sookie and spice and everything nice

Remember how I announced we'd decided on a name for Girl Baby? I retract that statement.

We're back to the drawing board-- or perhaps back to the polls. We've got it narrowed down to two possibilities, and the voters of the house are SPLIT. Good thing we've plenty of time because I am campaigning hard for a win.

Often when I tell someone that we're expecting a girl, they remark "how nice, she'll have two big brothers to look after her," or something along those lines. Which is really very nice, but gives way too much credit to my boys who are not exactly mature and altruistic. Yes, they'll certainly look after her if by that you mean toughen her up at an early age.

Dressing up like Buzz & Woody: a new favorite activity. Calum has LIVED in that costume for the past three days. I was able to get it off him for bathtime but that's about it.

The toughening up has already begun. While we're still undecided on the official name, the one that will be listed on the birth certificate, the nickname has been a done deal for weeks now.

I tried to stop it. Honestly. Let my future daughter know: I did what I could to unstick the nickname her Dad & brothers have cursed her with. But I've soundly LOST that battle. They call her Sookie. (Yes, just like the main character on HBO's True Blood... because there's nothing apparently WRONG with naming your innocent baby girl after something you heard on a VAMPIRE SHOW.) (Although I concede that it IS a great vampire show.) (And the way that main vampire says it sounds practically melodic, "Sssook-KAY.")

In fact, the boys will be in complete shock to learn she has another name. I'm afraid they'll never use it.



Out of fairness, I should get my way with the official name since I was so firmly overruled on the Sookie front.

keep your pirates occupied to impede mutiny

“Daddy’s in Neverland, right Mom?”

“No, Daddy’s in the UK. But that IS where Wendy and Jon and Michael (from Peter Pan) lived.”

“Is Daddy fighting Captain Hook?”

“ No, babe. Daddy’s working.”

“On a pirate ship?”

“Um. No. Inside a building, around a table, with other people. WHAT exactly do you think Daddy does at work?"

Brett spent last week in Wales for work. The past two or three times Brett’s been gone for work, Calum had a rough time. He is all Daddy’s Boy, and the HEARTACHE of that child missing his Daddy is something fierce. Hoo boy, I’m glad Brett’s not in the military.

This time, I scheduled all sorts of fun(ish) activities for after work to occupy my Daddy’s Boy, and it was a smashing success. The boys & I had a great week despite missing Daddy. We went to dinner at my brother & sister-in-law’s, where Cal & his cousin Charlie flipped each other off the “giant spiderweb” (the hammock) until they nearly dropped from exhaustion. I took them to Grandma & Poppa’s, to the playground, to the pool (twice), and to the library.


I was surprised at how much they enjoyed our visit to the library. I hadn’t attempted this since last year when Cal was still a feral two-year-old. Emmett’s a different creature altogether, so I suspected he could comply with basic library etiquette.

I told them they could choose four books total. This was going to be tough. Arduous. Calum began methodical, rigorous inspection of all possible choices. Then, like a bolt of light straight from the heavens, complete with a choir of angels singing, he spotted the one, perfect choice. A Disney Princess magazine.


Did you know they even MADE a Disney Princess magazine? That you can actually SUBSCRIBE to? Terrifying, I KNOW. But OH! How that boy loves those pretty princesses. He sat at the kitchen table for 45 minutes paging through it, then paging through again. I think he’s ready for a sister.

It also struck me last week how much easier daily life is without a baby. This toddler-preschooler combo much less complicated than the baby-toddler combo we had a year ago, or even a baby-preschooler combo. Or a baby-anything combo. I’m very excited about the new baby, of course, but I also am enjoying how manageable these two have become (I’m using manageable as a relative term here; as in, they are tolerable to take places with only one adult chaperone). Tending to babies and other-aged children is like running interference between two wholly incompatible species that are being forced to co-habitat. Like keeping a hungry cougar and a bleating fawn in the same room and expecting them to play nice.

It made me wonder (I’m just STARTING NOW to think this through) how in the world I will ever go anywhere by myself with a preschooler, a toddler, AND a baby? How will we even get from the downstairs to the upstairs? Much less venture OUTSIDE THE HOME. And what about the stroller? Once the baby is too big for a front carrier, what am I supposed to do? Let my three-year-old go all FREE RANGE? I am suddenly, fervently IN FAVOR kiddie leashes. (Also: MUZZELS.)

running pregnant

I’m going to write about pregnancy and running. So! If the mention of that topic made you want to kick me in the shins, now’s a good time to click away to one of your more likable blogs, before you go all Tanya Harding on me.

YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

Thus far, I have been a lucky pregnant person. I was able to keep running with both my boys until the day before they were born. I’m not saying I ENJOYED it, but I did feel good about each run once it was over, and I think it helped me through both pregnancy & the postpartum depths of murky sanity.

I have no reason NOT to run through pregnancy (knocking furiously on wood), which I realize makes me immensely fortunate. I know of plenty of active women who must give up any activity resembling sport for the duration of the pregnancy. I respect that sacrifice because I realize how much that must suck. Much like a toddler who has just been fed seven hersheys bars then told to sit quietly, I don’t idle well. I feel unfocused and restless and easily upset by things like getting my milk in the wrong color sippie cup.

So I run. At first of course, there’s no difference; I find out I’m pregnant and continue with my previously scheduled program. But I’ve been surprised at all my pregnancies how early I slow down. By 12 weeks, I’m running at a much slower pace but with much greater exertion. And it only gets harder from there. I had an arbitrary, self-imposed goal of running my 6 mile route at least once a week for the first half. I BARELY made it, but was really proud of myself when at 20 weeks, I finished that last 6 miler for a while. I might have celebrated with a poptart or three.

Also by mid-pregnancy, I walk a lot. I’m only running my four-mile route now and I guess I walk slightly less than a mile of it. By the end of pregnancy, if it’s anything like with the boys, I’ll walk about half.

For me there are a few big challenges that come with pregnant running:

Clothes. There are no suitable options. Any mother one generation older will exclaim about how maternity clothes are SO MUCH BETTER now and aren’t we lucky? I wear one of Brett’s running shirts and yoga pants. I feel like a hippo dressed up in a boy scout tent. It does nothing for my self-confidence.

Hunger. I feel strongly that running makes me gain MORE weight during pregnancy. When I run, I am SO HUNGRY all day, it seems unfair. We’re talking quick-get-the-children-inside kind of hunger; the kind that makes you understand why some wildlife eat their young. If I back off the miles and activity for a few days, the hunger quickly fades to a more rational level.

Knees and hips. All that extra weight and lumbering along is hard on joints. I’ve got some nagging knee pain this time that I’m having to nurse (partially the product of waiting too long to buy new shoes). The mental motivation game is hard enough, I need full cooperation from various body parts. When they don’t play nice, it’s that much more frustrating.

Interestingly, lots of people have asked me if my belly bouncing bothers me when I run. I have never noticed my belly bouncing, not even the day before giving birth to an eight-pounder. The physics of it seem to indicate that it SHOULD bounce, but that has not been my experience. One of life’s great mysteries, no doubt.


Of course there are benefits to keeping up with running while pregnant:

Getting back in the game. It doesn’t take me as long to get back my pre-pregnancy running status once the baby is born. I’ve preserved my habit of making time to run, so that part isn’t as difficult. Strength and endurance come back relatively quickly too (i.e., within 6 months or so).

I feel good about it. I’m a forked-tongue, brain-sucking monster if I can’t run (a few folks who read this blog and know me in real life can attest to this fact). Plus, I started running with the dog again, and so I’m accomplishing two things at once which is double-the-feel-good. I enjoy the dog’s company more than I expected. It’s funny that she keeps asserting her role as a predator, chasing after every bunny & squirrel within 100 foot range as if she’s ever caught ANYTHING in her whole life. I’m so smart and calm compared to her. Sort of makes up for the self-confidence sacrificed to the hippo costume.

It keeps my heart behaving. Throughout this pregnancy, I’ve had a bizarre heart arrhythmia that comes and goes without any obvious reason. I’ve played the part of a responsible adult and gotten all the tests: echo, ekg, 24-hour monitor, cardiologist visit, thyroid & other blood tests. The short story is that the ventricles of my heart are misfiring several thousand times a day without an explanation other than I’m Pregnant. I can feel it and while it’s not painful, it’s a bit disconcerting (hence the cryptic I’m Going To Die! post several weeks back). But! When I run, or work outside, or otherwise get my heartrate up for a while, the arrhythmias significantly decrease. Apparently my heart doesn’t idle any better than my brain. I was afraid I’d have to quit because this, but the cardiologist ordered me to keep on running as long as the baby is fine. (She is.)

It’s humbling. It’s a good reminder to me of what it is like to start from scratch on getting in shape. It’s HARD to exercise. But it’s easy to forget just how hard it is when you’re already in decent shape & in the habit of working out. I try to remember how hard it was when, a year later, I feel like running is no big deal.

I like to tell myself that there is merit to training at a heavier weight. When the baby is born and I’ve quickly shed 20 pounds, I’ll feel faster and stronger right off the bat. It’s a lie. It hasn’t felt that way with either of my previous babies, but I still like to believe it when I’m huffing along, choosing to make a heaving, hulking spectacle of myself in broad daylight.

big brother tease

We live three blocks from our local July Fourth fairgrounds. It makes for a fun holiday with lots of neighborhood parties, lots of fireworks, lots of grossly overpriced carnival rides, and zero traffic or parking issues.



Carnival rides are NOT my thing, but luckily I married someone who can fill those shoes. Calum likes the rides as much as his Dad. And Emmett? Well, Emmett's more like me in this regard. We both thought the merry-go-round was enough whirlie excitement to last us until next year.

The boys had never seen fireworks before, and this year we kept them up until 10pm for the display. They had NO PROBLEM staying up that late; they would have maintained steam until morning, I'm sure. But keeping up with them until 10pm nearly did Brett & I in. PHEW. Glad that's over for another year.

The fireworks blew their minds. I wish I had brought the camera to capture that LOOK on their faces. I'm fairly certain neither child even BLINKED through the whole 20 minutes of explosions.

******

Calum has a new habit of asking Emmett questions that he has no authority to ask. Here are a few common examples, but believe me, there are MANY more that I could share:

Cal: "Hey Emmett, do you want to go see fireworks again tonight?"
E: "YEAH!"
"Oh, I'm sorry Emmett. You can't see fireworks until next year."


"Emmett, do you want a big sticker with a car on it?"
"YEAH!"
"No, Emmett. We're not doing stickers right now."

"Oh, Emmett! Do you want a popsicle?"

"YEAH!"

"Ok. Do you want a red one, or yellow, or purple one?"

"Purpa!"

"Oh, SORRY Emmett. We can't have popsicles now. Popsicles are only for dessert."

Poor, poor little brother.

fun fact friday!

*Pop tarts are one of my most favorite foods. It was only a matter of time until our boys also discovered the pop tart delicious. You'd think I could have given up pop tarts for the sake of the children's nutrition. But let's face it: there's only so many sacrifices a parent can make.

*I don’t GET the appeal of prime time talent shows like American Idol or So You Think You Got Talent or whatever it’s called. I have nothing against pop culture (see also: fondness for pop tarts), but these shows make me feel like I’m getting a lobotomy.

*I think we’ve decided on a name for Girl Baby. We’ve hesitantly circled two names for a few weeks; I considered sending a help request to Swistle Baby Names. But as I ran yesterday morning, I had strong feeling about what it should be. And this is all just a Big Tease because I do not intend to tell you her name until her birthday.

*Emmett has an all-time favorite book, Big Tractors & Trucks. He can distinguish excavators from skid steers from backhoe loaders from combine harvesters from forage harvesters from balers. This is such a useful skill too, considering we live smack in the middle of a major metropolis.

*Calum now pees standing up and requiring no supervision, as if he's a LITTLE MAN. I don’t think I’ll ever stop getting a kick out of it.

*For three straight nights, the boys have engaged in a dinner-time green bean eating competition. I have NO IDEA how this happened and I don’t intend to question it further. I’m just here to shovel out heaps of beans.

*Calum puts his shoes on the wrong feet about 50% of the time. Brett asked him if he wanted to switch his shoes to the right feet and Calum said “No Dad, cause that’s how I roll.”

swimmer's ear: not all the fun it's cracked up to be

I don’t expect my kids to not get sick. We get our fair, run-of-the-mill share of stomach flus and snot bugs and fevers and goopy eyes. Both kids puking at the same time? WHATEV. I'm trying for a conservative estimate here, and I think my boys' cumulative ear infections total somewhere around 17 (not counting both ears, only counting each time we had to treat).

Emmett brought his swimmers ear home as a souvenir from Florida and it is kicking my ass, way worse than any of the preceding 17 ear infetions. He ran a 102 fever for three days and when we got his ear checked, the doctor couldn’t even see his ear drum because of the swelling. I think he used the term “angry and cheesy” to describe the outer ear canal. (ICK!) (And further! I LOVE cheese and I kindly request that medical professionals cease using this adjective to describe infection.)

Sunday and Monday nights were decent reminders of what it’s like to have a newborn in the house. Only Emmett wasn’t comforted by feeding and swaddling every hour all night long. He wasn’t comforted by ANYTHING. The hours between 1 and 3am were spent pining for one toddler dose of knock out drops because nothing could touch that child’s AGONY. I was this close to looking up "Exorcist" in the yellow pages.

He’s starting to feel better now, but there’s something still bothering me about the entire experience. It’s the name. Swimmer’s ear. Seriously? Swimmer’s ear? It almost sounds like it could be a little FUN. It sounds so PANSY. Like, "Oh, it's JUST swimmer's ear! Not a REAL ear infection!"

A more suitable name might be Demonic Ear Rot.

******

On an unrelated note, how bad is it for your plumbing if SOMEONE accidently flushed his batman underwear down the toilet?

exactly how many photos of my family vacation can you stand to see?

Monday's return to work was swift and painful but certainly could have been worse. It was beautiful outside where I was working, allowing me to focus a little less on how much I missed my boys.

Some of my earliest memories are from when I was about Calum's age. I like to imagine he'll have some recollection of this vacation because it was really tremendous.

We spent most time oceanside: swimming, playing, watching pelicans divebomb their breakfast.

Calum made friends with a mole crab one day, and I thought for certain he would kill it with love. He played with it like it was a PUPPY.

We got intimately familiar with SAND. We built castles and then destroyed them; we dug holes then watched the tide fill them.

The boys each consumed two pounds of sand and managed to lodge at least another pound in various bodily crevices. I'm still working it out of their scalps.

We stayed up late to catch sandcrabs on the beach with just flashlights and buckets.

We went to the port to see the loads and loads of red snapper dragged in one evening. Despite how it looks in the photo, the boys were fascinated by the boats and all the fish. They we excited to touch the fish, but Calum felt the need to also poke them in the eyes. Gross. What is it with boys? (And I wore a DRESS. A pink dress! Only because we were going out for seafood afterward which is An Event for folks from a landlocked state.)

I love my children and husband, of course, but this vacation reminded me how much I also really LIKE them.

I hope that Calum remembers last week if only in brief, shady glimpses. There are many factors that tie us together, common threads that connect us. But I think it is memory which truly binds.

cease all non-essential functions

This happens to us every June. We get to this point in the month to find we're living in Survival Mode.

I think of us as busyish people, but in the normal portion of the busy spectrum. We're not absurdly scheduled or in-demand, we're just normal busy folk.

But a few times a year, the busy scale tips, launching us into this mode of existence where we must cease all non-essential functions. Laundry, vacuuming, wiping the counters? All these are tossed out. Nutrition, bedtimes, bathing the children? Now considered extracurriculars! We still eat, drink, and use the bathroom (and, apparently, blog). For everything else, we're off the hook.

It's a bit liberating, actually.

But soon our busy mania will come to an abrupt (if temporary) halt. Tonight I will do some mad dash packing because tomorrow morning we leave on vacation!

the great dinner dilemma

The dinner dilemma seem to be universal with parents. Or, food dilemmas in general, at least in this part of the globe, in this land of abundant mac & cheese. But dinner seems to take the cake for the most frustrating meal of the day. And my Calum isn’t even what most people would consider a picky eater. Still, I’m finding the nightly dinner struggles tiresome and unnecessary.

Here’s my big hang up about dinner: I’d LIKE to serve my kids whatever we’re eating. If they’re hungry enough, they’ll eat it, right? WRONG. If they’re hungry—and they usually are in my house—and you feed them something they find offensively unusual, they will NOT eat. They will whine and cry and go hungry, which leads to more whining and crying. Which will turn the otherwise short evening into a very long crabfest.

If I simply give them their bagel with cream cheese (it’s whole wheat!) and pile of fruit, chances are they’ll be happy as clams. I hate to be making two separate dinners every night, but I also hate to throw away two whole plates of food every night.

Imagining feeding my boys bagels and fruit every single night for dinner-- basically waving my white flag at the dinner dilemma-- makes me practically GIDDY. So why do I feel like this is the wrong thing to do? Am I seriously worried that my kids will be 17 years old and still refusing anything with more than two ingredients? No, I am seriously not worried about that.

Calum is finally at an age where I can bargain with him. I’ll tell him he MUST have three bites of Offensive Adult Dinner (whoa, sounds like something I really don’t mean... sorry bizarre google searchers!) before he can have his bowl of strawberries. While it’s nice to see him choke down something different for a change, forcing him to try new things doesn’t appear to lead to any real progress. He’ll take the three bites, but he won’t decide that he LIKED it. Next time I serve Offensive Adult Dinner, we’ll have the same danged struggle.

It’s a classic case of winning the battle but losing the war. And frankly, I’m really tired of the battles. They’re pointless.

oh yes we did

Oh yes we did attend the Metropolis, IL Superman Festival this weekend.

Oh yes we did travel six hours round trip for the event and even stayed overnight (for FREE, thanks to Brett’s hard earned hotel points) (and who knew hotel rooms were SO EXCITING to little children? The boys loved it).

Oh yes we did take 65 photos of our boys in front of the giant Superman statue (Emmett was terrified... see last photo).

Oh yes we did witness Calum’s head nearly pop off as he spotted all sorts of superheroes and ran up to them with a big high five.

Oh yes we did get a little freaked out by some of our fellow festival celebrants. (Although most were folks like us-- families with young, hero-obsessed children-- there was also a subset of comic book fanatics who looked like they just crawled out of their basements for the first time all year to attend.)

Oh yes we did wake up Saturday morning to Emmett's raging fever, pink eye, and a sore throat that caused him to trade eating and drinking for whining and crying all weekend. Poor kid.

Oh yes we did buy them each a new superhero doll even though it's exactly what they DON'T need. And yes we did open them up right there in the street, causing a few bystanding collectors to nearly pass out.

Oh yes we did almost forget and barely acknowledge our seventh wedding anniversary which was also this weekend.

Oh yes we did add this to the growing list of things we never imagined doing before we had children.