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.