Skipping Town

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!

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:

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...

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 ...

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 cla...

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.) ...

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...

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...

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 b...

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 w...

(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 ...

….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. B...

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 op...

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...

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

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...

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 col...

Looking big. Feeling bigger.

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 overcompen...