaked as it would have been had I dunked it in the bathtub. My sleeve was wet. The sheets, top and bottom, were wet. Then I sat up to nurse Greta and sat in the milk so my pajama bottoms were wet. It was not the best way to start the day.

I recount this as an illustration of why it isn’t easy returning to Infantland. I thought this time around would be easier, since we’d done it all before and knew what to expect. And in some ways it is easier: I’m worried less about details, mostly because I don’t have time to worry about them, and I don’t have any time at all to read baby books and wonder if I’m doing things “right.” What’s harder is the return itself. With baby #1, I expected things to change, even welcomed those changes as we entered A New Phase of Our Lives. I expected and looked forward to milk-soaked sheets and all the rest of it because it was all part of Having a Baby. With baby #2, it’s harder to welcome those changes with such Zen-like calm because, well, haven’t we been through this already? The sleepless nights, the endless laundry, the spitting up, the red-eyed infant who will not, despite all manner of soothing, give in to a nap? I thought I’d crossed those off my list. Yet here we are again.

And there are new challenges too—like figuring out nap and sleep schedules, which will be difficult with a toddler around. I hear first-time moms discussing how they have a forty-five-minute routine to get their infant to take an afternoon nap—ha, ha. I remember long stretches of rocking Lucia to sleep and religiously implementing a two-nap routine at around three months, and I know this time will be different. Greta’s “routine” is going to have to involve being nursed and then put down in her bouncy chair. Or napping on the go. Such is life for the second-born.

Last week, Greta looked calmly into my face with just the hint of a smile, then spit up down my shirt. The day before that, she seemed unaware that I was wearing real pants for the first time—not yoga pants, not leggings—and spit up all over those. She continues to be a sound, silent sleeper until the exact second we try to remove her from our laps/shoulders/arms. Then she either wakes up screaming or launches her award-winning barnyard imitation. (Is it a sty full of angry, ill-humored pigs, or is it Greta? I challenge you to decide.) (Also, I joke about this, but we’ll check with our doctor next week to make sure those noises aren’t a sign of a problem.)

Of course, Greta is adorable and we love love love her. She’s started giving tiny smiles, and her gaze is lengthening enough so that she gives us long, studious looks. She makes cute faces in her sleep. And she is getting cute little fat rolls at her wrists and knuckles (the benefit of the endless, endless nursing). She is great in the Bjorn, falling asleep and staying asleep long enough for a walk to the farmer’s market and some good playing in the park with Lucia.

So these are not meant to be complaints, just observations on our return to this well-trodden territory.

Letter to Greta: 1 Month

2011-11-27T21:03:00.001-05:00

Dear Littlest One,

Happy one-month birthday! A month ago, I was finally seeing the fruit of my labor at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt—“labor” as in “four-week internment culminating in a C-section.” Labor, indeed. All of that has faded in the weeks since then. We are deep into Infantland, conversations in bed as likely to happen at two a.m. as four or six. My shoulders are reliably dotted with baby saliva and spit-up. There are milk stains on the fronts of all my shirts. We are tired. So it is, four weeks in.

But you, unlike your exhausted parents, are thriving. You gained fourteen ounces your first week home from the hospital—a good eater from the start. You are a very good little breastfeeder, though it’s wearying for me sometimes, and often I feel like I do little but nurse you. Sometimes, when you’re particularly intent on eating, you nurse with your hands splayed, as though warning anyone who comes near—“I’m eating; don’t come near me; don’t you dare interrupt.” Sometimes you nurse yourself to sleep. Sometimes you scream-cry with gas pains for a while. Sometimes, particularly at night, you fall asleep but still make insanely loud grunting noises; it’s like sleeping—or, rather, not sleeping—next to a pigsty.

The only time you don’t make those noises—and often the only way we can get you to stop—is when you sleep in bed with us, curled into my arm. This is ridiculously cozy. But, much as we love you, we do not want to co-sleep. And so we eventually return you to your bassinet, where you resume your grunting as soon as your head touches the sheet. You are a baby who just wants to be in someone’s arms. During Lucia’s naps, you nap in my lap, turned nearly face-down across the Boppy.

You still have the look of a small woodland creature, with your darting eyes and the soft hair on the tips of your ears. But your cheeks are filling out now, your gaze is becoming more direct, and a few times you seem to have given me a smile.

We’ve taken you out in the world several times in the sling and the Bjorn, both of which you immediately despise but eventually fall asleep in.

You sleep for long spells during the day. And you are a good sleeper at night, knock wood—if we could just get your barnyard sounds to cease, we’d actually be getting some decent sleep. You usually sleep from about midnight to four, or from ten to two; and are up again about two or three hours after that to eat again. Not bad at all for a four-week old. Of course we’ve had some projectile vomiting (two instances), and some fussiness, but there has been no need for four a.m. spells on the playmat like there was with your sister. Thanks, littlest one, for that. And, again, knock wood.

You have so far refused the pacifier, and we have not yet given you a bottle. Sometimes you suck your thumb.

I love this cuddly infant time, but I am also greatly looking forward to seeing what kind of baby you become—we’ll have fun, the four of us, once our life consists of more than just nursing and calming. Until then, I’m trying to enjoy the warm, snuggly naps and the heavy weight of a sleeping infant on my shoulder.

A Brooklyn Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T20:45:00.004-05:00

Andrew and I have celebrated Thanksgiving in a variety of ways over the past five years. In 2007, we cooked a huge meal just for the two of us in our apartment in Sacramento. In 2008, we ate a Zen vegan feast in a small, middle-of-nowhere lodge in Japan. In 2009 and 2010, we ate outside in Napa with the Clarks. And now, for the first time ever, we had Thanksgiving in Brooklyn.

Molly and Ian came up for the holiday, and while Molly and I tended to Greta and Lucia, Andrew and Ian prepared our meal. Andrew ambitiously followed a Tom Colecchio turkey recipe and made an amazing dried-cherry-and-pecan stuffing from Cook’s Illustrated; he spent much of the previous evening doing something with turkey necks. This picture illustrates why Andrew, not I, was in charge of the turkey. (Raw turkey skin—ick.)

We had Barbra, Chris, and Alex over for the meal as well. Lucia tried a bite or two of squash, two cranberries, half a roll, and a miniscule bite of turkey, as well as some sliced American cheese and steamed baby carrots. (On a better day, she might have tried more; but she has been sick again, coughing and stuffy, slightly feverish, surely beginning a several-years trend of one or the other of our children getting sick over the holidays.) Greta was not at the table with us—she slept through the meal in her bouncy chair—but we were all happy she was with us nonetheless.

Note that both my children are absent from this group picture, though the edge of Greta's chair and the back of Lucia's head are both visible:

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving and a lovely few days all around. Lucia warmed to Molly and Ian immediately, not least because they brought her a talking Elmo and a whole package of new Play-Doh. The night before Thanksgiving, Andrew and I had a particularly difficult night with Greta, involving very little sleep as well as a dramatic instance of projectile vomit; in the morning, after Andrew got Lucia out of her crib, she ran out into the living room by herself, ready to play—remarkable since even with beloved grandparents she usually needs some easing-in time each morning.

I desperately wanted Ian to take a family picture of the four of us, but that did not go according to plan. Lucia seemed fully willing to sit for a picture until it was time to sit for the picture I wanted. Ah well. This is probably a better representation of our current life anyway:

Lots to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, cranky toddlers included, though I have to confess I did a horrendous job of introducing Thanksgiving to Lucia. She loved seeing all the pumpkins, ghosts, and so on in the neighborhood for Halloween, and knew that ghosts say “Boo!”; but she can’t even make a gobbling sound. I had grand plans for turkey crafts, appropriate books, and perhaps even Charlie Brown, but none of those things came to pass. (Greta is to blame, of course, but she’s too cute to single out here.) I shall redeem myself at Christmas.

Leaving the House

2011-11-23T20:47:00.000-05:00

This weekend, it took Andrew and me one and a half hours to leave the house with Lucia and Greta. First Lucia melted down after spotting some Halloween decorations in the storeroom. She wanted to take them all with her on a walk. I denied her this wish after giving her two of the pumpkin cutouts. Of course, I should have just said fine, take them, but by then we were deep into a tantrum that I simply could not reward by giving in. Then Greta needed to eat and be changed. Then everyone needed coats and slings and shoes and snacks. We did make it out eventually, and we did make it to a playground where Lucia and Andrew kicked a ball around for a while. And on the way home we even spontaneously stopped at a little pizzeria with a happy hour and had a fast—very fast—pizza while Lucia dipped her straw into my water glass and then dabbed it on the wall while murmuring “Mess. Mess.” Andrew left a large tip.

Yesterday I took the girls out by myself for the first time, around the corner to the mailbox. Andrew was working from home, phone at the ready in case I needed him to rescue me. We made it, however. When we got to the mailbox and I said we had to turn around to go home, Lucia said, “No. Playground” and began walking in the opposite direction; but I managed to get her to comply by suggesting we collect acorns. Anyway, it was a start. A small start, but a start.

Home Alone

2011-11-17T20:49:00.002-05:00

Greetings. So far, I’ve survived the week alone with the girls, and they, too, have survived. We started off with a bang on Monday, when, within the space of ten minutes, both little ones had peed on the floor and/or on their clothes and/or on me. Lucia jumped up from the floor before I could get her diaper on, scream-laughing as she ran across the room and then peeing as soon as she hit the kitchen floor. Greta just decided a good time to go was as soon as I took her diaper off, soaking the changing pad and her sleeper. Fun times.

It was one of many moments this week when I had to just take a deep breath and remind myself that there will come a time, sooner than it seems these days, when I will no longer have babies but children who a) are potty-trained; b) no longer breastfeed; and c) sleep through the night. When I will no longer negotiate how many bites of food must be eaten before watching Elmo. When I will no longer spend my days in a milk-damp nursing bra, leaking milk at odd moments. Whenever I make remarks like this to Andrew, about taking comfort in the fact that infanthood/toddlerhood won’t last forever, he gives me an exaggeratedly tender look and belts out the refrain from “You’re Gonna Miss This” by the country singer Trace Adkins: “You’re gonna miss this / You’re gonna want this back / You’re gonna wish these days / Hadn’t gone by so fast / These are some good times / So take a good look around / You may not know it now / But you’re gonna miss this.” Probably true, of course.

Anyway. Lucia continues to be an adoring, and adorable, big sister. She likes to go up to Greta and take her hand, then say to me, “Hold hands.” She likes to kiss Greta’s forehead. She likes when Greta lies on her play mat and I sing songs to her. With a smile, she observes and remarks on Greta’s actions: “Kicking! Coughing! Sneeze! Moving!” This is all very cute. And Lucia has been very mellow all week, which has helped—some instances of being demanding, and a couple of baseless near-tantrums, but nothing to write home about. Books, sticker books, drawing, Play-Doh, and pretend-cooking have occupied our time.

It has, however, been very tough being homebound. And there are some good reasons why I feel homebound. First, Greta is just three weeks old, so I hesitate to take her outside in the cold. Second, Lucia moves so fast these days, and requires a good deal of hands-on help at the playground, and I’m just not up to it yet—I’m moving around just fine, pain-free, but I’m not exactly ready to run. And third, Lucia is a sometimes unpredictable toddler. Wrestling her into her stroller when she was unwilling to leave the playground was hard when I was pregnant—it will be impossible with Greta strapped to my chest. I need to get my courage up, basically. This will come, I’m sure, mainly because if I spend too many more days inside I’ll go nuts.

An aside: I’ve been eating a lot of peanuts, a good quick snack, and Lucia knows that nuts are only for Mama. She’s intrigued by this forbidden snack and loves looking into my bowl of nuts and announcing, “Nuts. Mama.” Which, after a few more weeks of home-alone time, might take on an entirely new meaning.

Last night, Andrew went to the National Book Awards ceremony/dinner for work, leaving home all gussied up in a tux. When he left, I was sitting in a milk-stained shirt at the kitchen table, nursing Greta while undertaking UN-caliber negotiations to get Lucia to eat her dinner. I'm gonna miss this...I'm gonna miss this...

Letter to Lucia: 25 Months

2011-11-15T21:03:00.002-05:00

Dear Little One,

Together again! After our long separation, we’re finally back to Mama-and-baby, full tilt now that our post-new-baby visitors have gone home. Daddy went back to work this week (though he’ll be home with us off and on for several more months), so we’re settling back into our days together. Of course, these days look much different now that Greta has joined us, even though, for now, she does little but eat and sleep. The biggest difference is that so far we’ve spent our days inside. I’m still healing from surgery, unable to run after you or lift you, and Greta is just too little to be toted all over the place. This will all change, and one of these days I’ll be one of the mothers at the playground with a toddler in hand and an infant on her chest. Not yet, though. Not yet.

In the month we spent apart, your language just took off, and we really chat now. You are saying entire sentences now, like “I dropped it” and “I can’t reach.” You make observations when we read books: “Birds eat berries.” You shock me with the words you know, like apricot. Today when I offered you a larger-than-usual piece of pear, you instructed me to “Cut it.”

Your favorite activities these days are crafty, to my delight—drawing, Play-Doh (which you call “pee-o”), sticker books. You of course still love reading. You also like to cook in your play kitchen with the pots and pans we got you for your birthday, and a fun assortment of play Swedish breakfast food we got at Ikea. You love your little stroller. And New Bunny—the bunny our upstairs neighbors got you while I was in the hospital—is your constant companion. Whatever you do, Bunny does, whether it’s having a “stinky diapo” or trying to hold the baby.

Most remarkable of all as you reach your twenty-fifth month is how loving and concerned a big sister you’ve proven to be. You frequently kiss Greta, and anytime she fusses you run over, Bibi held aloft, and offer it to her for a snuggle. Each morning you toss Bunny into the bassinet. And though your offerings are temporary—“Bibi back,” you say after a few moments—your feelings are touching and show an empathy that is truly astounding. Sometimes you seem to scold me if Greta fusses for a second without a suitable response from me—“Mama, up!” you say, wanting me to pick up the baby, or you remind me that the baby wants “Milk. Milk. Milk.” So far you haven’t seemed to mind when we have to pause in our artwork or games so I can nurse Greta. I’m hoping this continues as Greta moves out of the constant-sleepiness of infanthood and becomes more demanding as we go along.

Addendum to Letter to Lucia (11/17/11)

Little One,

I forgot to add two bits to your letter: At 25 months, you can count to ten and identify and say your colors (the whole rainbow plus pink, black, white, and brown). However, you continue to say “mai” instead of “more”—this seems like something that’s going to stick around a while, especially since Daddy and I say it now too. “Do you want mai cheese?”

11/12/11

2011-11-12T20:40:00.001-05:00

Yikes. It says something about the state of things around here that I didn’t even realize that yesterday’s date was 11/11/11. Perhaps it’s for the best. How best to mark such a calenderic event, anyway, besides feeling vaguely panicked about not finding a meaningful, memorable way to mark it?

We’re over two weeks into two-kid-hood, and all is well. I’m off painkillers completely now, though I’m still taking the occasional Motrin for annoying and persistent pain from breastfeeding (though this finally seems to be settling down). I had my two-week checkup earlier this week, and my incision is healing perfectly; I was released into the world as a regular human being, done—finally—with monitoring and checkups and daily questions about whether I’m bleeding or cramping or leaking fluids. Andrew and I had driven into Manhattan for the appointment, taking Greta with us (leaving a feverish, coughing Lucia at home with Andrew’s mom), and we even managed a stop at Zabar’s for cheese and olives before heading home. Real human life!

And nothing signals I’m-healing-successfully-from-a-C-section like a trip to the worst Target in the country, which is what Andrew and I did on Thursday. Fortunately, another, better indicator of said healing is having dinner out, which Andrew and I also managed to do last night—we had Thai food just a few blocks from home while both little ones slept soundly at home under Granny’s watch. Today, all of us walked to the farmer’s market and joined the bustling crowds buying apples and Indian corn and leeks. It sometimes hits me as I look around on these gorgeous, crisp fall days that I missed out on an entire month of life—all of this was going on while I sat in a hospital bed on 59th Street, reading vampire novels. And even though Lucia was a bit surly, and Greta needed to be nursed on a bench, it was a relief to finally be part of it once again.

Now we are on our own: Andrew’s mom left today, and it’s just the four of us. On Monday, it will be just me with the girls, as Andrew returns to work for a while before using more of his ridiculously generous paternity leave. Good thing I still have six Percocets left! Ha! Kidding! At least, I am right now!

A Week In, and Two Celebrations

2011-11-08T21:00:00.002-05:00

Greta has been home with us for a week and two days now, and things are going surprisingly well. “Surprisingly” because we’ve been remarkably free from the fatigue and chaos that generally come with an infant. Greta has proven so far to be an outstanding eater, and a stellar sleeper, with little inclination to cry. Knock wood. Knock knock. I’m fully aware that this can and probably will change, but for now we feel surprisingly…human. She’s been sleeping in three- or four-hour stretches, with a five-hour stretch thrown in now and then just to keep herself in our good graces. She’s cute, too, so I guess we’ll keep her around.

In the week or so that we’ve been home, we’ve had two celebrations. November 3 was our four-year anniversary, which we actually managed to celebrate. After we put Lucia to bed, I fed Greta, passed her to my parents, and Andrew and I hurried around the corner for sushi. We’ve been going to this sushi place since I first lived in the neighborhood in 2005-2006, and it’s where we ate our final meal before getting into the U-Haul and moving me out of NYC. The restaurant is still there, but things have certainly changed for us.

On Saturday, November 5, once my dad had arrived, we finally celebrated Lucia’s second birthday. We kept it small—just Andrew and me, my parents, and Barbra, Chris, and Alex. Andrew and I had gotten her a table and chairs set, which we set up while she napped and adorned with some balloons; her gifts were arranged on the coffee table. She was initially surprised and displeased by all the new things when she came into the room, but quickly got over it and had lots of fun opening her presents and tangling herself into the balloon strings. And, of course, eating a cupcake and ice cream. She seemed unaware that her actual birthday was three weeks earlier.

And so here we are, dual citizens of Infantland and Toddlerland. And here I am, feeling remarkably good, with new-breastfeeding pain actually surpassing the pain from my incision. But all is well, despite the discomfort: we took Greta in for a checkup today, and she’s gained 14 ounces! Double the amount the doctor had said we should look for. She’s now 7 lbs., 3 oz. So we’re off to a good start.

Greta’s Birth Story

2011-11-01T20:50:00.002-04:00

My C-section was scheduled for 7:30am on Thursday, October 27. Andrew got to the hospital at 5:00am, and we sat on my hospital bed, whispering while we waited in the dark, trying not to wake my roommate. I’d gotten an IV for hydration the night before and was wearing a hospital gown for the first time since checking in on October 2. After what seemed like a long wait, I was wheeled down to triage, where I’d wait for the surgery, Andrew following behind with my suitcase.

We waited in triage for a long time. I got a second IV—the worst-case-scenario IV, inserted so they’d be ready for anything in the OR. The surgery was changed to 8:00, then 8:30, as the various anesthesiologists and doctors tried to get coordinated. Finally, my doctor came in, wearing scrubs and a plastic mask over her face. “We’re walking,” she announced, and took my IV bag down from its hook. We walked down the hall to the OR. Andrew began putting on his surgical outfit while my doctor took me inside.

It was a real OR—huge bright lights, steel instruments laid out on tables, lots of equipment I of course couldn’t identify. I sat down on a table and got my spinal, which was uncomfortable but not unbearable. Then I was laid down and transferred to the operating table, and my lower half was hidden by a sheet. My legs got tingly and my doctor started pinching my abdomen, asking if I could feel it. I was sure I could feel everything, and kept saying so, terrified that I was somehow resistant to the anesthesia. But eventually my answers clearly weren’t aligning with what was happening, and they deemed the surgery ready to start. Andrew came in then, and it all began.

For some reason I had it in my head that, recovery aside, a C-section would be easy—you get drugged up, you lay down, and the next thing you know, your baby’s crying. I had no idea whatsoever that I’d feel every single step from the incision through the suturing, even if that “feeling” wasn’t painful. I’d been warned that I’d feel “pressure”—but this was more than pressure. I felt like someone had rammed their hands into my body cavity, and I felt every tug, pull, and push. It felt horrible, like something from a nightmare. My doctor tried to engage me in small talk to calm me, but I still groaned in horror now and then, and at one point she said if I didn’t stop they’d have to put me under. “You are not feeling pain,” she said. It was true, and I tried to focus on Andrew’s face and the fact that this would eventually come to an end.

Eventually it was time for the baby to come out, and there were some moments of my doctor speaking sharply to whoever was attending her, someone pushing powerfully onto my upper abdomen. The baby would not come out. She somehow positioned in such a way that her head was trapped. The moment didn’t last long, and suddenly I heard the gasping squall of an infant. She was finally here. She was taken over to a warming table and evaluated; her Apgar scores were 8 and 9. A few moments later, Andrew could go over to take pictures.

I got to see her for a brief few seconds when the pediatrician brought her over to me, but that was all. Andrew was then told he had to leave and wait in the waiting room while I was sewn up and moved to another table, leaving behind all the bloody pads and gowns from the surgery. Then I went to the recovery room, where I was hooked up to lots of electrodes and blood-pressure monitors and, blessedly, an IV drip of pain medicine. The baby was brought in to me, and Andrew joined me there shortly. I was able to nurse her despite being little more than a tangle of wires and IV tubes, and then she had to go to the nursery. Andrew went with her while I rested.

After a few hours, it was time to move to the post-partum room where we’d be for the rest of our stay. Andrew went to the nursery and retrieved Greta in her little hospital bassinet, bathed and calm. We were lucky enough to get a private room, which required only that we get onto a waiting list as soon as Greta was born and fork over her first year’s college tuition. No matter. It was such a relief after three weeks in the hospital and a morning of surgery to be wheeled into the closest thing to a hotel room a hospital room can be. There were warm lamps, a soft couch, a mini fridge full of juices, waters, and sodas, a large flat-screen TV, and a nicely tiled bathroom.

For the rest of that day, and the next couple of days, we really felt rested and nurtured and well. Mom and Lucia visited Thursday afternoon, and Lucia kissed Greta and then came into the bed with me, gentle and calm; I told her she had to sit quietly since Mama hurt, and every so often she’d say “Mama hurt” and give me a kiss. We read a few books together, and then they left. Andrew went back Friday and Saturday night to be with Lucia for bath and bedtime.

Thursday night, we decided to send Greta to the nursery so we could both get some sleep; we ended up sending her Friday and Saturday nights as well. I never thought I’d be okay with this, but it really worked out for the best. I desperately needed sleep, and we still saw Greta for much of the night, whenever a nurse brought her in for a feeding. In the morning, my IV was detached from its drips, my catheter was taken out, and, later in the day, my scary just-in-case IV was taken out as well. This felt like a huge milestone.

Friday and Saturday were just strangely restful periods of watching Greta sleep, feeding her, and relaxing. Saturday we had a crazy snowstorm, and it was so strange to be watching the snow fall from the window, as though we were having a little vacation. I ordered my meals from a leather-bound menu, and the food was actually really good, brought in to me on a white-clothed table. Real food was welcome after my “clear liquids” diet of broth and sorbet on Thursday.

Greta wanted to do nothing but sleep, even falling asleep when nursing; the pediatrician showed us how to effectively rouse her, which pretty much entailed unswaddling her and then letting her roll around in her bassinet, furious, until she was fully awake. This felt cruel, but it worked, and before we left the hospital she’d gained back 2 of the 7 ounces she’d lost after birth, which the pediatrician said was excellent.

Don’t get me wrong: though these days were calm and restful, the recovery was anything but easy. I got out of bed for the first time Friday morning, supported by my wonderful nurse Gigi, and promptly fainted (fortunately not before Andrew slid a chair under me). Walking felt impossible, like a lovely, distant dream, and I eagerly anticipated each dose of Percocet. Saturday, Gigi helped me take a shower, and I actually managed to do some walking up and down the hallways. Each day got easier.

What got more difficult was breastfeeding—not because Greta wouldn’t latch; she latched immediately and well; but because I became engorged very quickly. This is the one thing I’d hoped to avoid this time around, after my experience of Extreme Dolly Parton after Lucia’s birth. Beginning on Friday, I started noticing a familiar hardness and ballooning, but when I told the nurses I feared I was getting engorged, they said I wasn’t. Even the doctor I saw Friday morning said my milk wouldn’t come in for three or four days. By Saturday, the engorgement was out of control. My nurse even brought in another nurse, and they gazed at me, aghast. I tried pumping, but nothing would come out. Sigh. Exactly the same as last time. Andrew brought me a cabbage, which we soaked in ice water, and this brought some relief; but still. Between the engorgement and the painful first days of recovery, it’s pretty remarkable that I felt in as good spirits as I did.

Sunday morning, Greta and I were both examined and discharged. I was wheeled down to the lobby, and then, once Andrew brought the car around, I got my first breaths of fresh air in four weeks. As we drove home, everything looked sharper and brighter than I remembered, as though I were in some kind of fever dream, or had been in one. When we got home, Lucia kissed the baby and wanted to hold her. She couldn’t have been sweeter. Greta slept all day and then found her voice and was up pretty much all of Sunday night.

I spent my birthday (Saturday) in the hospital this year, celebrating with Percocet and vitals-checking and industrial-sized maxipads instead of a cake, but really it did feel like we had something to celebrate. We’re back in Infantland. I’m out of the hospital. My pregnancy is over. Greta and I are home safe and sound. Greta’s birth story was a long, stressful, and winding one, but it fades a little more with each of her tiny, darting glances and each of her kitten-like cries.

Announcing...

2011-10-29T21:42:00.005-04:00

Greta Whittemore Littell
born by C-section October 27, 2011
6 lbs., 9 oz., 20 inches long

37 Weeks & Hospital Life

2011-10-26T21:56:00.004-04:00

View from my room

36 weeks, 5 days

36 weeks, 6 days (day before C-section)

Visit from Lucia (Tuesday)

Visit from Lucia (Sunday)

Visit from Lucia (Sunday)--Lucia is dipping a coffee stir into the cream cheese from a bagel and licking it off. Hospital fun!

By This Time Tomorrow

2011-10-26T16:55:00.001-04:00

In fifteen hours, we’ll be meeting our new little one; by this time tomorrow, I’ll be recovering from surgery and—I hope—nursing a tiny, shocked newborn. By this time tomorrow I’ll be off the antepartum floor and onto the floor where babies are crying and new parents are happy. I can’t wait.

The baby seems excited, as though she knows something’s about to happen. She’s been more active than usual, flipping around determinedly; her heartrate tracings during today’s non-stress test were filled with dramatic peaks. The nurse monitoring me said my baby always has the best tracings—“shows up all the other babies” were her words. Eager as I am to have this pregnancy over and done with, part of me does feel sad that this baby is missing out on three weeks in the womb. But all this was not up to me. She can take it up with the placenta.

By this weekend, I’ll be home. The very idea of it fills me with relief and calm, even though nothing about my homecoming is going to be calm. I’ve never had a C-section, of course, but I know the sheer physical strain these early days impart—the painful start to breastfeeding, engorgement (will I escape this time?), bleeding, molecular-level exhaustion. All of it, this time, compounded with the C-section recovery and the perhaps heightened demands of a toddler facing a huge family transition.

The thought of the physical hurdles ahead makes me weary, but I know there will be happiness in there too: a new appreciation for home and our daily routines, a new fondness for even the more difficult toddler moments, the luxury of having Andrew home for weeks, and the wisdom of knowing this time that all those early, hard, infant days do come to an end. And then, soon enough, there will be little matching outfits, walks to take together, stories to read, crafts to make, giggling in playhuts. Yes, much of this is a touch far off in the future, but it’s there in my mind’s eye.

But first things first, starting at 7:30 tomorrow morning. And onward from there.

Out of Forks

2011-10-23T15:05:00.000-04:00

First, my C-section has returned to its originally scheduled date of October 27, 7:30am. I am disappointed, but since my time slot on the 26th was at 4pm, I’m reminding myself this is a difference of just 15 hours.

Time has slowed down considerably now that the end is in sight. For me, anyway. Andrew is running around like crazy, trying to get all the last-minute baby-coming-home details taken care of. But here in the hospital, my days are inching by. The problem is that I have left Forks: the world of the Twilight books. Terrible as they were, they were utterly absorbing, and I enjoyed both reading them and texting amusing-to-me academic-essay topics to Molly (“Bella is willing to become a vampire but not a wife. Discuss in the context of gender roles and the Facebook generation.” “Neither Edward nor Aro can read Bella’s thoughts. Discuss what this implies about the efficacy of prayer.”) But now I have finished books one, two, and three, and the final book is swimming in the postal system. Out of Forks, time has resumed its plodding pace.

So I have transported myself, instead, to Panem, the world of The Hunger Games. Having little foresight, however, I purchased only the first book of the series, which I promptly finished in less than two days. I have four days to go. And this has driven me to take a heretofore unthinkable step: to Andrew’s glee, I requested that he bring me his Kindle today. I feel like I’ve betrayed myself in the worst way, all my firm beliefs about books and pages and ink and etc., but at the same time I suppose I’m willing to accept that this is an extenuating circumstance. I’ve always said that maybe, maybe, I’d agree to read digital books if I were taking an around-the-world trip and had to pack lightly; perhaps I’ll now expand that to include hospital bedrest.

The Kindle now sits on my hospital-bedside table, waiting, waiting. But don’t be fooled: this will not resolve the central disjunct of our marriage (Andrew supports us by working in the world of e-books; I scorn e-books). It is temporary, just as other unpleasant things are temporary: hospital bedrest, eating every meal with plastic silverware, every-three-days blood draws, seeing Lucia for only a few hours each week. Surely it is the least of all the evils I’ve had to endure.

Five Days!

2011-10-20T18:51:00.001-04:00

Astute readers will notice that we’ve skipped a day in the countdown. This is not a mistake—my C-section has been moved up one day, to Wednesday, October 26, which means my hospital adventure will come to an end one day sooner. The change has nothing to do with anything medical; just my doctor shifting around her schedule. (And she assured me there was nothing problematic about my already-large baby.) So the end is truly in sight.

I am more ready than ever to get home. Lucia has a cold, and I want to be there for sick-baby snuggling; she visited today and spent most of the time just sitting on my lap, playing with her Minnie Mouse, not even venturing closer to our other visitors, a friend and her two-and-a-half-month-old baby.

And I’m ready to get off the 14th floor—Antepartum—where my condition, though technically high-risk, pales in comparison to what I’ve been hearing about the other women. I haven’t had a Big Bleed, I’m otherwise healthy, and the health and well-being of my baby has never once been in question, even when I was first admitted—if she’d been born then, she might have had a bit of NICU time, but she ultimately would have been fine. But my previous roommate, whom I wrote about in the last post, did end up delivering her 25-week-old baby, who was just over one pound and is looking at a three-month NICU stay and who knows what complications. She also, in the same delivery, had to deliver the baby’s dead twin. I’m not entirely sure how you ever get over something like that. And my current roommate, who arrived last night, just found out her 22-week-old pregnancy is no longer viable because there is almost no amniotic fluid; her water broke, and I heard the doctors telling her the pregnancy would have to be terminated. (I obviously don’t know all the details. I know only the bits I’ve heard through the curtain.)

Anyway—it’s all horrible, hearing these poor girls crying over on the other side of the room while I read the Twilight books and watch ABC sitcoms on my computer and enjoy visits from my beautiful daughter and await the arrival of a kicking, already thriving second daughter. I know there are reasons for keeping me here, but I definitely feel like a fraud, and a very fortunate one at that. It feels like the worst kind of gloating to even have a picture of Lucia tacked up by my bed.

Parenting: November Issue

2011-10-19T16:03:00.001-04:00

Here I am, on hospital bedrest—with nothing but time to write my monthly COMMENTARY. As I read this month’s issue, lots of things jumped out at me, perhaps because I was an unusually captive audience. Let’s get to it.

Trouble, once again, from the cover—another celebrity-with-baby, this time Bethenny something or other, a reality TV person, with her baby. This issue also featured an interview with Gwen Stefani; a page detailing how you, dear reader, and your child can dress like Ellen Pompeo and hers; and an article by an NBA player about being a good dad. The interviews were particularly egregious. I have no idea if Bethenny or Gwen are actually vapid and senseless in their real lives, but these interviews did not do anything to make me think otherwise. Take, for instance, Gwen’s comment on her fashion troubles:

“I’ve always been attracted to Japanese kids’ clothes, but they’re so hard to shop for—the websites are always in Japanese!”

COMMENTARY: Seriously, world: Why can’t everyone just speak English? It’s so unfair for us English speakers to not understand what’s being written online by people in other countries. Forget Occupy Wall Street. Perhaps Gwen, backed by Parenting, can start a movement to switch the world over to English.

But poor Gwen; you can’t blame her for struggling through this interview when you see that she was confronted by questions like this:

“Are you like us—do you ever run into Target for a toothbrush and end up spending $157 on stuff?”

COMMENTARY: Everyone, interviewer, spends too much at Target. And everyone has at some point complained that they can’t get out of Target without spending a hundred dollars. But note that figure: When making a hyperbolic complaint, the numbers generally aren’t so…specific. $157 is just a weird number. $50, or $100, or even $150—but $157? It’s just odd. All this said, I look forward to perhaps getting my two (!) little girls something cute and trendy from Gwen’s upcoming Harajuku Mini collection at Target.

Onward: to perhaps the most irritating article to date in Parenting. It’s a bold statement, I know, especially since I’m referring to an article that’s only 133 words long. (Yes, I counted the words. I’m on hospital bedrest—what else do I have to do?) The article is grating because it is full of “wordplay.” Whoever wrote this article got a little carried away on all the “humorous” ways to employ snack-related words and phrases. The article, “Chip Off the Old Block,” concerns the alarming rise of snacking in America, and aside from the title (chip! ha!), here are the other puns ‘n’ fun:
---Generation Goldfish
---Do as I say, not as I Dorito.
---son of a Funyun!

COMMENTARY: I have to admit, I can’t quite parse “son of a Funyun!” in a way that makes any kind of sense. Here’s the context: “…[S]ome kids [snack] as often as ten times a day (son of a Funyun!).” As I read it, it could have two possible meanings. First, the writer is going for a play on “son of a gun,” as in, “Son of a gun, that kid snacks a lot.” Or, the writer might be referring to a child who snacks ten times a day as a “son of a Funyun”—as in, “Any kid who snacks that much must be descended from the Funyun.” Neither of these make any sense at all, of course. And what on earth is a Funyun? Is it like a bloomin’ onion, which I would kill for right now? Son of a Funyun, I could go for a bloomin’ onion.

Speaking of snacks, we turn now to an article called “Play With Your Food,” which suggests ways to make healthy eating fun for kids. It includes the not-surprising statistic (gleaned from an undocumented source) that “50% of kids will choose broccoli over chocolate if it has an Elmo sticker on it,” which would probably hold true for Lucia. But it also includes this little bit of brilliance:

“1. Try app-y meals. Fooducate…is a mobile app that lets you scan any food with a bar code to get a quick letter grade for how real and healthy it is.”

COMMENTARY: But…but…the healthiest foods, like fruits and vegetables, don’t have bar codes. If the point is to encourage kids to choose healthy food by letting them play with an app to select said food, then you’ve automatically eliminated the best part of the grocery store! If we’re to go along with this “game,” the cart would be full of fruit roll-ups instead of fresh fruit, and Pirate Booty instead of veggies. Seems ill thought out.

This is turning into a long post—but it sure is making the day fly by. On we go to the meat of this issue: the interview with Bethenny Frankel. There is just so much here that I don’t even know where to start. I think I’ll just go line by line with a few of the best bits.

“Bryn’s not drinking enough milk right now, but that has nothing to do with me.”
“Sometimes I accidentally give Bryn food that’s just a little too hot. … What can you do?”

COMMENTARY: Lucia ate nothing but chocolate-chip cookies for five straight days, but that has nothing to do with me, even though I bought the cookies, gave them to her when she asked for them, and didn’t cook anything else. And when I noticed that the mouse in our apartment had chewed into the package and nibbled some of the cookies, I accidentally still gave them to her. But what can you do? [NOTE: This scenario has been made up. We do have a mouse. But it does not eat Lucia’s food. And so far she’s had three cookies total in her whole life. Well, maybe just a couple more than that.]

“People think I have the perfect husband and perfect life, and it’s just not the case.”

COMMENTARY: People always think Andrew’s so great (Oh, he’s so nice! So thoughtful! So welcoming!), but it’s just not the case. People always look in from the outside and see this rosy picture without seeing the dark side: the sports-watching, the Fantasy Football fixation, the insistence that I don’t dump coffee grounds all over the rim of the trash can. Look deeper, people. Look deeper.

Next up: yet another app suggestion. (Parenting should change its name to “Suggestions for Apps.”) This one is called Swackett, and it’s designed to help us figure out what to wear each day:

“If it’s cold, the ‘peeps’ appear dressed in winter hats, coats, and boots. Check it before the fam heads outside.”

COMMENTARY: Because looking at the temperature is just so hard.

Finally, a shout-out to the Overzealous Copyeditor: Congratulations—Parenting readers are learning from you! Without your having to say a thing, OC, parent-contributors (via Facebook, surely) have adopted your over-explaining style and hypervigilance. Bask in the glow of your life’s work, right here:

“We make an indoor obstacle course. … We keep track of the times, and the best chooses a healthy snack.”

COMMENTARY: Because, son of a Funyun!, choosing something like a cookie would be so very, very wrong to encourage. Yay for the parents with raw broccoli florets at the ready.

Until next time—my very first COMMENTARY written as the mother of two kids. I’ll either have copious COMMENTARY or, zombie-like, none at all.

A Big Baby??

2011-10-18T19:16:00.000-04:00

I had an ultrasound today to check the baby’s size, and I was stunned: she is currently an estimated 7 pounds 2 ounces. If I were carrying this baby to term, does this mean she’d be a gigantic baby? At first I was relieved that she definitely won’t be a tiny preemie when she’s born; but later in the day the high-risk doctor who checked in said size really won’t make a difference in whether her lungs will be okay. I’ve learned to take these statements calmly. When I talk to my doctor or the doctors in her group, they all are much more certain that all will be well; I think the high-risk doctors just have a more…high-risk view of things. But I am anxious to ask my own doctor if I need to be concerned about my new baby’s surprising chubbiness.

Lucia, though far from chubby, has reached a milestone: she’s surpassed the tenth percentile for weight! Andrew took her to her two-year checkup today, and she weighs 23 pounds, putting her in the twelfth percentile. She’s in the fifty-second percentile for height. So she’s doing some good growing. (Mom said she asked for soup for a snack yesterday—so she’s probably getting more nutrients than her little sister, who’s subsisting on hospital food and chocolate-chip cookies.) Andrew also said Lucia was upset at the shot she had to get, but became absolutely enraged when the nurse put a Band-Aid on her: he said she screamed bloody murder, pulled the Band-Aid off, and threw it at the nurse. Little charmer!

Lucia and Mom came to visit today, always a bright spot in my days. I fear, however, that my chocolate-chip cookie bribery is working against me—I’m starting to suspect she enjoys her visits here because of the cookie. But no matter. She’s adorable and cuddly, and I feel so lucky to have both her and a baby who is 35 weeks 6 days along.

My newest roommate, here for two nights, is only 25 weeks along; initially pregnant with twins, she lost one of the twins a few weeks ago, and on Sunday she was admitted for contractions and bleeding. Today she went into labor. It’s incredibly sad, the only one of my roommates so far to really have a terrible story. (Of course, I have no idea how her story will wind up in the end.) So, awful as it may sometimes seem to be on hospital bedrest with the “Big Bleed” around the corner and Lucia far away, all in all I’m feeling pretty lucky.

Eight days to go.

Nine Days…

2011-10-17T20:40:00.001-04:00

If you calculate my remaining hospital time in a generous way—not counting today or the day of my C-section—then there are nine days left of this maddening in-betweenness. In nine days, we will have another baby—and even though there are three more nights of recovery after that, it will be different from this waiting period, this state of quasi-life. Nine days till we can finally meet this new little one and make our grand entrance once again into sleepless, chaotic, all-encompassing Newborn Land. Two boxes of newborn-size diapers arrived last week, giving Andrew a little jolt—those diapers are unbelievably tiny. He brought some to me in my hospital bag, and they look like something we should be putting on Lucia’s stuffed animals.

Today I asked my doctor whether there was any chance of making it to 38 weeks if I didn’t have a Big Bleed; she said she would never allow a patient with CPP to go beyond 37 weeks. I have no desire to stay an extra minute in the hospital, but of course I want to give the baby as much growing time as possible, so I felt obligated to ask. Fortunately, the doctor said that even if I gave birth today, the baby would be fine—she was already a good size two weeks ago, at 5 pounds 5 ounces; larger, she said, then two full-term babies she’d delivered last week. This was reassuring to hear. I’ll have another ultrasound this week to check her growth.

Considering the steroid shots I got, the baby’s size, and the fact that I’m 35.5 weeks along, no one seems very worried anymore about me or the baby. She breezes through her non-stress test each morning, creating beautiful heart-rate “tracings,” already a straight-A student. It’s just time now to wait. Nine days.

Brave Girl

2011-10-16T16:58:00.002-04:00

To my great relief, all signs are pointing to the happy possibility that Lucia will not be scarred for life by this extended separation (or by her delayed birthday celebration). So I thought I would devote a post to how brave and flexible she’s proven to be over the past few weeks. I expected her visits here to be wary, tearful affairs, but they have proven to be anything but. I usually hear her saying “Hi! Hi!” before she even comes into the room, and she eagerly hugs me hello—then heads straight for the huge bag of books, coloring books, and markers we keep here. She generally sits right down in my lap for a reading of our favorite hospital book, Kitten’s Winter. She has a set of little medicine-dosage cups she always plays with for a few minutes, and she generally indulges in many, many snacks—usually a bagel and/or muffin that Andrew and Mom get on their way over.

On the days when I don’t have a roommate, she loves to run around the room-dividing curtain, hiding and then reappearing at either end with a big grin. She likes to sit underneath the wheely hospital-bed table, in the U-shaped area where the wheels are attached. She calls it her boat. She likes to walk on the wheel-covering bar, using it like a balance beam. And we always finish off the visit with a few Elmo videos on my computer. Then she gets a chocolate-chip cookie for the journey home. (The cookie, to be honest, is bribery that works splendidly, letting us get her shoes on and get her strapped back into the stroller.)

“Bye bye,” she always says with a wave, and she’s started giving me big hugs and kisses before she leaves, too. No tears for her. There have been many tears from me, though it’s getting better. Andrew said that when he says it’s time to go visit Mama, Lucia says seriously, “Mama cry.”

At home she seems to be as happy, playful, and active as ever. She sometimes seems confused at bedtime—should Grandma give the bottle? should Daddy?—and she’s done her share of testing (Surely Daddy will let me take this armload of toys into the crib tonight…) but otherwise she seems to have adapted to her new circumstances with nary a blip.

Ten days till delivery. Brave and grown-up as Lucia’s proven herself to be, I can’t wait to get home and resume our old ways. I never thought I’d miss fielding her endless requests for “Snack! Snack!” and cleaning up said snack in her wake…but it’s my job to refill those little bowls with bunnies and Cheerios and raisins and fruit, and I’m itching to get back to it.

Two-Year-Old Pictures

2011-10-16T16:53:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Andrew and Mom took Lucia on a long walk to Prospect Park and had some good playing time in the Long Meadow. Here are some pictures from the day of her (secret) second birthday.

Letter to Lucia: Two Years (Shhhhh)

2011-10-15T07:45:00.000-04:00

Dearest Little One,

I can’t believe that we are apart on your second birthday. It is wrong, and terrible, and though you don’t understand the particular terribleness, I do. You are home with Daddy and Grandma, while I am in the hospital, staying still and safe and quiet to make sure your little sister has as much time to cook as possible. Much as I want to rush her along, I know she needs just a little more time. Someday you’ll understand this.

Because I am here, and you are home, on your second birthday, your father and I have made a decision: to pretend today is not your birthday. Imagining you opening your gifts in a hospital room, or having cupcakes and singing “Happy Birthday” without me at home, is unfathomable, heartbreaking. And so we are going to wait until I am home to celebrate. We will give you your gifts, and get balloons, and make cupcakes, and sing “Happy Birthday,” in two weeks’ time, when this separation is finally over. I have to trust that you will have no idea of the difference, that you won’t be scarred for life at this grand deception.

Of course, when I see you this morning during your visit, all I will be thinking about is that my little girl is two. Two!

In the weeks before my hospitalization, and even more so in the two weeks since, you have been growing and changing at warp speed. You are growing bigger—some of the 2T pants are too small already, since you have such long legs and such a long torso. You are eating more, and you have a plump baby face now, cheeks that swell like little apples when you smile. And you are talking up a storm, soaking up new words and phrases like a sponge. You babble constantly, and it’s so entertaining to listen to you—it is often your very own language, which you use consistently; one of these days I’ll understand it all.

Every time you visit me in the hospital you look older and seem to say more things, and I miss spending every day with you so I can witness all the changes as soon as they happen.

You love going to the playground these days, and you’ve gotten so much more active and daring—ladders, hanging from things, walking over a shaky balance beam. You’ve gotten much more social—playing with other children sometimes, greeting strangers in elevators, even hugging your Music Together teacher when you were there this week with Grandma. You are still my quiet, bookish little one, but other sides of you are coming out now, which is so much fun to see.

You still adore your stuffed animals, and you’ve been playing with a new sticker book that Grandma brought you. You love watching Elmo videos online, and you of course still love reading books. Being apart from you for the past nearly two weeks, it is a bit unnerving to not know what’s occupied your attention at home during this time. But whenever I call I hear you in the background, chattering buoyantly, so I know whatever it is you’re doing is making you happy.

This is a big birthday for you—your last as an only child—and I wish desperately we could celebrate today. But in a way it will be nice to celebrate once I’m home with your sister, to reaffirm right away that you are still our little baby whom we adore more than words can describe. You’ve been so flexible and adaptable these past couple of weeks, and I know you’re going to make the transition to big sisterhood easily as well (eventually, at least). But today, and when we actually celebrate your birthday, I hope you know that what I want more than anything is to sit together and snuggle on the couch with my adorable firstborn. Soon, little one, soon.

Section: The Verb

2011-10-13T13:20:00.001-04:00

Here on the hospital’s antepartum floor, there’s no talk of natural labor, or water breaking, or going into labor, or anything at all not having to do with a C-section. The precise timing of these C-sections is a regular topic of discussion among the high-risk doctors, who, I’ve gathered, regularly meet to discuss the case of each woman on the floor. My doctor stopped in this morning and told me there had been some discussion over whether my C-section should still happen at 37 weeks or should be pushed up to 36. The consensus was that as long as I’m in-house, we should hold out as long as possible (up to 37 weeks); if something happens, they can always just section me.

“Section” me. This is the lingo in the world of complicated pregnancies, a bizarre and somewhat violent-sounding verb that makes what’s happening sound a lot more aggressive than the alternative, “do a C-section” or “have a C-section.” “We’ll section you”—it sounds like something Solomon would propose. A C-section is a noun, an unremarkable procedure; the transitive verb “section” is an attack (albeit a routine and life-saving one).

Besides the language, I find all this discussion and debate almost unbelievable. I feel perfectly healthy. I look perfectly healthy. Nothing is wrong with me—and yet a very big thing is wrong with me. I asked my doctor this morning whether it was possible for someone with complete placenta previa (CPP, in message-board lingo) to get to 37 weeks without having a major bleed. She said no one can predict what will happen, but she seemed doubtful that I’d escape with only the one minor bleed I’ve had. All the doctors are in complete agreement that I cannot go home to Park Slope.

This all seems completely crazy. I don’t feel like a ticking bomb. I feel bored and sad and frustrated about not being with Andrew and Lucia; I feel beyond awful for being in the hospital over Lucia’s birthday (more on this in another post). But a ticking bomb? One errant contraction away from the Big Bleed? Insanity. I feel like I’m trapped in a Bizarro world where everything seems normal but I have oh, I don’t know, a huge horn growing out of my back, invisible to me but shocking and dangerous to everyone else.

Finally, Time to Read!

2011-10-11T16:19:00.001-04:00

Ha. “Finally, time to read!” is one of those things I always assumed I’d feel if I were placed on bedrest. It seems logical. I have nothing to do—every single hour of my day is free, and I’m not allowed to move anywhere but within this room. Reading seems the logical—the glorious!—way to pass the time.

The problem is that I cannot concentrate. At all. And everything I do manage to read, I hate. I can’t get into anything, can’t lose myself in books like I’ve always been able to, in pretty much any other circumstance. Long plane rides. Long airport waits. Long waits for anything. Subway rides. Long spells when Lucia was born and napping long infant naps in my lap. But here, at the hospital—it’s not working. I’m away from home, away from my husband and child, and though I’m not exactly thinking about anything else, my mind is so scattered that I simply cannot remember what’s happened from the top of the page to the bottom.

I have some things to try. I’m awaiting an Amazon order with two Penelope Lively books, plus the first volume of The Hunger Games. I borrowed a Sue Grafton novel from the hospital’s roving library cart. Andrew’s going to bring me Anna Karenina. But the only thing I can work up any real desire to read is the Twilight series. I need something that will rope me in, make the hours fly by, and require little to no brainpower. I need thrillers and mysteries with not-too-complicated plots. Is there another Dan Brown coming out anytime soon?

My current roommate, an Ivy Leaguer with a law degree, has been reading Harlequins, so I know I’m not alone in this inability to focus on anything with any intellectual component at all. In the meantime, awaiting reading inspiration, I’m watching episodes of TV shows online. Sixteen days to go…

Good

2011-10-10T22:14:00.001-04:00

A happy follow-up: Andrew unexpectedly returned tonight, bearing dinner made by Mom and a chocolate milkshake. And so the day ends pleasantly. Seventeen days to go.

Not Good

2011-10-10T18:00:00.001-04:00

Today was not a good day. Andrew, Lucia, and Mom came to visit, which was both great and awful, because seeing Lucia just makes me frantically want to go home. I was so miserable after her departure that my pulse went up enough to alarm the nurse, who advised me that getting so upset was not beneficial to me or the baby. Not good.

Then, on a day when Andrew brought breakfast but I had no outside (edible) food coming to me for either lunch or dinner, the selections were the following: a hamburger for lunch (completely inedible, so unappetizing I had to cover it up on the dish) and a chicken breast dry enough to be a scouring sponge for dinner (75% inedible—I had to eat something). Not good.

I was weighed this morning, and I’m teetering on the edge of a New Frontier: 149 pounds. Not good. (Actually, in truth, this is neither good nor bad, since that’s only 29 pounds total so far. It just shocked me.)

Then, this afternoon, I had an eensy bit of spotting; however, on a floor where bedbound pregnant girls routinely have gushing bleeds, it didn’t even raise an eyebrow from the nurses. Still, not good.

And it is clear now that I will be staying until the birth. My doctor is back in town and came to talk early this morning. Though she clearly does not want to keep me, she can’t let me go back to Park Slope; she, like everyone else, painted a nightmare scenario of the next bleed being the big one, of trying to get to the hospital, losing a lot of blood, and having something terrible happen to the baby. She said I could move to a private room on a different floor ($400/night), or find a place to stay in the neighborhood, but I could not go home. Andrew and I are half-heartedly discussing the second option, but much as I would like to not be in a hospital, I also don’t want to suddenly move Lucia to an unfamiliar place where her entire world will be turned upside down. The nurse who talked to me afterward was also pretty adamant that the best place for me to be was right here. All of it: not surprising, but not good.

I’ll be 35 weeks on Thursday, which is a good threshold to get past. But there are still two weeks after that to get through. Not good. But in a way it will be good to get through them, because then the baby will be born at full term (more or less; 37 is the magic number with complete previa). Surrounded as I am by marginal previas and complete previas and high-risk twins and low amniotic fluid sacs and exclusive talk of c-sections, on a floor where women basically sit and wait for something bad to happen, it is easy to forget that pregnancy isn’t supposed to be this way—and wasn’t, my first time around. Not good. Not good at all.

I’ll end on a bright(ish) note of It Could Be Worse: I could be stuck in a hospital in an unfamiliar city for a month, as my current roommate was when her previa was discovered in a sudden, horrendous bleed while she was on vacation. Or, as the nurse told me today, I could have been in the hospital two years ago, when, because of swine flu, NY State prohibited all visitors under twelve years old—so there were high-risk pregnant women who didn’t see their other children for weeks or months. The nurse said they tried to bring the women to the lobby for ten-minute visits, but even this wasn’t always possible.

Not good. But at least those are two things I can leave off the roster of my own depressing day.

Good Morning!

2011-10-09T11:52:00.000-04:00

This morning, at 6:00, I was woken from a sound sleep with this greeting: “Good morning! I need to draw your blood.” Lovely. I asked her to draw it from my hand; she agreed, and stabbed me painfully, but then said she was sorry but she had to stop because the vein “blew up” and she didn’t get enough blood. So then I had to have it in my arm. And my hand, six hours later, is still sore. A pretty much fantastic way to start this Sunday. The sky wasn’t even light yet.

It’s been a week, and I’m tired of being here. I feel like being here is pointless. Nothing has happened since Sunday, my non-stress tests all come out fine, and other than some uterus “irritability,” which I’m assured is normal, I’ve been as fine as I would have been had I never bothered to come in last week at all. Meanwhile, my new roommate with marginal previa has been bleeding constantly for the past twelve hours, and timing regular contractions—she should definitely be here. Me, I’m not so sure.

But every time I ask a doctor whether it’s really necessary, they all paint the same picture: at this stage, even though I’ve only had spotting and not big bleeds, the next time I bleed I could wake up in a pool of blood and have to be rushed to a hospital, losing massive blood along the way, etc. It’s gruesome and terrifying. It seems unlikely that my doctor—whom I’ll see tomorrow and who has the final say—will have a differing opinion from the two doctors in her practice whom I’ve been seeing all week, but who knows.

In the meantime: the hospital. The day starts around 5:30, when I’m woken up for the day’s first check of vitals. Around 6:00, a doctor comes by to give me an update. At 7:30 or so, the breakfast tray arrives. Somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00, I go for my non-stress test. At noon comes the lunch tray. Scattered throughout these hours are more vitals-checks and occasional monitoring of the baby’s heartbeat. At 5:00, the dinner tray arrives. Somehow, the day goes. I think today might be broken up by an exciting removal and replacement of my IV heplock thing. Lovely.

Each day I put in my contacts and get dressed in my own clothes; I sleep in my own pjs. Being in a hospital gown just makes me feel awful. I’ve been allowed to regularly shower (regularly, as in every two days or so), and I try to put on some makeup. I read the NY Times every day that someone manages to bring it to me. I’m trying to maintain some sense of normal days. Of course, they’re not normal at all, though yesterday Lucia did write all over my pants with marker and get grape jelly on my shirt during her visit, so there are moments that feel wonderfully familiar. I really can’t wait to go home.

An Adventure for Grandma

2011-10-08T14:30:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, Mom and Lucia found themselves entangled in a grand, frantic adventure. In the morning, they went to a music class, and when it was time to leave, Mom realized that Lucia’s beloved plush Elmo was gone. Since Bibi isn’t permitted to leave the house, Lucia’s regular traveling companions are Elmo and her pink corduroy Cat; “Cat Elmo,” she says whenever we’re preparing to go anywhere, and she hurries to find them. “Cat Elmo.” She goes nowhere without them. And now Elmo was gone, naptime was approaching, and disaster loomed.

On the advice of someone in the class, Mom checked out a toystore on 7th Avenue; they did not have the right size Elmo. After she called me to report on the loss, I called all the other Park Slope toystores and finally found one that claimed to have Elmos in all sizes—of course, this was a store about fifteen blocks away. I told Mom to go back home, put the stroller inside, wait on the stoop, and then get into the car I was going to call for her. In the background I could hear Lucia: “Elmo. Elmo. Elmo” and Mom saying reassuringly, “We’re going to get into a car to go get Elmo.”

The car arrived and took Mom and Lucia to the toystore, where an exact replica of the missing Elmo was found. She called when she was outside, I called for a car to pick her up, and later Mom reported that Lucia couldn’t have been any happier with “New Elmo,” kissing and snuggling him. Crisis averted. Naptime successful. Total cost of six-inch-tall New Elmo: about $25. Worth every penny.

Insanities like this—the genuine panic and distress (on Grandma and Mama’s parts) arising from the loss of a Sesame Street doll, and the feeling of to-the-ends-of-the-earth determination to find another one—are among the things no one warned me about before I became a parent. Had someone told me that I would once launch an Elmo search from a hospital bed—and that I’d feel my blood pressure rise at the idea of my child being without this toy for any length of time—I’d have said they were nuts. I’d have said she could surely have another toy, or get over that toy, or wait for a new toy to arrive from Amazon in a few days. Little did I know that’s not the way it works in Toddlerland.

Side note: As soon as Mom told me Elmo was lost, I posted a notice to the amazing neighborhood listserv, Park Slope Parents, that’s like a giant bulletin board for 5,000 local parents. I got one phone call from a man who said an Elmo had been found at the Food Co-op; an email from a mom saying I could come over to look at her son’s Elmo and have it if it was the same kind; and a couple of emails from a woman who’d also been blindsided by a crazy Elmo search and who just wanted to commiserate. A true secret society, this parenting thing. You’re either in it or you’re not. If I were on the outside of it all I’d have nothing but rolled eyes in response, full of smug self-assurances that this would never be me.

Family Picture

2011-10-07T15:33:00.001-04:00

Last picture of just us three?

33 1/2 Weeks (Pre-Hospital)

2011-10-07T15:02:00.002-04:00

Here I am early on the fateful day of my hospital admission, cavorting happily in a pumpkin patch. Little did I know where I'd end up later that night.

Sporty Spice

2011-10-07T10:35:00.001-04:00

So I think this new little one might just be the athletic daughter Andrew is hoping for. Each morning when I go for my non-stress test, whichever nurse is watching the heartbeat has just one comment: Your baby is so active! Yesterday, each time she moved (which was pretty much all the time), her heartbeat went up to 200; she was described as getting “overexcited.” Today wasn’t quite as dramatic, but it was still high, into the 180s. They’ve been keeping me on the monitors a few extra minutes to make sure the baby gets back to a normal baseline (around 150-160), which she always does. I really imagine this baby coming into the world with bright, curious eyes and kicking, excited feet, ready to squirm out of my arms and start exploring.

She just has to quiet down a bit for the weekend. Andrew left today for Florida for Katherine’s wedding, and having the baby while he’s away seems like a pretty ridiculous prospect. So for the next two days, my goal is modest: keep calm, stay still, drink gallons of water, and don’t give my placenta any reason to rile.

Bright Sides

2011-10-06T19:49:00.000-04:00

Here are the happier things I’m reminding myself of now that I’m facing a three-week hospital stay.

First, we’re lucky to have health insurance; one thing I’m not worrying about right now is how we’ll pay for everything. I can’t imagine coming here, tests flying right and left, and dreading the bills to come.

Second, we’re lucky I’m already 34 weeks along; the baby is doing well and though extra cooking time will be best, she will be okay if she decides she’s had enough of the womb.

And third, we’re lucky Mom could come to stay with us and take care of Lucia. No amount of motherly pride wants Lucia to be miserable in my absence, and “Gra’s” appearance yesterday thrilled Lucia. A nurse told me she’s heard suddenly hospital-bound women trying to hire nannies over the phone, so we’re lucky that Lucia is in such good hands.

All of this is good and bright. But it’s still hard to be here, not because it’s boring and tedious—it is, but I have lots of things to do—but because it is just completely awful to be away from Lucia. Of course, it’s hard to be away from Andrew, too, but Andrew understands why I’m here, knows it’s not about him, knows I love him and haven’t abandoned him, and realizes I’ll be home once it’s all over. My stay here is hard on him, but it’s not psychologically damaging.

Lucia, on the other hand, must certainly wonder why Mama is suddenly just gone. She’s been handling everything very well, having fun with Daddy and Grandma, and I’m the only one crying when she leaves after coming for a visit; but still it’s awful to see her for only an hour or so a day when for the past two years I’ve been apart from her for no more than a couple of hours a week. I worry that my sudden absence is going to damage her sense of stability, security, and trust, as though everything she loves and depends on could be gone at any second.

So far, she shows no signs of being distraught. She happily chats with me on the phone and cuddles when she’s here, and when I call home to check in I can hear her babbling and playing in the background. But still. I will be so glad to get home and get back to normal. I’d give anything right now to be in a battle of wills over getting her to eat just one more bite of dinner.

Hospital: Day 5

2011-10-06T09:29:00.001-04:00

That’s right: This is my fifth day in the hospital. This week has been more than a little surreal. After our lovely pumpkin-picking day on Sunday, and a relaxing, normal evening, I found myself talking to Andrew on the couch one minute and frantically calling my doctor the next. By 10:00pm, I was at the hospital; later that night, I was admitted. And it looks like I am here to stay until the baby is born, which will be on October 27—37 weeks—as scheduled, or the minute I have any other bleeding, which could be anytime.

Though we had high hopes that our planned ultrasound on Monday would show a miraculous migration of the placenta, this was not the case. I still had the ultrasound on Monday, but I was wheeled down in a wheelchair, wearing a hospital gown; and the scan still showed complete placenta previa. Sunday and Monday nights, I got steroid shots to bulk up the baby’s lung development in case she was born sooner rather than later.

But since Sunday, I’ve been fine—no contractions, no bleeding, normal movement and heart rate for the baby. I have an IV but am no longer hooked up to any fluids or anything. What’s working against the decision to discharge me are two things: one, the insanely scary idea that the next time I bleed I might have to be rushed immediately to the OR (my condition was described as a “ticking bomb”); and, two, the fact that I live in Park Slope and would be 40+ minutes away from the OR here. It seems crazy and improbable that I could wind up in such an emergency situation, but the high-risk doctors handling my case here don’t think it’s crazy or improbable at all, and I suppose they know a tiny bit more than I do.

I hadn’t counted on a complicated pregnancy when I chose to deliver at this hospital, and though I’m happy with my choice since I do have complications, and really love my doctor and the doctors in her group, it might have been easier just to choose a Brooklyn hospital. Then again, if the baby is born early and has to be in the NICU, then this is where I’d rather be. In any case, these thoughts are pointless.

And so here I am, for three more days or three more weeks, resting and trying to give the baby as many days of cooking as I possibly can.

Pumpkins

2011-10-05T22:02:00.006-04:00

With fall suddenly in the air, Sunday morning Andrew, Lucia, and I set out for some good autumnal fun—pumpkin patch, livestock, apple festival—at a farm in…Long Island. It wasn’t exactly a rural setting, but really, with a toddler, this was all the farm we needed. Lucia seemed at home as soon as we arrived, rushing up to each animal pen to greet the animals, often in their own language: “Hi, geese! Honk honk!” “Hi, chickens! Bock bock bock!”

When we reached the pick-your-own pumpkin patch (a bit of a misnomer, since the pumpkins had already been freed from their vines and were waiting, artfully arranged in the field, for camera-wielding parents like us), Lucia was beyond excited. She immediately selected a tiny gourd-pumpkin and then rushed around, climbing over pumpkins, sitting on pumpkins, attempting to pick up large pumpkins, smiling happily when she succeeded in lifting smaller pumpkins.

Nearby, some medium-sized pumpkins were strewn around a grassy field, and for a while we were the only ones there. Lucia was running, toppling, falling over the pumpkins, laughing the whole time. A baby amidst pumpkins—hard to get cuter than that.

We rounded out our farm visit by buying some apples, and then we headed on our way—onward into other parts of Long Island. Our goal was to see two towns that might become potential house-hunting spots next year. First, we drove around Port Washington and had lunch at a diner—a successful lunch, even though Lucia was tired, because we sat in a booth, I’d packed plenty of raisins, and the waitress gave Lucia a lidded cup with a straw (she loves straws). When Lucia began trying to climb into the next booth, we called lunch complete. Lucia fell asleep as soon as we started the car, which was great—we were able to drive to Sea Cliff and see some nice streets without worrying about toddler car sickness. Though there was an alarming number of country clubs around Sea Cliff, there were also some beautiful houses. Lots of research to do in the months ahead.

Lucia slept nearly the whole way home, waking in a good mood and waving me off cheerily—“Bye, Mama!”—when I went out for a prenatal massage later in the day. When I got home, she and Andrew were sitting at the table, reading books while Lucia devoured a bowl of pork, kale, bean, and potato soup. She then devoured a large quantity of apple, cheese, and toast. (Her growth spurt seems to be continuing—she’s firmly a 2T now.) A lovely fall day all around.

Note: I composed this blog post Sunday evening. An hour or so later, I began bleeding and went to the hospital, where I remain today. A lovely series of hospital posts to come.

Bunnies

2011-10-01T21:53:00.003-04:00

I just had to take some pictures the other day of Lucia’s extreme joy and excitement over her snack: a bowl of Honey Graham Bunnies.

There's a Man Here Who Wants Your Bras

2011-09-30T21:56:00.001-04:00

Last night, I sent Andrew on a thankless errand, an errand of the type that might make any man question the wisdom of having gotten married, or having gotten married to a particular woman: I arranged for him to pick up two secondhand nursing bras I purchased from someone on my neighborhood parenting listserv. Andrew is, it has to be said, adamantly against my purchasing used nursing bras, and I completely understand this. It is a strange thing to buy used, I admit. But when really good nursing bras cost $40-50 or more, and when my size in the first week post-birth might be radically different from my size a week later (or even just days later), it just seems logical to me to have a couple of larger-size options that I can wear a few times then set aside. Anyway, I purchased two secondhand, high-quality, large-size nursing bras that I will put in my hospital bag in case I have a repeat experience this time around of being horrifyingly, nightmarishly, grotesquely engorged. Fingers are crossed that I wasted my $10.

Anyway, the woman I bought them from lives nearby, but too far for me to walk, so earlier in the day I told her my husband would be over in the evening; we agreed on 8:30. Andrew drove over and, at the appointed time, buzzed the woman's apartment. Her husband answered. "Hello," Andrew said. "I'm Andrew. I'm here to pick up something for my wife."

The man said, "Oh. Really? What are you here to pick up?"

"Well, I'm here to pick up some nursing bras," Andrew said.

There was a long, awkward pause. Then the man said, "I haven't heard anything about this." Andrew explained that this meeting had been arranged between me and the man's wife. The man invited Andrew in and said he would call his wife.

Andrew waited uncomfortably while the man made the call. "Honey," the man said, "there's a man in our apartment and he's looking for your bras. [pause] Ah. When were you planning on telling me that?" He hung up and walked into another room to find the bras. When he came back, he held out the bras and said, "Well, this is one of the weirdest things that's ever happened to me."

"This is very strange," Andrew agreed.

The man put the bras in a bag, Andrew gave him the money, and the errand was complete. "You have a really nice apartment," Andrew said. And then he came home with the bras and this truly classic husband story.

My Mysterious Tongue

2011-09-28T22:22:00.000-04:00

I had a very strange experience yesterday at my first-ever acupuncture appointment (a Hail Mary attempt at moving my placenta). When I’d talked to the acupuncturist on the phone, she said she’d worked with placenta positioning before and seemed fine with having me in. But when I arrived at her home yesterday afternoon, she said she’d actually been feeling uneasy about it because she felt it would be a waste of my money—if I weren’t so far along in my pregnancy, there’d be more chance of the upward-pulling energy having an effect. Furthermore, she’d double-booked my appointment. To apologize, she said she’d do a basic stress-relieving session at her kitchen table for no charge while her other patient was having his full treatment.

So that’s how I found myself with five needles in my head, sitting at this woman’s kitchen table while a housekeeper tidied the counters and a young man (her son?) talked on a cell phone in another room. Before beginning the needling, however, the acupuncturist asked me to show her my tongue. “Oh,” she said in surprise. “That’s not what I expected at all.” She had me stick out my tongue again. “It’s so red,” she said, her voice again full of surprise. “I would have expected you to be more fatigued, more irritated.” She seemed unable to explain my mysterious tongue.

Anyway. That was my acupuncture experience. So much for Hail Mary passes. (Of course, if my ultrasound on Monday shows movement, who’s to say it didn’t do some good?...) In the meantime, my doctor told me this morning not to leave town. Four weeks to go.

Parenting: October Issue

2011-09-27T19:26:00.000-04:00

I have little to say about this issue, mostly because I was rendered speechless by this issue’s cover image and main headline. The image is of Tori Spelling and her two children, dressed up as “Old Hollywood.” The headline: “Tori Spelling stars in our Halloween Spooktacular!” To make this issue even less appealing, the following headline is the following: “We adopted our baby on Facebook!” It was enough to make me consider not reading the issue at all. Nonetheless, I persevered.

The first thing to point out is that the magazine has once again undergone a redesign. GoNe ArE the RaNdOmly capitalized section titles; in their place are tiny, nearly unreadable section titles, half in lowercase, half in ALL CAPS, like this: “right now | BUZZWORTHY”. (I have a suggestion: Why not just use the standard initial caps for titles?) We still have a ridiculous amount of celebrity nonsense, including interviews with someone from Gossip Girl and someone named Natalie Morales (am I the only one who doesn’t know who these people are?), and an instructive bit on how I and my child can dress like Heidi Klum and her son.

One interesting change: Each article in the “offspring | AGES + STAGES” section is now tagged with a colored circle noting what age group it applies to. For example, an article about teethers is flagged for “Baby 0 to 1.” It would be even more useful to do this for articles across the entire magazine. Perhaps the process would alert the editors to some of the age-questionable content that’s been cropping up in issue after issue.

Enough stylistic notes. On to the meatier stuff, like an article in a section called “Family | bonding for the modern tribe”—section title in a larger font, no all-caps; the inconsistencies in this magazine’s design are making my head spin. But onward. The article is called “Bone-chilling White: Classic Halloween with a modern twist. The result: a spooky all-white party your kids will never forget.”

COMMENTARY: Or is it a party YOU, the super-sophisticated parent, will never forget? This article seems targeted to the sort of people who have professionals cover all their books in white paper, or who display their books pages-out, to avoid the apparently annoying, cluttered look of bookshelves. This all-white party (white is always a smart move with kids!) features, of course, white-mummy cake pops ($4 each), as well as the following snacks: white-chocolate Dutch mints, white Jordan almonds, and Jelly Belly Champagne Bubbles. Um…yum? Is this seriously what you’d serve kids excited about Halloween-candy overload? Is there even a kid out there who likes Jordan almonds? Don’t those just seem like the choking hazard to end all choking hazards? I certainly wouldn’t want to be responsible for a bunch of toddlers running around an all-white room, screaming with their mouths full of hard, large, difficult-to-chew Jordan almonds. Yikes. It gives me a Halloween-y chill for all the wrong reasons.

But I think someone at Parenting was listening to my COMMENTARY about cake pops a month or so ago, because this time we are given a tip on how to “Mimic the Cake Pop look for cheap: Skewer Peeps with lollipop sticks.”

SUB-COMMENTARY: Overzealous Copyeditor, time to pack your bags. Not only is there no consistency in capitalization after a colon, there is also no way on this earth that “cake pop” is capitalized. And why do cake pops have to be mimicked? Isn’t a cake pop just a new take on cake? So wouldn’t a regular cake, or some other sort of small cakes, be the right substitute? If you want an original kind of cake at your party, and you take away the cake pops and replace them with Peeps, then suddenly you have no cake at all. This can’t be right. Someone get me a calculator FOR LOGIC.

The six-page spread devoted to Tori Spelling and her family deserves no COMMENTARY.

Until next time…

Monday Bits

2011-09-26T21:51:00.001-04:00

Just as I am unable to stand or walk for long (or short) periods without being seized up with contractions, so too am I unable to formulate enough coherent thoughts for a long blog post. And so I will recount some random recent bits.

We went to Ikea on Saturday to get Lucia her birthday present (adorable table and chairs). She was fairly docile for most of the shopping, which we tried to do quickly; but she eventually began writhing in her stroller constraints and making one loud, persistent demand: “BUNNIES. BUNNIES.” Annie’s-brand bunnies, both cheddar and honey graham, are her current favorite snack. At home, when I suggest alternate snacks, she says “Bunnies” with a decisive nod, as though there were clearly no question about what snack should be served. At Ikea, “BUNNIES. BUNNIES” became more and more wildly proclaimed. Instead of giving her more bunnies, like I should have done, we decided to go eat lunch at the café. Of course Lucia did not eat even one bite of her mac and cheese, spitting it out with a hideous grimace as though it were lighter fluid.

One morning last week, Andrew sat down on the couch with his computer and Lucia piped up from across the room, “Check email.”

One of Lucia’s favorite things to do right now is to go “Fast! Fast!” When we go for a walk, she takes off at a run, yelling over her shoulder, “Fast! Fast!” She is surprisingly fast. The running-while-looking-over-her-shoulder thing is becoming a problem at home, however. Twice last week she took nasty spills after 1) running full-force into an (open) door, so hard she was thrown backwards; and 2) hitting the side of her head on the corner of the kitchen table. The hazards of her need for speed.

Lucia has discovered the art of direct address. Instead of just saying “Hi” or “Bye bye,” she now adds in the target of her greeting: “Hi, Mama!” “Hi, Dada!” “Bye bye, birds!” “Bye bye, doggies!” It’s pretty cute. She also does this for inanimate objects: “Bye bye, glass!” (a pile of broken glass by a tree she points out each time we walk past); “Bye bye, stick!” “Bye bye, flowers!”

Lucia’s reunions with Bibi, her blankie, have gotten extremely joyous. Our family rule is that Bibi doesn’t leave the house unless we’re going away overnight, and Lucia accepts this with no fuss approximately 99% of the time. When we approach our apartment building after being at the playground or wherever, she begins excitedly chanting “Bibi! Bibi! HoBibi [home to Bibi]!” And when we unlock the apartment door, she races inside, finds Bibi, and squeals “BIBI!” while holding him aloft, victorious. It is hilarious.

And now it’s time to wind up these bits and go to bed.

Homama

2011-09-18T22:13:00.001-04:00

Lucia is wielding two-word sentences right and left these days, and she’s come up with a few shortcuts for things she says frequently. “Homama” is her version of “home to mama,” which is what I say when an animal at the park scurries away, or when a child in a book goes off somewhere. “She’s going home to her mama,” I say. Lucia nods and agrees, “Homama.” Even at the end of our Five Little Pumpkins book, when “the five little pumpkins roll out of sight,” she announces that they’re going “homama.”

There are some things, like bathtime or going grocery shopping, for which Lucia wants to be accompanied by both Andrew and me. At these times, she makes her request known by saying “Daddymama.” It’s two words blended into one, with the emphasis on the first “ma”: “DaddyMAma.”

This morning, for the second time since moving here, I went to church, trying to shore up our status as bona fide parishioners so we can have our new baby baptized without having to get married for the fourth time. The idea of going to church has for some reason stuck with Lucia, who handily learned the word “church” the last time I went. This time, Andrew got her dressed and so forth while I was out, and they planned to meet me outside so we could then go visit Barbra and Chris. “Soon we’ll go see Mama,” he said a few times, and Lucia took up the chant: “Gomama. Gomama.”

Also, on an unrelated note, when (on the rare occasion) I am not at home with Andrew and Lucia, Lucia will make her toy phone ring and then say, “Hello? Mama! Hi!” with an excited squeal. That’s both adorable and kind of heartbreaking, and when Andrew told me that the first time I wanted to run into her room and wake her up for a snuggle. (I resisted.)

Letter to Lucia: 23 Months

2011-09-15T22:17:00.001-04:00

Dear Little One,

One morning this week, when you led the way to the living room—your arms full of your stuffed-animal entourage—and we sat down on the couch to read the first book of the day, I was shocked to see that seemingly overnight you looked older. You were wearing mismatched pajamas and just seemed more kid-like as you giggled over something and smiled your toothy smile. After a while you said “Eat! Eat snack!” and we went to the kitchen for breakfast.

Each morning, we go outside with Daddy and wave to him when he goes to work. But now you join me in asking him if he’s remembered important items. Each morning I ask if he has his phone; now you, as we emerge onto the stoop, say, “Phone? Keys?” It is very cute, and helpful. (It would have been even more helpful this week if you’d asked Mama if she had her keys; I locked us out for the first time on Tuesday.)

You’re growing fast, and your 18M summer clothes are pretty much unwearable now. But you are too slim for 2T pants, so we are in an awkward in-between stage. I’ve gotten you a lot of 2T leggings, and you fit into pants with a size range of 18-24M and an adjustable waist. You looked very cute in all your summer outfits, but now I’m ready to see you in jeans and long-sleeved shirts once again (though of course I’ll resent the socks for hiding your cute little feet).

Your ability to tell little stories is one of my favorite things to watch right now. Last week you were out for a walk with Daddy and fell and scraped your knee; Daddy carried you home, comforting you all the way by saying you’d go home and show Mama your boo-boo. Now, periodically, you remember your scraped knee and reminisce about what happened: “Fall. Boo-boo. Knee. Show Mama.” And you still delight in talking about the pond in New Hampshire: “Pond! Wa-wa. [frog motion] Daddy. Swim. [wildly swimming arms] Toes.” I had to take your beloved beads away for a while this week because you were hurling them around the room; I explained that we don’t throw beads because they could hit someone in the eye. When you got the beads back later, you remembered: “Throw beads. Hit eye.”

You’ve been very adaptable lately, now that we no longer take our long walks to the park or go out in the afternoons. I miss our outings, but you’ve seemed content enough to just hang out at home, entertaining yourself for long spells. You seem to have accepted that Mama does a lot of sitting on the couch these days, and you’ve gotten used to bringing over books and toys. I still feel guilty about limiting our outside time—you adore your walks—but we do get out most mornings, even if we stay close to home. And since the intensity of my Braxton Hicks contractions is directly proportional to how much I’m on my feet, there’s not much I can do to change things right now.

Bathtime has gotten very cute and also very trying. Though Daddy always gives you your bath, you now demand my presence as well, and you won’t walk into the bathroom unless you are holding both of our hands; we journey to the bathroom as a group. Once in the tub, you play happily—too happily, at times. You have some cups that you like to fill with water and hurl at the walls—which is fine, until you decide to hurl the water the other way and it gets all over Daddy and the floor. And once out of the tub, you ardently resist having your diaper and pajamas put on. This week, in fact, you flipped yourself over and lunged away so quickly that for the first time you actually fell off the bed. Daddy was not happy, but after some initial frightened tears, you were fine.

It’s time for me to go through your toy baskets and put some of your outgrown toys away for your little sister. You have many things you still like to play with, but for the most part the toys in the baskets are no longer that interesting. Your attention is focused on things we don’t keep in the baskets: crayons and markers; your collection of small animal figurines; your Mardi Gras beads (still!); your toy stroller; your shopping cart (often piled with your stuffed-animal entourage); stacking cups; books; and your two buckets. From your baskets, you sometimes pull out your bag of My Little Ponies, your Jack-in-the-box, a toy “laptop” that says words and plays songs, and blocks.

When I write your next letter, you’ll be two, and just twelve days away from becoming a big sister. Let’s enjoy these final weeks as a threesome, little one. You won’t remember them, but we will.

Baby. Mama.

2011-09-13T16:08:00.001-04:00

First, a breakthrough: This morning, when I brought Lucia to a friend’s house for our weekly babysitting swap, she put on a wobbly but brave face when I left and, my friend texted a bit later, cried for only twenty seconds before going off to play with little T. She played happily the whole time (I heard her laughing when I got to the door at pickup time!) and greeted me with a big smile and a cheerful “Hi!” instead of dissolving into plaintive tears at the sight of me. I was thrilled.

Perhaps because of the more trying episodes in weeks past, or perhaps because this is just a stage she’s in, Lucia has become extremely focused on babies and mamas and the fact that one can’t be (and usually isn’t) without the other. When she spots a baby on the street, she not only says “baby” but also “mama” or “daddy,” depending on who’s pushing the stroller or carrying the baby. She says the word-pair seriously, with a little nod of approval: “Baby. Mama.” “Yes, a baby with her mama,” I say back. “Yeah,” she affirms. Then sometimes she points to me—“Mama!” As though pleased to rediscover her own mama right there as she always is.

When we read books, she examines each picture for babies and mamas, pointing out each on every single page. Humans, animals, it doesn’t matter—every baby has a mama, and anything small is a baby. In Blueberries for Sal, a current favorite, there are a few pages where Little Sal can’t find her mama—and when Mama finally reappears, Lucia jabs her fingers at the page and yells “Mama!” excitedly, as though her own mother had been lost and found. She likes finding the mamas in books almost as much as she likes finding cats.

In books featuring human or animal families, she diligently names each member of the family: “Baby. Mama. Daddy.” (She gets a bit confused when there’s a baby and an older sibling, and we’re practicing saying “sister.”) And then she sits back and waits for the next page, the world just as it should be.

Body, Betrayer

2011-09-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

Last week, I had another ultrasound, which showed that my placenta still has not moved. At the doctor’s appointment that followed, a C-section was scheduled for me at the end of October, at 37 weeks. I will continue to have scans right up until then, so there’s still hope, but still. My doctor also prohibited me from traveling, warning me that if I went anywhere I could be stuck in a hospital there for the rest of my pregnancy. Also, because she revealed that the awful belly discomfort I’ve been having in the evenings is actually contractions, I’m now to “rest” in the afternoons. She has three children, but I suspected for a moment she’d never been around a toddler.

So, no good news, just worry—and a search for a mother’s helper to allow me my afternoon “rest.” The search so far has been unfruitful; Park Slope is full of mothers, which is probably the problem—finding a mother’s helper just may be as competitive as finding a good apartment. The woman I was slated to interview tomorrow cancelled tonight because she’d just taken a job with another mom.

Low placenta, stubbornly contracting uterus—and, next, terribly burning eyes. Andrew, Lucia, and I went to Rockaway Beach Saturday morning, which was wonderful—it was a cool, cloudy day, and we spent over two hours there. Lucia adores the beach, just adores it—running into the waves, laughing if they knock her down, sifting small clams (which she calls stones) in her sifter, collecting shells in her bucket, carrying shovels of sand from one place to another. She could have stayed all day (and, indeed, tried, making our departure a wrestling match with a boneless, shrieking tangle of toddler limbs). Once home, she took a two-hour-and-fifteen-minute nap.

This was a very good thing, because this is when the irritating cloudiness I’d been experiencing all morning became excruciating pain. I’d put my contacts in that morning after applying sunscreen (washing my hands beforehand, of course), but thought nothing of it; I assumed my contacts just had to be tossed out. When I took them out, however, I was still gazing out through fog. And then my eyes started to burn, so hideously that I wondered if I should go to the ER. I couldn’t open them. This went on, without improvement, for the next nine hours, which I spent lying on the couch with a cold cloth over my eyes. A Google search revealed that getting waterproof sunscreen in your eyes can lead to days of terrible pain. Fortunately, by the next morning, I was okay.

Anyway, I’m fine now, but I relay this story not because it’s likely to be of much interest to anyone but because it just adds insult to injury—as if I weren’t already uncomfortable enough, I had to get sunscreen in my eyes. I’ve kind of had it with my body. It is not doing its part to help me live my life. It is, instead, in revolt.

Andrew, already picking up the household slack as I try to “rest” every afternoon, had to deal with everything all afternoon on Saturday. Lacking supervision as he’s shopped and cooked the past few days, Andrew has become a regular patron at a very expensive gourmet grocery store nearby, returning home with $7 pints of ice cream, $5/pound New Jersey peaches, and $4 quarts of organic milk. On the bright side, he’s been making some amazing food.

Lucia was very sweet on Saturday when she woke up from her nap and found Mama “sick” on the couch with a washcloth over her eyes. She approached quietly and snuggled. Then she piled all her favorite stuffed animals by my head. She tucked Bibi at my shoulder. I then felt her little hands again—she was handing me my lip gloss. Then she handed me my glasses. She let Andrew feed her dinner, and then they took a nice walk. All very cute.

30 Weeks, New Hampshire

2011-09-06T22:08:00.003-04:00

Belly with field of mint.

Mint, Moth, Turtle, and NO CLOTHES!

2011-09-06T21:31:00.004-04:00

We spent the long weekend in NH, a rejuvenating few days of quiet and fresh air and green grass under bare feet. Lucia learned several new words: mint, because Andrew discovered a vast field of wild mint growing by the driveway and we spent lots of time harvesting it and piling it in a wheelbarrow; moth (“mof”), because lots of them flutter in the windows; and turtle, because after a long night of rain we discovered a tiny black turtle that had crawled into the tray of Lucia’s bubbles. We delivered him safely to the pond.

The pond was the focus this trip. She asked for it constantly. There’s a floating dock attached by a rope to the regular dock, and this is where she wanted to be. It is not a sturdily floating structure—part of it dips down into the water when you walk to the edge, and it all tilts from side to side precariously. But Lucia loved being right down at the water’s surface, and she ran from edge to edge (stopping our hearts, even though Andrew was right there in the water beside it and could have grabbed her in a second had she fallen in), filling her bucket at one side and dumping it out at the other. She pulled out lily pad-type things by their stems and examined the gelatinous undersides. She sat on the edge and kicked her feet in the water. She greeted frogs with excited cries of “Hi! Hi!” and loved when they hopped or swam away. And she really loved when Andrew swam into the middle of the pond. “Shim! Shim!” she’d call out. “Daddy, shim!” Then she’d turn to me—“Mama, shim!”—and seemed disappointed when I’d only put my feet in.

Unfortunately, the drive home proved horrendous once again. We’ve figured out a way to manage my back pain—stopping halfway through for a stretch—but the downside is that this stop wakes up Lucia. On the way there, she fell right back to sleep. On the way home, she did not, and spent the rest of the drive throwing up. We stopped once to clean her up, and it was…everywhere. Bibi got the worst of it, Elmo took a hit, and the carseat and her shirt were a mess. We stripped her down in a parking lot. “No clothes!” she exclaimed cheerfully from the trunk of the car. “Cold!”

She got sick again just outside of Brooklyn, so we just plowed on home. At midnight she was running around the apartment in her diaper, screaming happily, “No clothes! No clothes!” Chasing a toddler around to get her into her pj’s is not what a seven-months-pregnant mama wants to be doing at that hour. Good thing the weekend was worth it.

Tiny Dancer

2011-09-02T13:55:00.000-04:00

Wednesday night, we joined a friend and her toddler for some live kids’ music at a park near home. The place was crawling with toddlers—ordinarily the sort of scene Lucia would hate. But the music was great—and Lucia absolutely loved it. She was so excited about seeing other babies dancing, and kept pointing to the wiggling crowd and saying “Baby!” Though she stayed close to me, she, too, danced maniacally and giggled nonstop with a huge toothy smile. Andrew met us there after work, and though I’d planned on leaving halfway through so we wouldn’t miss bedtime, she was having so much fun that we let bedtime slide by half an hour. (The horror!)

A mom from our playgroup wound up sitting behind us, and she was shocked at this wildly laughing, dancing Lucia. Lucia ordinarily wants nothing to do with anyone in playgroup and stays by my side the whole time, venturing forth now and then only to retrieve a toy which she then plays with at a safe distance from the others--who, admittedly, are usually all boys (though sweet ones). I was reminded, as I am so often, of my favorite dentist-office story, “The Two Carolines.” Except the two Lucias in this case aren’t the rude one and the polite one but the cautious, quiet, observant one and the free-wheeling Tiny Dancer. Those who witness the latter are truly privileged!

Big Talker

2011-09-01T22:05:00.001-04:00

Lucia’s language is progressing every day. It’s truly an amazing thing to witness. She adds new words all the time by herself, and she picks things up quickly and permanently when I suggest them to her. Yesterday, when she was asking for “Book!”, I suggested she say “Read book, please,” when she’d like to be read to. She is now pretty consistent at saying “Read book!” and does a very cute “Peees!” when I remind her. Then she’ll keep saying it—“Peees! Peees!”—making it impossible not to do whatever it is she wants.

She asks for her "blue hat," tells us when she's dropped something ("drop Bibi!" "drop cat!"), asks for more, which is still "mai" ("Mai cheese!" "Mai apple!") She says "Bye, bye, cat" and "Bye, bye, stick" or whatever else we're leaving behind. She says "Baby cry" when we hear a crying infant. Two-word phrases are a standard milestone for two years old, I've been reading, and I'm hoping my little A-student hits three words this month. We'll be hitting the workbooks shortly.

She talks all the time about the pond in NH, telling an elaborate story in a series of single words—pond, wawa, baby, Mama, toes (we put our toes in the pond), [jumping frog motion], Dada. Now, when asked what Daddy does in the pond, she says excitedly, “Smim!” She came up with the word all by herself, and the look on her face when she said it the first time was priceless. So pleased!

She still says cute mixed-up baby versions of many things; here are just a few:

bubbick = bucket
monick = monkey
bihm = bib
shim = spoon

But by far her favorite sentence is “Watch Elmo.” She knows we don’t watch any Elmo videos until evening, after dinner, but occasionally something short-circuits in her toddler brain and she runs through the house yelling, “Watch Elmo! Watch Elmo! Watch Elmo!” She seems to sometimes be under the mistaken belief that if she says it louder, I’ll acquiesce. And sometimes, when she thinks she might have a chance of reaching me subliminally, I’ll look over at her beside me and meet her little eyes and realize she’s whispering almost inaudibly, “Watch Elmo.” “After dinner,” I whisper back, which either makes her giggle or makes her angry, depending on her mood and tolerance for Mama whispering.

She’s also gotten very good with names. She knows and says the names of some of the children we see regularly. She also knows Barbra, Chris, and Baby Alex, and some pretty random others: our upstairs neighbor Sasha; our kind but loud neighbor a few doors down, Milly; and the man who cleans our halls and manages the garbage cans outside, Charlie. She likes to wave at Charlie. She is terrified of Milly.

Bucket O' Treasures

2011-09-01T21:44:00.001-04:00

Lucia has taken to carrying around a bucket o’ treasures now whenever we leave the house. She always takes a stuffed animal or two, and she always has her bucket in the stroller, but filling the bucket prior to leaving home is new. It started Monday, when I went to a stoop sale and bought her a few trinkets—two tiny star-shaped slinkies, a tiny rubber duck. For the rest of that day she wouldn’t go anywhere without them, and what better way to carry them than in her “bubbick”? They are never far from her at home, either. Yesterday, her bucket collection grew to include her beloved (and, of course, tiny) cat figurine, Elmo, a beanbag monkey, and her favorite stuffed cat. Despite my diligence, when we reached the playground, I realized Elmo was nowhere to be found. I grabbed Lucia and began retracing our steps. At the end of the block I encountered another mom, who held Elmo up questioningly. He’d been found.

Today Lucia walked the entire way from our apartment to Prospect Park, which is nearly one full mile. She carried her bucket the whole time, today filled with her treasured three stuffed peas and their peapod. Of course, the peas occasionally hopped out and rolled down the sidewalk. I can’t forbid her from taking her treasures along…but it would be nice if we could keep track of, say, one treasure per walk. A goal to pursue.

28 Weeks: Post-Hurricane

2011-08-28T19:37:00.003-04:00

Most of my maternity bottoms are now too small—something that never happened with my pregnancy with Lucia—and many of my maternity shirts no longer reach over my stomach. And I still have two and a half months to go. At my last appointment I’d only gained about twelve pounds so far, but for some reason those twelve pounds have had a dramatic impact. Insanity!

Letdown

2011-08-28T19:30:00.002-04:00

The hurricane was a bust. We were disappointed. After all that buildup and preparation, I was looking forward to screaming winds, water-filled streets, hunkering down with our flashlight and all the food we cooked last night. Though there was some flooding and damage in the coastal areas, here in Park Slope we had nothing more than a few small downed branches and a fallen tree near the playground. We were outside several times today for walks and a playground trip. The storm, such as it was, has been weathered.

Here are some cute pictures from our walk this morning:

Hurricane Watch

2011-08-27T19:03:00.002-04:00

In two hours, Hurricane Irene is supposed to appear in NYC. We're ready for whatever happens, though since we're really far inland in Brooklyn, probably not much disaster-quality mayhem will be coming our way. Andrew spent most of yesterday rolling his eyes at me for my preparations; but by evening he'd gone out to get some water, fill the car with gas, and park it right in front of our apartment in case we have to make a quick getaway to...Queens. We have lots of vessels full of water, and tonight we cooked lots of food to get us through a few days if need be. Really, the thing we're dreading most is the prospect of several days of being cooped up with a restless toddler. I'll report back when I can...

Parenting: September Issue

2011-08-25T21:20:00.000-04:00

Though I am tired, wearily I take up my keyboard to COMMENT on this month’s issue of Parenting. This month, the bulk of my COMMENTARY focuses not so much on editorial carelessness/ridiculousness but on suggestions I find just…wrong. Granted, this sort of critique is quite personal, and many other readers might feel differently, and I would have to accept their opinions as valid (though behind their backs I would be rolling my eyes). In any case, onward.

First we have an article whose headline should give you fair warning of what COMMENTARY is to come: “Tablets for Tots.” Unfortunately, this is not a discussion of notebooks or pads of paper on which toddlers can draw; “tablets” refers to “tablet computers”—iPads for the under-fives. Here’s the intro:

“Buying your 4-year-old an iPad? That may seem excessive, but giving her one of two new tablets just for kids might be a totally worth-it splurge. […] [They] both boast […] loads of learning and fun.”

COMMENTARY: Anyone who knows me well knows how opposed I am to this sort of thing—or any sort of technology or screens intended for children. In my ideal(ized) world, children explore, play, imagine, create, without the help of electronic devices. As the mother of a toddler, however, I understand that there is something inherently captivating for them about iPads and so on—and Lucia does enjoy looking at pictures of herself on my phone or Papa’s iPad, and using a draw-with-your-finger app on Andrew’s tablet when we’re on a plane. Each day she is permitted (if she requests it) to watch approximately fifteen minutes of Elmo videos on SesameStreet.org, streamed through our TV. But just because technology is alluring doesn’t mean I need to give in to it and turn my child into a zombie-eyed, empty-headed shell of a toddler before she hits kindergarten. No, thank you, Parenting. I shall pass on this and everything related to this.

But oh! You are insistent, Parenting. Turn the page and we see this shiver-inducing headline: “Hey, Mr. Computer, Read Me a Story!” What follows is an endorsement of a site that lets kids listen to a free book online that’s “narrated by professional actors.” This is supposed to “entertain” and “encourage them to read.” The brief blurb concludes with the wide-eyed, ain’t-the-internet-grand reiteration, “Did we mention they’re free?”

COMMENTARY: Free does not always mean good. Sometimes it means sinister. And this is how I view such sites. Wouldn’t it break your heart if your toddler, instead of rushing up to you with a beloved book in her hand and the loud demand of “BOOK! BOOK!”, sat down in front of a computer and said plaintively, “Book.” Or didn’t say anything at all. And then pressed a button and let her eyes glaze over as she stared at some sort of hideously animated tale preselected by…whom? Who cares? Awful awfulness.

Hands-down the worst of the worst this month was an eight-page spread (eleven, if you count the ad pages too) devoted to dressing kids like characters in the show Glee and giving them little personality write-ups like “About Quinn: My Style Is…Always on trend and completely feminine.” The featured clothes include a $62 shirt, an $89 ID bracelet, a $135 cardigan, and a $190 jean jacket. Seriously. Remember, this magazine is supposed to deal with children age four and under. An aside: I was confused by this article because I don’t watch Glee and I was unclear on whether the little write-ups referred to the child models or the characters on which their getups were based. Who cares, really?

Another bit to gripe about: An article called “What We Don’t Tell Our Husbands” seems to assume all wives tell lies, white or otherwise, to keep the peace—or, as the writer says: “I don’t think of myself as a liar; I think of myself as a normal wife, sidestepping and spinning to keep the peace.”

COMMENTARY: None needed.

And, lastly, I have now been advised to purchase my cosmetics at Payless. Did you know they sell makeup? Neither did I. But though I’ve never seen nor touched nor used such makeup, I feel like I already have a sense-memory of how such makeup smells: like melted dollar-store candles.

Besides all of this objectionable content, I do have a general editorial beef this month. WTF is up with taking up so much valuable (well, it’s relative) content space by including comments by people on Facebook?? This happens twice this issue. First Facebook posters tell us their views of allowing a child to “go in the bushes” if you’re “at the park with your recently potty-trained preschooler.” Then Facebookers tell us how they speed up their morning routines. Isn’t it sort of “against” the whole point of the internet to use “content” (generous) from said internet as part of a print publication? Shouldn’t they be…separate, or something? Tonight on the Weather Channel, one of the hosts was reading Tweets out loud from random people all over the country, evidence that she really had nothing to report yet about Hurricane Irene. And so it is with this irritating Parenting trend: when there’s nothing to write about, just repeat what’s been nattered about online.

With relief I’ll conclude this post. Until next month.

PS: More age-illogic in this issue. In an article about how to make your child’s packed lunches more appealing, the writer suggests leaving a love note in the lunchbox. I’m quite sure my own genius child will be reading long before kindergarten…But isn’t it kind of a lot to expect of most ordinary children under age five?

A Busy Week

2011-08-24T16:21:00.001-04:00

It’s been a busy week last week. Last Wednesday Lucia and I went to the zoo, where Lucia had a splendid time greeting (“Hi!) and feeding sheep, goats, llamas, and geese, as well as greeting and waving at sea lions when they surfaced in their pool. We walked both there and back—a mistake, since the day grew hot and it’s a really, really long walk. I felt fine while I was doing it and then, that evening and the next day, felt like I might not be able to get off the couch. I’m really looking forward to not being pregnant anymore—not because I don’t like being pregnant, because I do, with this charmingly kicking/squirming little one inside that makes my stomach look like it has a mind of its own, which I suppose it does—but because I just want to have my physical capabilities back. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been in shape; at least when Lucia was born I was doing mommy/baby workouts once or twice a week. But since moving to NYC last year I have done exactly three yoga classes. Four, maybe. And lots of walking. And that is it. The days of going to the gym, doing regular yoga, actually swimming for fitness—it all seems far, far away, a distant dream. Now I get side-splints after walking half a block.

On Friday, we left in the evening for New Hampshire. The drive up was, I have to say, grueling. We left in a huge rainstorm, and it took us an hour just to get out of Manhattan. Being in the car wreaks havoc on both my back and my belly, and there’s just no way to get comfortable. Andrew rubbed my back for a while—this stubborn aching spot that ached during my last pregnancy too—which, for some strange reason, made me feel nauseous and light-headed, prompting me to order Andrew to make a desperate lunge to the shoulder of the road. I’m such charming company these days, aren’t I? Anyway, this isn’t the first time this has happened—there must be a nerve or something there that reacts badly to massage. And that’s my expert medical opinion.

Once we were in NH, we had a difficult night—Lucia woke up and wouldn’t go back to sleep—but even though we were zombies in the morning, it was still splendid to be there. Andrew’s dad joined us Saturday morning, thrilling Lucia, who loves “Bobby” and had been looking forward to his arrival. She played in her pool, walked barefoot in the grass, swung in her swing in the apple tree, put her toes in the pond, had ice cream. Even a thunderstorm Sunday afternoon was cozy; we lounged in the upstairs hallway looking at old pictures.

The drive home was harrowing as well—I think Andrew alternately feels sorry for me and wants to throw me out of the car—but we made it, and on we go with the week.

Letter to Lucia: 22 Months

2011-08-15T14:14:00.000-04:00

Dear Little One,

So close to two! And what a little bundle of toddlerness you’ve been lately. You keep us on our toes, forcing us to often run after you as you do your surprisingly fast trot-walk down the sidewalk. You want to walk everywhere these days—such a change from even just a couple of months ago—and last week you walked almost the whole way to Prospect Park. I’m not brave or confident enough yet to leave the house without the stroller, however, as you often tire of walking and demand to be carried, which I simply can’t do right now. And, of course, my patience sometimes flags when walking even a block seems like it might take an hour with all your pauses and investigations; sometimes I just need to harness you in and push you along at a more reasonable pace. But I can see that one of these days you and I will just walk out of the house by ourselves, stroller-free. (We can sometimes do this with Daddy in the evenings, since Daddy is willing and able to carry you as needed.)

Your vocabulary is growing by the day, and you’ve started some two-word sentences—even three words, sometimes, like “Bar all gone!” when you’ve finished one of your currently beloved breakfast bars. You often say “More cheese!” and you’ve said “Drop bibi” when you’ve dropped your blankie someplace inaccessible. Last week, you kept saying “Kick! Kick! Kick!” but you clearly weren’t talking about kicking your feet or kicking a ball; I asked you to explain, and you said “Kick, draw!”—effectively communicating that you wanted to use Papa’s click-pen to draw pictures. However, you’re saying a lot of things now that we don’t understand, much as we try, and I wonder if you’re going to get frustrated as your use of new language outpaces your ability to use it comprehensibly.

I think you may be going through a growth spurt. Just a couple of weeks ago, your toes were dangerously close to the tops of your cute gold sandals; but I was loathe to purchase a new pair since summer is winding down. When I found a new pair on sale, however, I bought them, wondering if I’d jumped the gun. But just days later, it seemed, your toes had reached well beyond the edges of your old sandals—new ones were clearly required. Your pants are almost all too small—you have a long torso and long legs—and it’s clear that though we’ll probably be able to finish off the summer with your 18M wardrobe, it’s going to be very, very close. 2T, here we come!

I’ve been reading you your first book about being a big sister—I’m a Big Sister by Joanna Cole—and you love it. We read it over and over again, every day, and you are thrilled to shout “Baby!” when the book opens with, “Someone new is at our house. Do you know who it is?” When we turn to the page where the new baby is crying, you name all the things that will make the baby feel better: paw-paw, bibi, Mama, Dada, and milk. I’m not sure how much, if any, you can transfer from all this to your imminent future as a big sister, but if your willingness to share paw-paw and bibi with pictures of crying babies in books is any indication, you will be a soothing, kind little one when the new little one comes around.

Your current favorite toys are Mardi Gras beads (sometimes these are the only things you play with all day), your markers and paper, your stuffed animals, and your books. You also like your beach ball, “laptop” with buttons that play songs and say words (a stoop sale purchase), Matchbox cars, and Little People. You also still love your tiny cat figurine, which seems to go missing for the better part of each week.

Beach Day

2011-08-14T21:05:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, we decided to drive out to Rockaway Beach, and we had a fabulous, beachy morning. Lucia has loved the beach since the very first time she saw one, and her infatuation only gets more intense with every visit. This time, we planned to stay for an hour and ended up staying for three—and we probably could have stayed another hour at least. She loved sitting by our beach blanket, digging in the sand and filling her bucket. She loved collecting clamshells. She loved running into the water and scream-laughing as waves crashed into her chest—laughing even if she fell and got her face in the water. She loved using her sifter to collect tiny clamlike creatures at the shoreline. She loved watching the seagulls. She loved just walking barefoot down the beach.

The beach was covered in small, round jellyfish, and Andrew and I spent most of our time making sure Lucia didn’t step on any. But later, while I was in the bathroom, a man with his son was picking them up and told Andrew they wouldn’t sting. So when I came back out to the beach, my tiny baby was toddling over excitedly, her whole face lit up in a huge smile, holding out a jellyfish for my inspection. Picking up jellyfish could easily have occupied another hour at least.

It was a very fun day. We even went out again later that afternoon, to join some people from my playgroup for a picnic in Prospect Park. And that morning, before we left the apartment, Lucia came up to me and said, “Hat!” She wanted to wear a hat, after spending the entire summer so far refusing to even let one touch her head. Oh, fickle child.

“Beach!” is now one of Lucia’s new favorite words.

Friday Bits

2011-08-12T21:47:00.001-04:00

It’s been an eventful week. Or uneventful, if we’re talking about the movement of my placenta. I had a follow-up ultrasound on Monday which showed no movement; it also showed that the baby is currently breech. Plenty of time for both things to change, assured the technician and doctor who looked over the images. My doctor, at the appointment I had later that afternoon, seemed less optimistic. “Why can’t things go smoothly for you?” she said in her typical blunt manner. “You had a thirty-three-hour labor and vacuum delivery for a six-pound baby, and now you have placenta previa.” On the bright side, we don’t have to worry about bedrest unless I have three (well, two more) spotting episodes that get progressively worse. And she said we’ll schedule a C-section when I hit thirty-six weeks (for a delivery at thirty-seven or thirty-eight weeks) but can always cancel it if the placenta moves. All we need, she said, is 1.5 centimeters. That’s it.

Mom and Dad came in for a few days to watch Lucia during my appointments and to see her once more before their school year starts. Lucia was in super-cute mode, playing with her beads, saying new words, asking Mom to sing songs to her, looking at pictures of herself on Dad’s iPad. She enjoyed having both of her grandparents sitting on the floor with her. When she realized that they always brought along a pillow to sit on, she, too, demanded a pillow (a “puh”) whenever she sat on the floor. Gra and Papa were the first words she said every morning, and now, two days after they left, she still asks for them, though she seems to understand when I say they had to go home.

It’s been beautiful weather yesterday and today, so I’ve taken advantage of my more normal-feeling body to take Lucia up to the park. She hardly wants to be in the stroller at all anymore and can walk very nearly the whole way there—she usually wants to get back in the stroller for the final avenue and three or so blocks. Of course, our walk takes forever, as she stops to look at every single stone (or cherry pit, or discarded straw) on the sidewalk, to sit on various stoops and curbs, to point out the letter O on various signs, to look at birds and shout “Fly!” when they fly away. (Frankly, stopping often and walking very slowly makes the long uphill walk much easier for me.) I’ve been taking her the long way through the park to the playground, and it is very peaceful to pause on one of the quiet paths while she draws with chalk or has a snack.

In the back of my mind is always, I better do this before I spend the next three months on bedrest. But I’ve been feeling fine and have no reason to think everything won’t turn out okay.

Friday Snippets

2011-08-05T14:33:00.003-04:00

I was looking through some old pictures yesterday and was confronted by the shocking realization that I am as big right now at 25 weeks as I was last pregnancy at 33 weeks. I suspect my 18-pound weight gain from my last pregnancy is going to be dramatically surpassed this time around.

I’ve been getting awful side-stitch cramps—bad enough to make walking painful and difficult—after walking less than one block. And if I walk more than a block my sciatic nerve pain flares up for the rest of the day. Perhaps I would have also had these problems during my last pregnancy, but I never walked anywhere in Roseville.

Lucia and I went to meet Andrew for lunch at his office today. (Yes, I took the subway, yes, I got side-cramps and back pain, but sometimes I get stubborn and irrational [as Andrew would surely say] and can’t stop looking at taxi fare as just that much less we’ll have toward our house fund, the house-buying moment being that magical time when I won’t have to take the subway with a baby ever again.) Lucia, unimpressed by the limitless food options available, deigned to eat only a breadstick and sip water from a plastic cup while crawling all over me at the table, completely ignoring the incredible Manhattan view from our perch on a large terrace. It seems unthinkable that there will come a time in our lives when we will eat a meal together and everyone will sit in his or her own seat and will not repeatedly attempt to pour water from a cup into an empty soup bowl. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my sweet-and-sour shrimp, duck sausage summer roll, pad thai, cilantro string beans, and cocoa, coconut, and sea salt cookies, washed down with a tasty tomato-and-lemon juice. If I worked at Andrew’s company I have no doubt I’d gain eighty pounds this pregnancy.

Lucia walked partway to the subway today, carrying Elmo and her cat. She stopped by a planter holding a small bush and, very gently, took one of Elmo's hands and held it out so Elmo could touch a leaf. She's pretty cute, this one. (The maddening-in-one-paragraph, adorable-in-another phenomenon is pretty much life with Lucia as a toddler.)

Tomorrow I will have my second-worst morning ever: my glucose challenge test, three blood tests in two hours. The only reason this won’t rate as my worst morning ever is that during my last pregnancy I had four blood tests in three hours. So there’s that. And if I can’t eat ice cream again for the rest of this pregnancy…well, let’s just hope for the best.

I just reread this post and it would appear I am in a bad, whiny mood. I’m actually not. We’ve had a nice day so far, and Andrew might come home early, and we’ll get something nice for dinner tonight. But it’s hot back here by my computer, and my overheatedness is, I’m afraid, influencing my tone. And so I shall bring this to an end and go sit in front of the AC.

Separation

2011-08-03T14:26:00.000-04:00

Last week, Lucia (and I) reached a milestone: her first time staying with a friend without me for a few hours. A friend of mine with a daughter Lucia’s age works on Fridays, so I am taking her little one for the afternoon (another woman has her in the morning); in return, she will take Lucia for a morning each week.

So, last Tuesday, we went over to their house. After playing for a little while, I told Lucia I had to run some errands and would be back soon…When I left, expecting the worst, I listened at the door; no crying. I had a bagel at a café one block away, waiting for a come-get-her call; it never came. Instead, my friend texted to say Lucia was playing and having a snack. Success!

This week was a bit rougher. She cried when I left, her little face crumpled in a don’t-leave-me look; it was awful. Again I had a bagel nearby. But my friend soon texted to say she cried for about three minutes and was now playing happily. Unfortunately, when I picked her up a little while later, I was told she’d had a little rough patch triggered by the visit of another friend. This isn’t surprising—she doesn’t like strangers even when I’m around, so I’m sure this threw her for a loop. Apparently she stood facing a corner, unconsolable; and she refused to eat any lunch whatsoever. So sad. Once she was in her stroller, as we walked home, she scarfed down all her food. My poor little one.

Difficult as this is for her and guilt-inducing as it is for me, I really think it’s important that we establish a basic fact that we probably should have established much earlier on: I may leave, but I will come back, and she can be fine for a little while with someone else (someone else who’s not a grandparent, of course). This has to be okay. I hope it will be as this becomes more routine.

24 Weeks in New Hampshire

2011-08-01T21:08:00.002-04:00

Perfect Weekend

2011-08-01T20:48:00.004-04:00

(An homage to “Perfect Weekend,” my favorite column in How To Spend It, the weekend magazine in The Financial Times)

Whenever we have the chance, we escape the city for Andrew’s ancestral homestead far in the country. The weekend really doesn’t start for us until we are finally on the road, Lucia asleep in the backseat; we always drive straight through and get to Holdenfield round midnight. We unload the baby and unpack the bags and then read for a bit before the crickets and frogs lull us to sleep.

We’re up early Saturday and breakfast on some coffee, English muffins, and fruit. There are no papers to read, so we sit at the farmhouse table and look out at the early-morning mist settling over the barn. When the sun starts warming up the fields we head outside for a walkabout round the land. The back field, which has been freshly mown for hay, is walkable at this time of year, and we wander about behind the treeline where the meadow grows wild. Perhaps we’ll stroll through the meadow and come round the pond the back way; perhaps we’ll attempt to do so and find our way blocked by fallen trees and muddy expanses of woods. Regardless, we’ll emerge eventually onto the road and check each other for ticks, the baby screaming bloody murder the whole time.

Afternoons are for lunch in town. Our favourite spot is a pizza restaurant where the baby can stand up in a booth and watch local boys play pool in the gameroom, allowing us to have civilised conversation as we eat. After lunch we’ll stroll down the main street to an ice cream parlor and sit outside with our cones.

While the baby naps we read outside, looking out at the pond—or we would, if we’d be able to hear the baby; instead, we read inside and sometimes fall asleep, each on our own couch. (Sharing a couch is impossible since I am so enormous.) When the baby wakes after an hour, we take her for a swing under the apple tree and then go along with her hysterical shrieks of “POND!” The baby and I sit on the floating dock and put our toes in the water while Andrew goes fully in and pulls out armfuls of slimy, hideous, flat algae lined underneath with a clear, gelatinous film.

Saturday night is the best time of the weekend. Once the baby is asleep we round up some cheese, crackers, and fruit and sit outside looking out over the fields, warming ourselves by the roaring fire in the fire pit and then making s’mores. We talk of property and plans. When the fire burns out we spread a blanket on the grass and look up at the Milky Way until strange coyote-like cries send us (me) fearfully inside.

On Sunday we visit a local farmer’s market and then once again stop for ice cream before heading back to round up our things and prepare to return home. The drive to the city is always very, very long and late and exhausting. But it is always a perfect weekend nonetheless.

When You Make That Call…

2011-07-26T13:50:00.002-04:00

….You’ve got to know you’re going to wind up at the hospital. Here, at least. It seems in CA I could call the nurse hotline with anything at all when I was pregnant and simply get some good advice; here, the few calls I’ve made to doctors or our new nurse hotline have led to doctor’s appointments (Lucia’s cough), the ER (Lucia’s tick), or the labor & delivery floor of the hospital (me, last week). But I suppose it’s different with my pregnancy this time around, since I have this pesky complete placenta previa. A call to my doctor to just get some reassurance about some very, very, very minor spotting on Thursday led to an order to go immediately to the hospital. Of course, Andrew was out of town for work. Fortunately, Mom and Dad had come to help out for a few days. So Dad and I headed to the hospital, where I got an IV with fluids and lots of monitoring and examining and, on the bright side, got to spend a few hours in sublime AC.

Everything was fine, as I knew it was all along. But they don’t mess around with placenta previa. One nurse told me that women with p.p. collect “lots of frequent-flyer miles” at the hospital, showing up again and again, which is not great news. An exam I had there showed the placenta has not moved at all since July 1. I have an ultrasound in two weeks for another check.

Having a complicated pregnancy wasn’t something we’d considered when we decided to get going with baby #2…Let’s hope it swiftly becomes less complicated. And next time I call my doctor, I have to just accept that I’m going to wind up in a car flying up to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt. What doctor—again, at least here in NYC—is going to say “Blood? Nothing to worry about! Have a great day!”? I'm no doctor, but I can't imagine ever saying that.

Parenting: August Issue

2011-07-19T20:51:00.001-04:00

What a disappointing issue for Lucia. Her excited cry of “Babies!” soon weakened as we turned page after page only to find very, very few pictures of babies. On the other hand, there were pictures of Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos, Julia Roberts, Sofia Vergara, Nicole Kidman, and someone named Brooke Burke. Her boredom was relieved only by a large advertisement featuring Elmo.

I recount this anecdote as a way of underscoring the problem that seems to be worsening in this magazine month after month: any actual parenting advice is sneakily being sidelined to make room for watery celebrity and “style” nonsense. I like celebrity gossip as much as anyone, but that’s not why I subscribe to Parenting. It’s why I’d subscribe to Us Weekly, as I happily used to; but, alas, I rarely even recognize whoever’s on the cover these days, such is my immersion in Toddlerland. But I digress.

Let’s begin. The main cover headline this month was “Best. Birthday. Ever. A year’s worth of fresh ideas.” And the opening letter from the print content, strategy, and design editor recounted her trials of planning a $750 birthday party for her young son—which, in the end, paled in comparison to the $15 party she’d once thrown him. She says, “It’s not the hours you spend planning the party, or the money you spend bringing it to life. All you need to do is think about something your kid loves and get creative with it.” Fair enough. She then directs us to page 54, where we can find “super-fresh, easy, and inexpensive party ideas.”

Let’s follow her there, shall we?

The first thing that jumped out at me was this headline:

“A Year of parties. Whether your kid is a Leo or a Libra, these seasonal ideas will be a big hit anywhere on the calendar.”

COMMENTARY: Where to begin. At the beginning, I suppose, with the inconsistently capitalized “A Year of parties.” Overzealous Copyeditor, where art thou? It just gets worse. The “a Leo or a Libra” bit is clearly here to utilize some nifty alliteration, but this is at the expense of meaning. This headline writer surely wants to convey that no matter where on the zodiac spectrum your kid falls, he’ll find something fun here. The problem is that Leo and Libra are just one sign apart on the zodiac calendar—so if she was going for an A-to-Z kind of thing, this falls flat. Finally, the piece de resistance: The very definition of “seasonal,” according to Merriam-Webster, is “of, relating to, or varying in occurrence according to the season.” So how can “these seasonal ideas” work “anywhere on the calendar”?

Indeed, they can’t, really. There are four ideas here, clearly linked to—yes—seasons: Summer Scoop (ice cream cones), Woodland Wonder (fall leaves, s’mores), Blizzard Bash (penguins, snowflakes), Just Say Gnome (mushrooms, garden gnomes). The only one with any potential for intra-seasonality is Just Say Gnome, and this is a stretch. But come on. Can an ice-cream-theme party really work “anywhere on the calendar”? A blizzard-theme party? The whole headline seems to have been written by someone who understands subjects and verbs but has no comprehensive of the actual meanings of words.

Moving on. Once I got past the headline, I began reading with curiosity, expecting to find some clever DIY ideas that are “easy” and “inexpensive,” as the print content editor promised. Instead, I found store-bought favors and a surprising emphasis on $5 cake pops.

COMMENTARY: Though I haven’t had a cake pop myself, I read about them often when I peruse articles about all the cool Brooklyn foodie events I no longer can go to since I have a toddler and no standing-by babysitter. Cake pops seem to be the new cupcake, precious and delicious, and, of course, exorbitantly priced. If you have twenty kids from your kid’s class over to this birthday party and spend $5 on each cake pop, that’s $100 already, just on cake pops. And you can’t put candles in a cake pop, not really. Two of the four party themes—blizzard and gnome—had cake pops as central elements. So much for inexpensive.

There were some DIY elements here as well, mainly the invitations. And though they were cute enough, again the definition of “invitation” seems to have eluded this craft-creator. An invitation is, after all, something you give someone else, either by mail or in person. In a nutshell, here are the invitation suggestions: a 3.5-inch Styrofoam ball glued onto a paper soup bowl; a paper-bag hand puppet; four jumbo ice-pop sticks glued together into a snowflake; a regular square invitation card speared with a large lollipop.

COMMENTARY: Unless you’re willing to pay a fortune in shipping, none of these can be mailed. And with the exception of the card/lollipop, none can easily be toted to school for personal handing-out. Even if your kid were to bring them to school in a gigantic tote bag, what’s the likelihood of the invitation actually getting to the invitee’s home and, thus, onto his or her parents’ calendar? Nil, I’d say. Nil indeed.

And finally…

SUPER-COMMENTARY: Let’s harken back to the very title of this magazine: Parenting: Early Years. The magazine targets very young kids up to about age four. So if you’re planning a party for your one- or two-year-old, the invitation problem becomes even more acute. Toddlers don’t tote bags of invitations to school and hand them out! And mamas with the time and wherewithal to actually make said invitations (does such a mama exist, with a toddler??) are certainly not able to hand-deliver them! This whole article seems more relevant to older kids. Not useful!

And not enough babies!

Until next time.

Letter to Lucia: 21 Months

2011-07-15T21:07:00.001-04:00

Dear Little One,

Because I am about 22 weeks pregnant to your 21 months of existence, I’m going to have to make your letter shorter this month. Shooting pains in my lower back, general exhaustion, and mild worry over my current diagnosis of placenta previa (move, placenta, move) are leaving me pretty much ready for bed.

So I will focus for now on your current love of water, which infiltrates all aspects of your current life. Whether it’s the ocean, a kiddie pool, a puddle at the playground, or even just a watering can or soup pot of water placed for you out on our front stoop, you are engrossed in splashing, wetting your hands, submerging your feet, and filling and emptying whatever vessels are handy at the moment. Washing your hands in the sink here at home is a time of high excitement. And you would love your bath if it weren’t for the pesky bathing part of it. Your angry protests of “NO NO NO NO NO NO” don’t end until the soap, shampoo, and washcloth are safely put aside and you can finally return to playing unhindered.

Today I took you to the Pier 6 Water Lab, an amazing little water park by the Brooklyn Bridge. We took a car service there and back—the bus is too grueling with writhing baby and bag and folded-up stroller, and subway stairs, stroller-hauling, and overheated train platforms surely qualify as doctor-prohibited “exercise” for me. And though you enjoyed yourself there, filling your bucket, stepping into ankle- and knee-deep pools, searching (of course) for stones, you enjoyed yourself just as much—maybe even more—yesterday at the playground, where there were puddles and stones and a tree on which you could draw with chalk (and less crowding by other children). Big outings are not always required to keep you happy, which will be good to remember as I become more and more pregnant, tired, and sore.

Sneers

2011-07-15T13:13:00.000-04:00

No series of New Hampshire posts would be complete without a few sneers. We really need to teach this child how to smile.

Country Luxuries

2011-07-14T13:24:00.000-04:00

Andrew, Lucia, and I were alone for our final three days in New Hampshire, and Andrew and I set about indulging in some of the country luxuries that make leaving Holdenfield (we’re still trying to come up with an affectionate/irritating name for the property) so difficult.

For the second summer in a row, Andrew bought and cooked a live lobster, which he then turned into amazing lobster rolls. We’d gone out to dinner in Hanover for a date night a few days prior while his parents stayed home with the sleeping baby, but the place where we always have lobster rolls had, for some reason, removed them from the menu. So we made them ourselves, and they were delicious. We ate them by candlelight. We could do this in New York, but it just wouldn’t be the same.

We also bought a fire pit and set it up behind the house, where we sit to look out over the fields and sunset. Saturday night we had a dinner of fruit, olives, crackers, and cheese, then built a fire and made s’mores. We sat and talked in the cool night—staying warm by the fire—until the last log dwindled out.

Mmmm, country life. Scarily, I think child-bearing and -rearing has taken some of the city out of me. Just three weeks till we can return to Tiger Lily Farm.

Nine Blissful Days

2011-07-13T13:30:00.000-04:00

I’ve been behind in my blogging because we spent the past nine days in New Hampshire, and though the days of being internet- and cell-free are over, I choose to limit my computer time as much as possible to enhance the off-the-grid feeling I savor there. And there was much to savor:

Stars

There are always incredible stars. On the clearest nights the Milky Way is visible from the front yard; we saw that, and a bright shooting star, and, thanks to the telescope a family friend had brought, Saturn and its rings. The Big Dipper tilts just over the top of a tree behind the house.

Stones

Hands-down, Lucia’s favorite activity all week was collecting stones in her bucket, which she (and, consequently, Andrew and I) calls a “bubbik.” The road past the house is unpaved, awash in tantalizing gravel; and the drive up to the house, which is just a worn path in the grass, also has its share of stones. Each morning, barefoot Lucia would traipse down to the road and spend a long, long creating her collection. If you ever join her on one of these expeditions, don’t bother trying to help her; she’ll reject each stone you offer, her eye trained to identify only certain, very particular types of stones, the smaller the better. After gathering some stones, she would return to the house, where she’d show her finds to anyone who was interested. She didn’t seem to mind when, eventually, the miniscule stones got lost in the grass; and she didn’t care about keeping the stones for later. It was the process of collecting that mattered.

Part way through the week, she was collecting with Andrew, who skipped a few stones in the pond. After that, Lucia would sometimes collect somewhat larger stones then walk over to the grassy shore and toss them, one by one, into the weeds.

She also collected small fallen apples from the apple tree by the drive. When Andrew hurled one into an adjacent field to locate the frog pond, Lucia subsequently tossed every apple she found into the weeds in that direction.

Pool

Lucia’s inflatable pool was, as always, a huge hit. Pouring water from one vessel to another just does not get boring. She spent most of each day in soaked clothes. “Pool” was often among the first things she said in the morning, along with “tone” (stone).

We also went swimming a few times in the in-ground pool at the Littells’ cousins’ house, just up the road. Lucia liked this, and, given more experience with it, would probably come to love it. She liked sitting on the steps and kicking her feet, and “swimming” across the pool with her rubber duck.

Birds

In the utter silence that is the New Hampshire homestead, birds of all kinds can be clearly heard. One particular kind of bird—crows, perhaps—had a loud “Caw! Caw!,” and each time Lucia heard it, no matter what she was doing, she’d lift her head and yell back, “Caw! Caw!”

Bubbles, Swing, Tractor, Car

There was no shortage of outdoor activities this week. Lucia had shoes on perhaps three times in nine days. When I did put her shoes on, she looked at them like they were irksome foreign objects. We blew copious bubbles. She enjoyed a swing we hung in an apple tree. She rode on a toy tractor and in a toy car. Andrew pulled her around in a wheelbarrow. Good country fun.

Bobby & Nina

Lucia is in the process of christening the grandparents. My parents seem to be Papa and Gra, which I think will ultimately become Grandma. During our stay in NH, though we’d been calling Andrew’s dad GranBob, Lucia decided a better name was Bobby, and I think this just might stick; she somehow knew that the Littells have a tradition of calling grandparents by their first names. A couple of times she called Andrew’s mom Nina—short for Kristina—but this seems to have some room to change. We shall see.

***

Of course, not all was perfect. Lucia threw up on our drive from New York, and then we spent an hour on the morning of July 4 in the ER because we found a tick burrowed into Lucia’s stomach. A nurse on our insurance advice line said preventative antibiotics are sometimes given for ticks, so we decided not to take any chances. Small-town ERs are the best. No wait, quick doctor appearance, then back home. The tick was tiny and not in very far, so all seems fine, no meds required. And Lucia learned the word “tick” like a true country baby.

20 Weeks (June 30)

2011-07-12T19:12:00.002-04:00

Looking big. Feeling bigger.

A Toddler Week

2011-07-12T13:03:00.001-04:00

Lucia, as I’ve written many times, is a sweet, fun baby, and for the past few months our days—with few exceptions—pass smoothly, full of outings and toys and books and giggling and the regular appearance of squealing, running Silly Baby. This was not the case two weeks ago when my parents came to keep me company while Andrew was in California for work.

Molly had come for the first part of the week, and Lucia immediately intuited her role of Easiest Baby in the World to speed the arrival of cousins. Molly was amazed at just how long Lucia can spend collecting stones at the playground. We even had an outing to the Brooklyn Bridge Park, where Lucia bravely mixed in with bigger kids to play in the amazing water area. I had an hour-long call to take on one of the days, and Lucia played splendidly with Molly the whole time. By the end of the two days she was saying Mol-wee, and asked for her when she left.

Unfortunately, to get back to her normal-baby state, Lucia felt the need to overcompensate when Mom and Dad arrived. The highlight was the Worst Fit Ever, which of course took place in public, at the zoo. It was so massive, and so lengthy, that she tantrummed herself to sleep in her stroller and we had to walk home. Sigh. And ordinarily she loves the zoo, and had been talking all morning about seeing the “baboos” and feeding the sheep. There were other highlights as well, such as refusing to go to Target (that might have just been sanity; not sure) and exhibiting some terrible eating. She was not herself. …Unless I wasn’t there. When I left her for several hours for my ultrasound, she had a fine time.

Nonetheless, the week left me daydreaming about a time far off in the future when Lucia and her new sister are five and seven years old, with full understanding of reason, action/consequence, cause/effect, and other glorious ideas.

And Baby Littell Is…

2011-07-11T13:33:00.000-04:00

On July 1, I went for my 20-week ultrasound, which I’d been eagerly anticipating. Unfortunately, Andrew was in California and couldn’t go with me, which meant I’d find out the long-awaited sex of the new baby alone. At the suggestion of a friend, however, I decided to not let the technician tell me—instead, I brought a blank notecard and an envelope and had her write it down and seal it so Andrew and I could open it together when he returned later that day. Tantalizing missive tucked in my purse, I took advantage of Mom and Dad’s babysitting to go to the Met to see an exhibition called Open Windows, which was wonderful. It was my first time to the Met since moving back to New York.

Andrew managed to get an earlier flight home, so after Lucia’s bedtime we went to a nearby restaurant for the big reveal. As soon as we ordered, we opened up the envelope…and found out we’re having a girl! I screamed and then cried. I couldn’t help it. I was convinced it was a boy—had even felt certain I’d heard the technician say “he” a couple of times—and was just so excited.

A boy would have been fine. Of course it would have. I know lots of adorable little boys. But I’ve always imagined having two girls, and two little girls playing dress-up is pretty much what I picture when I picture our future family life. So yay. Let the naming begin.

Now I just have to distract Andrew from all this worrisome talk of having a third.

Imagination

2011-06-26T22:15:00.000-04:00

This weekend, Andrew, Lucia, and I continued our potential-new-home explorations by going to a few towns in New Jersey. We went to Montclair, Maplewood, South Orange, and Summit and really liked what we saw—beautiful houses, nice little downtowns. The yards seemed on the small side, but we were only looking from the street as we drove by. It wasn’t hard to imagine us living in one of these places. Of course, it’s equally hard to imagine leaving Brooklyn, though who knows how we’ll feel in a year or so.

On the way home, I gave Lucia a bottle of milk, hoping she’d fall asleep in the car. She didn’t, and she didn’t really drink the milk, but I heard her babbling like crazy to herself, saying “Hello, hello, hello” over and over again. When I snuck a look back at her reflection in the baby mirror, I saw that she was holding the bottle up to her ear like a phone, saying “Hello,” and then giving the bottle/phone to her corduroy cat to “talk”—which is exactly what we do at home with her actual toy phone. Forgive me while I indulge in praising my baby (it’s my blog!), but I was impressed with her imagination. She was absorbed in her game; to her, the bottle really was a phone, she was really greeting someone, and her cat was really talking to that person once she passed the phone over.

We made a purchase at a toy store in Montclair that I didn’t expect to make for a while: a small Elmo stuffed animal. I bring this up because Elmo’s entry into our lives has taken me and Andrew by surprise. I haven’t introduced any “characters” at all to Lucia yet—we don’t watch any TV, and we have no books with cartoon characters in them. Her clothes, accessories, and toys are free of TV characters. But we have one little friend whose house we’ve been to many times, and he has one (one!) Elmo doll. It’s not a toy that the babies play with while we’re there—it was maybe out once, a while ago—but when we were there last week, Lucia saw it on a shelf, pointed, and said, “Elmo.” How did she know? And why was she so excited?

That got the ball rolling. She just began wearing size-three diapers, which come adorned with Sesame Street characters—including Elmo. When I was changing her one day not long after that—it might have even been the same day—she saw the diaper and rejoiced at seeing Elmo. She snuggled the diaper, kissed the diaper, cried “Elmo! Elmo!” in the cutest voice I’ve ever heard.

Curious to see what her reaction would be to the actual Elmo, I sat her in my lap and pulled up an Elmo video from the Sesame Street website—he was sitting at a piano, singing a song. Lucia went bananas. “ELMO! ELMO!” she screamed. She blew kisses at the screen. Then she stood on my lap, leaned forward, and kissed the screen. She clapped along with the song. When it was over, she begged for more “ELMO!” like a drug addict.

So we bought her a small Elmo. She snuggles and kisses it. She asks for it. And she always says his name in a thrilled, happy voice. It’s fine. It’s cute. The little videos I’ve watched are fine, too, actually funny. (It’s hard to have anything against Sesame Street.) But I, for one, am shocked at how suddenly this happened—and a little taken aback at how little I had to do with it.

Ready for Her Close-Up

2011-06-24T23:02:00.005-04:00

Lucia looked especially cute today in a little skirt, sitting in her chair eating apple pieces from a bowl, but as soon as I got out the camera, she hurried over to see "Baby! Baby!" (herself on the camera screen). She's been showing an increased ability to understand "first this, then this" lately, so I told her first she had to sit down and smile, and then she could see babies. She accepted this, returned to her chair, sat down, and proceeded to give me a huge, fake grin, sometimes tossing her head over her shoulder glamourously. It was hard to even take these pictures because I was laughing so hard.

Finally, Lucia as herself:

PEAS!

2011-06-21T22:25:00.001-04:00

Lucia has begun a love affair with peas. It began last week, when Barbra and Baby Alex came over for lunch. We had Chinese food, and Lucia wanted a taste of my fried rice—and became giddy when she spotted a pea. Barbra and I subsequently picked all the peas out of our rice, and Lucia devoured them. Each time she picked up a pea was a triumphant celebration: “PEA!” she’d announce before eating it.

The next day for dinner, I cooked up some frozen peas, which she ate as a side dish with her scrambled egg. She was simply thrilled. “PEA!” she cried before each bite. “PEA!” As you can imagine, dinner went on for quite a while.

This weekend, I made some shell macaroni with butter, cheese, and, of course, peas. This was mind-blowing. Peas were inside the shells! She ate the entire bowl I’d cooked, though I’d intended it for two meals. Of course I made another batch the next day. Today she had it for lunch, a vast quantity, and when she woke up from her nap, she wanted more for a snack. Peas and steamed baby carrots were the food-stars of the day.

Too bad her new favorite foods have, oh, zero calories. Somehow, though, she does seem to be rounding out a bit.

A Busy Few Days

2011-06-21T22:19:00.001-04:00

Last Friday, Lucia and I went to the Prospect Park Zoo with a friend and her son. Lucia was thrilled to visit the “barnyard” area, where fifty cents bought us a handful of food for feeding to goats and sheep. Lucia fearlessly poked her fingers through the fence, not flinching even when the animals put her whole tiny hand in their mouths. For days afterward, when I asked her what the sheep did when she fed them, she said “Num num num” while nibbling on her fingers.

Saturday, Andrew, Lucia, and I drove through some towns in Westchester, doing some very, very preliminary reconnaissance for our house search next year. We believe it will be easier to do such trips before we have a newborn. However, this trip—though only an hour’s drive—proved far from easy, as Lucia got carsick on the way home and threw up all over herself and her carseat. We were on the highway with nowhere to pull over; eventually Andrew found and exit, and we parked illegally while we stripped Lucia in the trunk and cleaned her and the seat off as best we could. Horrible, horrible.

Sunday, Father’s Day, we took a ferry to Governor’s Island with Barbra, Chris, and Baby Alex. Lucia loves anything having to do with water, and when some waves from passing boats caused water to lap onto the sidewalk where we were standing, she announced “Sit!” and promptly sat down in the puddles.

Yesterday, Lucia and I went to Coney Island with a friend and her little girl. Lucia ran into the water over and over again and also enjoyed filling her bucket with sand. She sure is a beachy little one.

And today we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where Lucia found the only source of available water—a small stream—and promptly hopped into it. The stream is meant to provide water for kids to fill buckets with, which they can then pour into a series of troughs. Lucia had a bucket for a while. She filled it with water and poured it all over herself. We cannot leave the house these days without somehow becoming soaked.

My back is killing me today, and now, reviewing the busyness of the past few days, I sort of understand why.

Parenting: July Issue

2011-06-19T21:53:00.002-04:00

Weren’t we just here? This issue arrived unusually close to the last, thrilling Lucia (“Baby!”) and adding an unexpected blog post to my weekend.

First, a shocker: I actually used something from this issue. Though I usually roll my eyes at the recipes in this magazine—they’re either ridiculous (make your kid’s dinner into a 3D fantasy moonscape!) or full of off-the-shelf ingredients we generally don’t use. This time, however, there was a selection of recipes using blueberries, and I—on the spur of the moment—used the recipe for blueberry compote as part of Andrew’s Father’s Day breakfast. It was pretty good, too. I could point out that compote is little more than fruit, water, lemon juice and sugar simmered to high heaven, and that one barely needs a recipe for it at all, but I’ll let my little compliment stand.

On to more pressing matters: chicken lollipops, p. 56. The imagery of a chicken lollipop is clearly disgusting, but more pertinent is the tip on how to “get the kids in on the action” of cooking and eating them:

“Show him how to skewer the chicken and let him play knight.”

COMMENTARY: I don’t have too much first-hand experience with bamboos skewers or lollipop sticks (the recommended accessories), but I know that my own small toddler, if invited to wield something, would send that chicken breast flying across the room. Ick. Waving food around: inevitable, but not something I’m going to encourage.

We turn now to “The ultimate SUMMER fun guide!” on p. 61 (not to be confused with the WINTER fun guide), full of ostensibly great summer activities for stir-crazy kids. Sprinklers, treasure hunts, etc. etc. etc. But what is with this magazine and its obsession with sending readers to local airports to watch planes take off? I’ve COMMENTED on this in a previous issue, yet here we are again:

“Imaginary Vacations. Take your tots to the closest airport where you don’t have to go through security to watch jet planes take off…”

COMMENTARY: I don’t even need to type out the rest. Just the idea of voluntarily going to an airport with a “tot” is enough to make me feel sick.

In this same article, in a section with the desperate heading “Help! The kids are destroying the house,” we’re given some craft ideas. Though it seems that these are spontaneous crafts you might whip out when your kids are wreaking havoc in the living room, you’d best have your epiphany at Michael’s, or perhaps Home Depot. The three crafts require the following: skewers, Styrofoam balls, plywood, wood glue, duck canvas (what is this??), twine, and outdoor glue. Good luck with that.

In this same article—a real doozy—we have this selection of three activities slated for “Middle of Summer…and our brains are mush.” Whoever thought these would be fun does, indeed, seem to have mush for brains. Some choice tidbits:

“Teach your tots what it means when the clouds are fluffy, wispy, or low.”
“Draw the British flag and find the country on the map.”
“Factories across the country open their doors to curious visitors…”

COMMENTARY: Cloud-gazing is lovely but best done, I think, lazily and unguided. Learning about other countries is nice but seems so…school-ish. And factory tours? This isn’t the first time Parenting has suggested this as a great activity. Am I alone here in thinking this is less than interesting? Perhaps it’s because I’ve never been on a factory tour; perhaps I don’t know what I’m missing. Perhaps a factory tour would provide impressions as lasting as the tour I took in fourth grade of a local funeral parlor, where we saw where the blood was drained out of the corpse and I nearly fainted.

Finally—and I’m spending all my time on one article, I know, but I can’t stop—there’s a new contender in the most inane and useless activity suggestion in Parenting’s history:

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Ice Cream. Put salt and ice in a gallon-size plastic bag. Put half & half, sugar, and vanilla in a sandwich-size one. Place the sealed small bag in the larger one. Seal that, then start dancing to ‘churn’ the mixture into ice cream!”

COMMENTARY: Whoa. What? Salt? Half & half? Sugar? Vanilla? How much of each, exactly? The bit ends with a link for “more specifics.” I’ll pass. I can’t imagine this working in any way, shape, or form, and it seems like a huge mess just waiting to happen. Really, Parenting? You couldn’t think of anything else to do when “It’s Pouring Out…and they’re going crazy!”?

Two more and I’m done, I promise. Here’s one more super-useful piece of advice and guidance, in an article about “The Myth of the Terrible Twos”:

“They need about 13 hours of sleep…so try to make it happen.”

COMMENTARY: Thanks for that so, so, so useful suggestion. I will try to make it happen—what a great idea! The reason Lucia’s naps are so lousy is because I hadn’t been trying!

Whew—and we come now to the last bit of this lengthy rant, a short entry I’ll just call “Stupid Headline.” I won’t even provide any COMMENTARY.

“Got a new sundress? Try a self-tanner.”

We’ll leave it at that. See you next month.

Letter to Lucia: 20 Months

2011-06-15T20:08:00.004-04:00

Dear Little One,

Four months to go until you turn two! That’s insane. Pretty soon I’ll be referring to your age in years, not months, leaving this last vestige of babyhood behind. Well, not last. You’re still a baby, and you proudly point to yourself and say “Baby!” when I ask you who you are. If I’m in any doubt all I have to do is look at your small bare babyfeet when you’re sleeping to remind myself that you are, still, a tiny little one.

You love the water—sprinklers, wading pools, the ocean, water in a watering can, washing your hands in the sink. Today—a cool day—we went to the playground, and the sprinklers were off, and you kept pointing confusedly, saying “Wawa? Wawa?” Over the past couple of weeks, you have otherwise lost a good deal of interest in the playground, preferring to draw with chalk or find and collect small stones rather than climb on the equipment (though you still love to swing). In this way, you are very much my child. I remember long summer days when gangs of neighbor kids would cry for me and Aunt Molly to play tag or other active running games, when all we wanted to do was grind pieces of chalk into fine powder, add water, and paint tree bark with the colored paste, using sticks as brushes.

You prefer quiet, calm, shady activities, and the fewer other children around, the better. You are happiest when we escape the city to a house with a yard—you lose yourself in quiet fun, pouring water from one vessel to another, filling a watering can and watering every plant in the yard, finding seeded dandelions to wave and blow. We’ll have a yard of our own, one of these days. By this time next year, perhaps, though these things are difficult to plan.

You are talking up a storm, adding new words every day, clearly taking pleasure in having a way to describe what you’re seeing, feeling, hearing. You now say “Stick!” when your hands are sticky, and gleefully point out birds and ants and flowers, cars and trucks, other babies. You love the word “cone”—pinecone—though only one of our books has a picture of one and so you often must resort to saying it out of context. You like saying “hat,” though you refuse to wear one. And you pick up on funny, specific things. In Florida this weekend, Granny warned you not to lift a heavy-ish cat figurine lest you drop it on your toe. For the rest of the weekend, any time you encountered a large or heavy object, you leaned down, touched your foot, and said, “Toe.”

You are generally good-natured (except for occasional hitting, or when things become overwhelming and loud). You like to stand on the stoop and blow kisses at Daddy when he leaves for work. You like the Little People toys we bought you a couple of weeks ago, especially the bus. When we are at home, you are never without your blankie (which you call Bibi), and you are usually never far from your pink corduroy cat. You still love books; “book” is often the very first thing you say in the morning once your diaper has been changed and you’re on your way to the living room, though “outside” is also sometimes the first.

You are still not a phenomenal eater, but you’re getting better, as long as I stick to typical baby/kid foods like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (you can inhale a whole one), cheese cubes, or spiral macaroni with butter and cheese. You are not the most adventurous eater, which is disappointing to me, but you are only a baby still, so there is hope. You do love your fruit. And sometimes you love steamed baby carrots, though this love is fickle.

Four months till two. Five months till there are two of you. So much growing up and changing to do in the meantime.

A Florida Weekend

2011-06-14T22:13:00.001-04:00

First, let me get this out of the way: flying with a toddler is hell. Pure hell. It is stressful and awful in every way imaginable. When the toddler companion is coupled with an inability to take Dramamine because of pregnancy—and, because of said pregnancy, an increase in the intensity and length of motion sickness—flying becomes…a nightmare. For everyone involved. Especially me, as I teeter on the verge of vomiting pretty much from takeoff through landing; and for Andrew, who must bear the brunt of an overstimulated Lucia as I try my hardest to not get sick. Fortunately, we don’t have to do it too often. Unfortunately, we can’t swear off flying entirely since Andrew’s family is in Florida. For Katherine’s October wedding—already dicey for me flight-wise, as it’s six weeks before my due date—I’m tempted to drive regardless of what the doctor tells me. And now on to more pleasant topics.

The good thing about the horrendous flying portion of the trip is that it got us to Florida for a decidedly non-horrendous weekend. We had a wonderful time—we prepared and cooked for Katherine’s shower on Saturday while Lucia enjoyed the company of her grandparents. She spent much of each day in the little pool they got for her, swimming and filling buckets and watering cans, sometimes in her bathing suit but usually in her clothes. The shower went splendidly, with delicious food and a prettily set up room. Sunday, Andrew and I took her to the beach, which she loved. She was fearless—running into the surf, scream-laughing as waves knocked into her, not even crying when she occasionally got a faceful of water. She filled her little bucket again and again, ran around on the sand, played with shells. Few things are cuter than a baby on a beach. Then we met up with everyone for lunch at a restaurant nearby.

As always, being in a house for a few days fueled our yearning for a house of our own. It is just amazing to be able to open the door and be out in a yard, a quiet, private place where Lucia can run and splash in the pool and point to ants and study leaves. Sunday night she even ran around the yard naked, giggling and squealing, as Andrew’s dad sprayed her with the hose—she loved it. You just can’t do that in an apartment.

With pregnancy as my (valid) excuse for not joining in the bar outings at night, and with Andrew’s mom valiantly rising with Lucia early each morning, I came away from the weekend quite well-rested. That’s the beauty, the true beauty, of grandparent visits: someone else to answer the dawn cry from the crib of “MOM-EEEEEE! MOM-EEEEE!”

Sadly, the weekend (though a long one) came to an end, though we were happy to find cool, pleasant temperatures here in NYC—much better than the sweltering inferno we’d left behind when we flew out on Friday. Now we just have to recover from the flight.

Testing

2011-06-09T14:32:00.000-04:00

Testing! Testing! This is a toddler speaking. And I have decided to go on a testing spree that is driving everyone a little batty.

Lucia is a sweet baby. She makes the snuggle motion when she sees dogs and cats (or squirrels or birds or even ants) outside. She feeds food and milk to pictures of animals in books. She has blankie and other favored friends take bites of her food while she says “num num num.” She gives kisses to me and Andrew. She kisses her two favorite cat toys. She (usually) doesn’t steal other babies’ toys.

But we are coming up on twenty months now, and she has started to test. She’ll do something we don’t want her to do—like start pushing her toy stroller toward the street—and we’ll tell her not to do it. Then, watching us the whole time, she’ll slowly, slowly, turn toward the street again. Once again we’ll tell her not to do it. And so on. It’s the same with coloring on the table (“Lucia, stay on the paper”—and a long, testing gaze will follow as she slowly, slowly pulls her marker tip from paper onto table). And, most infuriating, with hitting. Thank goodness she hasn’t started hitting other children; but she is eager to take swipes at my and Andrew’s faces.

I give her three strikes before taking the troublesome object away, or walking away from her as she yells for me to come back. But it doesn’t really seem to be doing any good. Does she understand I stopped reading her a book because she swiped at me? Does she get that we stopped coloring because she drew on the table and then, in a fit of defiance, drew on the carpet in a sudden, wild motion? I’m doubtful.

After a relentless bout of swiping last night, Andrew put her in her crib for a time out, during which she sobbed and screamed and then, when he lifted her out, clung to me and kissed me. And then when she calmed down…she tried again to hit. Sigh. Using the crib for a time-out space was a desperate measure; I don’t want it to become a place of punishment. We need to figure out our strategies for civilizing our little wild one.

And so we spend our days mostly giggling and smiling and playing, until I inevitably tell her not to do something, and then a round of testing begins. “No,” for now, may as well mean “Do it again.”

Stoop Sal-ing

2011-06-05T22:21:00.001-04:00

Just had to report some of the amazing deals we got this weekend at local stoop sales, the browsing of which is at the top of my weekend priorities whenever we’re in town.

Little People farm set (with all animals except the sheep)
Little People bus (with lots of people)
Little People plane (with lots of people)
amazing leotard-with-poofy-tutu ensemble for Lucia’s future dress-up box
five Matchbox cars
small firetruck
Brookstone white noise machine

Total expenditure: $19. Plus a few free books and two nice melamine plates left by the curb. There’s no place like Brooklyn for great trash.

The only problem with all this (besides our swiftly filling-up apartment) is that I’m pretty sure I bought the farm set out from under the hands of a little boy who was still playing with it. When I asked the price, the mother told me and then admitted that selling the Little People was a big deal for her, since both of her kids had loved them. As she spoke, her little boy was on the ground, still playing with the farm. She had to distract him while she put it in a bag for me. I was a little taken aback—clearly this was a casualty of an overzealous spring cleaning. Getting rid of toys is anathema to an Orlando, let alone getting rid of toys that are still clearly beloved. I felt bad, but the farm has a good new home now, one that it will never, ever have to leave.

Andrew and another Park Slope father shared a bonding moment today at a stoop sale. I and the man’s wife were both digging through bins of toys, piling up our purchases, and the man and Andrew were shaking their heads as they watched, with our stroller-bound offspring, from a distance. The man told Andrew he wished he could enforce a one-toy-in/one-toy-out policy, an idea Andrew approved of. Of course, I laughed dismissively.