First smile!

Now posting in real time, although there will be some backstory to fill in since the 13th, including our vacation to Hatteras! Yay. But anyhow, Jesse gave us our first authentic smile this morning. There've been plenty of hints at smiles, especially when he's asleep and dreaming and his face goes through an entire gamut of expressions he doesn't make when he's awake. But this was the real thing. Dean and I had our heads together, beaming down at him, and he beamed right back, and when we laughed at this he smiled even wider.

But of course we didn't have a camera handy. So instead I'll just amuse you with this picture of father and son making strange faces at each other.

Please, no formula samples. I'm breastfeeding.

This link floated across my twitter stream just now. Aside from the unfortunate headline that mentions "breastfeeding discharge bags," which conjures up a very strange visceral image, it makes an interesting point. When I first went in to my doctor's office for my prenatal interview, I was offered a bag of goodies that included coupons for free formula. I took those out and handed them back. "Someone else may need these more than I will," I said.

Apparently Lansinoh has taken note of this and partnered with Cottonwood Kids to create a different goodie bag for new moms leaving the hospital with their babies--which is what they mean by "discharge bag." The Healthy Baby Bounty Bag, as it's called, is:

... an insulated bag you can use to store pumped breast milk. Inside it has samples of products, coupons, and resources - all that can help breastfeeding mamas succeed plus a few other goodies.

In my bag was Lansinoh milk storage bags and disposable nursing pads, Boogie Wipes samples, SaniHands for Kids hand wipe samples, an Aquaphor sample, even some Traditional Medicinals Organic Mother's Milk tea bags (my fav part!) and a card with a code to redeem a free gift from Cottonwood Kids.

According to the article, these bags will "soon" be available at more than 200 hospitals across the country.

Of course, there is not even one Virginia hospital on the list at Lansinoh's blog, but I am going to call and ask the question, because perhaps by making the hospital aware that it exists, I'll be more likely to receive one.

Here's the press release on the Healthy Baby Bounty Bag. Which leads me to my newest tag: Want!

So now for my next question: If my hospital doesn't participate, or if I'm birthing at home, will you still find a way to get me a bag? :D

(Side note: I'm terribly amused to see that they are using Gregory FCA Communications for their PR campaigns, because... honestly, those folks are my favorite PR company, as a former journalist who benefited from the attention they paid to what my beats were, and who at one point lived literally around the corner from their office.)

The Battle Royal

Historically, Dean has always been squicked out by pregnant women. One of the things I've struggled with is helping him get over that aversion when it comes to his own wife, but we've both been amused at how strange pregnancy can be on a body, especially when Bunky does things like distend my abdomen lopsidedly or send out a series of kicks and jabs that makes my whole stomach look like an alien is about to explode out of it. His response to this, and some of my descriptions of odd internal sensations, is always "gross." It's a private joke between us, but since Elder Son has moved back in, there's a lot less privacy in general. So as I was telling Dean I had a new idea for a blog tagline, the following exchange happened:

Me: "A teen, a tween, and a bean."
Dean: Gross.
Me: Damn, I was hoping for a "laf." Also, Elder Son has taken to saying "gross" any time I mention anything having to do with the baby. Be careful what you model. :)
Dean: chuckly chuckly chuckchuck chuck ------ Damn. [pause] Babies are gross, though ;)
Me: Great thing to teach his big brother. I'm calling him on it, and can't very well call him on it if you continue to do it around him, even joking.
Dean: Can I say "ew"?
Me: *facepalm

Body Blahs; Teenage Victories

Elder Son and I wound down a busy day watching fireworks from our front yard, which is two blocks away from the town park. Haven't figured out the occasion for the fireworks, but it was fun, even if I think we startled Bunky half to death several times. But he's still kicking, so we're now prepared for next year's Fourth.

Elder Son got registered for his new school today. He's taking Astronomy, Latin 2, World History I Honors, AP US History, Advanced Phys Ed, Driver Ed/Fitness, English 11 Honors, and Algebra II. I'm proud of him for not shirking away from the challenges and hope I can help him with the motivation, confidence and organizational issues he had while living with his dad. We also got a state ID card for him and picked up the manual for him to get his learner's permit. Fingers crossed that he'll be a licensed driver come spring, and I've been joking that I'll have him trained on the stick shift in enough time for him to drive me to the hospital when I go into labor but I won't be capable of being his "supervision" that he has to have to drive with a learner's permit. Ha!

I'm still a couple of weeks shy of third trimester but two of its unpleasantries that I remember from Elder Son have already started to set in: my ankles have swollen up twice, although I suspect it's the heat and the struggle to stay hydrated, and at my checkup this week my blood pressure was 135/85, which is higher than the midwife would like--mostly because she "doesn't want the OB to steal" me away from her. A little mindful meditation later, we ran it again and got 124/66. This just reinforces for me how important it is for me to stay in touch with my body.

I just wish I had air conditioning, now that it's muggy, or at least more fans in the house. But it's only been bad for a week or so, and it's just a few more weeks of dog days. One thing today made me realize is that I don't have any shorts, much less shorts I can wear pregnant! So I went down to the local Evil Box Store and got two pairs of extra-large, elastic waistband workout shorts that I will never wear in public but am so glad I have for wearing around the house and under dresses, now.

As for my ankles, I looked up compression stockings and my GOD, they are expensive, and I have no idea whether they will fit! Where does one find affordable ones, and how does one know what size to get? (I have heavy thighs, to the point that being nearly 6 mos. pregnant mostly just makes my belly look proportional to them, so sizing is difficult even when I'm not pregnant--size 12 waist with a size 20 thigh. ugh.) Finding maternity clothes in stores is impossible anymore, too. I'm sick of Target's offerings, but can't seem to find maternity sections anywhere else. There used to be one at my local Kohl's, buried in a corner behind the infants section, but as they've remodeled, the section has vanished. And I hate paying boutique prices, having enough trouble keeping up with the mortgage.

So cheap workout shorts it is. At least I feel a bit cooler now.

One last weird symptom, because I seem to have all of them: geographic tongue. The little bumps are falling off my tongue, leaving strange creases and white borders around patches of weirdness that almost look like outlines on a map, and are different each day (hence the name "geographic tongue"---partly because it looks like a map and partly because the lines 'wander'). Not much is known about this disorder, but apparently it's hormonal in nature, mostly harmless (stings a bit with hot or cold), and should go away after my hormones come back into balance.

It's Full of Stars

Someone said to me the other day that I picked a good summer to be pregnant. It's true. I don't have air conditioning and to tell the truth I've only missed it on a couple of days when it's gotten really miserable. But for it to be late July in Virginia and under 70 degrees at night is kind of amazing! And it's really been like this all summer long, one of the mildest I can remember, honestly.

I live in a fairly small town in northwestern Virginia, in the northern half of the Shenandoah Valley and near one of the entrance points to Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park. It's still within hurling distance of Northern Virginia, so two or three days a week I slog into the sprawl to work at my office. The other two or three business days I work from home.

I guess sometimes I take for granted how beautiful it is where I live. I don't always remember to notice it, living right in the middle of town. My husband's parents live on several acres about 10 miles south of here, outside of town and right underneath the mountains. We spent the day there, along with my son, and my stepdaughter, who brought a friend along. After a cookout and lots of frisbee time for the guys, Doodlemaier took the kids down to the creek to build a campfire, where they made S'mores.

I mostly sat by and watched, augmenting my recipe collection from various magazines that have been piling up, when suddenly I was ready to keel over and nap. Wasn't really up for the campfire anyway; the smoke is overwhelming for me even when I'm not pregnant. But it really was campfire weather--as I slept and the sun went down, the air actually took on a chill.

The kids woke me up around 10. You lose track of time out there--I have no idea what time I conked out, but when a passel of tweens and teens come charging through the house demanding ice cream (the S'mores, it turned out, had not gone so well--the chocolate had turned out to be of the unsweetened baker's variety). After some time relaxing in the living room, with Doodlemaier curled up next to me, murmuring silly things to my thumping belly, Elder Son on and I got ready to go--hubby and his daughter were sleeping over. As we walked out to the car, an overwhelming feeling of peace came over me. I looked up in the sky and thousands of stars... THOUSANDS! were scattered across the sky in patterns that came back to my memory easily. I said something to Elder Son about it, pointing out the Big Dipper, and he said, "Wow, you're right, I've never seen it so clearly." Coming across the sky, I pointed out Cassiopeia, and Perseus. Elder Son asked about the bright star dead center overhead, and I said, "That's Vega. It's a star in the swan." "Cygnus?" he said. Yep. (except I'm wrong: it's actually in the lyre, right next to the swan. but not bad for dredging up information I hadn't looked at since Elder Son was about 9.)

Then I pointed out the swath of mist in the sky behind these summer constellations, explaining that it was the Milky Way, and not a cloud at all. That it's full of stars, stars so finely grained and clustered that they look like a thin wisp of atmosphere, stretched in a ribbon from one side of the sky to the other.

I've long said that one of the joys of parenthood is transmitting a sense of wonder at the world and the universe. We had one of those moments tonight, and it's so rare with a teenager that I'm pondering on it tonight. We'll have many of those moments with Bunky, after so many missed with Elder Son and Lil'D, my stepdaughter, because of custody stuff. But each of those moments that we share with our children is a gift, one that will carry them into adulthood, as they get in touch with their own sense of wonder and transmit it to their own children some day.

Brotherly Love and the Road Ahead

Elder Son announced to me today that under no circumstances does he ever want to have to change diapers. I hadn't really planned on using him to babysit anyway, because I need for him to focus on school, but I'm a little dismayed by this--that there's not even an inherent curiosity, and worried this will translate into his adulthood and he'll make the same announcement to his future significant other someday.

There are going to be so many things about having two generations of children that I'm going to have to figure out. Even though I'm not the only person to go through this, the only people I know that have kids this far apart are typically fathers who don't have their older children at home with them.

But on the bright side, we're going to see Harry Potter tonight, assuming we can. Living in a small town has its advantages and disadvantages--less likely to sell out, but no way to know if it is without going down there.

Being Family

Tomorrow is one of those heretofore rare occasions when we have both kids here. It tends to happen most often during the summer, but I think it will likely happen more often in general now that Elder Son is a year-round resident for the first time since stepdaughter came into my life.

I'm hoping we can get the 4.5 of us together for a family portrait, even an informal one.

It's nice having my husband's parents so nearby. I think I'm kind of dreading the conversation I want to have with them, but hoping we can come up with a way of their helping with day care on the days I work from home, rather than having two nonfamily daycare providers for the two different locations I work at. My idea is that I establish an office at their place. It actually could work really, really well. They have an outbuilding--a garage with a small, kitchenless efficiency over it--that's currently a guest bedroom suite, and it's large enough that I could put an office there without changing out the bedroom part of it.

The only problem is that I could lose the current tax deduction I get for my home office, and paying rent for the space to then write off kind of defeats the purpose. But by the same token, how much would I spend on an in-house day care provider? How much value does face time with grandparents, and easy access to momma's breast, offer? Priceless, to me.

There are times I also wish my mother were closer. She would volunteer to be the in-house care in a heartbeat, but she's three hours south of here. At the same time, her house is in no condition to leave kids with her, whereas I have no qualms about leaving the kids with the in-laws if need be.

Lots of things to work out on the practical side; I hate how those pieces get in the way of enjoying the journey. But plain and simple: if I don't find a solution, I won't be able to work, and the mortgage is not going to pay itself.

I just wish it wasn't a 2 hour (one-way) commute for my husband. Killing off our inside-the-beltway housing expense for his weekday crash space there would go a long way toward making ends meet if my income decreases, and then I wouldn't feel so daunted. On the good side, they recently relocated his office and shaved just enough miles and minutes from the commute that he's starting to talk more openly about ditching the Annandale place.

Hyperactive in the Womb! And Teenager Successes!

Bunky has been so active today that I'm not entirely sure he's rested at all. We got up at 6 a.m. and he was happily obliging his father with palpable kicks... that have continued all day. Even now, it's like popcorn going off in my belly. I can't get over it--I really don't remember my first son being this active, but... 17 years is a long time to remember much of anything I didn't write down. (Part of the reason I blog as much as I do.)

But a weird thing happened at work today. One of the co-workers from the other side of the building came round the corner and gasped when she saw me. "You look so skinny!" she exclaimed. "Is there something you need to tell us?"

Some days I show, some days I don't. I am just heavy-set-but-big-boned enough that I still just look plump in most clothes, but anything cut for maternity makes me look more maternal.

I just feel like a freak show, though. The attention I get kills me. I'm not sure what I expected (ha!) but it's been very difficult to enjoy this pregnancy

But on a totally different note, Elder Son made his debut today on the radio, at the college station at the university where I'm working on my master's. He came off the air absolutely beaming, and filled with enthusiasm for the medium. Since I spent 10 years as a journalist and 4 as a club DJ, I'm completely squee about the idea of him following in my footsteps, but on radio--but even more so after seeing him so full of joy. We finally have almost everything together to enroll him in the new high school, and I'm finally starting to feel optimistic that things are going to work out just fine.

If I could just get all the bills caught up...

Scary Monsters!

This just in from my husband, which made me laugh and is probably a good tip for anyone parenting the pre-school set. My stepdaughter is 10 now, and well past fearing monsters under the bed, but I hadn't heard this anecdote about her wee youth before:

Remember when you were a frightened child and you'd sometimes call on your parents in the middle of the night to allay your fear of monsters under the bed? You might even have fond memories of your parent's creative ways of dealing with these shadow monsters, they might've shouted them down and ordered them out of the house, or maybe they shone a flashlight to cause them to evaporate along with the rest of the darkness there. My favorite method of monster proofing when my own daughter was little was a goodly dose of "monster spray" which, incidently, left the dust bunnies smelling fresh and clean of potpourri.

How do you monster-proof, now that we're about to go through this whole child-rearing thing again?

Momma's got a secret

I'm pretty good at keeping confidences, in general. Except for my own. I'm a compulsive writer, so when there are things on my mind, I have to jot them down. Public or private, online or off, it happens. Twitter has kind of taken the edge off the one-liners, to be sure, but they still happen.

But I don't see how I can get through this weekend without telling my son I'm gestating his second half sibling. It's funny. He's 8 1/2 years older than his brother; and this one is coming along 8 1/2 years after that. Numbers crack me up that way. Just like my favorite aunt, is 17 years older than I am. (Actually, 17 1/2, but you get my point.) Around the house, there are things like prenatal vitamins, and pregnancy books and magazines, and I can hide those well and good enough, but..

I can't hide this from him, not only because I love him so much; but also because he's going to need as much time to get used to the idea as Dean and I do. At Christmas, he told me he wanted to move back in with me, and it would break my heart if he changed his mind because of this. But I'd understand, too.

I went down to my church today, to talk to my priest about all this. And before I could even get started I was already crying, something I think I needed to do since I found out, but I couldn't. It's so overwhelming. And I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. All the emotions that have been swirling around, unable to find purchase because I was--and am--so determined to be strong about this.

I got the paperwork today for the ob/gyn I want to go with, and as I was going through it, I noticed a line that said, "This practice does not support the Bradley method of Childbirth. If you plan to use this method, please seek prenatal care elsewhere." Not that I'm a fan of the Bradley method, but I'm wondering about their obstreperous denunciation of it. I chose this practice because I want a holistic, woman-centered practice. I came pretty close to natural, honestly, with my son, though I did have a bit of demerol at about 5 cm. Lamaze worked beautifully for me, honestly, though my nurses did more to keep me focused than my ex did. (In fact, part of me wonders if the objection to Bradley has to do with partner-as-coach thing, because I think some partners make great coaches, others not so much.)

The only thing I've been able to find is that the Bradley method itself is (a) proprietary and (b) steeped in principles that can be seen as inherently anti-feminist, so if you want a holistic, woman-centered birth the Bradley principles are a bit antithetical (and, quite possibly, ironic). And there are some that cling so much to the method that they are downright radical about it, and apparently this turns medical professionals off. When the movement started, it was a reaction against "twilight births," as many women experienced it between the 30s and the early 70s. (I was born while my mom was under that kind of sedation. She doesn't really remember it.) It's weird: the Bradley method is anti-medical, which Dean would probably dig; but before they changed the name to something more politically correct, it was known as "husband-coached childbirth." And Dean, my love, my partner, I do love you, but I can't imagine you taking charge of my labor. :D

The way I see it, if this practice doesn't work out, both of the doctors I had with my son's birth are still practicing up in Winchester. My doctor--I remember this so clearly--got irritated with the nurses when they IV'd me before he told them to, because he felt I could go natural if I wanted to. But anyway, whatever all that works out to being, I have to get there first.

And first things first.