Update at 28 Weeks

Busy, busy, busy! I’ve been busy doing all kinds of things, but lately, I’ve really been busy enjoying myself. The baby is growing, growing, growing inside of me, making me feel tired, still. She’s kicking around like crazy! I’m so happy, too, because she is no longer breech, so now I’m really feeling confident. (Not too confident, though!)

I’m so pleased to say that since my last post I told my mom about the home birth and she was 100% supportive and curious about the whole thing. It’s so great to know that we have that support…thanks, Mom!

Our midwife came to the house for her first appointment. It was so awesome because not only did we not have to wait in a waiting room for 45 minutes for our appointment, and not only was Maysen able to run around and play without destroying any medical equipment or accidentally stabbing herself with hazardous waste syringes, but Diana (the midwife) was at our house visiting for two hours. That may seem excessive, but much of that time was spent filling out paperwork and going over my and Ronny’s medical history. You know those forms that you have to fill out every time you go see a new doctor? Well, it was pretty much the same type of paperwork, but instead of me scribbling in the info in the waiting room Diana sat there with me and asked the questions and filled everything out herself right in front of me. I don’t think the doctors really even look those forms over, but she asked in-depth questions about all kinds of things. She really took the time to get to know me and establish a relationship. And when I asked about the Rh factor in my blood, which I’ve asked at least two doctors about only to be dismissed as just something I needed to get a shot to remedy, she actually took a few minutes to explain the whole scenario. It was pretty cool.

Then, instead of peeing a cup and setting it in a little window to go who-knows-where like I did during every appointment of my first pregnancy, Diana had me pee in a cup and showed me how to run the test myself. She did it with me and explained all of the little ins and outs of the pee test. It seems silly, perhaps, but it really feels good to be involved in my own medical appointments.

Then she did the routine belly measurements, took my blood pressure and pulse, and was satisfied with the weight that I told her I had been at my last doctor’s appointments. When it was time to check on the baby, I was lying on the couch, all nice and comfy, listening to the sound of the birds chirping outside my window rather than the sound of nurses giggling in the exam room next to me. She palpated my tummy to feel baby’s position, and explained everything that she felt. Then, instead of listening to the heartbeat with a mechanical thing, she used something called a fetoscope. It was kind of silly looking, really, to see her forehead pressed into this little horn thing, and I seriously doubted that it really worked, but she let me give it a listen. It was much more difficult to hear the heartbeat, but after a minute I was able to hear it. 144 bpm. Perfect. All in all, she said I’m pretty much a textbook pregnancy and healthy as can be. I’m feeling really great about having the baby at home, and really excited about the potential of a water birth.

*       *       *

Maysen has been doing great, too. I mean, just look at this face!

It’s no longer about what she’s learning to say. At this point she can say nearly everything she wants to, and I understand nearly everything that comes out of her mouth. Her newest thing? “Mommy? You’re sick (or sad, or you don’t feel good)? You need a hug and a kiss? (gives me hugs & kisses) There, now here’s Coco (or any of her other babies). You feel better now?” And the best part is that she genuinely seems concerned about how I’m feeling.  Ronny has figured out how to exploit this situation by making a pouty face. Every single time he does it, Maysen says, “Daddy? You need a hug and a kiss?” And every single time, he says yes and she climbs up on top of him to give him some sugar. What a sucker!

She’s so excited to meet her little sister. I explained that Diana was the person who was going to help bring her baby sister into the world. Immediately after her nap on the day of Diana’s visit she asked where her sister was. Now I’m reminding her that we still have almost 3 months to wait! So she gives my tummy kisses and hugs and pats before running off to get into some kind of two-year-old mischeif.

Setting a Bad Example, Perhaps

I knew my tub of Snickers ice cream was melting in the back of my car, but I really didn’t care. I had promised Maysen that she could go to the playground if she behaved herself at Target. Of course, I had to have about 8 different snacks and a lollipop to keep her quiet in the cart, but she was good, so I had to fulfill my promise.

“Only a half hour at the playground then we go home for your nap.”

“Only a half hour,” she said pensively. She was quiet for a minute, then she said, “How ’bout Maysie skip her nap today.”

Why does this kid know how to communicate so well? She speaks in full sentences. Yesterday on the way to the park she said, “Playground with the happy face on the tree, where are you? Playing peek-a-boo?” Is this normal conversational skill for a 26 month old kid?

Anyways, so we went to the playground. May played and played and then noticed that the little water spigot by the sand box was running. Usually it’s one of those things that you have to push the button really hard to get a little squirt of water out, but for some reason it was jammed today. Evidently water had been running for quite some time because there was a little river in the sand box that led to a very large puddle.

Of course, surely because she was wearing her white boots, Maysen wasn’t happy stepping over the river or carefully circumnavigating the puddle like all of the other kids. She had to test out the splashability. At first she just kindof tapped her toe on the edge of the puddle. Then she slowly let her foot go a little further until she found that she could stand in the middle of the puddle without falling. She started investigating the different ways of splashing. There was a clomp, clomp, clomp as she alternated stamping each foot. Then she realized that if she jumped, she could make really, really big splashes.

Then I don’t know what got into her. Maybe I should have stopped her. She started spinning around in the sand-mud-puddle, then bending over and spinning so that her balance was all off. Then, the inevitable happened. She fell over. Luckily she landed so that her butt was on the edge of the puddle, so she was still somewhat dry. But then she started splashing with her hands. I could see the thoughts running through her head, the different sensations she was feeling, the different textures, the curiosity, the exhiliration of making a mess doing something that you’re probably not supposed to be doing.

She looked up at me with the biggest, most beautiful grin, and all I could do was smile back. What could I do? Take her out of the puddle right in the middle of her discovering how fun it was? I decided to let her play. And play she did. She stood up, spun, jumped, danced, yelled, “it’s dancy dance time!” and then plopped down on her butt right in the middle of the puddle. Kids started staring. Parents started staring. I heard a 5-year-old in a glittery pink princess dress yell, “eeew! She’s playing in the mud! She’s getting all dirty! It’s in her boots!” Four little girls all lined up in a semi-circle around the puddle completely flabbergasted that this little kid was getting so messy. It was like they had never splashed in a puddle in their lives, because, why would you actually want to get so wet and messy?

Maysen noticed them staring at her and stopped for a second, looked up at them, giggling, and then jumped and splashed as high as she could. The girls squealed as the mud barely missed their feet. They asked me how I was going to get her in the car. “I don’t know, I guess I’ll have to take her clothes off.” I could tell that the girls’ mom/chaperone couldn’t tell if she should judge me for letting my kid get so messy and set such a bad example for the other kids or if she was secretly envious of my little mud ball. I heard her tell one of the girls that it was okay, sometimes mud can be fun.

I was so bummed, though. I ALWAYS have my camera on me, but today I had left it in the car. I figured I could go for a half hour without taking any pictures. Lesson learned. It was such a beautiful sight to see all these 4- and 5-year-old princesses’ expressions of complete awe as my little Maysie grinned and giggled as she got as dirty as possible. They looked at her as if she was doing something totally weird and wrong, like, say, shoving pebbles up her nose.

When she stuck her face in the puddle, I called it quits. Of course I had to drag her away kicking and screaming, literally, and getting mud on myself in the process. We went to a little patch of grass and I took her muddy, sopping clothes off. She giggled some more and ran around in circles, letting the warm sun dry the muddy water off of her.

It was such unfettered freedom and joy for her, and for me as a spectator. I knew she was going to be a huge mess, as would my car, but I didn’t care. This, I thought to myself, is one of those moments of pure joy to remember. It’s the kind of moment that a grown-up can only experience vicariously. Who cares if my ice cream becomes its own sticky puddle in the car? These are the moments that matter.

It’s Gonna Be A …

If you don’t want to know the sex of our baby, you might not want to read this post.

We waited until she was born to find out that May was a girl. There was something really fun about waiting, and Ronny and I both really loved having the surprise. I think it really drove other people nuts, though, because they wanted to know if they should buy us gifts in pink or blue. This time around we’re probably not going to have any shower (we had THREE for May) and I’m not expecting to receive a whole lot of gifts.

I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to know this time either, but the pragmatic reasons were there in my mind, and hubby kind of wanted to know. So, on the way to my 24-week ultrasound (supposed to be at 20 weeks, but it was one of those insurance situations) we made the decision to find out. As soon as we had made the decision, I suddenly couldn’t wait.

The ultrasound lasted nearly an hour, so we really got some great looks at our baby-to-be.

Wowee.  Those pictures really uploaded big. Well, at least you get a good view. Which is something that took the ultrasound tech a long while to get. First the baby had its hands over the genitals, so I said, “It’s a boy!” Then, the legs were closed too tight to see, so I said, “It’s a girl!” We had told the tech that it was still a surprise for us, and we asked her to write the sex down on a piece of paper and put it into an envelope for us. I was about 86% sure it was a boy, as was Ronny, so this all kind of felt like a bunch of hullaballoo, but we thought it would be fun for May to open the envelope.

When we got home we decided to have the big reveal.  Nana and Baba were there, and we got Grammy and Papa on Skype.

Wait for it.

 

 

 

Wait for it…

 

 

 

 

Maysen opened the envelope and showed us this:

We’re going to have a GIRL!!!

I can’t underestimate my surprise. I literally believed it was going to be a boy. This pregnancy is so different from the first. But Maysen’s going to have a little sister!!!

Now, we just have to get down to the business of finding a good midwife. Before you keep reading (MOM) I want you to know that we (I) have done a lot of research to come to this decision: We are going to have a home birth. At first Ronny was pretty hesitant, and when I say hesitant, I mean that he interrupted my first sentence about the topic as soon as he heard the words “home” and “birth” with a big, fat, matter-of-fact “NO.”

Harumph. I’ve always thought a home birth would be a really cool experience, and after having Maysen in the hospital, and having certain things about the experience that I would change if I could, I really wanted to make it happen. Part of the reason I tried to get him to consider it was that in our new city there are NO birth centers (unless you call the hospitals’ L&D departments, which they call “birth centers” to make them sound all pretty and nice, to actually BE a birth center). So the option is either hospital or home, and after asking for referrals and doing online research, mostly very technical and dependable facebook research, I discovered that the only real natural birth- and woman-friendly hospital in the area is St. Luke’s, and without traffic that’s at least a 30-minute drive. And gridlock traffic on the 101 is very, very, very frequent.

Obviously this is Ronny’s kid too so I knew that he had to be 100% on board for it to even be an option. Well, one night I managed to talk him into watching The Business of Being Born. (You can watch it for free on Netflix.) I thought maybe it would be something to at least open him up to discussion. He had to close his eyes through a couple of spots, but otherwise he watched the entire film.

I almost fell over in shock at the end when he actually said something along the lines of, “well, what do you think?” “What do I think? What do YOU think is the real question.” “Well, it’s your decision.”

We had a nice conversation about everything. No, it’s not my decision, it’s OUR decision and his opinion is (almost) as important as mine. Wink, wink. He actually said, “Let’s do it.” Whaaaaaat?!? As long as we (again, this means I, at least for the research part) do extensive research, interview midwives personally, and have a super-sound back-up plan — and, of course, this is all assuming that the baby is healthy and there are no known risks — he said he’s on board.

I thought he was just kindof being nice and trying to get me to stop talking about it so he could turn on Family Guy, but then a few days later I actually heard him tell someone that we’re going to have a home birth. Not ‘Nikki’s nuts and trying to convince me to have a home birth;, not ‘we’re kind of throwing around the idea of having a home birth’, but ‘we’re going to have a home birth’.

I…am…so…excited…about…this!

Wordless Wednesday

Love at 23 weeks.

Clutter

I don’t know. Some times being a stay-at-home mom can be a little more challenging than others. Sometimes it feels more like I’m just a housewife, which sounds, to me, really lousy. While other moms are out working and being productive, I’m at home, most likely in sweats, picking up toys and dirty dishes. All…day…long.  Don’t get me wrong; I do not want to go to a full-time job. I LIKE staying at home with our daughter. It’s just that it’s such a thankless job. A job where progress never really happens. A job that is much more difficult than it appears. No bon-bons and soap operas for this lady.

I never get to enjoy the fruits of labor from cleaning the house top to bottom. You know that feeling when everything’s all clean and sparkly and there’s a fresh scent and the laundry is all done and put away? That feeling after a cleaning sesh that was actually enjoyable because you can actually make headway? That feeling where you can light some candles, pour a glass of wine and watch reality television or read a book without even the slightest touch of guilt? Well, between my tornado of a toddler and a husband who doesn’t think twice about where his dirty clothes land or what happens to his dishes after he leaves them on the coffee table, I never get to have that moment.

Even if I do get all of the clutter picked up, the toys put in the toybox, the dishes in the dishwasher and the laundry all folded, I NEVER get to the point where I wipe down the bathroom or mop the floor…what’s it called again when you wipe down your furniture? Dust? No. I don’t do that either.

Why? Because I know that nap time only lasts two hours unless I get lucky. I know that when said nap time is over, all of the mess that got put away will be upheaved and strewn around the floor again. I know that after I go to bed hubby will most likely have a glass of milk and some other snack, whose dishes will still be on the coffee table in the morning when I get up to start everything over again. The dirty underwear will be in front of the bathtub, the jeans hanging over the back of the couch, the  socks directly in front of the couch, and most likely globs of jelly or a warm bottle of ketchup on the countertop.

So, I wonder, what’s the point of cleaning up the mess at all? I’m not entirely sure that our house wouldn’t start resembling an episode of Hoarders, but maybe I’m okay with that.

If I could spend half the time just picking up after the other two people in my house — oh, all right, I guess I leave my own fair share of the mess — I could probably actually pull out a cleaning product or sift through the box-of-crap-I’ll-deal-with-later-cause-I-don’t-know-where-to-put-it-now. But it doesn’t happen.

Maybe the problem is that we just have too much crap.

So you know what? I decided to treat myself to a little time alone with my blog. A little time so I can just complain without worrying about sounding like an ungrateful diva. I don’t have to get up and go to a job that I hate, so what do I have to whine about? The truth is, I don’t really like working. Lazy? Perhaps. (But I’ve always done a good job when I actually did have a job, so future employers, don’t count this against me.)

And what do you know? As soon as I sit down and get comfortable with my computer, the “you are now running on reserve battery power” message comes up.

Figures.

Guess I’m going to use this time to read a book!

 

The Case of the Missing Coco

Being a mother has been an absolute joyride lately. I wouldn’t say 100% of the time, but overall we’ve had a LOT of fun lately. Yes, we’ve been busy and I haven’t written. And I’m not going to apologize this time. We’re just moving on.

We moved to a new city this month and are still unpacking. Somehow in the hubbub of moving out of our old house (in which we lived for a ridiculously brief THREE MONTHS) we misplaced May’s beloved best friend, Coco. Now, I can’t really remember exactly how much I’ve said of the little bunny who has been her #1 BFF for a good eight months or so (Vaca is BFF #2, by the way). Let it just be said that not a day has gone by since the two of them forged their friendship without Coco being in bed alongside May and Vaca and whomever she has chosen to cuddle with for the evening. She drags the little white bunny around all day long, she watches her Baby Einstein, Classical Baby and Yo Gabba Gabba with Coco. She gives her choco-bock. She still, after a good 4 or 5 months since the incident explains Coco’s missing eye by saying, “Bella puppy bite off Coco eyeball boo-boo Mommy fix it all better now.” And it was all better, by the way, because I sewed a cufflink plug that looked absolutely identical to the original eyeball into the gash that used to be Coco’s eye socket…until Maysen chewed the new eyeball off again.

Anyways, so the bunny went missing. For several days. We searched the house up and down, with a forlorn daughter following us around whining, “Coco go? Coco go?” but during the time between Coco sightings we had movers come, pack up the house, load all of our junk onto a moving truck and move it several hundred miles to our new house. In the meantime, every day, all day long, May would ask where Coco went. She cried before bed, and asked for her first thing every morning. So every day, all day long, I would have to go out on a limb, hoping that Coco would eventually show up, and say to May, “Coco had to go to our new house ahead of us to make sure that it is a nice house.” I said this in good faith, but I said it before we had even found a place to live. But inside I was thinking, where the heck could that little stuffed bunny be?

A few days later we arrived at our hotel for the night. May had been sleeping in the car, but she woke up during the walk from the car to the hotel bed. She was all sleepy and drowsy so I tried to just sneak her under the sheets. She lay there, still, silent, eyelids drooping, all sweet and sleepy. As she curled up into a little ball, rolled over, sighed and got all cozy, just when I thought she was about to drift back into sleepy time, she very quietly, gently, in her cutest little baby voice, said, “Coco new house?” Meaning, of course, “We’re in our new house, now, so cough up the bunny…or else.”

Crap.

I had held on to the hope that maybe she would forget that I had said that Coco would be waiting for us in our new house, and maybe forget the bunny alltogether, but apparently I had been mistaken. Little did I know that that would be the very first thing she thought about when we walked into a new place. “Yes, honey,” I said. “Coco went to our new house, but we’re not there yet. We’re in a hotel so we’ll see her soon.” Maysen seemed somewhat satisfied and settled for Vaca and a sippy cup of milk, but I was sweating bullets. I whispered to Ronny between gritted teeth, “We…have…to…find…that…bunny.“

When we had found a house, signed a lease, turned the key in the door, and set Maysen down, she of course asked for her bunny. We started unpacking boxes and searched everywhere logical for the stinking bunny. About three days into our new home, and three long days of endlessly dancing around questions about Coco, she finally showed her fuzzy little one-eyed face.

And do you want to know where we found Coco? In a kitchen box with the crock pot! What kind of crack head mover guy would pack a beat up, grubby little cyclops bunny with a friggin’ crock pot? Maybe he found it next to said crock pot, but come ON! Could he not have deduced that this little thing might mean the world to a little two-year-old?

A moment of pure joy. Ahhhhh….and mommy’s relief.

The lesson learned here is that we better hurry up and find a spare Coco…if we can. I had avoided it, as I didn’t want to have to pry Coco out of May’s arm as she walked down the aisle for her high school graduation.

Here’s another picture, this one of Vaca, in case the little cow ever decides to go hiding among the kitchen appliances.

I'm seeing visions of the first day of school. Sigh.

With this story of the missing Coco adventure, I managed to get distracted. But we’ve moved into our new house and have been having so much fun. May is napping now after returning from her first muddy worm-hunting expedition.

She’s learning to talk so, so much. And I’m not talking 2-3 words at a time. Just today in the car I gave her a bagel chip with (oops) a little jalapeno bit in it. She said, “ooh! Picey! Mommy get drink water!” So I handed her a bottle of water. “It picey but drink water make it all better now!” Now, I understand that she hasn’t worked out all of the grammatical intricacies of the English language, but I’m pretty impressed.

When I asked her if she was ready to go worm hunting this morning, after having explained what we were going to do as I rocked her last night, she said, “Go find worms eat food go poo-poo pee-pee!” Which I know, because I explained it all to her, means basically “We’re going to go worm hunting and then put all of the worms we find into the compost bin. They’ll eat all of the food and their poo-poo will make nice, healthy soil for us to plant flowers and herbs in!”

She can also sing the ABCs, You Are My Sunshine, Rockabye Baby, and several others. Apparently she doesn’t like the way I taught her Rockabye Baby, though, because she now corrects me on the lyrics. It’s no longer that the baby rocks IN the tree top, it’s rocks ON the tree-toppie. If I don’t sing it like that she makes me start over. She has gotten very bossy, actually, with song-singing. If she wants to sing a song on her own, she’ll interrupt my singing with a “top, top!” so that she can sing it without my disturbing her. I’ve created a monster.

She’s saying all kinds of cool things. And fully able to hold a conversation. Check the Maysie Bits page for examples sometime soon. Hopefully I’ll get a few more on there. I have another story of something she said that was SO hilarious, but a little inappropriate for me to post here. Ask me if you want to hear the story. I actually was so shocked when she said it that I could do nothing besides double over in laughter. Thankfully, Ronny held onto his composure and handled it.

Oh, and I guess I really haven’t written much about the pregnancy yet, have I? Let’s see… We’re officially half way there. 20 weeks and 4 days. I’m looking as big as a house already, and have been feeling little fluttery kicks for about three weeks now. I’m still sooo exhausted; I’ll be fine and then all of a sudden feel like I’m about to pass out if I don’t sit down and watch Ellen or HGTV or something for like three hours. We’re waiting for our new health insurance to kick in, but we’ll probably get to find out the gender on the next visit (if we decide to). Did I ever post a pic of the new baby?

9 weeks?

I swore I wasn’t going to be a cliche, but it turns out that I am. Everyone says, “just wait until you’re on your second baby. You won’t take nearly as many pictures, and you won’t mark every single milestone.” I always denied that I would be that way, but, alas, I have been.

Anyways, this photo was from our first (and so far only) ultrasound, which I believe was at about 9 weeks. And I know my mom took a photo of my belly, somewhere around 17 weeks, but I can’t seem to find it now. I’ll find it and add it soon.

For now, I’m just glad I got a little time to myself, a little time to blow off all of the unpacking and cleaning I have to do, to sit down and update my blog. Hopefully I won’t be such a stranger. Until next time…

A little update.

You know, it’s funny. I’m always griping about how I don’t have any time to write, but suddenly I find myself alone, with time and no child, and I really don’t feel like I have anything to write about. I kindof just feel like I should write simply because I can. But what do I write about? I have so many things going on right now that I don’t even know where to start.

 

Pregnancy:

I’m now 16 weeks along, almost 17. I think it was about this time, or maybe 15 weeks, that I started this blog when I was pregnant with Maysen. I’ll tell you one thing. I’ll have to go back to check to know for sure, but I don’t think that at 16 weeks I was even showing at all. Now, I’m already very round. I look like I’m already 7 months along. Seriously. Well, after I eat a meal I look like 7 months, but when I wake up in the morning I look more like 6 months.

 

I feel fine, for the most part. But I’m soooo tired all the time. I’m sleeping like 9 or 10 hours every single night and it’s still not enough. I still feel like I need a nap by 2pm.

 

Maysen’s Two:

Ok, here’s where I have to point out that I’m not as committed a blogger as I would like to be. Most “mommy bloggers” honor their children by writing a sentimental post about the happiest moment of their lives – when their child was born – on their birthdays. According to my calculations, I should have done that four days ago when Maysen turned two.

I absolutely have things to say. I absolutely regret that I haven’t sat down to write that yet. I absolutely doubt that I’ll ever get around to it. No, maybe I will. But that’s the exact kind of thing that I should be writing right now. But I don’t feel like it.

Her birthday was fun. We didn’t do anything extravagant. I wanted to throw her a party, but because we don’t really have a lot of kid friends, there weren’t enough people to invite, and also because of all of the other stuff going on in our lives right now.

I guess I should list those things so I don’t seem like a total slacker. 1. Ronny was looking for a new job. 2. Ronny found a new job. It’s not in San Diego. 3. We’re moving to San Mateo and have to find a place to live. 4. I’m in San Mateo now and it’s TOUGH to find a place to live. 5. Either my parents or Ronny’s parents are in town. 6. There are other things going on that I won’t list. But you get the picture.

Anyways, we went to Chuck E. Cheese for May’s birthday and she had a blast. Her little cousins were there, aunt and uncle, Nana and Baba, and one more friend. Oh, and Mommy and Daddy.

All she wanted for her birthday was a blue and black cupcake. Easy enough.

 

Anyways, I know this isn’t the post we’ve all been waiting for with baited breath, but it’s all I’ve got in me for the time being.

 

Until next time…