Holy Mother of All Things… crazy.

I’m having a baby tomorrow!

I just can’t wrap my brain around it.  It seems so anthropological or something.  On one hand it is utterly earth shattering and yet at the same time as normal as the sun, moon and time.   Consequently it leaves me feeling rather deflated, and just plain weird.

But we’re ready… at least on the outside we’re ready.   His clothes are washed and waiting in his dresser, his crib bedding is finished and washed, his carseat is ready to buckle in the car and his diaper bag is backed and ready to go.

Just waiting for a wee sprite baby:

June gloom never showed up this year and instead the weather just skipped to hot. hot. hot.  Ever the money pinching shrew, I can’t turn on the ac (much) because of energy costs.  I’d rather shrivel like an earthworm after a rainstorm than waste the electricity.

So we all (the commune) pitched in and bought one of these.

Heavenly. 

I thought Jamie would adore the pool.  Afterall what kid doesn’t love swimming?  I’m pretty sure that was the highlight of summer when I was little (still is…ahem).   My highest aspiration in life at five years old was to own a pool when I grew up and I guess I’m making progress since I own one/fourth of this one.   Jamie however was less than impressed.  He dipped his toes in like a 13 year old girl, and then promptly got out, stripped off his swimsuit and diaper, and laid out in the sun like some sort of nudist hippie.

But Jamie changes his mind more often than a squirrel in the middle of the road, and the next day he jumped in head first like he had been born to swim.  I swear I will never understand that kid.  Some days he loves the pool so much I can’t drag him out of it and other days he wants nothing to do with it.   Oh well.    Two days ago he figured out how to hold his breath underwater and now it is absolutely impossible to keep him above the surface.   He spends most of his time underwater and he only comes up for air before he’s back down diving for toys and swimming around like some sort of mutated fish.    We’re trying to teach him how to kick and paddle correctly, but he thinks he’s way smarter and so developed his own stroke.  It looks like a near relation to the breast stroke except it keeps Jamie lunging up and down and gives him the appearance he’s half merman, half drowning.  It’s not very effective either since he goes almost no where.   Hopefully he figures that out sooner or later.

Jamie struggling to get out of my arms and back under water.

Ah what bliss.

Not happy that mommy took him out and wrapped him in Aunt Julia’s “bug towel”  (oh the horrors).
 

The new handsfreewhiledriving law went into effect yesterday, sending me scrambling for a bluetooth and causing my emmergence into modern technology.   I’m having issues figuring out how the whole thing works, since it never seems to work the same way twice, and I find it highly ironic the very law thats supposed to render me a safer driver is in fact causing me to drive with my knees while I push buttons, yell “No…Caaallll JIM!” and swerve all over my lane.  

Although it’s probably not the legislatives fault, and I doubt my bluetooth is as complicated as I think it is.   My brain is so fuzzy these days, it’s a miracle I’m not wandering the streets of Tijuana with no identity.  I talk to people and then have no recollection of it.  I double book things, I write down wrong appt times for no apparent reason.  I truly lost my cell phone; as in gone completely.  I had no idea where it was, or when I had it last.  It had a fully charged battery and the phone was on, so I obviously called the darn thing from every location I could possibly think of, but with no luck.   I tore the entire house and car apart looking for it, and called every business I’d visited recently. I was on the verge of crashing a sprint store and shelling out non existent money for a new one… but of course I kept forgetting.  Finally on Tues I told Jamie we had to go “bye-bye” and he dutifully brought me my shoes, keys, and phone.  I have no idea where it was or if he’d had it the whole time, but he was not fessing up (he stared at me like he doesn’t understand a word of English).   I was just glad to have it back.

I’ve been so busy trying to get everything ready: hauling furniture around, painting, reorganizing and cleaning that I haven’t had time to really dwell on my pregnant miseries or freak out about Jim’s lack of employment.   Jim was up in the mountains this week for the last time, and I’ve been trying to juggle life with Jamie, plus get Charlie to all his dr’s appts.   Today I had a perinatologist appt at the high risk clinic and call me crazy, but I sort of thought they were a formality at this point in time.  Sure, I’ve been measuring small the whole time, but everything looked great and the only thing they mentioned at the last appt was that his abdominal measurements had fallen a little behind the other measurements.  So I can’t be blamed for my disbelief and denial when today’s u/s revealed that Charlie’s placenta is indeed starting to wimp out on him.   At this point however, it’s not really that big of a deal.  Afterall I’m at 36 weeks and Charlie’s estimated weight is 5 lbs 8 oz (downright sumo wrestler compared to Jamie).  I think I did a pretty darn good job.   All that remains is trying to figure out when to snatch him out of his inhospitable environment.    Do we take him out now while we know he’s doing well?  Do we wait for his placenta to get worse and run the risk of it quitting entirely?  Thankfully we have good doctors who spent a lot of money and years in school to help us figure this out and the ruling decision is he doesn’t get to stay in there any longer than 12 days or so (at least a week earlier than the 23rd), but I’m supposed to recline on my left side (eating bon bons of course), perform strict kick counts, vigilantly monitor the baby with Non Stress Tests twice a week, and if at any point Charlie starts to be less than his normal exuberant self then he’s outta there.

 The reason I’m not supposed to lift anything or do anything is because every time I exert myself, the placenta gets less blood flow, and right now we’re trying to maximize all circulation to the offending placenta.  At least thats the theory.  I was so tired when I got home I put spongebob on for Jamie and laid down.   Who knows how long I was out, but I woke up to find the front door open and Jamie missing.   Assuming he was probably on the front porch riding his bike I casually walked around the side of the house and saw Jamie in the arena petting one of the horses.  Problem was he was in the pen with the foals; very rambunctious, very untrained and rather dangerous.  Adrenaline pounding, I climbed the fence and tried my best not to spook them as I picked up Jamie and whisked him away.  Conserving blood flow to the placenta is obviously working out great and I’m feeling very incapable of keeping two kids alive and healthy.

There’s lots more I could ramble on about, but I’m both too tired and too forgetful to remember what I was going to say.   My picture for today is from last weekend which we spent with Elizabeth and John (people we’d never met but felt like we’d known for years).   I love my cyber friends just as much as my real life ones, and so it was cool to meet them in person.   We went to the zoo which unbeknown to me was apparently my last fling for awhile. 

Edit: Sorry for the double post.  Something was seriously funky with my xanga.

I always used to think of Sunday as the last day of the week and Monday as the first, but a few months in a Presbyterian Church (at least ours) and my brain got switched around with Sunday as the first day of the week.

So one crazy week down and another just begun. 

My insanely energetic sister threw me a baby shower today.  I’m always vaguely suspicious these days of people who run proverbial circles around me.  It tires me out just watching them and I wonder why I can’t seem to muster up the same enthusiasm.   You might as well call me Eeyore (I call it realism, Jim calls is pessimism), and I was a little worried it was a huge faux paus to have a baby shower for your second baby. …one of the same gender no less.  horrors.   I didn’t really need stuff like carseats, strollers etc and I hate baby shower games, but I felt like Charlie’s got it bad enough being born into a family of very strong firstborns (talk about outnumbered), and at the very least he deserved a party celebrating his much anticipated arrival. 

So party we did, with a gourmet feast worthy of the foodnetwork channel, lots of fellowship, and sans games (thank goodness there were no candy bars in diapers) instead we designed t-shirts.  My belly served as a guest book, everyone signed it with a sharpie.  I liked the idea of some sort of memorial or token to remember the day, but I’m horrible with paraphernalia, so this way I got a cool, tattooed belly to flaunt at all my dr’s appts this week and I imortalized the whole thing for posterity with a picture/digital file.

I’m here wants again sitting in my chair with the fetal monitors strapped to me.   Charlie is being a booger and keeps moving off the fetal heartbeat monitor. 

Despite my first trimester from hell, or maybe because of the my three month tango with zofran, I feel slightly determined to be optimistic this last trimester.  If only to prove that I really wasn’t joking about how horrible the morning sickness was.  I think I feel pretty good right now.   I don’t feel huge and uncomfortable, my ankles remain un-swollen and I don’t have the constant need to pee.    There are no spidery varicose veins wrapped around my legs and I can still sleep on my stomach (or climb trees…ask Jamie).    Of course getting out of bed poses a much bigger problem than I ever imagined.  “Lower back pain” is a completely new concept to me, and I wonder if this is what it feels like to be old.   I sort of roll, and slide out of bed *hopefully* landing on my hands and knees while I moan and groan and slowly attempt to stand up.   It’s not a matter of pain, but simply a mechanical failure.  My core lumbar support doesn’t work well anymore and has to be beaten and cajoled into holding my body up.    A few minutes ago I was getting an u/s to check amniotic fluid and the nurse commented that Charlie sure likes to be sunny side up.  Groan.   Yes he does and no it does not make his mother very happy.

I used to blog in the evening’s, and then I realized I was having a baby in two months and nothing was done, nothing was ready and no one was really around to help me (since Jim is still working in the mountains), so I freaked out and sorta went into hyperdrive.

But here I am confined for the space of an hour, strapped to a lazy boy with monitors and cool beeping machines, and since I’m not good at sitting still for long periods of time, I’m choosing to blog instead (with a broken pencil and the back side of some hospital paperwork that I’m sure is important).

The short synopsis is Charlie’s healthy and active but a little on the small side.   Not so small they’re worried, but considering my history of IUGR, he’s scrawny enough that I have to go in for NST (non stress tests) twice a week (which is where I am now).  Not fun.  If anyone wants to come keep me company I’d be thrilled.

Faced with the arduous task of getting to choose our son’s birthday, we decided to schedule the c-section Wed. July 23rd at 3 pm, which is in four weeks (yikes).   However, I also filled out all the vbac paperwork, because if I go into labor before then on my own, I might as well do it the old fashioned way.   Consequently I had a lovely date with the stirrups today and confirmed my iron clad cervix is still holding strong.  Not dilated nor effaced, but Charlie has “dropped” and his head is “engaged” (whatever that means exactly).   My dr commented that the baby’s head is so low, I must be rather uncomfortable, however oddly enough my pelvis is quite content and I hadn’t noticed he’d dropped, to which my doctor shook her head and marveled at my “child bearing hips”.    I’m not sure that’s a compliment and if I had any say in my genetic makeup I certainly would not have put “child bearing hips” on the list of attributes I’d want, need or use.  Certainly they would have been more useful on someone else’s body.

Here’s today at 35 weeks. 

There’s an old Jewish story about a husband and wife who thought their house was too small so their rabbi had them move the cow, pig, chickens and horse into the house with them.   After complaining to the rabbi that their house still felt small, he told them to move all the animals back to the barn.  They did and were thrilled with how spacious and quiet their house now felt.   

Well Alpine (previously known for being the dry/hot area of San Diego) seemed positively luscious, cool and green when we got home yesterday; a veritable rain forest of streams, flowers and trees.   The desert holds its own when it comes to beauty and tranquility, but it’s so strikingly different from everything else that you can’t help but be be astonished by the sheer harshness it holds.  

107 degrees is hot, but manageable when you live in city with air conditioned buildings, drive air conditioned cars, and one lives scurrying from one cool habitat to the other like some sort of thermostat junkie.   It is however, a completely different experience when you are in the middle of nowhere; no ac, no house, and your tent and car are at least ten degrees hotter than standing in the sun.   Suddenly the one scrawny, inconsequential bush in your campsite looks like an oasis, and you feel like Jonah, huddled under a plant in the desert.  

We had a blast though, despite the heat.  It was the perfect weekend and I’d do it again next weekend if I could.  No cell phone service, no Ipods, no dvd players…nothing.    No to-do lists, no chores, no commitment, just pure laziness (which is all you can manage to do when it’s that hot).  All we did was soak in the mineral springs (which were amazing) and nap in the splotchy bit of shade offered by our lone bush.  It was wonderful.  It was also the most relaxing camping trip I’ve ever been on.  

…until the last night
After all our arguing about whose tent was better, Jim and I realized both our little, lightweight, backpacking tents were too small for the three of us, especially since Jamie sleeps like a whirling dervish, and I doubt even one whole tent could contain only him.  So we borrowed a decent sized 5-man tent that boasted being “so easy to set up you’ll be the envy of the entire camp”.   True to promise, Jim took the tent out of the bag and pushed a button and the whole thing just set itself up much to the astonishment of the whole camp.   It was like Staples easy button.   Jim was a little dubious about the quality of such a tent, but I told him his manly ego was just a little disappointed he didn’t get to impress us all with his camp set up abilities.   Unfortunately, the only thing the tent had in its favor was easy set up, making it a great tent for camping in your living room or occupying space on a shelf in your garage, but definitely not suitable for desert camping.  It had these sort of spring loaded elbow sockets at all four corners that worked great as long as there was absolutely no wind.   Of course the word “desert” is almost synonymous with “wind”, so disaster was inevitable. 

Saturday evening the sun went down, but the heat did not go with it, and the night was a balmy 92 degrees.  Jamie couldn’t sleep it was so hot.  The poor kid would desperately squeeze his eyes shut and try to curl up and sleep only to wake up 10 minutes later crying.   Jim and I would doze off only to be jerked back to reality when Jamie started thrashing around and crying again.  It was miserable.   Since we had no cell phones (and that’s how we all tell time these days) I had no idea how much time had passed but I was sure morning was just around the corner.  I got up and turned the truck on to see what time it was and it sneeringly glowed 12:32 at me.  Unbelievable.  I went back to bed and the wind started to kick up which brought some relief from the heat and let Jamie get some sleep.  Jim and I gratefully sighed and rolled over to go to sleep ourselves only to be awoken later with a mighty crash as our tent collapsed completely on top of us.  To further complicate matters, both of us are as blind as a bat and when the tent collapsed it hurled our glasses out of their carrying case in the roof of the tent and we couldn’t find them anywhere.    We were two pathetically blind, exhuasted people crawling around our tent gingerly on our hands and knees searching desperately for our glasses.   After we found them and surveyed the damage we realized that the spring loaded tent poles weren’t designed to withstand any sort of wind.   Upon the least provocation they would bend, bow and suddenly snap, hurtling inward and smacking one of us on the head or shoulders.   There was nothing we could do but, lay there and put the darn thing back up everytime it collapsed on us.  We couldn’t sleep outside it was so windy there were chairs, tumbleweeds and sand blowing everywhere. It wasn’t a really terrible windstorm; not the sinister kind that whips around and howls with angry power.   This was a more boisterous, obnoxious windstorm like some sort of drunken bully, out to make my life completely miserable.   Which it did.  I stared at the eastern horizon begging the sun to come up and put an end to the horrid night.    I watched and waited for the sun so long that it felt like a personally triumph when I finally spotted the first sign of light glowing along the bottom of the stars.  It’s not often I’m up in time for the sunrise, and I don’t think I’ve ever actually waited and watched the whole thing, but I can say one thing for sure:  The sun never looked so glorious. 

So thus ended our camping trip.  We packed up and headed home just in time to get to church.  We’re all a wee bit sunburned but very refreshed from our weekend.  And the only consequence of our sleepless night was the need for a three hour nap yesterday afternoon (which we gratefully enjoyed). 

I can’t wait to go back.

We’re going camping this weekend with Jeff and Gabrielle and I am so stoked about it I surely must be delusional.   Originally we were going to camp up in the mountains where it’s nice, luscious and cool, but our penchant for haphazard, spur-of-the-moment decisions has left us with no room in the inn.  Every campground in San Diego and Orange County is booked solid this weekend (I had no idea it was such a popular recreation around here).  The only place with available spots still left is Agua Caliente  located smack dab in the middle of the Anza Borrego desert.  I’m assuming there’s a pretty obvious reason it’s the only one available.  It’s so hot there the campground is not even open during the summer because the temperatures are too extreme.

  So here we are, a week before it closes, with record high temperatures forecasted this weekend, no air conditioning, no civilization and the nearest town 45 min away, yet believe it or not it still sounds fun.  There are two natural hot springs located in the camp, the cooler one being 90 degrees, which I’m thinking will feel pretty darn pleasant in 110 degree weather.

I think the best memories are often the most unusual, and thus this trip has a great amount of potential.  I’m at least prepared to be absolutely miserable (that’s half the fun), but Jim insists we’ll be living in the lap of luxury.  In my book there is camping, and then there’s camping and then there’s backpacking.   Technically camping can involve giant RV’s and satellite hookups, but normal camping involves a campfire ring, picnic table, parking spot, tent and restrooms you can walk to (that may or may not include pit toilets).   Backpacking is camping that requires you to ditch the car somewhere, carry everything on your back and use a bush as a bathroom. Jim disagrees.  He thinks that any place that lets you have a vehicle nearby is fake camping.  To truly camp it must be inaccessible except by walking and the occasional search and rescue helicopter.   This (in my opinion) is clearly backpacking and not camping, but Jim will not be convinced despite my expert opinion and the internet.

The camping argument however, pales greatly in comparison to the great tent debate currently raging in this house.  We both brought several thousand dollars worth of camping/climbing/backpacking equipment into this marriage and each of us insists we have better, higher quality stuff than the other.   Backpacks, tents and sleeping bags have had all their specs dredged up and bitterly contested and compared.  Neither of us shows any sign of giving up, despite frequent attempts at a truce, so I’m guessing we will continue to disagree until the test of time proves which of us has the better equipment.   I’m not worried.

Jamie however prefers admiring himself in the mirror wearing Jim’s daypack.

With eleven weeks left to go it finally dawned on me how pregnant I am.  I suddenly realized with alarm that I don’t have anything ready and have really not given two thoughts to the whole thing beyond making sure Charlie is healthy.

I blame it on maternity clothes, because it wasn’t until now I outgrew my regular clothes and the sight of those stretchy paneled pants sent a jolt of reality through me.  Holy freaking cow I’m having a baby.

I’ve completely avoided the dreaded wardrobe change.  I know everyone says that maternity clothes have gotten way cuter, but I beg to differ.  Even the tent sacks Lucille Ball wore were better than the stepford looking racks of khaki capris that dominate the maternity section these days.   I’m not denying that there is some cute stuff out there, but it’s just not attractive on me, or at least I don’t feel like myself in them (same difference).   It wouldn’t be so bad if some of it at least fit, but it doesn’t.  It’s baggy in all the wrong places and is tight in even worse ways than the sags.  To find a halfway decent pair of maternity jeans you have to spend at least a hundred bucks (which is $100 more than I have to spend).   

So far I’ve skated by on the generosity of my friends.  Julie sent me a pair of khaki pants that work, and Sharon loaned me heaven on earth maternity jeans that would be close to perfection if they weren’t almost too short.   I was lusting over a pair of maternity designer jeans and wishing I could have my beloved luckybrand or BKE jeans when I was watching Juno and had an epiphany.   I could make my own.   So I dug up an old pair of lucky brand jeans that had been retired because they had holes in them, I cut up a super stretchy tank from Charlotte Russe and tadaa!  An hour and multiple tries later I had the perfect pair of maternity jeans.  I repaired the holes, cut out the waistband, added a stretchy band and I couldn’t be happier with them.   These jeans offer all the comfort, good memories and contentment of a two year olds teddy bear.  Blessedness.

So now that I’m happily ensconced in  the waistless world of stretchy pants, I have all the freedom in the world to freak out about everything I need to get done in the next few weeks.

Before:
 

After:

I hardly dare whisper a word of it here, it seems so fragile I’ll surely jinx the whole universe, but Jamie may finally be ready to potty train. 

Problem is. I am not.  I am too tired and rather overwhelmed by the idea, and quite frankly diapers are easy.

He keeps taking his diaper off and sneaking into the bathroom to sit on the potty (the big potty since the little one is obviously not cool enough for a grownup like himself).   He thinks he’s not allowed to go potty, which I suppose contributes largely to his doing it at all.   Who would have thought that the key to his potty training was not prizes, candy, praise and charts, but rather forbidding it altogether?   Of course he hasn’t actually pee’d in the toilet.  I think he’s under the impression Jim and I use it for fun.  I’m not sure exactly how to make him deposit something in it, and any time I casually explain or demonstrate the process he stares at me blankly.  After all I’m his mom,  I should know better.  Going to the bathroom is only about toilet paper and the cool chrome knob that makes noise when you push on it.  Silly me.

He has also taken a dislike to diapers (another flashing neon sign he’s ready to give them up), so he takes them off and goes around nude, until I chase him down and wrangle another one on him.  Today I discovered a discarded diaper in the hallway, so I dutifully went to get him a new one when I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of him doing the dishes.  He hadn’t discovered the soap dispenser (probably a good thing) but he was quite handily washing, rinsing and stacking the dishes as if he’d been doing it his whole life.   I left him alone (after making sure there were no knives in the vicinity) because I like to encourage this type of behavior.   It was probably a bit of a hazard, but I figured the worst he could do was break a few dishes at which point I would whisk him away and clean it up.  

Next on my list is forbidding vegetables and forcing sweets down him.