sueeeus

It’s the contrast one feels when one awakes to find that the travails of the last day are a thing of the past.  A lightness in being.  Bliss.

Glorious sunny days are a rarity in the Pacific Northwest.  The abundance of lush greenery comes at the price of many a gray and drizzly day.  Yesterday was just such a glorious sunny day, a terrible shame to waste, but I was overcome with fatigue and lethargy.  It was all I could do to drag my body from room to room.  I had a nagging headache and some nausea, reminiscent of a migraine, but on the milder side, as my migraines go.  We managed to go to the store for some groceries, but that about did me in, and I collapsed on the couch and fell into a groggy nap state for an hour or more.  The day wore on and I finally broke down in tears, Googled the use of hydrocodone during pregnancy, and decided I could allow myself to take one.  Gadget never understands why I torture myself all day long before I finally break down and take something at the end of the day when I can stand it no longer.  I always try to see if I can wait it out, if it will resolve on its own.  Occasionally, I give in, and sweet relief comes in less than half an hour.  Bliss.  No wonder people get addicted to narcotics.  Luckily, the thought of addiction terrifies me, so I’m almost overly cautious.  And all through this, little mister man wouldn’t take a nap.  I was a bit concerned how this would affect the evening, envisioning a three year old meltdown or more on the horizon, the last thing I needed in my fragile state.

As luck would have it, he zonked out like a light, around 8:30 p.m. (coincident with the hydrocodone kicking in) and wonder of wonders, slept until 8 a.m.!!!!  I’m wondering if this means we ought to give up the nap altogether, so he can have a reasonable bed time.  A child in bed by 8:30.  Now that’s a dream come true.  He had a three-hour nap the day before, and he and his dad stayed up watching Ghostbusters until midnight that night.  Simply atrocious parenting.   (Gadget gets full blame for that one – I went to bed at 9:30, as usual.  I can’t keep my pregnant self up very late these days.)

Today is not such a delicious sunny day as yesterday, but it’s reasonably clear.  Dogwoods and magnolia are in bloom (I’m coveting these for my garden) and I feel like a new person.   It’s a shame to have lost half my weekend, but the simple feeling of revival makes up for it.

• I love the donation trucks that make their rounds. Simply leave a pile of stuff on the front step, and vamoose! It’s gone. Now, if only I could get the pack rat Mr. Gadget to go through his clothes and donate things he doesn’t use. If only.
• A word of caution to anybody who might try to locate plastic pants or vinyl pants or diaper covers via Google. Ummmmm, there are some interesting people out there. And I have yet to find any smaller than adult x-small and larger than 4T (I bought a truckload of the latter, and squeezed Mr. Peebody in to one pair, one time, several months ago). Hello, are there not people who weigh over 50lbs* and under 100lbs who need some night time moisture leakage assistance? I am about to embark on a DIY project, and make my own.
• Same Mr. Peebody is going through some sort of a phase. He’s 3-1/3rd now, and is behaving in a ‘clingy’ way, whining, insisting on sleeping in the big bed with us (to which I’ve caved all weekend, bad mama, bad, bad mama), and this morning the tears and anguish at being left at daycare. Oh, the drama. I haven’t seen that drama for months. So why now?**
• The smell of tooth being ground away by the dentist’s drill is eerie and awful, if smells can be eerie. Not having searing shooting spasms when making contact with food or beverage, hot or cold, sweet or savory, makes it all worth it. One can hope.
• Mother’s Day is convenient for coercing husbands to help pull weeds from the garden.
• Relaxin’ when in the context of chillin’ and kickin’ back is a good thing. Relaxin, in the context of that hormone that helps loosen ligaments and joints in order to prepare for a journey through the birth canal, when produced in over-abundance, is not the most pleasant of things. Only 23 weeks in and already saddled (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha) with pelvic pain. When I stand, I have to be still for a moment before I can actually walk. At only 23 weeks. I’m fairly certain I’ll be a waddler this time too. Oh, the joy.***

*The average 3-1/3rd year old is not over 50lbs, does not wear size 5 –not 5T–, going on size 6, and does not wear size 12 shoes.

**Of course, it seldom helps that MIL somehow ALWAYS manages to make a comment about him being ‘left’ in the care of others. Without fail. I ignore it as though I don’t hear it, but I do hear it. Every. Single. Time. Loud. And. Clear. And now I wonder if he happened to hear it to. Thank you so much, dear MIL.

***NOT COMPLAINING!!! In the greater context of life and thankfulness, I’m embracing all there is to being pregnant, and endeavoring to enjoy and savor every moment of the journey. All of it!

I’m working through an emotion. It’s difficult to express. It’s a sort of grieving. Gadget doesn’t understand it, and has no patience for it.

I might not feel this if I were a younger woman, and if I didn’t have the fertility challenges with which I’ve been faced. But I’m no spring chicken, and the road traveled has not been without its bumps and bruises. In all likelihood, there will be no more children. So this is the day in which I acknowledge that I am a mother of sons. And I love, love, love that I am a mother at all, and I am grateful beyond any human expression that I will be the mother of two. Two healthy boys. It’s beyond words. Yet there is a part of me, albeit a selfish part, that wanted a daughter – a girl to raise and nurture and fill with a sense of belonging in this world. I wanted to give her all that I lacked in my own upbringing. I dreamed we would be the best of friends.

There’s just something about a girl.

I suppose it truly boils down to ultimate selfishness. Perhaps it was a do-over, in the largest sense. I wanted to raise her with all the love in the world, so she knew she was wanted and of value. Something I never felt. I wanted to raise her to love herself and be comfortable in her body, to embrace who she was, to know that she is fully accepted, without condition. Again, something which I never felt. Yes, it does seem to be mainly a selfish wish for a do-over, to project myself forth. A dangerous undertaking with potential for much folly. It would be so much better to simply come to terms with who I am and embrace my own self as someone of inestimable worth in this world. And now that I’m in my forties, I can say that I am much more comfortable with who I am than I have ever been before. It’s a shame that it took this long, but a blessing that it happened at all.

I know that all is and will be well. What would I have done if she’d been a Barbie fanatic or a girly-girl to the most extreme? Dolls have always creeped me out. I was second of nine, so there was no need for dolls. I had real babies to play with. I liked to play with dirt and Lincoln logs. What would I have done to help her come to terms with things, if she’d ended up with the tweaked out reproductive system of her aunts? How would I have managed seeing her through the cliques and stages and social pressures that girls go through? In many ways, girls may be much more difficult to raise than boys.

I wonder if this one will be Bert to my Ernie, or Felix to my Oscar. Not that big brother is Ernie or Oscar, but he’s certainly not Bert or Felix. Another Bam-Bam. If fetal movement is any indication, he may well be Ernie to the extreme. He is so much more active than his big brother was. And big brother was extremely active. And still is.

I see a future with more monster trucks, ballgames, dirt, and Transformers. But I love all these things. I love boys. I hope that little brother doesn’t grow up daunted in the shadow of big brother. I will do all that I can to teach big brother to encourage and bolster little brother, rather than taunt, torment, and dominate him. I think, with vigilant parenting, the latter can be avoided. Certainly I witnessed sibling torment in my own childhood household, but our parenting was far from vigilant. I want my boys to grow up to be the closest of friends, each strong and confident in his own abilities. I want them to bring out the best of each other.

My traditional family name, the one that first daughters have been given for generations and generations, my middle name, my mother’s middle name, my grandmother’s middle name, my great grandmother’s middle name, and so on and so forth, and with it the heirloom paisley shawl, pristine and well over a hundred years old, will have to wait, either for my sister, should she be blessed with a daughter and choose to follow the tradition, or for another generation yet to come. It was a first daughter’s tradition, and I find this a little sad. But it’s only a tradition, and traditions are only as much value as we allow them to be.

Yesterday I dropped by Costco to order a birthday cake for Mr. Gadget, what with his 40th birthday looming.  I was distraught, distraught, I say, to find that no longer is the white whipped frosting an option.  Heretofore, it has been the only reason to buy such a cake.  It requires a major occasion to justify the acquisition of a half-sheet cake.  It’s not the only unfavorable change, either.  For some reason they changed their take-and-bake pizza options from plain cheese (our family favorite), plain pepperoni, and combo to ‘gourmet’ meat lover (disgusting concoction loaded with an abominable amount of salty greasy meat products), ham/pineapple, and mozzarella/basil/tomato.  I would probably like the fresh basil kind, but I don’t think Mr. Gadget would go for it, and we generally end up with the ham/pineapple, which we like, but it just isn’t as good as the previous plain cheese*.  We tried the meat version, but had to scrape off all the meat to make it palatable.  Not to worry.  That meat found a home in a future meal in which it was not so overpowering.  So.  As devoted a Costco customer I am, these changes are not to my liking.

*~*~*~*~*

I cooked four chickens last night.  Costco had a buy one, get one free coupon, and one in this case is a two-pack.  So I had four chickens to deal with.  I’ve been pining for some nice home-made soup so decided to roast them up and then make stock with the remains.  I could only fit three in the oven, so I cooked the fourth in the pressure cooker.  Fully cooked whole chicken in 20 minutes.  Woot.  The other three took two hours.  Every time I do this, I tell myself not to do it again, ever, due to the mess and effort.  I’m not a big fan of skin peeling and decarcassing.  I figured I’d do it in one fell swoop and get it over with, though, rather than on four separate occasions.  So I cooked them all.   I won’t be doing that again soon.

*~*~*~*~*

We had chicken with mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy for dinner last night.  I was going to do the gravy from scratch, using the roast drippings, but that would have meant waiting for the chicken to cook, and I decided we’d dine on the pressure cooked chicken instead.  So I used a poultry gravy mix and added fresh sauteed mushrooms.  Not long after, Harry said, “Mommy, you itch my back?”  I lifted his shirt to comply and was horrified to find a sheet of bright red rash covering his entire back.  I tore off his shirt and inspected the rest of him, and it was spreading to his chest.  Luckily I had bought a pack of Benadryl skin cream and had it on hand.  I doused him with it and gave him a dose of cold/allergy medicine, only to find, upon closer inspection of the lotion label, not to cover large areas of skin, and not to mix with any other antihistamine.   Oops.   I was ready to call the doctor and/or race to the ER, but the lotion started to take effect and he showed no signs of anaphylaxis, so I waited.  And Googled.  It’s obviously an allergic reaction, but I’m not sure if it was the mushrooms or the flavor enhancer additives in the gravy mix.  I think he’s had mushrooms in tiny quantity before, but he tried tasting one raw last night.  I wonder if it was the gravy.  It’s enough to scare me away from prepackaged foods for a while, even though he’s had plenty of convenience crap like mac & cheese, ravioli, and canned soups, all of which probably have those same additives.  I’m going to have to be even more vigilant with my label screening.  Meanwhile, I need to find the culprit.  I might try a scratch test tonight**.  That year of breast milk was supposed to shield him from this sort of thing.

*~*~*~*~*

Did I mention the latest exclamation heard shouted about the house?  This, from a three year old.  “What the HELL?”  You see, we let him watch the Spiderman movies**, all three of them, and in the last movie, Eddie Brock makes that exclamation when the black Spiderman (the dark side of Peter Parker) destroys his camera.  So it stands to follow that that is an appropriate expression for moments of frustration and consternation.  He says “Dammit” alot too.  I tell him these aren’t very nice words, or they’re grown-up words (and still not nice). 

*It sounds as though we eat a lot of pizza.  But we don’t.  Honestly.  It’s all relative, though, right?  Okay.  Truth.  Maybe once or twice a month.

**Please don’t call cee pee ess.

I was going to put something in the title about being a good mother, as I was ruminating over the fact that I committed myself to accompanying one very big boy and two small boys to the Monster Truck Jam next weekend. At which time, the girls are having a hair day at the salon. That is, all the girls except me. So I was feeling the sacrifice and having a moment of martyrdom.  I would so much prefer getting chunky highlights and a fresh new do to sitting in an arena with thousands of people watching ridiculous behemoth vehicles and their antics.  Grave Digger will be there.  My nephew is VERY excited.  I even got pit passes so we could go early and take pictures among the vehicles on display.  And if they’re so inclined, they can stand in line for autographs.  I do hope they are not so inclined.  Hair day.  Truck day.  Hair day.  Truck day.  Such a martyr.

Then I heard those little feet making their way down the stairs, and I realized that those same little feet had been up the stairs for quite some time now, and very, very quiet. And the last time I’d seen those small feet, in fact, the small hands that accompany them were in possession of a tube of toothpaste. Albeit a child-friendly non-fluoridated Thomas the Train tube of toothpaste. But a tube of toothpaste all the same. A tube, I feared, the entire contents of which could well now be sloshing about in my son’s stomach. So. Awesome martyr-mom quickly replaced with lazy ignorant sorry excuse for a mother.

Did you brush your teeth?

Yes.

Is the toothpaste all gone?

No. (She masks a sigh of relief and continues the interrogation.)

Did you put the toothpaste back?

Yes.

What else were you doing?

I wash my hands.

Did you turn the water off?

Yes.

Did you make a big mess?

No.

Did you make a little mess?

Yes.

Okay. (I’m so proud of him for telling the truth.)

He’s going through a water obsession phase right now. Our fancy new fridge that we bought expressly for the child lock feature (okay, so we also got it with aesthetic considerations in mind as well) locks only the temperature control, but not the water and ice. So what’s the point in that? Now I have to keep a mindful eye on my child and teach him to leave it alone. It would be so much easier if it weren’t possible for him to get to the water until he’s smart enough to figure out how to override the lock, at which point in time he should well enough be able to obey when I say not to play with and waste water.

Child obedience. It’s a lofty goal. How does one actually get a child to obey? I think I might need to start recording Super Nanny again, for some pointers.  Or am I just expecting too much from a three year old?

No.  Not that one.  (Although…)

This one. 

I’ve decided that mood stabilization does, indeed, work.  At least so far.  For me.  Sometimes I can feel the fringe of the battle raging within, but it’s only the fringe.  I know the battle is there, but I’m no longer on the front line under fire.  Instead, I’m tucked safely away in a watchtower.   Observing, but not being pummeled.

I like that.

Every night as my head hits the pillow, I try to think of the happiest moment of my day.  It’s such a good exercise, because it makes me think of all the moments of happiness, and weigh them against each other to decide which was the best.  So I fall asleep with happiness as the last thing on my mind.

Sometimes I’ll ask Mr. Gadget what his happiest moment was, but I think  he thinks it’s a trick question, so he tells me what he thinks I want to  hear, “Coming home after work, walking in the door, and seeing you and Harry.   Dear.”  I tell him it’s not a trick question, but he must not believe me, because he gives the same answer every time I ask.  (Of course, it is possible that that truly is the highlight of his day. I’m not complaining!)

Some of my happiest moments take place on mornings of days in which I stay home.  Early morning, in my office.  Eventually I hear soft steps making their way carefully down the stairs.  I hear the gentle tinkling sound of the safety gate opening and closing.  I hear little footsteps, padding towards the office.  And there he is, my sweet little man, groggy and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.  Looking for me.  It makes the heart swell.  I open my arms, he climbs into my lap, and we have our morning conversation, which always goes like this:  “Did you wake up?”  I ask. “Yyahh…” he replies in his sweet young voice.  “Did you have a nice sleep?”   “Yyahh…”   “Did you have some dreams?”  “Yyahh…”  (And then sometimes we talk about spiders and he tells me of the time that he woke up screaming, thinking there was a spider crawling on his face, but it was just the curtain.  Or a spider on the curtain.  Or a dream about a spider on the curtain.  Or all of these things.)

And he lets me snuggle him for a few moments.  Those are the moments I love best, because usually he has so many other things he’d rather do than let me hold him close and bury my nose in his hair.  I treasure those moments, fleeting as they are.

Was it Seals and Crofts who said that?

Three years ago, around this time of year, my child swirled and rolled in my enormous belly. I would sit in my chair and watch the undulations, marveling at the wonder of it all.

I’ve been remembering, and missing, those fleeting moments from the fullest bloom of pregnancy, when I could feel my child moving inside me. It was a glorious experience, for which I am ever grateful. I try to hold on to the memories of those feelings, and to relive for a moment those experiences, but they are fading. I would so much like to have another chance. A healthy and stress-free pregnancy, and to savor each and every moment. But I know that if I were to pass that way again, I would still worry. I wouldn’t be able to help myself. But I like to think that I will savor each and every moment inasmuch as possible. I’m not giving up, just yet, but I have to accept that I may never pass that way again.

It’s nothing short of remarkable, what can happen in three years. Who knew that the child within me would grow to nearly ten and a half pounds before his arrival in this world? And in less than three years, grow into forty seven pounds of boisterous little boyhood.

He looks so grown up. It’s hard to believe that he came from me. I love how he’s grown, that he’s learned so much, that he has so much to say, and such imagination. Tonight he was telling me, “I’m wukking,” “at da offiss, on the pooter,” “because I have a badge.” (Some mornings he pleads with me to take him to my office instead of daycare, and I tell him that he can’t come to my office because he doesn’t have a badge.)

I’m looking forward to introducing him to the magic of Christmas. He loves the lights. And of course he loves buttons. His special job is to turn the Christmas tree lights on when we get home, and off before we go to bed.

This journey called motherhood is the joy of my life.  As I knew it would be.  I am so blessed.

There are ups and downs, pros and cons, and hazards to being sick.

Last Friday, Harry had a sorrowful cough. The little guy’s eyes would fill with tears when one forced its way from his little lungs. It breaks a mother’s heart. On the up side, I called in sick so that I could care for him. I had a full day with absolutely no thoughts spent on the work that butters my bread. Instead, I got to be a stay-at-home-mom. (My dream job.) And that was divine.

*~*~*

He was still sick come Monday. I worked from home, and he slept most of the day.

*~*~*

Tuesday I reveled and marveled that I made it through the past three weeks of family sniffles with nary a nose wipe. Then I ate my words, or thoughts, rather, came home early, curled up on the sofa, and napped. And then I watched Oprah. Where I learned that tomorrow’s episode is My Favorite Things.

*~*~*

Wednesday I called in sick, dragged my child to daycare, dragged myself back home and slept most of the day. Of course I watched Oprah. I could very easily become one of the masses of addicts, tuning in every day to listen to the heart warming or wrenching topic du jour. But the favorite things episode is fun. It’s like everyone in the audience wins the lottery, as they are bestowed with every whizzbang thing she unveils. It must feel so good to give so much stuff to so many people, to literally shock them with the outpouring of gifts.

*~*~*

Back to work Thursday and Friday. Too many deadlines to allow myself any further time off.

*~*~*

CPAP with a cold BLOWS. I know, I know. It’s an excruciating pun. Or is that not a pun? Too stuffed up to care. I had to switch to the full face mask, because I haven’t been able to breathe through my left nostril for the last three days. Two hours into it and my mouth is a wasteland from all that forced air. And my ears itch. All my megadosing of vitamin C is for naught, it appears. I put peroxide in my ears to try and kill anything that’s trying to colonize.

*~*~*

What does one do at 2 a.m. while trying to relieve a parched mouth, itching ears, and stuffed nose, one might ask? Well. First, yank off the offending mask (but don’t hurl it across the room for fear of disturbing the sleeping family). Next, stumble to the bathroom in an oxygen and sleep deprived stupor. Rustle through the cupboards looking for the waterpik thingy with the nasal irrigation tip. Rustle through more cupboards looking for the home-made saline solution. Mix up a batch and irrigate the sinuses in the hopes that air might actually be able to pass through that left nostril when all is said and done. Stumble downstairs, consider rustling through more cupboards in search of brandy or whiskey to enhance the medicinal effects of the tea I so desperately desire, but decide to settle for plain jasmine. In the interest of time. Liberally apply Vicks VapoRub to the nose, throat, and chest. Apply peroxide to one ear canal. Delete spam email with head tilted. Apply peroxide to the other ear canal. Discover a $20 off coupon from REI among the spam. Spend $102 on REI.com in order to use the coupon. Drain the ears. Drink the tea. Catch up on blogs.

*~*~*

If I could have just slept through the night, I’d be $89.15 richer (post-coupon and tax). But now I will soon have a new pair of shoes, a headlamp, and a flashlight. My favorite red shoes have worn out in the sole, much to my dismay. And my replacement shoes are ultra comfortable, but alas, they squeak. Which drives me nuts. So a new pair of shoes is reasonable.

And the headlamp? Although I doubt I will be doing much night-time hiking, it looks like it will do nicely for reading in bed.

And the flashlight. Is a lizard. How cute is that. As though my child needs more stuff. Note to self. STOP buying things for the boy.

But I had to exceed $100 to meet the coupon requirements. And tomorrow? We shop for a kitchen sink.

A certain young man was about to crawl behind a rocking chair, which happens to be a place where a tantalizing (especially to a nearly three year old boy) tangle of various and sundry power cords make their home (take a deep breath, I just love these long and impossible sentences, and there’s oh, so much more coming), when his mother barks in her most stern and commanding voice, “Don’t you go there…”

In a mere blink of an eye, a flash, he twists his body to face her, extends his arm, and webs her. WEBS her.

Oh to have captured the expression on his face (this picture captures the gesture, but not the expression). That picture would paint a thousand words.

Oh to fully grasp the depth of the Spiderman obsession. With that flick of the wrist and glint in his eye, he cast forth his invisible web, using his mighty toddler powers to make his mother stop telling him what not to do. Priceless.

I turned to Mr. Gadget. “Did you see what your son just did? He webbed me.”

If only I could have managed not to laugh, and be visibly impressed by my child’s intelligence, dexterity, and imagination, I might have been able to convey the message that “Mommy means business and no means no and you’d jolly well better listen when I’m talking to you, young man.”

Instead, he was obviously pleased with himself, and amused. And even though he didn’t obey me, I was at least able to distract him away from the nest of cords.

So yesterday morning I was bound and determined to send my child to daycare all nice and squeaky clean, rather than scruffy and smelling faintly of urine. Yes, I’m that nearly middle-aged mother who gives in and lets her child, her only child, the one that took a lifetime to beget and bear, have a cup of milk or juice in the evening. So it should be little surprise to find a small child at the side of the bed, each and every morning, oh, around 3 a.m., saying, “I’m all wet.” And the sleepy mother dutifully changes the diaper, or mutters muffled curses if she finds that she’d put him to bed in a pull-up, because pull-ups? Are supposed to be training pants. They just don’t hold that much. Wet jammies and bed linens are pretty much guaranteed, if the child is put to bed in a pull-up.

Oh yes. The race car bed? Well. It works until the “I’m all wet” announcement. After the diaper change, I let him snuggle up in my bed. I tried returning him to the race car once, but lifting a 46lb boy in my cloudy 3 a.m. state, carrying him down the hall and into his room while not tripping on anything en route, and depositing him once more in his own, and possibly now damp, bed, is just too much effort. So he gets to sleep with me. And three hours later, instead of letting him sleep, I give him a shower and dress him in his soft and cozy and freshly washed superman sweats. See, I make good on my promises.

Half way to daycare, he gets a funny look on his face, clutches his stomach, and spews forth the contents. One entire freshly consumed cup of milk. All over him. All over the car. All over everything. I whipped a U-ey. (It’s one of those things you hear people say, but when it comes time to spell it, well…) …So really, all I did was make a U-turn, pull in to a parking lot, leap out of the car and attend to the matter. I sopped up what I could with the blankies on hand, and was half tempted to go ahead and drop him off at daycare and let the babysitter clean him up and change his clothes. Bad mother. Bad, bad mother. But instead we went home. Good mother. The Superman sweatshirt and pants lasted all of twenty minutes. Back in the wash for another day.

I cleaned out the car as best I could with 409 and Febreze, and we set out again. He seemed to be feeling well. He probably just drank the milk way too fast, as he does, then had to burp, as he does, and got caught in a gag reflex. At least he’s not actually sick. That would just be icing on the cake. In spite of waking up extra early to arrive to daycare and work on time and in good hygiene, we arrive very very late, smelling of vomited sour milk. Nice.

I kept the windows down for the drive, hoping the air would help. It didn’t. I left the windows cracked open all day, hoping it would help. It didn’t. That’s the end of the new car smell around here. The evening was spent with the Bissell, in a valiant attempt to rid the car of vomited sour milk. The resale value has plummeted dramatically. At least the car seat could be disassembled so I could wash the seat cover. But what to do about the seat belts? How can I get the vomited sour milk out of them? I’m at a loss. Keep dousing them with Febreze until they are saturated and the Febreze wins?

Yes, as long as the smell of vomited sour milk wafts through the air as we journey in our trusty minivan, the memory of this day will live on. And on.