36 weeks: Wherein the sh#@ hits the fan

Christmas has come and gone. My Thanksgiving post was started but never finished. I have half a dozen blog posts I would have liked to begin, but just don't have the energy. My progress report grades are due in two days. But I have no desire to do anything right now. I only started this post because I knew I must get this off my chest. That and I couldn't sleep this morning.

My complicated pregnancy became even more complicated last week. We hit a new obstacle that we never saw coming.

When I was pregnant with Cole I always had this reassuring feeling that everything was going to turn out OK. Maybe it was because I was on bed rest from 5 months on, so I felt more secure, or maybe it was just because I knew deep down with my mommy intuition that it would all fall into place. And it did.  Cole was born 5 days past his due date and was an average baby size - 7 pounds 3 ounces.

Throughout this pregnancy I've been reassured by the knowledge that I went full term with Cole and that the same or something close to it would happen with Baby Girl. But all of that reassurance flew out the window with one visit to the maternal fetal specialist last week. It was there we learned that the baby is not growing well. She's on the small side and she's not growing the weight the average baby puts on from week to week. They estimate she's 4 pounds 12 ounces and there is a 20% margin of error either way. The lack of growth could be from the medicine I was taking to control the contractions or from a weakening placenta. He said I should wean off the meds and go on bed rest. He told me to go back in 2 weeks to see if there is improvement in her growth. If there is, then everything can continue on as planned. But if not, then eviction for Baby Girl.

You better believe I haven't taken my medicine since that fateful day. 

This is all compounded now by the fact that Baby Girl is still breech. And if she's still breech come our appointment in 10 days, that could potentially mean a C-section. Frankly, I was never really that worried about her turning around. I figured she would in due time. I believed in the power of my body to birth her and her body to know when it was time to be born. After all, I have done this before.

But then he gave me this disconcerting statistic: "90% have turned by now. She's comfortable where she is." I would have been more concerned in the previous weeks if he had mentioned that statistic at my 33 week visit. That concerned would have made me more pro-active than I actually was. But at my 33 week visit he told me not to bother with exercises until 36 weeks and that she'd probably turn. I still did the exercises anyway, but not regularly. They gave me headaches because of the medicine and some seriously nasty heartburn that actually had me coughing. It was gross and a real deterrent. Now, I've been gung-ho - daily breech tilts, pelvic rocks, inversions, moxibustion, Chiropractic adjustments, flashlight, cold pack, homeopathic medicine, talking to the baby, having Cole talk to the baby and, even though I'm not very religious, prayers.  You name it, I'm doing it. Yet her little head still remains in the center of my being - just below my rib cage and above my belly button. She sits on my cervix in a frank breech presentation with her little legs up in front of her froggy style. She could be born breech, but neither Keith nor I are comfortable trying to find a doctor who will deliver her (none at our practice will because of past litigation). Their automatic go-to is a C-Section.

The part about this whole thing that really upset me is that I always believed, despite my irritable uterus hugging my babies tightly, that my womb was a safe place for by baby to grow. Over the past five days I've felt a range of emotions, but the main one is this feeling of powerlessness and inadequacy. I feel powerless to change anything, no matter what I do, and inadequate because I might not be providing the most optimal environment for my baby to thrive.

I always go to negative thinking, so I know this way is not helping me. Because if the problem is, indeed, my placenta, there is nothing I did that could have caused this. These things happen. Today, I realized just how negative I've been over the past five days - fighting so hard against this compounded problem - the fact that she may not be growing and her breech position. I've been fighting so hard, searching for so many causes, placing so much responsibility on myself, harboring so many regrets, that absolutely nothing is happening, and my fear is worsening. My stress is causing my back to ache, my jaw to hurt, my neck to grow stiff. And she still hasn't turned. Are you surprised? I'm not, considering all the tension I'm creating in my body.

Today I went for my third specialized chiropractic adjustment designed to give the baby more room to turn. Before the adjustment we talked about my tension, my stress, factors that cause me to be stressed and the various effects of it on my spine and neck. Then he did accu-puncture before the adjustment. On the way home, I thought of what Baby Girl will look like when she's finally born, and I just totally lost it. Bottom line is I just want her to be safe and sound, alive and healthy. I finally let go. I stopped pushing her, and I stopped putting pressure and laying guilt on myself.

That's not to say that I'm not going to keep trying to turn her, because I am still doing everything I can. I will continue to do my exercises and even have the doctor do an External Version. But if that doesn't work or if she flips back (which happens), it will not be the end of my world. In the end, I cannot make my child do something she doesn't want to do. And I told her this. I told her she doesn't have to turn if she doesn't want to. I felt such a release after I felt what I said with my whole being.

This is one of those hard lessons you learn as a parent. I remember learning this lesson with Cole during the first year of his life. If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that he didn't want to sleep longer than 1.5 -3 hours at a clip. No matter what we did (and we did everything short of cry-it-out) we just couldn't change him. When we finally accepted that he was wired that way, we no longer stressed about it. We stopped making ourselves insane with worry that we were doing something wrong or that something was wrong with our child because every OTHER kid seemed to be sleeping through the night. We accepted him. And we were a lot happier. And so was he. True there were times when our sleep deprivation brought out the worst in us, but we trudged through it and came out a little more rested on the other side.

I'll leave you with a funny picture I took of Cole after I set up the ironing board to do a breech tilt. Cole insisted he had a baby in his belly too. And that she ALSO needed to turn around.

Following through on your post-Christmas promises from the year before is always of utmost importance when parenting a toddler

Presents? For me? Oh boy!

In late 2011, after a challenging time being away from home with a toddler, we made the decision to not travel like maniacs the next Christmas.

This became doubly important with me being 36 weeks pregnant this Christmas.

After we spent two fun-filled, but very challenging days at Papa Joe's house for Thanksgiving, we decided we were not going to travel a long distance for Christmas. We had to sift back into our memory storehouse to remember our challenges from last Christmas, wherein we at least together could celebrate getting through it with a Martini. There was no such luck this year, as my body has been occupied by another resident who really can't drink for another 21 years (Cheers to that happening!).

We also remembered that every Christmas, we tend to get sick after bouncing from one family to the next. Kissing cheeks, breathing the same air, sleeping with lumpy pillows on foreign beds can do a number on you after a few nights. So we did what we thought would work best for our family: We went to Dada's aunt's house in Pawling for Christmas Eve dinner and spent Christmas Day with our little family.

Mama resting through a contraction

Aunt Susan's gorgeous A-framed home is not toddler friendly (but whose is?) in the sense that there are delicate, fragile things within Cole's reach wherever we turned. But the people were toddler friendly, and that's what counts most. Cole received lots of amazingly thoughtful gifts and we got to see mostly everyone on Gramma's side of the family. Cole was even introduced to some neighborhood cats and thoughtfully inspected nearly every ornament within reach (antique or not) on Aunt Susan's 100 foot tall Christmas tree. I suffered through some pretty bad contractions and came out alive on the other end.  Then we ate a yummy dinner while Cole had a minor meltdown, and by the time we got to the end of Susan's road to head home, Cole was asleep. We arrived home by 8ish and got Cole to bed with not much of a problem. (If there was a problem, I can't remember).

On Christmas Day Cole woke up to a Christmas tree surrounded by gifts just for him. He went to it as soon as he got his trusty old ice pop from the freezer (yes it's winter and he's still craving these things). We got him his own set of bongos, a tom drum, a bilibo, the new Fresh Beat band cd and some other small gifts. Santa got him a Green Toys red race car and tow truck. We watched him play all morning, before taking off in the afternoon for a little trip to Belleayre Ski Mountain. Cole went briefly on the slope before sitting in the lodge with Mama while Dada took a run of his own. We originally planned on Baked Ziti for dinner, but by the time we got home, it was pretty late - for Cole at least. So we got Japanese takeout for dinner and decided that next year we need to make the trip to Belleayre earlier and have our dinner prepped ahead of time.

Bowling with Gramma

Cat Heaven. If they only knew...

Yes. This is me totally taking a picture of my son touching delicate objects.

Playing carsies with the friendly neighborhood cats.

Ok. Slooooowly hand me that plastic bat that's almost as big as you.

Currently: We're all pretty irritable.

Ugh. Yesterday I wound up back at the birth center because of breakthrough contractions. They were 8 minutes apart. My medicine was not doing much to stop them. After a multitude of tests it was determined like before that I just have an irritable uterus and THAT, according to the doctor, "can be tricky" because I never know how/if it's going to affect my cervix and send me into real labor. So I took today off for a little rest and found I had hardly any contractions because mostly I laid in bed or sat down. It was kind of nice not to have to constantly feel the tightening long before it even begins. (The doctor said the reason for this is because I'm so skinny and there's not much fat between my uterus and my skin.)
It was nice not to worry about breathing through the contraction or dealing with the pain and discomfort in the middle of teaching a lesson.

But Friday is back to reality.

Which brings me back to the post title - we're all pretty irritable as of late.

Cole wants to be with me 24/7 when I'm home (that includes a random weekday I take off because I'm trying to give my uterus a rest). And when he's not with me he's very upset with Dada for keeping him from me or me from him. "I want YOU, Mama," is what he always says to me. And to Dada? "I want Mama, not you."

Dada is irritable because he turns into chopped liver whenever Mama is home and that's not a nice feeling for him.

Mama is irritable because I can't decide if I should take a few weeks off before my due date to take it easy and get ready. I only have a little bit of sick time and I really want to save that for AFTER the baby is born. I've been conflicted about this for a while. The other internal conflict I have is wanting to stay home for the rest of the school year with the baby (and Cole of course). I've talked about this before on this blog, but it still plagues me. It's what I've always wanted, but it will really be a huge financial hardship for our family. We're struggling to make ends meet right now, it would be harder than anything we've ever done. My main worry is that Dada will be constantly stressed about money, and I'll feel guilty and selfish as if I'm doing something wrong by staying home when all I really want to do is have that extra time with Baby Girl that I didn't get with Cole. I mean there is a reason why he wants to be with me every minute I am home - because I am gone for so many hours every week. With my commute and demands of my job I leave at 5:45 a.m. and usually don't get home until 4 p.m.! I just want someone to say - "you should stay home; it will work out." But really, I need to believe that myself. I need to be the one reassuring me and for some reason I have this horrible self-doubt that is causing me to be extremely indecisive. Why can't I just make a decision already and stick with it?!

I'll leave you with some happy photos taken in the past week.

The bump picture is my 34 week bump taken next to our bassinet that is now a holding place for random clothes, something we swore we'd never let happen. The Santa picture was taken outside our house when our neighborhood got its annual fire truck visit from Santa. Cole remarked later- "He didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho' or 'Merry Christmas!'" The picture on the floor is of Cole and I during my nightly breech tilt exercise. And the picture if Cole and the leaf is my favorite. Dada sent it to me on Tuesday while they were at the park having a really fun time chasing each other around). Apparently, the leaf was for me.

Our new dishwasher

Introducing the ever enthusiastic - Cole - as our new family dishwasher! All we had to do was let him bring his stool into the kitchen and VOILA! A whole new world called "the counter and the inside of the sink" were opened up to him. Ever since this weekend he's taken a huge interest in the dishes.

I'm not totally sure but I think the only reason we ever kept him from bringing the stool into the kitchen was because of the danger we thought it presented - both to Cole and to the things we keep on our kitchen counters (uh.. Just about everything important?!)

This is what he says when he cleans: "I'm making it so it's clean."

He's so passionate.

Currently: Our little family Volume 2

Currently week of Nov 29

Mama is...
Watching Clem play with Cole's Melissa and Doug wooden beads as I sit here and eat my breakfast (I began this post Wednesday morning). In the morning it seems like the cats need constant supervision. If they're not making noises by rolling the toys across the floor, they're chewing the adhesive from the painters tape on Cole's art projects. This means I'm constantly trying to keep his projects stuck to the walls. My only wonder is - why don't they just play with Cole? They'd have so much fun if they just obliged when he throws a ball or gives them a treat? I wish they didn't run for the hills. On the other hand, I can't blame them. If an unpredictable person chased me around the house squealing with glee, I'd probably avoid him too.

Wishing it would be Christmas time already. Why? Because as I have told Cole, so he understands the timeline of our life, the baby comes just a few weeks after that.

Waiting for Cole to grow some more. He's been eating like the Cookie Monster and he's been out of sorts still when I get home from work. But Dada and I are working through it with Cole and trying our best to keep our patience. We're also feeding him well. We keep telling him that the way we get bigger (because he's always asking us how we got so big) is by eating ALL of our dinner.

Wondering if my nesting instincts are normal for this time in my pregnancy or if I'm going to give birth too early. I guess that could be classified as a worry as well.

Worrying about lots of things. But I don't want to sound like a broken record and I don't want to complain. So I'll just say that I'm anxious about my complicated pregnancy and all that it entails. I'm also thinking about the aftermath - being a mother of 2. Perhaps that's the biggest unknown of all. How will we all handle having a fourth person in our family?

Dada is...
Waiting for it to snow.
Watching the world go by, day by day.
Wishing I had a money tree.
Worrying about not getting enough work done for my business.
Wondering when it's going to snow?

Cole is...
Waiting for it to snow. Did you see the snowsport wall Keith built in our garage? Total awesomeness.

Watching "bideos" on Mama's phone from the past 6 months or so. He still squeals at a video of him dancing with Kale in June or running through a hanging towel with Juni in August. I would venture to say those two camping trips rocked his world.

Wishing Mama could also be there with him during his days with Dada. For instance, on Wednesday nights he usually asks me if I'm going to story time with him. And then I have to remind him I have to work and then we have a long conversation about why I work and why others we know work. I'll gently remind him that we spend our nights together and have so much fun and that will sometimes cheer him up.

Worrying about nothing I hope!

Wondering why the baby isn't here already. Wondering where teddy bear is. Only to find teddy in the bassinet where he is warm and swaddled.

32 weeks down.

This week marks the 32nd week of my pregnancy. My due date of Jan. 25 looms over the horizon. In 8 weeks or so I will be the mother of 2. I will have a daughter. Those two facts alone are enough to knock the breath out of me.

Cole can't wait to hold his baby sister. In the same breath that he's asking me why my belly keeps getting bigger he's also asking me if he can hold the baby and give her a kiss. When I explain that she's growing inside my belly he gives that a kiss instead, content to wait for now. I joke with my colleagues, who have multiple children, that he really has no idea what he's in for. But, really, neither do I.

I'm still getting regular contractions. They are only made worse if I don't take my medicine every 4 hours or if I become dehydrated. The only time I don't take my medicine is at night while sleeping. If I wake up in the early morning with a contraction (which I often do) I take it and try my hardest to go back to sleep (which I often don't.)

I drink as much water as I can during the day but since we only use a water cooler at work we sometimes run out of water and have to wait a while for a delivery. Everyone warns me NOT to drink the water out of the fountains since IBM is right down the road and God knows what they've dumped into the ground over the years. The water is deemed okay by an independent inspector but no one drinks it. The fountains are dry and rusted and even the substitute teachers have warned me not to drink it. If you look close enough you'll find water coolers hidden in many of the schools department and administrative offices.

Other than contractions I have normal pregnancy symptoms- fatigue, shortness of breath and sometimes the worst indigestion where I feel like I'm burping up my meal for hours on end.

I've talked to the office manager at my Ob practice and told her my concerns that I mentioned here in my last "currently" post. She said she was going to share my concerns during a meeting today and get back to me, but I never heard from her. I'll probably follow up tomorrow.

I still need to hire a doula, and I wish I could figure out why I waited until now to start my search.

The good news is that we found a replacement for me at work while I'm gone and Keith and I are really leaning towards me taking the rest of the school year off, which has been another source of stress for me. I want to do that more than anything, but I know it's going to mean we will be struggling financially until I return to work in September. And it probably means one of us borrows from our retirement so we can make our mortgage payments. That scares Dada and I a lot, but this is a chance for me to be home full time for 8 months with our daughter and that's a once in a lifetime opportunity I just don't want to pass up this time around. I made the mistake once (of not doing what my heart desired), and I don't want to repeat it.

Baby Girl is doing well. She moves around a lot and continues to spend her days dancing on my cervix and punching my arm when I lean on my belly. She hiccups quite often and seems to be on the small side, according to the tech during my most recent ultrasound to check on the status of my cervix. I'm fine with this for obvious reasons. I'd rather not have to push out a baby bigger than Cole was when he was born (7 pounds 3 ounces).

Below is my 32 week bump. Looks humongous to me when I look down at it, but this picture shows me how "small" I really do "carry" my babies. Next pic is the bassinet we received as a hand me down. I'm so in love with it I had to get it in here as soon as possible. Cole loves it too (as do the cats) and whenever he sees something in it or on it he promptly throws it off and says "That doesn't belong here. This bassinet is for the baby." Already defending his little sister. What a great big brother he's going to be.

Rewind: Thanksgiving

This will be backdated in November, but it was not originally published until January for pregnancy and work related reasons.

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to spend a few days with my side of the family. It has been a while since we had seen my father and my stepmother, and this is the first holiday we spent without my grandmother. I felt I needed to be with them. And I'm glad we went because Cole is still talking about it.

For only spending two days there we certainly did a lot. We got together with friends for dinner the first night. We had missed their daughter's first birthday party because Keith was sick, so it was great to see them and share a delicious Greek meal with them. The last time we got together was in October when Dada took the most beautiful portraits of the birthday girl. At dinner, they got to see a glimpse into what life might be like in another year and a half (crazy boy begging for pasta until the very minute it arrives!) and we got to see their very tranquil daughter taking it all in (so maybe their life won't be EXACTLY like ours, but you get the drift).

After dinner we headed back to my father's house and settled in for the night. Although Cole was really not too keen on sleeping in this strange bed in Papa Joe's house, he eventually passed out. So did we.

The next morning we went to Starbucks for some coffee and tea since I forgot to tell my father to get me black tea. Then we jetted over to this awesome park nearby that had three or four different age level playgrounds. Cole had a blast jumping in a pile of leaves and throwing leaves at other kids who came over to join the fun. We ended up napping (thanks to another car ride) during most of Thanksgiving supper, but it was worth it to cuddle up to Cole, who rarely likes to sleep next to me in a bed anymore (he will sleep in a rocking chair of course). The second night was a bit more challenging, but we gave Cole an awesome shower and he was a happy boy, loving the warm water on his head and back. He did not like the idea at all of sleeping away from home the second night and cried for an hour before passing out. It was kind of miserable, but when you have a sleep fighting child, you come to get used to it.

Sunset overlooking Manhattan

Cole's first time at a real drum set

The drums are almost as big as me? No big deal!

Pasta for breakfast? No problem!

The vibrating gobbling turkey that we did not bring home.

Wherein Cole redistributes the playground leaves

Too much fun

\

Currently - Our little family

Dada is...
Hoping that everyone has a great Thanksgiving holiday and is able to spend quality time with their families.

Enjoying the time I get to spend with my son and watching him grow.

Inspired by...(see above)

Listening to him laughing, screaming and saying the darndest things.

Craving a mini vacation, maybe somewhere tropical. A simple date night will probably suffice.

Mama is...
Hoping for some answers next time I see my Ob /Gyn. For the past 8 weeks it seems like none of the doctors or midwives in the practice are on the same page. They act surprised when I fill them in on something ANOTHER DOCTOR from their practice did or said. It seems ridiculous to me that this is occurring. Either they are not keeping updated information in their computers, not inputting the information from my visits or they are coming into the exam room completely unprepared by not looking at my chart beforehand. I can't tell you how frustrating it is. It feels like it's bordering on incompetence and part of me just wants to switch back to the other practice.

Enjoying the fact that I have a nice long weekend ahead of me to spend with family.

Inspired by other moms, The Toddler Busy Book, and Teach Me to Do It Myself to come up with new ideas for purposeful play and fun arts and crafts with Cole. I especially love art using natural objects. Leaves, pinecones, and a pumpkin are what Cole has used so far.

Listening to the conversation between Cole and dada as Cole sits on the bathroom toilet. Mostly though it's Dada commenting on Cole's poop. "That's not a poop that's an appetizer."

Craving sugary cereal. This is my real weakness. I would take a bowl of fruit loops over a piece of cake any day. I'm trying though to stick with cereals that are not artificially colored. I know from recent personal experience how this can affect one's colon.

Cole is...
hoping... for a motorcycle, kitchen tongs of his own, Kiwi would just stop and let him pet her, Clem would play with the cat toys he found, he can hold a real baby real soon.

enjoying the weekends where he can wake up and Mama is there to give him his morning kiss.

inspired by others playing music. When he watched my father play a cover of a Stone Temple Pilots song, he said "I want a musical instrument!" Ditto for when he watched Aunt Stephanie play her acoustic.

listening to us "now." He's always listening to us "now" after we've taken away a toy he's been throwing on the floor or banging on the table or after we've declared he won't be getting the much desired ice pop because he's been ramming his ride-on fire engine into our feet. That's when he declares that he's listening. It's very cute when he says it, but it's not always as cute when he's not actually doing the listening.

craving the same stupid sugary cereal I am, plus his Halloween treats, icing on cupcakes and cookies, raspberries, bananas and hard boiled eggs.

Taken at Nassau County Park on Thanksgiving Day.

Currently

Mama is...
Reading Emily Giffin on audio (thank you fellow bloggers for gushing over her and consequently inspiring me to read her). Reading Where We Belong and loving it although there's a part of me that is really hoping it will turn into a romance very soon (which I think it will). I'm also about to read a boat load of literary analysis paragraphs and am really looking forward to them, especially considering my students are still struggling with the whole concept of "analysis."

Wishing I could have the energy to make my lunch at night so I don't have to scramble around the kitchen every morning trying to get it together as fast as possible.

Cooking nothing but lunches (in the a.m.). Dada makes the meals around here, except on Friday nights when Cole and I make pizza.

Thankful for next week's 2-day work week and thankful that I get this time off as opposed to having to dip into my own days off to be with my family.

Loving my new electric toothbrush but not loving the splatters it creates all over the bathroom mirror. Dada goes to the dentist for the first time in 15 years and suddenly he's got floss (something I've never seen him use) and a new electric toothbrush ordered from Amazon. Thankfully he was nice enough to share the toothbrush (came with two brushes) with me, so that I can reap the benefits too. Bad news? I still end up with a cavity even though I go to my dentist as often as I go to the Ob!! I sincerely hope that both our children end up inheriting his hard teeth. Because mine are way too soft and vulnerable to cavities.

Cole is...

Reading so many books, I can't pinpoint one he likes over any others. The other night we read The Lorax. Last night we read How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends? I let him do the picking and if he stays interested, I know it's a book he likes.

Wishing for snow. Snowboarding and skiing season is right around the corner. You bet your bottom dollar he and Dada already have season passes to Belleayre- purchased way in advance this summer.

Cooking up ways to get Kiwi to come out from her hiding spot in the closet. Lately, he's been using a flashlight, but that just makes her cower more. He finally has realized the reason why she runs from him, "Because she's 'cared of me."

Thankful for all of his toys. I love when he goes into his toy/play room (which was and sometimes is our living room) and says, "Look at all these tuoys (that's how he pronounces it)."

Loving his new electric Spongebob toothbrush. I usually have to pry it from his mouth to show him that he actually needs to move it AROUND his mouth if he wants to get any brushing done.

Family and Work: Finding a Balance

Some weekends I get by okay. I do a little work here and there and no guilt is felt. No tears are shed (by either Cole or Mama). But other weekends are tougher. I feel incredibly guilty for doing too much work (what Cole now refers to as homework) and not enough quality time with Cole. And then if I don't do that work, I feel guilty and stressed on Monday morning scrambling together lessons for the rest of the week, trying to catch up on grading. It's a vicious cycle, and one I feel I am constantly caught up in - with no stopping it, no solution to the problem.

The problem is that I feel as though I am not good enough at anything I do - not a good enough mother, wife, teacher. There's always something else I could or should be doing.  Sometimes I am not efficient with my time. Yet, sometimes no matter how efficient I am, I still don't complete half of what I need to get done. Sometimes at work there's something in my way - a broken printer in our department office, interviews for my leave replacement that - that take too much time. Sometimes there's nothing in my way but the pile of things that needs to get done - gotta grade the quizzes, gotta check in the homework, gotta look at the illustrations I assigned, gotta plan Lit Lab, gotta re-plan honors, gotta make 20 extra copies of something.

And then at home the list from work continues and I'm all - I'm going to get this stuff done this weekend. But I don't, because grading takes so much time it's ridiculous. So much time that I have little left for planning and then I'm screwed again on Monday. Then when I'm not doing work work, I'm trying to help with the housework, watching/playing with Cole, chasing him around, trying to be a good enough mother so he doesn't think back to his childhood and say to himself - "My Mama - she was always doing homework." I never want my kid or my husband to think that my work is more important than them. Because while it may be on my mind a lot- they always come first in my heart.
I grew up thinking that I was never good enough that my dad had no time for me - that I was the reason he had to work so much - he had to keep that roof over our heads by working at his part-time job at home. It wasn't his fault I felt this way, I just had a fragile self esteem to begin with, always wondering why my mother didn't want me. So when he had little time for me, it stung and stuck with me. I don't want to be a workaholic, but my job is not a job that I can simply not bring home with me. One 42 minute period a day is not enough to plan lessons for three totally different classes and get all of their grades done. Teachers always stay after or bring their work home.  If half the people in this world understood that teaching is not as simple and easy as they think it is, they might have a little bit more respect for the profession and for teachers in general.

What compounds the issue is this: I come home from working all day and trying to get out of the office at a reasonable time and sometimes Cole is miserable. He's having a fit about something, or he's directing his anger at me - because I haven't been around all day and 3-4 p.m. is the first time he sees me ALL day. Because I work so early and so far away, we do not have the luxury of seeing each other in the morning. And I think he resents that and takes it out on me when I get home, which sends me into a guilty spiral, wanting to cry because I'm filled with such self pity. Woe is me. Last weekend, after having my own breakdown, I realized that I just gotta move on. I just gotta keep doing what I'm doing and I can't feel guilty over it. I'll just waste the precious time I do have with him on tears and guilty thoughts. And I know that's not what he wants. He wants a happy, playful, fun Mama who can laugh heartily, dance like a maniac and chase him around the house merrily.

Lessons for the Big brother-to-be

Last night Cole got some lessons in burping from Dada.

I think Cole is going to be a great big brother.

Don't you?

(The sequence of the pictures is actually backwards but you get the drift.)

A family of pickles

Both Dada and I noticed something interesting about our family this week. The entire top shelf of our refrigerator is occupied by pickled somethings. We are a family of pickle heads.

We have jars of: piccalillis, two different brands of bread and butter pickles, cornichons, giardeniera, pickled banana peppers, pickled jalepenos and something called "Super Spicy Kimchi." I LOVE pickled cucumbers. I am into all different types of pickling - but bread and butter and half sours are my faves.

Keith is into branching out and trying other pickled things. He's the one who bought the "Super Spicy Kimchi" with a nice little WARNING! plastered across the front of the label. The funniest part about him trying it for the first time was when he said, "Woooah! I didn't think it'd be that spicy!" to which I completely lost my mind in a fit of laughter.

This summer we somehow got Cole to start liking pickles. Either that or he was always meant to like them, but he just didn't have the right taste buds set up until this summer.  Every time we eat somewhere now and one of us has a pickle on our plate, we must share. In fact, this weekend, we got a yummy bite to eat at Circle W in Palenville and the only thing Cole ate in its entirety was my beloved pickle. When we eat lunch at home, sharing in our love for pickles is a given. There's always a pickled something on our plates, and it's always the first thing we eat.

That is why we are so excited about this weekend's Pickle Fest right here in our very own festival crazed town.

As some of the festivals in this town, this one has just taken off and seems to get bigger and bigger every year. This of course means parking nightmares and lots of pushing through crowds. Last year we decided we didn't want to deal with the hassle, especially since Cole still hadn't taken a liking to pickles yet. But this year, we know he'll be open to trying new things, so we're stoked.

Wordless Wednesday: Always in motion

Cole is always moving. From the moment he wakes up until the moment he finally closes his eyes at night. He's been on the go since he was in the womb --gearing up his leg muscles for his active life. Now at nearly two and a half, he lives life perpetually in motion: walking, riding his bike, balancing on neighborhood rocks or boards in the woods, running around the house naked. And all the while he's moving, he's constantly talking. Constantly connecting. Constantly thinking. I love just sometimes watching him move his legs, talk in his sweet and gentle toddler voice, and look up at me expectantly for a response to some random question that just popped into his mind.

Below are some iPhone pics from the past month of Cole in some kind of motion.

You'll see from one of the pics, even when he's sitting he's moving. And that particular picture of him is my favorite. Cole had brought home a baby doll from his day care. That very night I showed him how to swaddle the little girl. His first idea was to take the swaddled baby and rock her in his rocking chair while I played Twinkle Twinkle on my iPhone. As he rocked her he also moved his head to the music, holding her tight all the while.

Paying it forward: Why I Believe

Why I believe in paying it forward:

Exhibit A:
Back in August, I find the cutest silver heart ring on a picnic bench at the Rosendale Rec Center. It fits me perfectly. Dada helps me realize that someone must have forgotten it there and could come back for it. I leave it where I found it so that the ring owner will know right where to find it. That night on our way to a dinner for two, Dada and I find a Thomas the Train table (made by Imaginarium), including tracks, trains and accessories on the side of the road in New Paltz FOR FREE! The people came out to tell us that yes it was FREE and we thanked them profusely before stuffing the entire table (broken but later fixed by Dada a.k.a. Jack of All Trades) into our CRV and driving happily away (well I was happy, but Dada was mumbling something about not wanting to fix the stupid table that he didn't want to take in the first place).  Earlier that day I had been seriously considering spending too much money on Thomas the Train tracks and trains because Cole loved the table at Barnes and Noble so much. I don't even know where I would've put it all. Thankfully, we now have the table as a permanent fixture in our insulated and renovated garage where Cole plays with it whenever it's raining outside.

I will never forget our good fortune.

Exhibit B:
Last month, we go through bins and bins baby clothes, keep some for Baby Girl, and give the really boyish clothes (two garbage bags full) to our friend Emma, whose son is about 8 months old. Then last week in a seemingly unrelated event, I get a Facebook message from my friend who is done having children. She has a ton of baby gear she wants to give away. Most of it is stuff we will need for Baby Girl. We went today to pick it all up. We couldn't be happier with our new baby stuff! So many things we can cross off our list of things we thought we were going to have to buy - all thanks to her generosity.

Exhibit C:
I pay $3 too much for a used doctor kit for Cole. I figure the seller needs it more than me. Cole and I are out for a Strider ride later that day and my neighbor stops us to give us the cutest little fake tool belt her son once wore in a Halloween costume. Tools and everything.

I'm sure there are so many more examples from our lives that are a result (direct or indirect) of paying it forward. You get the idea though. Being kind and generous to others usually means you will eventually reap the benefits in so many ways. It's one of the things I try to teach Cole. I let him know that many of the things he owns - clothes and toys- were once owned by someone else who gave him their things. So it's okay to give away his things. Of course the latter concept is the hardest for a two-year-old to accept, especially with the "Mine" mentality he is in lately. He will barely even share anything with his own parents, let alone someone he doesn't know. However, as he gets older he's slowly but surely coming to terms with it.

Playing with trains requires a lot of concentration.

Once we get closer to my due date, I will post some pictures of our bedroom, which very soon will include the new pre-owned beautiful bassinet we now have.

Currently

Mama is...

anticipating lots of things - namely the contractions I seem to remember that hit me really hard during the middle of my time on bed rest. They were painful - never labor inducing - but sleep preventing because they hurt me so much. I remember having to take hot baths, hot showers, do weird yoga moves - anything to make the pain stop. I would be up half the night with these contractions and would sleep the morning away. Now I don't have that luxury because I'm not on bed rest. But I am already anticipating it so if it does strike me down and I can't function, it's one of those things that will probably put me over the edge - of bed rest.

ignoring the little voice inside my head that says that even though I went to my due date and beyond with Cole, anything is possible with this pregnancy, especially since I'm treating the contractions differently. Okay, so I'm not really ignoring it. I am hearing it. I think what I need to do is take it easy more on the weekends. We overdid it a bit today and I found myself feeling very drained and with lots of Braxton Hicks contractions.

needing the Thanksgiving vacation that is coming up. We have a day off tomorrow, but grades are due 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, so who are we kidding with this so-called day off.

thinking about my grandmother, my unborn baby, my family spread out in so many parts of the East Coast, wishing for that time we had back in August when we were all together. It was the first time in many years that my entire extended family was together. All of my cousins and my aunt and two uncles under one roof. We used to spend every holiday together growing up. It was never something I longed for because it was always expected. Then we grew up and life changed as it always does.

Cole is...

anticipating the snow. It snowed here earlier this week, but it was such a tease and melted by the next night. He wants to snowboard, ski and "ride the yift."

ignoring our directions in every way, shape, or form unless it includes the word ice pop, bike ride, or television show. I'm pretty sure I wrote about this same topic during the summer, so things haven't changed much in that department.

needing to pet the cats. It's like a mission in his life - he must pet the cats (mostly Kiwi, because she's the only one fool enough to stay within his reach) come hell or high-water every single day.

thinking about camping, the truck I didn't buy him three months ago, our campsite, Kale's campsite, the trailer, the tent, roasting marshmallows, going in the pool, our neighbor's cat, his lonely Strider bike, the list goes on and on. But you get the idea, right? He may be anticipating winter, but he still misses summer.

3 Random Facts you Did Not Know

Clem
1. She drinks water from our water glasses when we are not in the room. We can always tell because there is always a puddle of water around the glass. I can't tell you how many books, papers, and phones have been ruined or almost ruined because of this annoying habit.

2. Every weekend morning she must jump from my side of the bed to the window where she makes a huge ruckus getting in between the double cell blinds and the window. Her body also forces the blinds to poke out and light to shine through, thereby totally ensuring I will not be able to sleep in like everyone else.

3. Whenever Cole goes to sleep she heads over to his toys and either just sits among them or actually plays with them.

Kiwi
1. She does not know how to cover her poop. She'll scratch and scratch and then when she leaves the area this smell finds its way into your nose and you check and sure enough there's a large pile of crap totally exposed in her litter box. Turns out she knows she's supposed to scratch but she's never made the connection as to why.

2. She copies her sister and drinks our water whenever we leave a glass of water exposed and alone for longer than 30 seconds. However, she is not as slick as her sister and often does it right in front of us.

3. She likes to sit on my office chair and sleep all day. She likes to scratch my office chair and climb to the top whenever Cole finds her.

Cole
1. When he sneezes he always sneezes 2-3 times in a row. Never just once. Dada does the same thing.

2. He loves to eat tomatoes directly off the plant. Now that our tomatoes are gone, when we go outside he usually asks "Where are the tomatoes?"

3. He likes to hide in closets. The cutest part about this is when he's hiding he's also giggling like a maniac. Then I pretend I have no idea where he is. This just makes him giggle more.

Mama
1. I wake up on 6 a.m. on the weekends despite my best intention to sleep.

2. I still write in the one sentence journal I started in February. I skip some nights out of fatigue, but I try every other night. I re-read some entries and they make me smile. Mission accomplished.

3. I need complete darkness to sleep, which is why I wake up at 6 a.m. on the weekends (see random facts about Clem to fully understand). This is also why I can hardly ever sleep in when we're camping.

Dada
1. He just made his first trip to the dentist in 15 years. And can I tell you? No major cavities. This guy is the luckiest when it comes to his teeth.

2. He was the first to come up with a foolproof way of bringing water into the bedroom at night that the cats couldn't drink. Water bottle. Too small of an opening for them to try to get into. Genius!

3. Seriously he's a jack of all trades. Keith can fix the brakes on his car, he can renovate our entire bathroom minus the tub, he can fix the shed doors 3 times over until they finally close right, and he can cook a mean pumpkin stew.

Only 11 more weeks...

I can't believe I've
A) made it to 29 weeks
and
B) made it to the end of the first marking period

And still VERTICAL!

So how am I feeling? I feel fine except for the fact that I still have contractions and the side effects from the medicine still suck (although my body is starting to get used to it). Guess what though? Those contractions are not changing my cervix even as I continue to work full time just like they didn't change my cervix when I was on STRICT bed rest.
My high risk doctor assures me everything is stable and I don't need bed rest right now. Those contractions aren't doing a darn thing. Just being a royal pain in the ass is all.

The baby moves and kicks like crazy. She dances on my cervix and pounds my belly when I'm laying down or sitting up. She has hiccups and swims around every night I put Cole to sleep. He tends to twitch every time she kicks and it makes me wonder if he can feel her even as he sleeps.

I love feeling her move. Cole loves resting his head in my belly. I love knowing that in 11 short weeks she'll be in my arms. Cole feels the same way. Cole will be a big brother and Dada and I will have a daughter. A daughter. Which is making you wonder - name? We've made a decision though to not share the name we like until after she is born. Cole doesn't even know it. Hopefully the suspense won't kill you. As for him, he doesn't care. She's just "Baby" to him.

I'm hungrier than ever and have gained a good amount of weight- 26 pounds- not one pound of which do I feel ashamed of. I still look thin since my weight gain tends to go in my thighs and butt and, since I am skinny to begin with, it's not really noticeable. Basically, I look like regular old me with a little belly. Yeah that's right. It's still little. I am 7 months pregnant, and I just don't look it. My belly is small but my daughter's weight gain is right on par with my pregnancy. So again -NOT worried. (Although there is an Ob at my practice who was worried, and I will tell you that I laughed in his face when he told me the bullshit statistic that the average pregnant woman gains 40 pounds yada yada yada. " Did you look at my PRE-PREGNANCY weight?!" I practically shouted at him. I weighed 115 pounds you yodel!!! So what if I gained 23 pounds (at the time). After another phone call last night in which he called to tell me my glucose was fine we discussed the weight (non) issue again. I told him it bothered me that he was so concerned especially considering how underweight I was to start with. He said he'd back off and retract his statement.

The only other thing that I feel a lot of is fatigue. Like any other pregnant working mother of a toddler it's natural to feel tired. It's only made worse when I can't sleep because of neck pain. I'm getting myself to the chiropractor pronto!

Below are two pics from recent ultrasounds which, because of my condition, I get every two weeks.
The first one is a 3D from 27 weeks and the second is a profile from this week (29 weeks).

The all knowing Cole

Wherein Cole remembers everything:

We pass the library and suddenly he's talking about the drum parade he went on during story hour this week. Next thing I know he wants to turn around and go to the library so he can have a drum parade. Two miles later he's in hysterics because I told him the library was closed.

We get home and immediately he zeroes in on the "teats" and starts demanding a lollipop. Dada and I had agreed on one treat a day, but the minute we get home? Come on. Much to my chagrin, he remembered what Dada had said to him as they left for day care - that he could have one later. "Dada wanted me to have it later." I thought this meant Dada told me I could have one later. Only to find out Dada had actually said "Ask Mama later and see what she says." I teach kids who lie in the face of truth. How the hell and why the hell did I fall for that one?

I'm changing his diaper and he's asking me "where did these jammies come from?" I tell him they were a gift from a friend. He said "Mama, you remember everything," which was something Dada had said to him a day or two before. No Cole, YOU remember everything.

Wherein Cole repeats everything we say and thereby sounds like a 35 year old toddler:
Mama: "All he wants is something sugary."
Cole: whining to Dada "All I want is somethin' sugary."

Dada: "The grass is perpetually wet this time of year."
Cole: "Why is the grass perpetually wet?"

Dada: "I can't believe those neighbors are Republican."
Cole: "Why can't you believe they're Repulican (sic)?"
The conversation then went on to include Republican motivation and mud-slinging and Cole was very good natured about it all, asking Dada "why?" at all the appropriate times and nodding his head as if he completely understood Dada's responses.

Wherein every promise or bribe must be honored:

Did you mention to Cole that he could finish watching that tv show after dinner? If for some reason he forgets he will most certainly remember it the next day or some other random time later that week.

Did you promise a yogurt ice pop after dinner? If you forgot, you won't be let down because Cole will be there to remind you.

Did you mention that MAYBE we could stop at Barnes and Noble after shopping? You know where I'm going with this....

If you don't honor what you've promised, God help you.

First thing I'm doing tomorrow? Taking those damn lollipops to school and letting my students voluntarily rot their teeth with them, not my kid.

I'm sure there will be a meltdown of epic proportions simply because I gave him two lollipops this weekend against my better judgment, but that too shall pass. Just like the meltdowns when we switched the bottle caps to sippy caps. Just like the meltdown he had last night when I refused to give him a snack in the middle of dinner. I'm learning I can weather through them (knock on wood). Good thing too, because I'm sure Baby #2 will test me in new and unchartered ways.

The Hurricane that Was

Living on the east coast (or even the gulf coast for that matter) has its perks. You are never too far from a beach. You can honeymoon on the beach and not have to fly somewhere (which is what we did 6 years ago).
You can swim in the ocean at least once a year if not more and you can feel the calmness and sweet salty air on a warm summer day and say "Aah" as you breathe in deeply.

But there is that one downfall.
And over the past two years we really took a beating here in New York.

Hurricane Irene really affected those of us who live in the Hudson Valley and beyond. And Hurricane Sandy affected those who live even closer to the coast in the five boroughs, Long Island and New Jersey.

Because of the threat of the storm, the entire state was in a state of emergency, so each county declared one also. After all, we couldn't forget the affects of Irene on our region. That meant schools were closed for two days. We took two of our four snow days. At first I was upset, but there are so many more things to be thankful for then annoyed about, that I soon got over it. First off, we still have power. We never lost it. Secondly, nothing but our shed door was damaged from the winds. And that was fixable, thanks to my handy husband and his enthusiastic two-year-old assistant. Others have lost power, lost their homes, their cars, and some their lives. It's just scary, but not unimaginable, as Hurricane Katrina showed our country loud and clear.

To read the articles in the New York Times, to browse Facebook posts, you would think the end of the world is coming - gas shortages, angry commuters, no power for a week, people out of homes, relief efforts in full swing. My mind tries not to go there, but I do worry, especially considering I'm bringing yet another innocent life into this world just a few weeks into the new year.

But I am hopeful that this too shall pass and New Yorkers and New Jersey folks can band together like we have in the past and help one another in this time of great need.

On the bright side for me - I had two extra days off with my little family. I got some rest in, didn't experience as much ankle swelling or foot pain, and got to peer into Cole's innocent beautiful little face for four whole days.

Practicing the fine art of taping

Drummer Boy

Autumn Art

Skype Date with Papa Joe

Cork painting