Understanding Polygamy

I'm approaching 11 weeks pregnant. My stomach has started to round in a way that no amount of sucking in can hide. (Thank you, second-pregnancies-show-earlier.) And I have found my hands making their way to it, time and again, of their own accord, to sit and stroke. I have found myself imagining that tiny baby inside me, now with arms and legs and hands and feet and fingers and toes, now stretching and moving and waving, found myself smiling at it. Loving it.

And then I find myself feeling guilty.

I know what it is to love a child. To feel your heart grow beyond your body to consume you. I know what that special kind of love feels like, so very different from any other kind of love, so very unique. I know because I have a child, a precocious, funny, confident, loving, sweet daughter of 13 months, a child who has brought me more joy, more love, than I ever knew possible.

And now I'm feeling that love again. That special kind of love that only a mother and child can share. I find myself beginning to create that bond with another child, a new child, and I feel pangs of guilt. I learned that love with my daughter, and now I'm sharing that love with another.

I feel like I'm cheating on her.

I know about how love grows, not divides. About how my love for Dos will never impact my love for baby girl. And it's not that I feel like I'll love baby girl any less. It's just that it feels strange to be bonding with another child, when the only child I've ever loved this way is her.

And I guess that's what it's like for polygamists, no? Maybe I ought to cut them a little more slack.

Oh, and have I said this yet? Damn I love being pregnant.

No, No, No

Baby girl has taken to dropping food over the side of her high chair.

We're working on it.

At first we shook our heads. Then she started holding the food out, shaking her head, and then dropping it.

Funny girl.

Then she started holding the food out, saying, "uh oh!" dropping it, and then holding her hands up innocently, like, "ohmygosh, what happened?"

Ha.   Ha.

Last night at dinner, she dropped an orange slice over the side.

"Alina!" I said in a stern voice. She gets her whole name when she's in trouble.

She looked up at me, waggled her finger, and said, "No! No! No!"

It's hard to discipline when you're laughing.

Your Questions . . . Answered!

Thanks for playing along with the questions. They are great! Here I will attempt to do them all justice. Enjoy getting to know me a little better.

Q: What's your favorite indulgence?
A: Oh, I have such a hard time with "favorite" questions. I don't have a favorite movie, song, food . . . nada! I feel picking one favorite is so limiting. So, we'll go with what one of my most favorite indulgences is . . . getting a massage. But not at a massage parlor! At any of those little shops or massage chairs set up in malls or airports. It seems so spontaneous at those places, so self-indulgent.  Getting a massage at an official parlor seems too planned and formal. I love the feeling of spotting a massage chair somewhere and thinking, "Yes! I'm so doing that because I WANT it and I DESERVE it!" And then the pleasure of the massage is just multiplied by the feelings you get of delicious indulgence.

Q: What is the one baby item you are most looking forward to using again with the new babe?
A: I think I'll have to say my Moby wrap! I loved wearing baby girl in it when she was all itty-bitty, loved the feeling of freedom it gave me and the inherent snuggles it provided. I can't wait to have all that newborn sweetness wrapped up against me again.

Q: What is the one baby item you are Least looking forward to using again?
A: The baby tub. That thing was a royal PITA. Water all over the counter. Lugging it back and forth. We switched to co-bathing with baby girl pretty early on, and we'll likely do the same thing with Dos.

Q: What is your go-to way to unwind?
A: This one's easy--snuggled up on the couch, in my pjs, wrapped in a blanket, watching one of my DVR'd shows (seriously, does anyone watch live TV anymore???).

Q: What is your dream job?
A: Well, if we're talking dreams here, I'd love to be that chick who gets paid to travel the world and do shows on luxury resorts! I'd also love being a photographer or writer. Hmmmm . . . those would parlay well into my luxury resorts idea . . .

Q: What is your dream vacation?
A: This one was hard!! TH and I are (were?) avid travelers. It's our top way to spend any extra money we have (though that is suddenly a lot harder to come by than it was before having a kid!). We've backpacked across Europe, toured Ireland, seen China. There are so many places left on our list: Macchu Pichu, New Zealand, SE Asia, Egypt, Petra . . . . . But in the spirit of the question, I'd have to say that if I could put together a single dream vacation, it would be a cruise around the Mediterranean, with a focus on Greece but a foray into Russia so that I could see where he grew up.

Q: What is your favorite book?
A: Again, I hate the "favorite" questions! I'm an editor! An ex-English teacher! I have a thousand and one favorite books. I can say that I LOVE Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice is at the top of the list, but I also adored her lesser-known Persuasion) and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

Q: What's the biggest challenge to being married to someone from another culture/country? The best part? How do you think that it impacts your parenting?
A: Oh my. I can tell you that living with and raising a child with a "foreigner" is a constant source of amusement. He doesn't know the traditional American nursery rhymes. Remember this version of This Little Piggy? Animals made different sounds in Russia. Apparently roosters don't say "cocka-doodle-doo," they say "cooka-ri-coo!" And children's cartoons? Check out the Russian version of Winnie the Pooh, or TH's childhood favorite, Cheburashka.

I think the most challenging part is actually dealing with my in-laws. Especially when baby girl was an infant, they had SUCH different ideas about what we should be doing with her, how we should hold her, dress her, care for her, etc. I kept trying to explain to them that things have changed in the 30 years since they have had an infant, especially since their experience was in Soviet-era USSR. It took a long time for them to trust that we were competent doing things differently than they expected.

The best part is that baby girl will grow up having a much broader cultural exposure than she would have with two American parents. She'll speak some phrases in another language, she'll understand different cultures and practices, different foods, etc.

As far as an impact on our parenting, I just have to remember to make a concerted effort to continue to expose her to Russian language, stories, cartoons (eesh!), etc. TH actually does not really try and speak to her or read to her in Russian, so I try to do a little every week, just to make sure that she's getting some exposure.

Q: Do you have any gut feeling about the sex of Baby #2? Are you hoping for a boy or girl? If you have a preference, why?
A: Actually, I really, really, really, really, really think that Dos is another girl!! Maybe it's because having a girl is all I know, so that's where my mind goes. Maybe it's because I kinda want Dos to be a girl. At one point I wanted nothing more than one of each. But the more I think about it, the more awesome I think it would be to have sisters. (1) We can re-use all our stuff. Score. (2) We know what to do with a girl, how to care for her girly parts, what to be on the lookout for, etc. (3) I have an amazing relationship with my sister. Yes she drives me crazy sometimes, but she and I have something special that my brother and I, even though we are also very close, just don't share. I would LOVE for baby girl to experience the blessing of a sister relationship. And (4), even though I know this is a sweeping generalization and OF COURSE there are exceptions, in general, everyone I talk to agrees (can you tell I'm tiptoeing up to this?) that baby girls are, in general, "easier" than baby boys. They are calmer and quieter and more gentle. And quite frankly, having two kids this close together, the idea of a calmer, quieter and more gentle Dos is appealing to me. (The caveat to that is that boys start out harder but get easier as they age, whereas girls start out easier but when they reach the teen years . . . Lordhelpus.) So while one of each would be unbelievably amazing . . . there's something about the idea of two girls that just charms me.

Q: Describe your feelings when you first met your husband.
A: LOL! Oh if only I had been blogging back then. The short version is this: I thought he was someone else. We met the first day of 11th grade, and I had met another guy, a football player, earlier in the morning who had gorgeous eyes--deep brown, almond shaped, dark lashes. Lo and behold I turned around in my Pre-Cal class to pass back some first-day paperwork and the same gorgeous eyes were staring into mine--deep brown, almond shaped, dark lashes. I'm normally a pretty socially shy person, but I was smitten, so I took a deep breath, turned back around, and asked him  if he played football. He laughed in my face. I kid you not. I blinked a couple of times and took another look, a look beyond the gorgeous eyes. He was skinny. He was wearing a comic-book T-shirt, purple-and-black striped jeans, and Doc Martins that he had sprayed painted silver and gold. So. Not. A. Football. Player. But he was charming. And smart. And funny. And friendly. And, let's face it, foreign and alluring. We immediately became best friends and it just kind of went from there!


Q: Any name ideas for the new baby on the way?
A: NONE! Isn't that awful? Well, that's not entirely true. We still kind of remember our "maybes" from the first name-choice round with baby girl. We learned our lesson, though, and likely won't start talking names until we find out if Dos is a he or a she. Boy names are SO much harder for us than girl names! What we do know is that if Dos IS a boy, his middle name will be Alexander. It's a Russian tradition for the son to take the father's first name as his middle name.

Q: How did you choose Ali's beautiful name?
A: That one is all thanks to TH! His name is Alex and the Russian version of my name is Kalina. Put them together and you get Alina! And she goes by Ali, a combination of Alex and Kelly. It works. And it's pretty. And unique-but-not-weird. Perfect.

Q: If you could do anything right this very moment (not including the obvious spend time with your beautiful little girl or husband) what would you do if you could just drop everything? Just for you!
A: I would go on a girl's trip with my friends to a resort in Mexico and spend a week sipping non-alcoholic drinks and gossiping and talking sex and relationships and parenting and friendships and jobs and all the other wonderful things girlfriends talk about. Of course, this would only work if my girlfriends could also drop everything and come with. ;-)

Q: How many brothers and sisters do you have? Does Ali get to see them often?
A: I have a truly "All American" family. I have one "full" brother, one "step" brother, and one "half"sister. (I'll spare you the history of how we got there.) My two brothers are both older than me, and my sister is the baby of the family. Ali gets to see my sister pretty frequently since she only lives about 3 hours away. Unfortunately, both of my brothers and their families live on the east coast, so Ali has only gotten to meet them a couple of times.

Q: Is there anything you are going to do differently with baby #2? If so, why?
A: We are pretty pleased with how we did everything with baby girl. If anything changes with Dos, it will change out of necessity, not choice. For example, we probably won't be able to be as structured about Dos's schedule as we were with baby girl's. But for the most part, I'm treating pregnancy the same and I really hope to treat the first year the same as well. I would hate for Dos to get shafted on anything simply for the uncontrollable fact of being "dos!" 

Q: Now that you have another little one on the way, do you have any dreams of how you want to see your children interact as siblings?
A: We always knew we wanted our kids close in age. My brother and I are 20 months apart and grew up as best friends, never lacking a playmate, never being bored. TH and his brother grew up 7 years apart (!!), and though they are still amazingly close, I can't help but think about how different it must have been for TH to not have any siblings as playmates as a young child. So, I guess my dreams are just of them playing together, interacting with each other, entertaining each other. I cannot wait to hear the sound of their laughter mingled together, mixed inextricably from each other. I know there will be fights and tears and anger . . . but I also know that they can be best friends, and what a gift to live with a sibling so close to your age and your heart.

Phew! Thank you for all the great questions and for following this blog. I am humbled and delighted that there are so many out there who enjoy taking part in this ride!! You are always welcome to keep the questions coming. If ever you are reading and are curious about anything, just let me know and I'll do my best to satisfy your curiosity!


THANK YOU!!

Blogging Milestone!

I logged in this morning to check my feed for my Monday-morning updates on all my friends in real life and in the blogosphere (NOT to blog myself, since Lord knows the only thing I have to write about this  morning is how I had to do daycare drop off today and there is a REASON moms don't do the drop-offs, especially pregnant, in-the-midst-of-weaning moms, and how I burst into tears when I made it back to my car, the sound of my baby's cries and tears still echoing in my head because of COURSE on the morning I had to do the drop-off, the normal teacher wasn't there and baby girl decided the new teacher was clearly the most horrible thing EVAH) . . . where was I? Oh right. I logged in just to catch up on everyone else, and there I saw it:

50 followers!

50 people who are actually interested in what I have to share about our simple, crazy little lives. I'm flattered and humbled.

I tried to think of a fitting way to thank you all, to involve you and celebrate you. Since I don't do giveaways, how about an ask-anything post?

So here you go, friends. Here's your chance to ask me anything you've ever wondered about me, my daughter, my husband, my family, my in-laws, my cats, my job . . . or anything else. I promise to answer openly and honestly (as long as your question isn't asking me to reveal our address or my social security number).

Ask away . . . and thank you for following!

The Cutest Thing I've Ever Seen

...and it wasn't even my kid who did it.

Baby girl has a boyfriend. She loves her daycare class, loves her teachers, but one boy in particular she became fast friends with, a little boy named Aiden. The teachers would tell me that Aiden and baby girl would chase each other around the classroom all day, roll balls back and forth between them, share toys, etc. On a day he was having a particularly hard time, crying inconsolably, she went over and laid her head on his lap until he stopped crying. They would even give each other kisses. When I came to pick her up every day, he would follow us around the room while I gathered her things; then he would follow us to the door and stare at her as she left, waving bye-bye with both hands.

Aiden is an "older man." He's two months older than baby girl, and about a month ago, he moved up into the toddler room. I figured their friendship would fade . . . at this age, memories don't last, right? I don't know how often they see each other during the day anymore, but I figured it couldn't be much if they were in separate rooms.

Yesterday when I went to pick baby girl up, as we exited her room and walked by the toddler room, I noticed several of her old classmates, including Aiden, playing busily in the toddler room. He was in the back corner, working on figuring out how to pick up an unwieldy elephant, stand up, and walk with it. Without fail it wobbled and fell before he got even a step or two of progress, but he was determined to figure it out. The teachers throughout the school know of Ali and Aiden's affection for each other, so the toddler teacher started calling Aiden's name to get his attention. He was intently focused on his uncooperative elephant, so it took several attempts to finally get his attention.

"Aiden!" the teacher said again and again. "Aiden! Look up! Aiden!"

He finally took a pause from his mission to throw a curious, "What?!?!" look at his teacher.

"Aiden, look! Ali's at the door!"

He didn't turn to face the door like, "I understand the word door, I'll look that way to see what teacher is talking about," he turned to face the door like "OH MY GOD SHE SAID 'ALI'!!!" It was immediate and disbelieving and hopeful all at once.

Baby girl and I stood there at the window, waving and grinning. His eyes locked into hers, and he dropped his elephant and threw his arms out, feet already churning toward us. The elephant, ever the bane of his afternoon, tripped him up, and he fell. But even as he stumbled, even as he dropped his hands to catch himself, he never once took his eyes off my girl. He knocked the elephant to the side, got back on his feet, threw his hands out toward us again, and toddled as fast as his little feet would carry him across the room. The look on his face was one I've seen in romance movies: desperation, a wild desire to know if the face he was seeing was real or just a figment of his memories.

He stopped at the door, he on one side, me and my sweet girl on the other. He didn't cry out. He didn't wave. He just stood there, hands on the door, eyes locked onto baby girl. She, ever the charmer, smiled and said, "hi!" and beat the glass with her tiny little hands.

I started to feel bad. There I was, standing there on the other side of an impassible obstacle, taunting him with something he so clearly wanted but couldn't have. I told baby girl to say "bye." She didn't. She wouldn't. She just looked at him and smiled. And he, seeming to realize that we weren't coming in, that we were about to leave, took a couple of steps back away from the door. There were no tears. No cries of frustration. Just slow steps backward, eyes never leaving each other, her face lit with a sweet smile of affection, his face blank, all his effort pouring into not letting her out of his sight.

And then we left.

This is Aiden's last week at our school. His family is moving. I don't know if he and baby girl will ever see each other again, and part of me laments that. Aside from silly notions of young love, a part of me, a very deep, human part of me, rejoices at their affection for each other, at the friendship that has so clearly bonded these two. It will be a loss for both of them to be permanently split apart.

I realized on the way home that he would only be the first of many boys, of many men, to lose their hearts to my daughter, to feel like they can't get enough of drinking in her face, her eyes, her smile, to feel a desperate need to be near her. The power that she will have one day over another human being, and the powerlessness that she'll feel, consumed by her own feelings in return, is the quintessential human experience. To love and be loved, that is really what it's all about.

How amazing to see that played out so early, so innocently, so sweetly, and so honestly.

Since we haven't come out on FB yet...

Here are the plethora of FB status updates that I've wanted to make, but couldn't.

1. Have reached that stage where I just look fat. Good times.
2. Cruel pregnancy joke: when you are insatiable but the thought of food makes you want to barf.
3. Would like to apologize to work; the baby has eaten my brain. Hope that meeting went well.
4. Would like to apologize to my husband; the baby has eaten my brain. You can't tell those clothes are dirty, I promise!
5. Would like to apologize to the cats; the baby has eaten my brain. I'll feed you twice to make up for it.
6. Has discovered the cause of baby brain: my body is trying to run a large program in the background, making all other systems operate more slowly.
7. had forgotten how powerful pregnancy is as an excuse for giving voice to my inner crabbiness. I promise not to use these powers for evil. Muahahahahaha
8. already feeling the guilt set in that I'm not paying enough attention to Dos because I'm too busy playing with Uno...and that I'm not paying enough attention to Uno because I'm so tired from trying to build Dos. Le sigh.
9. Ah, old wive's tales, how I love and loathe thee. 
10. That's one doodle that can't be un-did, homeskillet.

All Puffed Out

One of baby girl's favorite books is the Itsy Bitsy Spider. It tells all about Itsy's various attempts of outsmarting the rain and the sundry adventures he gets into along the way. There's one page where he's running away from some birds; it says, "Itsy's running, all puffed out." When we get to that page in the book, without fail, baby girl pants along with Itsy, huffing out a "huh-huh-huh" the way we taught her.

That's where we are right now as a family. All puffed out. Panting. Catching our breath.

In the last 6 weeks, we've had one emergency trip to Dallas, two first birthday parties, one positive home pregnancy test, one family vacation to Florida, one doctor's visit where we saw a beautiful little heartbeat, one big job change, one trip to California, and one week of my mom and grandma visiting because TH was in Zurich on business.

We are all.puffed.out.

The good news is that 95% of our business the last 6 weeks was wonderful, exciting, happy, thrilling events. It is definitely easier to go through a stretch like this when that is the case.

The bad news is that we allowed it to all snowball in on itself. We've neglected our cats, our home, our cars, our blogs, our friends, and our laundry trying to keep up with our schedule. Never again (well, at least not until the next time) will we allow such a long, hard stretch with no break.

But we made it. Like Itsy, we made it back to our spout. Time to turn again and start to get our footing back in our normal lives.

It would be way too hard to do a fair job of recapping the entire six weeks. The last month has been amazing for baby girl. The most amazing yet. Her language and communication capacities have exploded. She went from speaking about 5 words on her first birthday to having more than 30 words now. More than THIRTY. She says book, ball, more, duck, go, out, no, blue, green, dada, mama, kitty, dog, bus, please, boo, bye-bye, night-night, boat, hi, cracker, there, hot (she says hot and then blows and shakes her hand for this one . . . SO cute!), eye, mouth, and bubble, and can make the animal noises (we're counting these as "words") for a dog, cat, snake, lion, monkey, elephant, cow, bird, and rooster. Her signs have also exploded in the last month. She now signs more, all done, please, milk, hat, diaper, thank you, and book. The rate at which she is learning things now is astonishing. She is a little sponge, listening to us, watching us, and learning, usually after only a few repetitions. What a cool age this is!!!

Oh, and one other little thing. She's walking. Or toddling. Or whatever you call it. She's been taking 2-3 falling steps between me and TH for about a month now but seemed to kind of plateau out there (apparently she was focusing on her language skills this month!). But while TH was in Switzerland and my mom and grandma were here, something snapped and she took 5, 6, even 7 solid steps between us, even stopping halfway and standing for a minute before starting back up again! We are on the brink of a totally new world with her, and as usual, I can't wait.

And an update on Dos? Ah, sweet Dos. How different this pregnancy is than my first. With baby girl, we had nothing else going on. Nothing to do in the evenings except daydream about babies and paint nurseries and talk names. I had all the time in the world to think about her and bond with her. But now? Now I spend most of my awake time with my daughter, entertaining and laughing and helping her walk and talking to her and making sure she doesn't get into anything. And then she goes to sleep and I do all the rest of our typical life-maintenance kind of stuff (dishes, laundry, cleaning, prepping for the next day, uploading pictures, writing thank-you notes, etc. etc. etc.) for as long as I can before collapsing into bed and passing out in sleep in about 0.7 seconds. I often forget that I am pregnant. I often struggle with feelings of guilt that already Dos is getting shafted. On the bright side, I have way less time to sit and worry than I did the first time around.

So, we're here. We survived the six weeks of insanity. We are all puffed out and looking forward to spending a few weeks at home, recovering our sanity and our lives. Along the way, life happened. Baby girl grew and gained amazing capabilities. She laughed and made us laugh. Our family grew. Life goes on, even when you are too busy to be able to stop and celebrate it the way you should.

What a ride.

I Believe

I'm participating in my first-ever blog link-up. You should join!

I believe . . .

 . . . that sleep is good for the body, and that not enough sleep will eventually lead to your body telling you, "Eff you, I quit."

. . . that husbands and wives have to remember to fight for each other, not with each other, and that this is never harder--or more important--than when you're both exhausted and your child is losing her freaking mind on a late flight.

. . . that it doesn't really matter who is right or wrong in a fight; all that matters is that you both remember that neither of you wants to be mad at the other and that it only takes one person to swallow their pride and begin the making-up process.

. . . that when one person is pregnant and exhausted, and the other person is only exhausted, it's the latter of the two who will usually need to initiate the make-up process, as the former will be likely be too pissed and stubborn to do it herself.

. . . that bananas are the single best middle-of-the-night snack to ward off nausea.

. . . that my husband is stronger and does more for our family than he could ever realize.

. . . that most of the time, it really is just all details.

Here's the button to the link-up originator (I hope this works!):







Join in! What do you believe in this week?

Ten on Tuesday: Travel Edition

Inspired by our recent trips to both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

1. Baby girl hates sand. Apparently grass leg (see month 9 photo on right) translates into sand leg as well. I think it's a texture thing. I think it freaks her out that it sticks to her. This isn't so great when you want to sit in the sand and build sand castles together, but it ended up working out in our favor when we discovered that we could just plop her on a beach towel and that served as a make-shift playpen since she wouldn't move off the towel onto the sand. Win.

2. Baby girl love love LOVES the sea breeze, the birds, the ocean, the sound of the waves, the taste of sea shells . . . in short, everything about the beach except the sand.

3. Things I recommend:
--getting a suite hotel room so that you can put the kiddo to bed and still stay up and visit, watch TV, etc.
--bringing the stroller to the airport. Even if you end up holding your kiddo most of the time, the stroller can hold three bags plus a giant car seat, much more than any mere mortal.
--early morning flights. You are well rested. Your kiddo is well rested. Chances of anyone melting down, young or old, are much smaller.
--thick skin. You'll get eye rolls and looks of exasperation when people see that they are seated next to a baby. Brush them haters off. 

4. Things I don't recommend:
--late flights. You'll regret it. If your kid is anything like mine, they are too social and into all the people to chill the eff out and sleep. Until they finally reach their breaking point and scream bloody freaking murder while the entire plane tries to give you sympathetic smiles but really are thinking in their heads, "What the hell is wrong with that child? Why can't her parents calm her down? Why aren't they doing anything about it? Why is she still awake at this hour? Why did they book a late flight, those IDIOTS!" (I may be projecting on that last part.)
--planning back-to-back cross-country trips during your first trimester. Traveling is tiring. Traveling with a baby is exhausting. Traveling with a baby when all you want to do is sleep and puke is no bueno.

5. Going on a pure-fun family vacation (a la our trip to Florida) is waaaay different than going somewhere for a purpose (a la our trip to California). Florida was delightful. Relaxing. Soul-cleansing. We had no where to be at any given time. Our hardest decisions were something along the lines of where to eat? Pool or beach? You get the idea. California was stressful. We had to meet with people for meals. We had to be certain places at certain times, and of course none of those events were planned with a baby's nap schedule in mind. Poor baby girl got only one nap a day the entire trip, at some point in the afternoon, whenever we managed to make it back to the hotel. She also stayed up way late every night. She is a total trooper and still managed to charm the pants off everyone, but I felt guilty the whole time. The second trip just felt like one big fat chore.

6. No matter how much I rationally reminded myself, again and again, that TH was IN the wedding, that these were HIS friends, that he needed to go be social and participate in all of the activities and could not possibly be expected to leave anything early, by the last evening, when I was leaving the wedding reception early, by myself, once again, to get baby girl home and in bed finally, I still resented it. I felt like a nanny he had brought along so that he could go out and party with his friends every night, unhindered by his parental responsibilities. That resentment, coupled with a first-trimester exhaustion and nausea, coupled with a melting-down child on the flight back, did not end well for us.

7. Did I mention my exhaustion? Our flight landed at 11:30 p.m. last night. We finally made it home by 1 a.m. I was up at 6 for work. I am worthless today. Worthless. I've downloaded the file I'm supposed to be working on, but it is 1:07 in the afternoon and it's still just sitting on my desktop because I can't garner my thoughts well enough to put together coherent sentences. Exhibit A: I kept thinking, I should do a trip recap like a ten on Tuesday. Darn, too bad it's not Tuesday. I honestly thought this exact thing two or three times before realizing that it was, in fact, Tuesday. Exhibit B: I went to pee for the third time at work this morning (aw, frequent urination, how I've missed thee!) (<--sarcasm font), at which point I realized I had put on my pants backwards. Funny #1: putting on your pants backwards. Funny #2-#4: not realizing your pants are on backwards until the THIRD time you go to the bathroom.

8. My first-trimester symptoms, combined with my exhaustion from all the travel and my irritation with how the California trip was going down, did not bode well for my tolerance levels with my mother-in-law. Everything out of her mouth seemed trite, whiny, and self-indulgent. I'm really, really hoping there was still some veil of politeness on my exterior that hid my interior dirty looks and eye-rolling.

9. I'm not around other babies a lot. I'm around my baby a lot. So I think all babies are like my baby. Talkative. Outgoing. Energetic. Expressive. Charming. The bride and groom have a 15-month-old daughter, who, literally, just sat and stared all weekend. I swear I never once saw her smile. Never heard her vocalize anything. Bored look? Impassive staring. Excited look? Impassive staring. They could plop her and prop her in all manner of positions (she was wheeled up the aisle in a red flyer wagon, sitting amidst a nest of tulle and flowers, and she literally just sat and stared, whereas my child would be eating the tulle, pointing to all the people, and trying to dive out of the wagon to pet the koi in the pond. While I was a little envious that their girl fell asleep at the reception, never once uttering a peep, while my baby girl sort of morphed into a maniac who laughed and shouted "Buh! Buh!" and signed more whenever she saw bubbles floating around, I was also reminded how absolutely amazing my child is. Damn I love her.

10. Ultimately, I came out of these experiences, as I have all others, more in love than ever with my girl. Through flights and car rides and screwed up schedules and screwed up eating and being kept up late and woken up early, she was a total rock star. She was funny and sweet and charming and made every second of both trips enjoyable. (Okay, maybe not those ten minutes she lost her freaking mind on the flight last night. That wasn't enjoyable. But other than that.) She is a trooper, and I can't imagine any cooler kid than she is. I know I'm not supposed to compare, but Dos is going to have one helluva example set for him/her!

Crazy Things

(Written 9/13, published 10/7)

This weekend:

1. I remembered that I can't eat lunch meat.
2. I remembered that I can't have caffeine . . . or chocolate (sob).
3. I remembered that I can't clean the litter box.
4. I remembered that I can't drink a beer to unwind.
5. I remembered what it feels like to be SO NOT HUNGRY one minute and then FEED ME RIGHT NOW the next.
6. I remembered what it feels like to be restricted, to wonder, should I be doing these push-ups? Should I be spraying this insect poison? Should I be getting up early to go run?
7. I remembered that I need to be a lot more diligent about making sure my prenatal prescription is filled.
8. I remembered what it feels like to want to go to bed for the night at 8 p.m.
9. I remembered what it feels like to have a secret that you want to shout from the rooftops. 
10. I remembered what it feels like to wonder if anyone can tell.

Crazy, crazy, crazy.

The Proof is in the Pudding

(Written 9/17, published 10/7)

Well, not pudding. Pictures, as it were. The proof is in the pictures.

First, I saw this.

(That's when my face turned white.)

Then I saw this.

(No denying that one.)

Then we did this.

(This one makes my heart melt. We may not have it all together, but together we have it all!)

And then there was this. How could I leave out our first photo as a family of four?!

(Happy Birthday, baby girl! Guess what Mommy and Daddy got you!)

Surreal

(Written September 10; published October 6)

I took a pregnancy test two days ago.

It was kind of on a whim. I guess I was "late"--it was cycle day 35 and no sign of AF. I had been really moody, so I figured she was just running late this month, as she has done in months past. I had a day where I didn't really feel like eating anything. I attributed it to stress at work. I threw up Taco Bell for dinner. I attributed it to eating too fast. I ate ice cream for dinner. I attributed it to throwing up my earlier attempt. The next morning, I pulled out one of our five $1 HPTs. Why not? I thought. It's only a dollar. And seeing it be negative will stop all the little whispers in the back of my brain.

I honestly didn't give testing much thought. Yes, we'd looked at our finances and determined we could afford a second child. Yes, we'd talked about it at length and determined we wanted a second child. We had decided the time was right to start trying. We had had unprotected sex. But still, even then, there were so many unknowns. I didn't know when I had ovulated. I'm still breastfeeding baby girl, so my cervical fluid is affected (read: not really there very much at all). We hadn't had baby-making sex. We had had welcome-home-from-your-business-trip sex, oh-by-the-way-you-don't-have-to-pull-out-anymore-remember? sex. A while ago. I didn't even remember when. Life had been so hectic for us in the last couple of weeks, I honestly couldn't even remember when.

I peed. I put the test down and walked away. Curiosity got the best of me about five seconds later and I went back. My cursory glance showed a rapidly darkening control line and nothing else. I nodded, affirmed, and went to brush my teeth. Of course I'm not pregnant, I told myself. I'm still breastfeeding. We had unprotected sex like twice. Last time it took us six months of trying, of actively TRYING, of charting temps and OPKs and CM and CP. It's hard to get pregnant, remember? That's why we're starting to try now. So that hopefully we'll get somewhere in the next six months. I finished brushing my teeth, calmer, and went back to the test for the official read.

I picked it up.

And I almost dropped it.

There was not only one line.

There were two.

Two lines.

I would like to say that I stared intently, eyes boring into the test, burning a hole trying to tell if the line was real or not. But it really wasn't necessary. The two lines lay there, parallel, clear as day.

I walked out of the bathroom like a zombie. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I don't know that I've ever seen my face so white. (One day I'm going to look up the physiology of what causes your face to become ghostly white at a great shock. I mean, does your blood literally drain from your face?)

I put the test down on the counter and showered. I actually don't remember much of that shower. I'm pretty sure I washed my hair, but the entire time, my mind was a loud roar of white noise. I think that was my brain's way of protecting itself from the onslaught of thoughts that were racing around like a sudden mental mosh pit. What? When? How? REALLY? Whatthe-? REALLY? What are we going to do? How am I going to tell my boss? How are our parents going to react? How are our finances going to handle it? How is baby girl going to handle it? How am I going to handle it? REALLY???

I looked into that mosh pit from afar and plucked out a single thought, clinging to it in the deluge like a survivor clings to a life boat.

How am I going to tell TH?

He was still sleeping peacefully in bed five feet from where I stood. Just the day before he had been telling me about his mom urging us to wait another year or two before having our second child. Just the day before he had been telling me how tired he is of the hectic schedule that had temporarily descended on our family the last several weeks.

I thought of maternity clothes and weekly pictures and doctors appointments and birthing plans and redecorating a second nursery and getting more car seats and the newborn days that were so hard on me, on us, the crying and the uncertainty and the doubt and the tiptoeing around while baby girl slept. While I swam in these thoughts, gasping for air, he slept peacefully, not yet hit with the tidal wave of life change that was about to come his way.

What a different experience from the first time. If you know me, you know how determined I am. How goal-oriented. How stubborn. The first time, each negative test, month after month, brought about more determination, more single-mindedness. I had six months of wanting, of yearning. By the time those two lines showed up the first time, I was like a starving baby bird, mouth WIDE open, begging begging begging for the only food that would feed my hungry soul. When I saw those two lines the first time, I screamed, literally screamed, and jumped up and down and cried and hugged my husband and grinned so big and for so long that my cheeks were cramping by the end of the day.

This time. Oh, this time. This time we said, yes, let's do it, let's lean back back back into the unknown, and about fivesecondslater I turned around to have that same food pushed into my mouth. I hadn't had time to open my mouth wide yet. I hadn't had time to get hungry like last time. I didn't even know we could get pregnant right now. I say this not to discount the miracle that this is. I say this to explain, perhaps to myself, my own white face. It's one thing to find out you're pregnant when you've dreamed of it and wanted it and worked toward it. It's such a different experience to find out you're pregnant when you aren't expecting it. Even when you've decided you want it, even then you can still be caught off guard.

I abandoned any plans of cutesy ways of telling him. I needed him, I needed my best friend, to be in the water with me, telling me it would be okay. I picked up the test, turned on his bedside lamp, and climbed back in bed with him.

I put the test on his chest.

He fumbled around, finally picking it up and squinting at it.

And then he squinted again, a little bit closer.

Wait. What does this mean? he asked in a sleepy confusion.

I waited, saying nothing, my heart pounding in my ears (maybe that explains the rush of white noise in the shower?).

I felt like I couldn't breathe, waiting for his response. I could barely keep myself afloat at the moment, awash in a sea of ohmygod. I didn't know what I would do if he drowned, too. I didn't know if I could keep us both above water.

And then.

And then.

He smiled.

He smiled and my heart stopped racing. The white noise, the mosh pit of thoughts, everything settled.

Oh my God, Kel, He whispered, a wide grin breaking across his face. Congratulations, he said as he nuzzled into me.

And I smiled.

I hope you like being a daddy, I whispered back as he held me.

We both laughed.

After that there was more laughter. Most of it incredulous. Much of it was accompanied by head shaking and wide eyes. There were hugs. And gentle kisses on my stomach. When I woke my daughter for the day, when I held her as I listened to my husband tell her for the first time ever that she was going to be a big sister, I thought my heart was going to burst.

I am pregnant. Again.

I have no idea how far along I am. I have no idea when I'm due. Best as I can tell, based on my last period, it's sometime in mid-May. What a different experience this is already turning out to be than the first time, when I knew the exact day, the exact act, of conception.

But much the same, as well. Already I find myself smiling gently while my thoughts wander around the tiny life growing inside me. Already I find myself feeling happiness radiating through every pore in my skin. And of course, already I find myself worrying about that tiny life, too.

I called my doctor's office today. To find out what I should do, when I should come in. It felt surreal to be making that phone call again, to be scheduling those appointments again. I was once again awash in waves of "Is this really happening?" But what I realized is that those waves won't drown me. If I relax into them, breath deeply, I will actually float, borne along on the rise and fall of this new adventure. It's when I stiffen and panic that the sinking begins.

It is, as I knew it would be, about trust. Trust and courage. Trust that this second time will turn out as amazing as the first. Courage that we can do what we must to get there.

We are calling him/her "Dos."

Already I'm in love.

Holy crap that felt good!

You know that feeling you get, when you feel like pressure has been building building building behind something, growing steadily beyond any point of pre-assumed capacity, until it feels like you might explode or drown under the weight? And then that feeling when finally, FINALLY! there is some release, and all the weight and pressure that's been building is suddenly, blissfully gone and you feel, for the first time in you-can't-remember-how-long something you dazedly recognize as sweet relief?

Yeah, kind of like an orgasm. But let's not go there, dirty kids.

I'm pregnant. PREGNANT!!! I can shout it from the rooftops. Finally! Carrying that around as a secret felt wrong. It felt like it was something I should hide, something I shouldn't be sharing with people, and that is so discordant with how it should feel. And then yesterday, finally we had our first appointment, I saw the beautiful fluttering heartbeat, I felt my heart fall in love in a split second all over again, and I realized I could finally relax, could finally breathe, could finally share the news that deserved to be shared and celebrated.

And I can finally get back to blogging about it. Until now, I've only been able to write posts and save them as drafts. It was like a self-imposed writer's block that only contributed to that feeling of building pressure, of something in the way. So you'll see a bunch of back-logged posts. About finding out, about telling our families, about how different this second time around is than the first was. You'll be able to see the road we've walked this last month, the varying emotions we've had. I'm not embarrassed to publish those posts, even though I'm in such a different place today than I was even 4 short weeks ago. Today, the pressure is gone. Today I feel nothing but relief and joy and optimism and hope for our future. So when you go back and read, realize that you are witnessing the beginning of a journey, and as with all journeys, things change and grow and evolve.

A tiny little heart beats inside me. A tiny little life is nestled into my body. Already I love it. Already I adore it. Already I can't wait to see the joy it brings to our family.

Hooray for sweet release. Hooray for sweet relief.

Hooray for celebration!