turandot's blog

Yellowrama

Meet Ducky:

I'd take a better picture of him, but this is as close as I can get to him these days. Ducky is a finger puppet that came in Giada's Easter Basket. For a month or so, Giada thought nothing of the little dude. Then my mom, aka "nonna" came to visit us and would play with it. That's all it took for Giada to become enamored of the little thing.

Problem is (and don't get me wrong with, we've already been through this with Mr. Bear, who has since fallen out of favor), we don't have a replacement for Ducky (yet... I swear I'm working on it), which didn't stop my daughter from becoming obsessed with Ducky.

Ducky has to come with Giada everywhere. She tried to take it to daycare, which I nixed because it might get lost (she's finally getting the idea after one of her books got lost for a week). She takes it with her around the house. But more importantly, Ducky has to come to bed with her, or she'll scream bloody murder until she gets it. God forbid she wakes up in the middle of the night (it still happens about 3-4 nights a week, actually) and Ducky has fallen off her fingers. I wake up to pitiful screams of "Lost! Duuuuuuckyyyy! Looooost! Mommy help!". Granted, sometimes my husband sees me pull the covers over my head and takes pity on me and goes to help her with Ducky instead.

But this weekend, Chris had to make an unexpected trip out of town, and I was left flying solo, with a kid who promptly got sick the very day her dad left (her record is 2 for 2). She's already not the most patient of toddlers when she's in perfect health. When she's sick, she basically will let you know by making you miserable also (granted, she got that from me, so I can't really get too mad about it). So it is that I've had to fetch Ducky about 3-4 times a night, only for Giada to decide she wasn't going to take the chance of having to wait for a retrieval, which meant screaming to be let in my bed for the night.

You know the whole "sleep when they sleep" advice they give you when you bring home a newborn? That was me this weekend, when I didn't have to fetch the damned duck puppet.

The obsession with yellow things is bigger than Ducky, though. Right now the daughter is sleeping in her bed with yellow sheets, in a yellow pajama, clutching Ducky and two yellow blankets that have to be draped over her slightly unacceptable purple comforter (you know, from when I used to call the shots around here).

When my mom used to say "I hope you have a daughter someday so you'll know what it's like to raise someone like you". So, even though the proper day for this sort of thing was yesterday, here goes anyway, sort of belated...

 

Dear Mom,

I'm sorry about all the times you had to put up with my insistence that everything I owned had to be yellow, and that I was such a brat about it. I'm sure you were relieved to have me grow out of it, only to break your heart all over again by wearing nothing but black as a teenager. I promise I've mended my ways and wear the occasional red, purple and blue. Did I mention lately that I love you? No? My bad.

Yours,

The world's second most stubborn daughter ever

 

(Because I have a feeling my daughter will gladly take the title away from me eventually)

Bathroom Rules for the Neurotic

It seems like I'm always redirecting my conversations back to my toddler. Yes, I am now one of those obnoxious parents who I hated in my 20s. The problem is, the kid is one of the few novel parts of my life that isn't meh (I'd talk about grad school more, for example, if I could figure out what the hell I'm doing exactly), as posed to the confortable parts of my life which are awesome yet boring fodder for others.

But I need a distraction from the excruciating back pain I'm in (20 extra lbs of pregnant belly and a low lying couch are apparently not a good combination), so I figured it was hight time for this post.

First, some background and a promise. Promise: this is not going to entail gross potty humor. It might end up humorous anyway, or horrifying, but probably not for whatever reason you'd first imagine. Background: I have been plagued by a shy bladder for as long as I can remember. Forget about doing #2 anywhere other than my own abode. That hardly ever happens, and that's even on road trips.

I can't remember ever going potty as a kindergartener. Sure, I was asked to take my turn on the potty on a regular basis, but I mostly just sat there for whatever appropriate amount of time it took not to be reprimanded about 'not trying'. It was a relief then, that in elementary school, the expectation was that if I ever wanted to use the bethroom, I surely knew how to ask. It also helped that this being Italy, school ran six days a week and maybe five hour tops until you hit high school. I can't count the times I'd run home from school and go straight to the bathroom, not even pausing to say hi to my mom. I mean, after a while, the woman must have realized she needn't take it personally.

Of course, as I got older it got complicated. For one, longer hours at school meant sprinting home was not an option. For the other, there is only so long I can hold my bladder hostage (depending on the amount of liquid ingested shortly beforehand, somewhere between 3-5 hours is my limit). So I kind of had to talk myself into maybe allowing the possibility that sometimes, you just have to go when the need arises, not when you deem it convenient.

The topic came up as recently as Sunday, as we went on a short day trip to Ocean Shores, on the peninsula, and during the 2+ hours of driving, I was a wee bit jealous of how the daughter got to wear diapers. Normally I'm fine for stretches of 6-8 hours driving without a stop, but a combination of having more needs to be hydrated, while my bladder is also being crushed from the inside (thanks, Little Boy Blue!) just made a rest stop an inevitability, one that I was somewhat resentful of.

Since we were in a car, I didn't share full details about 'the rules', because being enclosed in a metal implement on wheels is perhaps not the best time for someone to come to the realization that they married a whacko (hi, honey!). But then it dawned on me "have I ever shared this with people before? Because it'd be hilariously informative about the state of my psyche".

So if you're neurotic about shared bathroom spaces and its hidden dangers (there might be smelly tampons or discarded nuva rings lurking in the waste bin, the horror!), you have to come up with safety rules for visiting bathrooms that allow you to live with yourself and your decision to use this untested, unproven space.

Rule #1: Before giving in, investigate all the bathrooms in a given public area. This means that in a mall, school, or other common setting, you have to put in some leg work and visit ALL of the bathrooms, all of them. Then, and only then, you can start using the ones that are 'fit' for use. This grunt work was the basis for the rest of the rules.

Rule #2: Err on the side of the executive level bathrooms. They're gonna be maintained better. This means that if you work in a multi-floor high rise, you get to the executive floors of a corporation if possible. If you're in a university setting, shoot for either the Administration Building, or wherever guest/meeting rooms are. If you're in an elementary school without teachers' bathrooms, pray.

For example, my former classmates at good old UT may or may not have noticed I was very fond of ye olde Texas Student Union building. It wasn't the food, the location, or even the picturesque nooks perfect for reading. I mean, those things were nice too. The real goal was to get to the fourth floor bathrooms in the building, the ones a short walk from the presidential room (i.e., the meeting room where bog time guests/visitors were inevitably taken to for meetings). Those bathrooms were so clean that sometimes you might even be able to see your reflection on the marble floor. Mind, you, it was only the fourth floor restrooms (the second floor bathrooms were for those souls brave enough to be able to pee in an alley in daylight, as they might as well have). It was very rare to run into anyone under the age of 40 and/or not wearing a suit. This meant that those bathrooms were probably kept the most pristine looking outside of those in the actual admin building (see above).

Rule #3: If you have to use an alternate bathroom, always pick one where at least one stall is hidden from view. Chances are said stall will have been used a lot less than the other stalls, because when most people have to go and have a choice of stalls, chances are the visible ones are a shorter walk, and therefore the obvious target.

Rule #4: No matter how many times you've used a bathroom successfully as per the rules above, always take a quick look at the waste bins near the sinks. If they're overflowing with garbage, this is a sign that this is not the bathroom for you today. And yes, that might mean an extra trip to a different bathroom in the same building, or to a different building. Or better yet, holding it in if possible.

Rule #5: If your only choices for peeing are either while stopped for gas at a gas station, or on yourself, might as well choice the more sanitary option (hint: not the gas station). This goes double if you're driving through Houston (don't make me tell you why, you don't want to know). You could theoretically suck it up and stop for food at a McDonalds. Yes, even if you hate and despise McDonalds. If you must buy the food, make a beeline for the bathroom, throw it in the trash, and use their bathrooms. I won't tell.

 

So there you go. Even a neurotic person can overcome their reluctance to use public bathrooms, provided they stick to the rules.

If you have OCDs, however, you're probably never gonna be able to handle public bathrooms, rules or no rules. I guess the only logical choice would be to invest in a porta potty that can fit in the trunk of your car, assuming you can get past the experience of keeping it clean. Good luck.

An Open Letter to Anti-Vaccine Parents

Dear Parent who doesn't vaccinate their child but who probably will send him/her to school with mine anyway,

This is what happens when herd immunity thins enough. It's a scary prospect for which I hold you fully responsible.

We as a society didn't come up with vaccines for diseases in the first half of the century because it would benefit Big Pharma. There wasn't a big pharma back in the day anyway... and even though there is these days, I guarantee you they put way more energy on creating frivolous medications (such as Viagra) for convenience's sake (in spite of very damaging side effects, like 'death'), than in justifying the existence of vaccines.

There is a walth of historical justification for infant and child vaccinations out there, vs. scant anecdotal evidence that vaccines cause harm. Your Jenny McCarthy's of the world based their whole cottage industry out of a fraudulent study by a now discredited physician. There is no link between autism and vaccines, no matter how much desperate parents might wish it to be so.

So what happens when the immunity rate falls low enough for herd immunity to cease being effective? People die. Some of them children. They die in horrible, painful ways. It happens all the time in developing countries, but us U.S. parents have a knack for putting our heads into our collective asses when it comes to these diseases. Things like whooping cough, measles, dyptheria, and the like kill thousands of children a day all around the world, in very horrible ways.

It's something we haven't seen in your and my lifetime because the vaccine rates pre-1998 in many 'developed' countries hovered at over 90% compliance, de facto creating a sort of universal immunity. When that buffer shrinks, not only is your unimmunized child is put at risk, but those who followed the rules and got vaccinated are too. The only significant difference is that my child is less likely to die from the disease your child will share with the rest of us. Not only are you taking a chance with your child's life and well being, but also my own. 

Least you think I have no idea what I'm talking about, that such a thing has not affected me in any ways at all, I have just as much anecdotal evidence as to the risks of not being vaccinated are for small kids. Back in the 70s, my extended family had their own version of your ilk, an aunt of mine who didn't believe vaccinations were necessary, who believed that home births were the way to go (and that's another kettle of fish I'm not gonna go into right now), etc. After having her first child, she made a decision never to vaccinate her.

Then she got pregnant again two years later. Her second child was born from a not insignificant traumatic home birth, but nonetheless was delivered naturally and safely (just barely avoiding being taken to the hospital for an emergency C-section, that is). A few days after her second daughter was born, her first one came down with the Measles. So did the baby. The baby almost died from it. That wasn't the worst of it, though. After a few months, it became clear that she wasn't meeting her milestones. To make a long story short, by the time I was old enough to remember meeting my cousin (who was a couple of years older than me), she had physical and mental delays.

Now, I am not so foolish to be certain that it was Measles that caused it (though my mother certainly believed it, and thus made sure we never missed a scheduled vaccine growing up). The truth is that I'll never really know what the possible culprits were. What I do know is that having a case of Measles in her early infancy that almost caused her to die certainly couldn't have done any favors to someone with existing genetic problems... and since both of her siblings were neurotypical and physically healthy (my aunt having had a third child, who was about my age), it's not unlikely that a combination of the Measles and its resulting high fevers were what actually caused the damage. 

If you still find yourself believing in a scientific myth at this stage of the game, and ignoring the reality that the diseases we immunize for are much more damaging than a vaccine could ever be at this point, I can't help but harbor the same contempt for you that I harbor for any kind of dogmatic fool who plays God with other people's lives at stake.

The Olympic Sized Swimming Pool Mommy, and Other Pregnancy Woes

Little Boy Blue started kicking early compared to his sister. With Giada I couldn't make out kicks from other (intestinal issues) until halfway through. Little Boy Blue made his presence known about four weeks ago, and has kept up with his kicking thus far. In fact, he pretty much kicks his way around every night, unmistakably hard.

It's not like he doesn't have room. Like last time, I look gigantic halfway through (even though I must have gained barely 5 lbs), so I'm pretty sure he's not lacking for room. So my theory, as I shared with my husband, is that Little Boy Blue is not content with the penthouse accomodation, and has decided the pool needs enlarging. "It's an olympic sized swimming pool, or nothing!".

Perhaps as part of the renovations, heartburn has set out like a mofo. Who gets heartburn from bananas? How ridiculous is that?

The other issue I have is that my toddler is already faster on her feet that I am, and I technically can still see my feet. Not surprisingly, I am panting on walks after only five minutes in. The husband suggested a backpack leash, which we have on hand for the rare occasion we do air travel, but to be honest, at this stage my kid could probably drag me along and not the other way around, even though I outweigh her by 150 lbs. The problem is I have zero energy, and have to deal with the Energizer Bunny all by myself two days a week (even though I took a reduced class schedule, I still insisted Giada be in daycare three days a week, for both of our sakes'!). I pretty much get through those days, and give up around six o'clock, i.e., when the husband comes home. "Here! Take her! I'm just gonna collapse in this corner."

The corner, of course, is always within sight, because not only is my kid a bundle of energy, but she's going through another separation anxiety period, so if she can't see mommy, she freaks out. It's gotten to the point where I'm giving her baths even though I can't lift her in or out of the bath tub (that's the husband's job these days), even though technically bath time is supposed to be daddy daughter time (again, because by 6 PM I'm ready to curl up in a corner, sometimes).

As such, my biggest fear is that she won't grow out of it by September... and will totally freak out when her mom will have to spend time in the hospital. I've even briefly considered going to the hospital solo so my husband can stay with her (even though 'daddy' is a poor substitute for 'mommy', except for times when 'mommy' doesn't give in to demands. Then it's all about "daaadddy!"*), and that would work if I knew how long we'd have to be in there. As it is, last time we were in there a total of four days (36 hours labor, 48 hours recovery from a c-section, and 12 more hours before Giada was cleared to go home because of jaundice), and since I theoretically would like to try natural birth again rather than surrendering to another c-section off the bat this time around, our stay might potentially be similarly long. So I worry I'll have a very freaked out kid on my hands.

We've tried explaining to Giada that a little baby is coming, but she isn't buying it. Her understanding of brothers and sisters is that they're always older kids, so the idea of a new baby is unimaginable. When we tell her about a new baby, she tells us "Giada baby." as in, "what are you talking about? I'm the baby." So I worry about not just traumatizing my kid by leaving her alone overnight (even though she's had no problems with it in the past, but she was nowhere near as clingy as she is right now), but about it being rough to adjust to not being the baby, or as Chris aptly put it "the center of her little universe".

We still have five months to go, and while the part of me who hates being pregnant wishes they would fly by, the part of me that's mothering a child with high attention needs dreads it when the day will finally come.

 

---

* Joke's on her, daddy agrees with mommy most of the time, having learned by now that you don't cross a pregnant woman unless you want to deal with endless hormonal crying. :P

A Terrible, Terrible, No Good Day

Around midweek last week, Giada came down with a cold. Not your average cold, but some sort of soul sucking beast that likes to lay you low. It started on Wednesday with a high fever, and by Thursday we were both miserable, since she had obviously given me her germs... and boy, was it a nasty cold! By Friday, Giada was feeling better, but I sure wasn't. I pretty much couldn't breathe. I was this close to being a zombie.

Even though she was feeling better, it had been less than 12 hours since Giada's temps got back to something resembling normal, so I made the decision not to send her to daycare on Friday. Well... someone did not take that news well. She pretty much whined about wanting to go to school all morning.

Usually I have a pretty good level of tolerance for endless whining (I've been a teacher, after all. :P). However, apparently my tolerance is severely tested when I'm feeling like death warmed over. By 2 PM, Giada wasn't the only one who fervently wished she had gone to daycare. To get her to stop whining at me, and because we hadn't been out to do groceries most of the week, I took enough Tylenol so I could feel my own throat again, and we headed out on errands.

Giada was mostly great on errands, but on the way to Trader Joe's she started whining that she was hungry. Not surprising, since she had refused to have any food for lunch and had subsisted on milk the whole day. I told her that we were getting food, and I would fix some when we got home. At some point during pur trip, she seized on a pasta dinner whoe box she recognized and went "mine!". She held on to it all the way home.

At home, she started hollering and screaming about pasta, and defeated, I just nuked her the pasta, and went to get a plate. Someone got a bit impatient, and started trying to reach for the box of pasta by tiptoeing up to the counter (which had never happened before, since Giada is pretenaturally cautious for a 2 year old). When I realized what was happening, I tried to swat her hand away, but accomplished the opposite with my clumsy swatting. Her hand made contact with the pasta, and almost immediately hysterical screaming ensued. Her index and middle fingers were bright red, and she was screaming. I ran her hand under cold water while frantically trying to reach our pediatrician. The nurse on call asked me to keep her hand under cold water, give Giada some Ibuprofen for the pain, and assess the damage. "if more than one fourth of her finger is red and blistered, I suggest you head to Urgent Care at Children's [Seattle's Children's Hospital] and have her checked out." Her two fingers were completely, entirely red. Her thumb also looked reddish.

At this point my husband was still on his way home from work, and I was freaking out, relizing that I'm a bad mother with slow reflexes, and apropensity to lose it. I was sobbing as hard as she was. After talking to Chris on the phone, and confirming that I was on my own for the time being, we made a mutual decision that I shouldn't wait around and should drive over to Urgent Care right away, at 4:45 PM on a Friday. Traffic is ridiculously monstrous at that time of the day, so highways were out. I plotted a street level route that I thought would work, only to find myself in a traffic snarl just the same. Meanwhile my kid, whom I had told that we would find a way to fix the pain to calm her down, is screaming and sobbing in her car seat, repeating "Fix it! Fix it! Fix hand!" at every stop (there were many). 45 minutes later we were at urgent care, me shaking, and Giada sobbing.

Eventually Giada calmed down in the waiting room, once the ibuprofen must have finally kicked in. It didn't last long. As soon as we got into the exam room, she started crying "Outside, outside!". The verdict was 2nd degree burns on both her index and middle fingers. The thumb looked like it was gonna be fine.

When it got time to leave, I realized I couldn't find my cell, and tracked my steps back one by one to make sure I wouldn't leave it at the hospital. Someone sobbed the whole enitre time, but when finally, defeated I wanted to leave to put an end to it, ahe wouldn't get in the elevator. I lost it, and yelled at her "Why won't you EVER listen to me? This kind of stuff wouldn't happen if you LISTENED to me!", which, I immediately realized, was unfair of me to tell to a two year old. Two year olds are impatient, impulsive, and unthinking. Feeling bad, I cried my head off the whole (thankfully much shorter) drive home, which oddly enough seemed to calm Giada down (or possibly stun her).

When I got her home, I left her with her dad, and went to pick up her prescription. I needed time to cool down. Afterward, I came home to a sleeping toddler and a worried husband. I tiptoed into Giada's room, kissed her sleeping face and whispered "I promise you tomorrow will be a better day", meaning to keep that promise, because that was by far one of the worst days I ever had.

It was THE worst day she's ever had. I know I don't have it in my power to make sure she will never have a bad day again... but I can make sure that next time I will be in her corner the whole time.

Hair trauma

Last November when grandma was in town for Thanksgiving, we decided to take Giada for her first official, professional haircut (I'd trimmed the occasional stubborn snag myself on her in the past). I thought she'd panic and freak out, but for the most part, the worst of it was that she wouldn't sit still for it.

I didn't get more than an extensive trim done on her, which in hindsight was a mistake. She has my hair, which means that it too grows bizarrely fast and thick, and has a tendency to look like a bird's nest first thing in the morning (bed head? More like hair crises!). She also has inherited my stubborn temper, which means that lately, as she's gotten it into her head that the detangling comb is not her friend (even though I am well aware of her hair issues, am super gentle, and even went out and got an organic hair detangler), she's been looking less little girl like, and more street urchin like.

Chris and I have been talking about getting her another haircut for a while. But I've been busy, tired, and kind of spacey because of school, and so I kept putting it off. Last weekend, on the umpteenth escape from being ponytailed (which she asked for, until she realizes I have to touch her hair, and then she just runs away from me while screaming "wanna ponytail!!". Oh, toddler logic!), I just told myself it was time.

So this morning, after our usual morning routine, I told her we were going to go on an errand, that if she was good she might even get a cupcake out of it, and drove her to Wallingford Place and went to see the same haircut people. We even had the same stylist as last time! They had an appointment to do before they could fit us as a walk in, though, so we hung around the place. Giada lost interest in the toys quickly, so we went next door for cupcakes, even though technically the "being good" part hadn't yet come into place. What can I say, I'm a sucker for cupcakes. And anyway, that killed the 20 minutes wait, so it was working out, right? Wrong.

What a difference four months makes. This time around, Giada realized right away what was going to happen. What's more, my usually happy go lucky, easygoing kid threw the mother of all tantrums. The stylist asked me to sit in the waiting area away from view, in hopes that she'd just resign herself to the inevitable. Didn't work. At some point, Giada was screaming "Mommy help!" at the top of her lungs, and when that didn't work "I sleepy. I go sleep home now." When the stylist said that the cut would take no time, and mom would be right back she replied. "Giada not okay." while sobbing.

I had to go back in, and play with lots of toys in her vicinity while trying to distract her as she kept moving her hands towards her hair while sobbing and going "No! No! Ponytails!" (as in "I know if this lady takes my hair I can't have ponytails anymore"), so I had to keep her hands busy with books and tell her "it's okay, Giada, your hair will look cuter, and we'll still do ponytails if you want".

We had to skip the stylist's once over, because at some point my normally cautious 2 year old was trying to climb down from a chair she was strapped in. It looked more or less even, considering Giada was a molecule of flying tears 3/4 of the 20 minutes it took.

Lastly as we were going to leave, Giada wanted to take the book I read to her with us. It's something we've struggled with lately, the "if I like it, then it's mine" toddler rule of engagement. I explained to her gently"No, baby, this book stays here for other kids who get their hair cut to read" and new, fresh sobs ensued. I hid the book on the bookshelf, and we paid. I tipped as well as I could without it being ludicrously expensive, and long story short, even though the stylist said she was not doing bad insofar as toddlers go, I'm pretty much too embarassed to take her back there again.

The tears didn't stop until we were in the car, and Giada realized we were driving away. In less than an hour, it didn't even faze her to have less hair anymore. 

I think it looks pretty cute, even though it's a bit shorter than I had originally envisioned. Knowing Chris, he will hate it. But I don't have to deal with cleaning food off of hair for another 3-4 weeks, and that's a win to me.

The Revolt-ening

(Yes, I know, not a real word... Thank you for noticing)

Probably one of the most annoying parts of pregnancy this time around is that anything and everything seems to be exactly what I want one day, and revolting the next. The problem, I think, is that I'm having a harder time pin pointing what is causing me intestinal upset this time around. When Giada was staying at Ye Old Mommie Hotel, no-nos were pretty simple: only organic protein, and keep away from chocolate (the only time in my life I willingly spit out a morsel of chocolate) and orange juice. 

No such luck with Little Boy Blue. Thus far I've gotten sick from eating eggs, milk, steamed veggies, and other random mixed nutrients food. I can have Pastizio one day and love it, and have it the next day and find myself wishing for a swift death to deliver me from the pain in my bowels. Some days all I want to eat is breakfast patties, and the next day the mere thought of them makes me feel nauseous. It gets more bizarre than that: I can have pudding without a problem, but milk or butter based sauces? Forget it. French fries drenched in grease? Not a problem. Lightly breaded cutlets of stuff? Death with bread coverings.

Thus far the only foods that have stayed "safe" are rice, chicken broth, almonds, and berries. Licorice, which was helping with the nausea part insofar as other food was concerned, has also stopped working, a fact that I sadly discovered last night at 2 AM as the cheese and crackers (which I've eaten so many times as a light night snack without prior problems) threatened to come up and dance, though always avoiding actually coming up, up. Yep. Nothing like the taste of cheese stuck in your throat at 2 AM as you think to yourself "I just want to go to sleep, damn it!".

On the other hand, save for the first five pounds I gained before my first prenatal visit, I've gained nothing, nada, zip. I even had managed to gain a couple of pounds last week, only to part with them after I spent most of last weekend going "yeek! I don't even want to look at food". Needless to say, this has made dinners fun, in the sense that I'll set my heart on making something yummy I haven't made for months (I'm looking at you, Tomato Cobbler), enjoying it the first five minutes of dinner, and then having that familiar sensation of my stomach pulling its "I said everybody out, or I'll start cutting people!". I used to only have that problem with the occasional extra glass of milk, and now it's everything.

The other day, Chris was like "Dude, you're starting to show, but you've also lost weight in your arms and face. You might actually end up one of those super skinny moms with a huge belly, at the rate you're going". The words that came out of my mouth were pretty much unexpected, even to myself: "Never thought about it before, but I prefer fat and happy as a combination". Chris pointed out that I've bitched for years that I've wanted to shed about 5o lbs or so (many of which I had, before grad school :/), and since I made it halfway there last time, he would have guessed me I'd be thrilled I didn't have to do it with an extra 30 pregnancy pounds this time around. I would have guessed that too, but my most pressing wish right now is that I could eat one thing that I love and not feel regret about it later. 

On the bright side, at least Little Boy Blue is not messing around with giving me heartburn.

Yet.

Little Boy Blue

After nearly two weeks of being on pins and needles over the results of Maternity 21 (aka, the less invasive alternative to an amnio), I got a call from my OB's nurse yesterday afternoon. First, and foremost, I was relieved to hear that all the genetic markers came back normal. It's no secret that I'm not that young of a mom anymore, which means the potential for things going wrong has gone up considerably.

After my sigh of relief, the nurse asked: "Do you want to know the gender?", to which I said, "Sure, we've been making bets on it already". I was pretty certain given the similarity between the two pregnancies (vomitless nausea, a hard time processing proteins, and another budding escape artist who likes to evade attempts to detect a heartbeat) I was dealing with another girl. Chris was "team boy", while pointing out that my ridiculous fatigue meant that I was dealing with a boy and "boys are always more trouble" ;)

As it turns out, Chris was right, and he's 2 for 2 at that. I have to confess, I wasn't too thrilled about a girl last time, and this time around I wasn't exactly thrilled at being wrong once again. See, this time I had name plans, Chris was halfway on board... and given the likelihood I'll have another child being slim at best (it would truly have to be an accident), I'll never get to use them now.

Boy's names, OTOH, we never seem to agree on. Chris accuses me of favoring 'girly' boy names. I retort that I'd rather use a girly name than a name that is more appropriate for dogs (Spike being his current favorite). We'll get it together eventually (that's what the next 27 weeks are for), but for now Peanut has become "the little boy" or "little boy blue".

One thing that makes knowing it's a boy palatable (in spite of future arguments about a proper name for a boy) is that it's going to be easier to prepare Giada for the kid's arrival now that we know we're having a baby boy.

I've been trying to tell Giada that she'll have a sibling soon for a little while, but it's hard to explain the concept of a baby to a two year old from a genderless perspective. This isn't to say that she has been able to grasp the whole idea of mommy having another baby yet, but at talks of a baby boy she brightened up this morning and showed me her little people baby boy from the house and family set her aunt got her for Christmas. I told her that was a start, but her baby boy brother will be much bigger. That didn't quite register, however. At bedtime, Giada asked to bring "baby boy" to bed with her, and reminded me to say "Goodnight baby boy" while we were doing our roll call of goodnights (with a bear, two dolls, two monkeys and blankets to say goodnight to, it can take a while). 

It's pretty far from understanding that a live, breathing baby boy will soon come to live with us, but you gotta start somewhere...

Peanut

Given that I'm not sure how much longer I can keep the lid off on complaining, there was a very important reason why I was trying to be off anti-depressants. A few days after New Year's we found out we're going to be welcoming a new baby sometime in September.

Thus far this pregnancy hasn't been super different from the first one, except for the extra fatigue, and the fact that pretty much any other thing I eat makes my digestive system do sommersaults. It was particularly fun during that earlier bout of food poisoning a few weeks ago.

'Peanut' (who's more string bean sized these days) is doing okay thus far, even if I've temporarily stopped gaining weight (it's alright, I gained a few end of the year pounds, so it's not like I'll ever be gaunt by any stretch of the word). Right now we're waiting to hear results about prenatal testing, and since they've developed a new blood test for chromosomal screening, I'm crossing my fingers that Peanut behaves better than its sister did and doesn't give us reason to do an amnio (yeesh, huge needles).

We don't know yet if Peanut is a boy or a girl (though the relevant bits are now growing into place), but we keep arguing whether the extra nausea without vomiting (I really, really wish I didn't have a strong gag reflex, because that means that the yucky taste of would be vomit gets stuck somewhere in my throat, fun times) means a boy (Chris' theory: boys are more trouble), or a girl (My theory: another picky eater girl fetus).

We'll know in a couple of weeks, I suppose.

On luck

While trying to take a break today from working on one of my classes' assignment (still not making making time for tackling how to tweak a possible master's thesis, alas), I decided to take some time to write an update of sorts, which thanks to the vagaries of coffee shp wi-fis was promptly erased while trying toost. It was a little irritating immediately, especially because the break had turned out slightly longer than planned (45 minutes vs. the planned for 15 minutes or so), but on reflection I'm glad it got eaten by my tablet. It was sort of whing-ish, angst-ish white people problem-y anyway.

On reflection, I thought of a different angle for what I wanted to say, and more about having gratitude about being in a position to be able to solve my own, surmountable problems. To wit, I voluntarily tried to go off Prozac, under medical supervision. It didn't work, but while I am and could continue to be bummed about it not working out that way, I might as well be grateful for a few things.

I didn't have to stop out of necessity, or worse, because I couldn't afford not to.

It would have been nice to be able to, but as my PRN pointed out, there are no guarantees in life.

I haven't had any problems going back to the same antidepresant and having it work in lifting my mood thus far, when there are so many cases in which quitting a SSRI often means having to go theoufh a nightmarish russian roulette of finding a different medication that will work as well as the original once did.

I am in a position where I am able to understand and interpret what is normal for me moodwise and what isn't. Having known people for whom this in and of itself is problematic, I realize that it may not always work out that way.

Finally, I am able to do plenty about what is a relatively minor health problem, when there are people out there that I know and care about whose mental/physical health options are much more limited right now. That alone, if nothing else, makes me realize how lucky I truly am, even though sometimes my perceptions of that are slightly off kilter. Truly, truly lucky.