Isaac's Blog

Before our real-life move, an internet move

2006-02-26T19:31:00.000-08:00

I have had a lovely time pretending that this blog was about Isaac for nearly 1-1/2 years now. Any such ideas are out the window now that we also have a Jacob, so "Isaac's Blog" is moving to the more appropriately-titled "Those O'Neal Boys". We appreciate your continued readership as we venture into uncharted territory of wrestling with not just one, but two little men. That's why we have arms in pairs, though, yes?

Pictures at home

2006-02-24T20:16:00.000-08:00

Grandma and Isaac brought Jacob and I home from the hospital Tuesday afternoon. Here we are in our first few moments at home, with me in the shirt I'd been wearing since the wee hours of Sunday morning:

There was a little drama the night before we were discharged because Jacob's bilirubin tested on the low side of him being jaundiced. They had to take a blood sample and send it to the hospital lab to get his exact bilirubin count, and then his pediatrician would make the decision about whether he should stay in the NICU for baby suntan therapy or if he would be sent home with a "bili-blanket" to treat his jaundice in a more comfortable setting. This all turned out to be a moot point because his blood test showed his bilirubin on the high side of normal and he passed his final inspection by the pediatrician with flying colors. Dr. Modi said his jaundice would get worse before it got better, and sure enough he looks a bit pumpkin-headed. This is what Jacob has to say about it all:

Isaac had fallen asleep on the ride home from the hospital, so Grandma got some unadulterated Jacob time. Here they are admiring each other:

We are already succumbing to the Second-Baby Photography Curse. For example: we have no good pictures of Dada and Jacob, including zero pictures of the two of them taken together at the hospital. Dada snapped a bunch of pictures right after Jacob was delivered and then left to pick up Isaac, taking my camera with him to distribute these pictures to the known universe. He never brought my camera back to the hospital, and Grandma forgot her camera in the car the two times she and Isaac visited us while we were there. I keep trying to encourage Daddy/Jacob-focused photography, but Dada has been working during the day, which means when we remember to take pictures it is way too dark in our living room to take cute portraits without them being blurry (like this one):

...or Dada is snacking and has not only Jacob but also crumbs on his shirt that we don't notice until we dump the picture onto the computer hours later:

We are also trying to capture the interactions of Big and Little Brothers O'Neal (more on that later), but because of the inherent limitations of photographing a moving toddler, we don't have too much to offer just yet. I will give you this one, featuring a popular living-room scenario where I have Jacob on my lap or attached to the boob and Isaac decides he needs to squeeze his big butt in the same chair, creating a massive snuggle-fest:

Somebody had to get mommy's nose

2006-02-23T19:41:00.000-08:00

3-day-old Jacob looks at the lamp

How U.B. became Jacob

2006-02-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

To all those ladies out there waiting impatiently to go into labor, I have a suggestion: go to toddler music class. I went with Isaac on Saturday morning, where I ran in circles, jumped up and down, galloped like a horsey, physically restrained my son when it wasn't his turn to play the gigantic drum, etc etc insert other high-exertion activities that I probably shouldn't have engaged in (but did) here. The contractions started when we got back in the car; the bloody show was already there when we got home.

Since this is the first time I've actually gone into labor on my own, I really had no idea what to expect with the contractions. All "the books" say that they will get closer and closer together, and that you should go to the hospital when they get closer than 5 minutes apart and you can't carry on a conversation through them. My contractions went on throughout the day, and did get much closer together over a twelve hour period, from 15-20 minutes apart to start down to 6-15 minutes apart. They also got more painful, but really weren't all that bad. That they had lasted so long gave me an inkling that this might be the real thing, but I battened down that hatches and prayed to the God of Convenience in Labor that I could last through the night so Dada could get some sleep and, more importantly, so we wouldn't have to ditch Isaac at our friends' house in the middle of the night.

Isaac, in rare form, slept through the night. I did not, having been awakened twice by some seriously killer contractions that strangely went away if I got up and farted around on the computer for an hour. When Isaac finally did wake up at 6:30, I started timing again and they were still a lousy 6-8 minutes apart, but I had to come up with some Claire-improvised labor breathing to make it through them (being the labor class flunkie that I am). I went to fix Isaac some breakfast, passing by Dada who was asleep on the couch. "GET UP!" says I, "HOSPITAL! DRUGS! NOW!" Being the sympathetic wife that I am and having no clue that these contraction-things could actually get worse, I agreed that Dada could take a shower first and that we should stop for Starbucks on the way to the hospital. We dumped off Isaac at our friends' house, where he spent the day playing with Sarah, Ella, and Ella's Grandma and Grandpa. I don't know how, but they even got him to take a nap.

Before you can be admitted to the hospital, you must first pass through triage so they can decide whether or not you are a faker with your labor; namely, the only test you have to pass is to have a doctor examine your baby-chute and decide that your cervix has done enough work that the rest of the job won't take too long. For the uninitiated, I have heard the rule of thumb is that once you're 3 or 4 cm dilated (of the requisite 10 cm), you're in. Of course I had no idea how dilated I was, but I was in some crazy-pain, now every 5-7 minutes. The triage nurse clucked her tongue at me in doubt, suggesting that my contractions weren't close enough together for me to be THAT dilated. On that reliable hunch, these turds made me wait for an HOUR AND A HALF before I was finally checked out by a doctor. This doctor hadn't been in the room for more than 5 minutes before she exclaimed in near-horror, "Oh my God, you are staying. How dilated do you think you are? Guess!" I wasn't exactly in the guessing mood, but a suggested, maybe, 5 cm? "You are a GOOD 7 cm. We need to get you upstairs right now."

This actually posed a huge problem, because at my first prenatal visit I tested positive for Group B Strep. While I as a carrier was asymptomatic, I can pass these bacteria on to the baby during delivery unless I am treated with a solid four-hour course of IV antibiotics. If I delivered the baby before the four hours was up, he could come down with some terrible form of bacterial sepsis, such as meningitis. We arrived at the hospital at 7; we were admitted at 8:30; I didn't get my IV antibiotics started until just before 9. I was given the task of crossing my legs and laying down to keep from having a baby until 1. My delightful labor nurse, Pam, said there was no way, with me being that dilated and a second-timer, that I would make it.

My first suggestion to help stop me from having a baby was to get an epidural, which came at around 10:00. The anesthesiologist was gave me the most perfect epidural in the history of the world. I could feel most of the contractions, but there was no pain or even discomfort with them. Even more importantly, the epidural blocked nothing when it came to the pushing stage...

I labored in relative peace and quiet until about 12:40, when I started feeling this unearthly urge to push. Unlike the epidural I had while laboring with Isaac, where I could feel absolutely nothing and had to be told when to push (which probably factors in to why it took me an excruciating three whole hours for the pushing phase alone), this again perfect epidural hid nothing from me about when I was supposed to do some work and hold up my end of the bargain. It was extremely weird and painful, but I did my best to breathe in my flunkie and distracting fashion to hold out another twenty minutes. At 12:55 they broke my water. Instead of screaming at them to let me push, suddenly rationality took over and I patiently (and breathlessly) waited another 8 minutes, at which time I asked the three doctors, nurse, and husband in the room for double confirmation that it was indeed after 1, that my antibiotics had run their course, and that my baby was given the all-clear to go. They all said yes.

It took me exactly 4 minutes to push Jacob out. Everyone keeps commenting on how lovely I look holding newborn Jacob; how I am "glowing". This is because I busted every capillary in my cheeks, chin, and shoulders from pushing, grunting, and screaming like an Amazon warrior. Dada said they hadn't even had time to wheel their equipment cart over before he was crowning (and I was screaming in pain and hyperventilating). He suggested I title this post "Claire's Baby Cannon," and takes great personal delight in telling his coworkers, much to the horror of my mom, how proud he is that my birth canal could be used to calibrate missile-ballistics.

Back to the L&D room... Suddenly somebody told me to look down and there he was, upside down at the end of the table, my gigantic baby boy, huge and purple and perfect, with this full head of brown curly hair. They laid him on me, all cheesed up. To my infinite surprise, after all the doubts and misgivings I had about my ability to mentally handle the concept of a second baby... the first thing I thought when they handed him to me was "This is going to be so cool." And I have been the happiest girl in the world ever since.

A Uterus Barnacle no more

2006-02-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

Introducing...

Jacob Michael O'Neal

born February 19, 2006 at 1:07 p.m.

8 lbs 10 oz

21 inches long

10-minute-old Jacob with Mommy

5-minute-old Jacob holds Daddy's hand

Everybody is doing great and chilling at home now. Birth story to come soon!

A contraction-al update

2006-02-18T19:08:00.000-08:00

It's just after 10 here, and we just put the Psycho-Fuss Munchie to bed. Isaac has been a cranky punk all day. He threw three temper tantrums this afternoon, which is completely unlike him. I don't even remember the last time he threw ONE, let alone three. I feel so bad for the guy. All week Dada and I have been on the phone almost nonstop with this house-buying beeswax, paying a fraction of the attention to Isaac that he usually gets. Perhaps this is good preparation for having an attention-hogging brother in the near future, but it makes me feel like a terrible parent. Yes, I know, blah blah we're doing what's best for him and his brother blah blah. I don't care. All I want to do is sit still, stop talking on the phone, and pway twains with my son.

It's been basically twelve hours now and the contractions are sloooooowwwwwwwllllyy getting closer together. Now I can expect one every 6 - 11 minutes. And they hurt. Not unbearably, but still. It's impossible to tell if they hurt more now because they're getting stronger, or because I've had so many contractions that my back muscles ache. Oh, and they are tantalizingly real: the kind that start as a tightening in my lower back and then wrap themselves quickly around my abdomen like a claustrophobic heating blanket.

I'm really hoping we can put off this whole baby-out-popping business at least until the morning. Grandma can't fly out until tomorrow morning when a new day of flights begins, and I would prefer Isaac to try to get a good night's rest in his own bed before sending him off for a day of romping with Ella. Though, U.B., if you'd like to wait until we've met with our local banker and secured a loan with him, that would actually be ideal for Mommy and Daddy, K?

Disproving my theory

2006-02-18T12:14:00.000-08:00

I have this secret theory that I am incapable of going into labor by myself. With Isaac, I thought my water had broken and I was induced. My mom, from whom I presumably would inherit some laboring tendencies, was induced with me when her water broke, and was induced with my brother when he camped out there longer than he should have. The odds are not stacked in my favor, I think.

Yet here I am today and, not to get anyone's hopes up, but this afternoon I am having some regular contractions, at 15-20 minutes apart, coupled with some bloody show. What does this mean? We'll see.

What's better than free babysitting?

2006-02-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

My friend Sarah, with the help of her daughter Ella, sat for Isaac when I went to my prenatal appointment on Thursday. She and I are in this groove where we swap babysitting for each other. Isaac adores her. He gives her unrequested hugs at all times and calls her "Mommy Ella". Sarah said he was a complete angel on Thursday; he even *willingly* shared Henry with Ella:

Most times the kids just hang out on the floor playing with Ella's toy-mountain:

But on Thursday Isaac decided that hanging out in Ella's crib was also cool. Note him playing with and staring intently at the Fisher-Price aquarium that never interested him as a crib-dweller:

So what could possibly be better than free babysitting? How about a free babysitter who takes pictures of your adorable boy in action?

Won't you take me to Funkytown?

2006-02-17T19:49:00.000-08:00

Before I found out about our delicious termite issues today...

This morning I secured the services of a real estate lawyer, something apparently required in the state of Delaware. As far as I can tell, he serves no purpose other than as an expensive writer of large checks. In the acquisition of our property, we are naturally getting a big fat mortgage; that goes to him for safe-keeping. We are so lucky as to qualify for a really embarrassing amount of money from the City in grants and low-interest loans because of Dada's job and the address of the property we are buying; those all go to him for safe-keeping, too. Have you seen the movie SpaceBalls? Of course you have, you closet Mel Brooks fiend, you. Imagine with me, if you will, that our lawyer is MegaMaid. First he acts like a gigantic cash vaccuum ("Suck! Suck! Suck!"), and then he redistributes the cash to where it all needs to go ("It's Mega Maid! She's gone from 'suck' to 'blow'!").

We asked the City Planning guy, who's giving us all this grant/low-interest loan money, and a lender at our local bank who they would recommend, since we are not the type of people who regularly engage attorneys. You know you live in a relatively small town when both sources say, "Well, you could always use the mayor." I had to look online to see who our mayor is -- he's Vance A. Funk, III. He runs a law practice with his son...you guessed it...Vance A. Funk, IV. According to Wikipedia, Mayor Funk caused a minor stir when it was revealed that he, in a letter to his supporters, referred to Newark as "Funkytown."

I think that, in and of itself, was enough for me to want him as my lawyer.

Unclean! Unclean!

2006-02-17T18:58:00.000-08:00

Today we had a termite inspection done on our prospective new dwelling, with results that were not cool. Turns out that, while the house has no evidence of active termite infestation or even termite damage, there are some "shelter tubes" in the garage on a wall shared with the house, meaning termites have made themselves cozy there at one point in time. And as the inspector-lady puts it, these aren't exactly the kind of creatures that leave on their own, but the kind that must be evicted by the Orkin man. These little shelter tubes will cost somebody $800 to clean up.

Luckily we stipulated that our agreement of sale was contingent upon a satisfactory termite inspection, meaning if the seller won't remediate, we can back out of buying the house. I say "luckily", but we are totally bummed because we really, really like this house. Not enough to buy it while it could be riddled with termites, but this house is too perfect for us to be true.

Add this set-back to my dealing with a charlatan loan officer who quoted me over $10,000 in closing costs to our dual-agent realtor who is THE DEVIL, and it seems like nothing is going right for us this week. It's just not fair that we should happen to find this adorable, reasonably-priced house in an excellent location, because I swear to you there are no more like it in this town.

U.B. goes to the doctor -- 39 weeks

2006-02-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

I never have committed to a regular obstetrician/practitioner at the hospital practice I'm going to for U.B.'s prenatal care, opting instead for scheduling convenience to accomodate various babysitters for my firstborn. Sometimes this has its advantages, as I've gotten to see a range of practitioners, some of which have been really stellar, and gotten a wealth of information.

Today, not so much. Last week I the O.B. I saw was anxious to do an internal exam to find out if I had dilated any more; I declined because Isaac was there with me and I didn't want to be in a situation where I couldn't leap from the table and stop him from eating the biohazard waste if needs be. She suggested we should definitely take a look this week. But this week when I show up, I have a different doc. When I bring up the internal exam, for which I went out of my way to get our buddies Sarah and Ella to watch Isaac while I went for the appointment (thanks guys!), this doc says "Nah. Let's just do it next week if you're still pregnant, because then we'd have to schedule an induction anyway." So I have no idea what the cervix-monster is up to. I've had lots of painful cramps this week -- no contractions, but bad, bad cramps -- and I was so very curious to see if they were accomplishing anything. Pbblllft.

Interestingly, however, this O.B. palpated around my belly to get a feel of how big the baby is. She estimates that he is between 7-1/2 and 8 pounds NOW. This means, if she erred on the small side, that we are talking a near-9-pounder next week. Can you say yee-owch?

Oh, and my blood pressure was even lower this time, and U.B.'s heart rate was in the 140s. All is very good and very boring, which is lovely because now I have so much crap to do with our new home-buying project that I suddenly don't mind if U.B. wants to go overdue.

Doing our part to stick it to The Man in '06

2006-02-15T19:10:00.000-08:00

I posted two days ago about our surprise side-project...well, now I can tell you what it is, what's been going on and literally been causing more drama for this mama than she probably needs or deserves. Oh, but it is such a good thing.

Here at the O'Neal household, we do our parts to be a slave to The Man. We shop at Wal-Mart; we eat at McDonald's; I buy inane top 40 songs on iTunes. This year we will have 2 of our requisite 2.2 children.

But perhaps most importantly, Dada and I have allowed The Man to keep us down in an obscene way for the longest time. You see, as starving and transient students, we were constantly under the thumb of The Man in the housing market. Not knowing where we would be in one, two, or even three years, we gave The Man all our money, wasted in rent. Over the five years of our cohabitation, this amounted to almost SIXTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. And the worst of it was of course in Seattle, where the exorbitant rent was exceeded only by the exorbitant inflated housing market, leaving us no options. Now we live on the East Coast, and the home prices, though lower, are not incredibly affordable to Joe Six-Packs like us. It initially appeared that the O'Neals would continue to bleed money to the machine for all eternity.

And then something happened. An old lady died, as old ladies occasionally do. Her kids all live out of town and wanted to unload her house in an expeditious fashion. On Saturday, the O'Neals drove by this same house with a for-sale sign in the yard, and remarked how cute it is, how it is less than 1-1/2 miles from Dada's office, how it is 100 yards from where Isaac would go to elementary school, how it is in a neighborhood next to parks and populated entirely by young families and old people. The O'Neals looked at said house, fell in love with it, and made an offer, the first time they have ever made a real-estate transaction in their lives. Today we found out that the old lady's son accepted.

That's right, Mr. Man. We're buying a house. You can take your rent and shove it...into a bigger, fatter tax refund for us next year. Boo-yah!

Here she is, our new house. She's a tidy one, with three bedrooms, hardwood floors, a full basement, closets (what on earth are those?), and a nice-sized backyard. We will be eating our share of ramen noodles in her, but she will be OURS:

Today's scary nap

2006-02-14T19:25:00.000-08:00

Though we think he's over his cold, Isaac still clings to the remnants of an awful cough from time to time. His cough only surfaces when he's asleep, i.e. when the phlegm has had at least an hour of him not being upright to travel down to his lungs. Being the geniuses we are after enduring over a month of this, we finally broke out the humidifier last night, and Isaac didn't wake up until 6:45.

Despite his long, restful night, he has seemed out of sorts all day. I don't think he's teething -- he actually let me spelunk around his mouth with my finger last night and there are no new molars in sight. He could be sensitive to the impending arrival of his little brother, like cats and dogs before an earthquake. But really, why he was this way today is anybody's guess. This morning we went over to Ella's house and he was cranky and pouty and not sharing anything, ever, but I know he enjoyed Ella's and Sarah's company, as always. They wore him out and he fell asleep in the car on the way home. An hour later as I was turning in for my own nap, he started crying "Maaaaaaaammmeeeeeeeee" in a most pitiful fashion from his room. This happens occasionally -- maybe he gets cold or conks his head on the bed or has a bad dream -- where he'll wake up mid-nap and need some help to go back to sleep. Unlike most times, this time his panic at waking up deepened upon my arrival. He buried his face in my hair and screamed "Mommy! Mommy!" even though I was obviously right there. And then the coughing started, the awful kind where he wouldn't breathe for a few really long seconds at a time, compounded by the fact that he was hysterically crying. After 15 freaky minutes of this where I seriously considered calling Dada to come home and help or even take us to the hospital, I gave Isaac some cough medicine, lay him in bed with me, turned on Thomas, and started rubbing his back. He was out like a light in less than 2 minutes, and slept for another THREE hours.

What caused this outbreak of scariness is completely unknown to me, but how powerless does something like this make you feel, that being right there for your kid is maybe not enough?

Still here, hopefully not for long

2006-02-13T19:46:00.000-08:00

Not to get any hopes up, but there are some uterine rumblings tonight. She feels a little irritated -- perhaps from holding this huge baby boy for so stinkin' long? -- and is crampy with some sharp occasional cervical pain-like things. No contractions, though. We've had a really busy day here, to cap off a psychotically busy weekend, working on a side-project that came along as a sort of surprise on Saturday. Dada made me promise not to tell anyone what it was before it all comes together for some tricky work/life reasons, but hopefully we will be able to tell the world by the end of the week. If not tomorrow.

Going to bed now like a good girl. Blog you later.

Do they give me extra money for being early?

2006-02-12T21:14:00.000-08:00

I just finished doing our federal taxes online, yippee! This is exciting because it marks the first time in the near-five years since we became the joint-filing O'Neals that we will 1) have filed before April -AND- 2) get a refund.

Go us! Go having a kid! I am exceptionally proud of myself on this one because I dug up all kinds of receipts and statements to have an itemized list of our hefty moving expenses so we could deduct, deduct, deduct. And now we get money, instead of having to pay hundreds of dollars. Whatever will we do with ourselves?

Now to navigate this brave new world of state income tax after having lived in income-tax-ignorant Washington state for 4.5 years...

Like Dada, like son

2006-02-12T19:00:00.001-08:00

It's not easy having a kid who doesn't sleep well. A mommy can waste a lot of time worrying about how it's her fault that she's not trying the right things at the right times. Or that her kid is teething or sick or hungry or his bed's too hard or too soft or his jammies don't fit right or maybe the cat is laying on his face or or or...

But I am becoming increasingly convinced that Isaac's sleep problems are genetic. From me? Oh, no. I am an insomniac now only because my belly is far too gigantic to permit such enjoyable things as sleeping; when not pregnant, it is well-known that if there was an Olympic event for sleeping, I would totally medal. No, Isaac's problems are all from Dada. Dada has always had serious sleep issues, and should probably seek some chemical assistance at some point in time. Most nights he wakes repeatedly through the night. Most nights he falls asleep on the couch at 8 and then wakes up at 10 or 11, unable to get back to sleep for a few hours. Obviously, there are strong similarities between Dada and Isaac in this regard.

Perhaps the most important observation I have made linking their horrendous sleep patterns, though, occurred this past week. With few exceptions, Dada is incapable of falling asleep without the TV on. In fact, to get to sleep, he turns on a TiVoed episode of his favorite show, Futurama. This show does not bore him, but he is guaranteed to be snoring on the couch after only 5 to 7 minutes of an episode. Flash-forward to the next generation and this young person's love for Thomas. Putting Isaac down for a nap is always a chore, though once he gets there he sleeps like a champ. To try to calm him down for naptime, I brought Isaac into bed with me and put a Thomas DVD on for him to watch. 5 to 7 minutes into the DVD, he is snoring on the pillow next to me.

Look, internet! It's not my fault! It's nature vs. nuture, and nuture doesn't stand a chance.

Storm '06 hits our 'hood

2006-02-11T14:52:00.001-08:00

The local news is saying we're supposed to get 8 to 12 inches of big, fluffy, life-interrupting snow in the next 24 hours. When Isaac woke up from his nap this afternoon I showed him the snow falling out our front window. "Outside, Mama?" he said. "Play snow! Where's boots? Where's hat?" How can you say no? And we got a chance to finally break in this uber-sexy snowsuit Mee-maw got him for Christmas. Here we are bundling up:

Unlike the last time, this snow wasn't so "yucky." Here's our intrepid explorer stomping around the backyard...

...admiring the snowfall...

...and getting ready to bean somebody in the knot with a gigantic snowball:

A KMart legacy

2006-02-10T18:55:00.000-08:00

This past Monday I took the boy with me to KMart to pick out something practical for a friend's new baby. I knew going in there that there would be lots of perusing on my part, and Isaac is not known for his patience should the shopping cart stop moving. So, genius mother that I am, I took him at his morning snack time. Before we did anything else, we stopped at the snack bar for an Icee. I was certainly feening for one, as U.B., like his brother before him, will be composed in the liquid phase almost entirely of Slurpees. However, I also was acting on some fond memories from my childhood -- when my mom would take my brother and I errand-running at KMart, usually there was an Icee in it for us. I'm sure it's partly this behavior that has perpetuated my slushie-style-beverage addiction to this day. Incidentally, Isaac also chose a small bag of popcorn for us, and we left our popcorn/blue-raspberry trail all over the store. He was happy as a clam for the entire shopping adventure and fell asleep in the car on the 5-minute ride home from stuffing himself with snack-bar junk food.

Later that day I was boasting of my geniusness to Dada. With no prompting whatsoever, Dada volunteers that when his mom took him to KMart as a young'un, she would buy him Icees also. It's fate, then, that we should pass on this legacy to our children.

We're feeling better...so let's run a marathon!

2006-02-09T19:41:00.000-08:00

After three days of antibiotic, Isaac is feeling tons better. He's coughing less, there's less snot, and he clearly has lost all symptoms of his ear infection. He even slept through the night last night, for the first time in almost a month. What a doll.

Perhaps assisted by his newfound health, I am also feeling much better. Less snot, less congestion, less earaches, more sleep. What's not to love? Given our mutual exuberance at this turn of events, we decided to run ourselves ragged together today. Let me recap:

We went to playgroup at 9:30, where he proceeded to literally run laps around the church gym and I enjoyed the company of what is turning into something I lovingly call my "professor's wives' club." The neatest part was that my friend from the PWC who had a baby 3 weeks ago showed up, new baby in hand, so she got to give me all the straight poop about the hospital and living with two young'uns (she also has a 2-1/2 year old) simultaneously.

Isaac and I left close to 11:30, and he fell asleep in the car. At 1:35 I woke him up so we could go together to my prenatal appointment at 2. In a moment of mommy-genius, I fixed him a lunch of cheese quesadilla and grapes, put them in a small compartmentalized tupperware container, placed him in his car seat, and set the container on his lap. He peacefully crunched away and ate the whole thing on our 15-minute ride to the doctor's.

Possibly the best part of our day was the visit to the doctor's. I have only taken Isaac to one other prenatal appointment before by myself, and that was a complete catastrophe. He also freaked out another time, when I took him with the help of Grandma Ross, upon seeing me laying down on the exam table. My hopes were not terribly high, but after the thrashing/wailing episode at his own doctor's earlier this week, I thought it might be good to show him that visiting the doctor ain't no thang. And wouldn't you know it but the guy was a complete angel. When it was time for me to lay down on the exam table, I sat him in a chair 3 feet away with four trains. He started to fuss, but then I whipped up my shirt for measuring, and when the doctor put her tape on my belly he got really excited: "Wow! Wow! Wow!" said Isaac. The Doppler was just as neat. "Can you hear [insert little bro's name here]'s heartbeat?" I said. "Wow! Wow! Wow!" said Isaac. Everyone, including me, was impressed with what a good guy he was.

After my appointment we went over to Ella's house to hang and had a great time as always, Isaac playing with Ella toys and usually trying to rip them out of her hands; me yapping my trap with Sarah. It was a jam-packed day, but definitely in a good way.

Start thinking "Godzilla-Baby"

2006-02-09T19:12:00.000-08:00

U.B. and I had another prenatal appointment today, at 38 weeks 2 days. Here is a belly picture to give you the visual of how colossal my unborn child has become:

Don't you get back pains from just looking at that huge hump I have to carry around all day?

I actually asked Dada this morning if it was fashion-sensible of me to wear this shirt out of the house. This is a maternity shirt; these are maternity pants. Yet my belly is so gigantic it has a life of its own and can't help but peek out to see what's going on. I think this is kind of gross. Nevertheless, in the words of Dada: "Claire, you're 9 months pregnant. You can wear whatever you damn well please."

Here are the stats from my visit, for the number-freaks like myself. My blood pressure is still good, at 120-something/74. I didn't gain any weight from last week, despite the fact that I ate half a pint of Edy's an hour before I went in. U.B.'s heartbeat is great, at 145 bpm. And, here's the kicker: U.B.'s house measures 39 cm, up from 36 cm last week. Um...whoa. Isaac was 7 lbs 15 oz at birth. How big do you think this one could get?

Also, it would appear that at least two people are blog-stalking me for any hints that I am going in to labor. Let me tell these people, and others who might also be curious, that I promise to do my very best to post something every day I am able. Thus, if there is ever an awkward silence, well, you can assume the very best.

They don't charge extra for screaming!

2006-02-08T19:01:00.001-08:00

Today in my frenzy of trying to bring everything in the house to order (can you say "nesting"?) I noticed that Isaac's hair in the back was getting impossibly thick and hippie-like, and that he had hideous little stray hairs dangling over his ears from where I butchered his hair cutting it myself over Christmas break. In the interest of saving some money, I tried my hand once again at Isaac-pruning, luring him with an episode of Sesame Street. When a half-hour passed, along with thirteen million TiVo pauses ("If you don't sit still, we're not watching it!"), I thought it might be worth the money to take Isaac for his first professional cut.

We went to one of those kiddie-friendly places with cool chairs, toys, a DVD player, and suckers. I thought he would totally be into anywhere where he could sit on a carousel-esque elephant and watch Thomas at the same time. Oh, how wrong I was. He screamed the whole time. He didn't want to sit on the fancy chairs. He didn't want to sit in the barber's chairs. He didn't even want to watch Thomas. He just didn't want to sit still, period, especially while that strange but well-meaning lady was approaching with the scissors. Eventually I held him in my lap on a barber's chair, restraining him in one way or another (which, with all the doctor's visits, seems to be the theme lately) while this extremely talented and patient lady snipped away at his beautiful golden overgrowth. Towards the end he had worked himself up into such a frenzy that his face was covered with snot and he was drooling, and it almost made me burst into tears. Until we were done, that is, and I let him down, and he skipped away towards the toys at the front of the store like nothing had ever happened. His hairstylist asked him if he wanted a sucker, and he even said "Thank you." Here he is with his trimmed-up new do, watching Thomas peacefully from their waiting area, enjoying his very first Dum Dum (grape, it was)

While the whole experience was completely unpleasant, entirely due to my kid's unreasonable reaction to anyone taking scissors to his hair, I must say I'm glad we kicked that hippie-lookin' kid out of my house. Oh, and next time? It's Dada's turn.

Color-coded for the month of love

2006-02-07T21:05:00.000-08:00

Our big buddy Ella (with her mom Sarah's help) looked after Isaac this morning for two hours. Apparently he barely noticed I was gone, being too busy reading to Ella:

...or trying to play "ride the horsey" with his little friend:

I have been informed by Sarah that no Ellas were harmed in the taking of these pictures. I also promise the matching red shirts were not planned in the least. In fact, Isaac wore his shirt yesterday. You'll notice it's emblazoned with Thomas and buds. I happened to get off my enlarged butt and do laundry last night such that the shirt wound up in the clean laundry basket Isaac was "helping" me fold this morning, and you can guess what happened from there.

Interesting news, though -- I needed a babysitter because Dada and I met with a children's book publisher this morning. Long story short: we each have cute little assignments to write super-short, non-fiction books geared towards grade-schoolers. In addition to exploiting a fantastic opportunity to stretch my Play-Doh-atrophied brain in new and refreshing ways, upon finishing these assignments we get a modest check.

The publisher was really nice and excited about us, but Dada kind of went over the top. You see, he has this well-meaning little problem that surfaces on occasions such as these. He likes to brag on his wife's writing skills. During the meeting he went on and on at several points about how I'm the best writer he's ever met, never mind that I've never written children's books before, ever. Of course he doesn't notice me sinking deeper into the chair; of course the publisher nods politely along.

Oh, the shame! The jinxing! Does he not watch American Idol? Does he not see all those poor hapless souls whose moms are waiting outside the audition room door cooing about how their offspring, who sounds like a lost barnyard animal, has the best voice in the history of the universe?

**thanks to Sarah for the pictures!

Boo. I don't have an ear infection.

2006-02-07T20:42:00.000-08:00

Please don't ask why I was so thrilled at the prospect of both my son and I being diagnosed with ear infections, but I was. Isaac has one, he takes medicine, he feels lots better. I want one so I can take medicine and feel lots better.

Instead, I go to my family practitioner today and she tells me that, while my eardrums are noticeably dysfunctional in the draining respect right now, they are not infected, and that their dysfunction is even to be expected given 1) the time of year, 2) the duration of my head cold, and even 3) an altered sinus morphology and behavior due to my pregnancy. Then she went on and on about blah blah she doesn't want to pump my unborn child full of chemicals and blah blah have you tried Sudafed? Um, yes, and it does NOTHING. Well, then, blah blah try Chlor-Trimeton. Thanks, ho-bag. At least she didn't tell me, like everyone else, to repeatedly souse my nostrils with saline spray. Because that really works.

I don't hate her terribly because of the short conversation we had as she walked me out. I have been pretty self-conscious about my weight gain during this pregnancy. Though I have gained 35 lbs total, no one has yet said to me "You look like you're ready to pop!" and more often than not I hear "Two weeks? I would have thought you have more like two months to go". This all makes me feel like people think I am some kind of negligent mom. Do I carry my baby in such a way as to make me look malnurished or something? But my doc today made me feel a little better.

Dr: So when are you due?
Me: Two weeks. Feb 21.
Dr: Wow, you look great! I would have thought you had lots more time to go.
Me: (a little dejected) Yeah, I get that a lot. I kind of feel bad because everyone thinks I'm too skinny. I probably should have put on more weight. I just hope the baby will be okay.
Dr: What? No, don't think that. I'm sure you're measuring fine, right?
Me: Well, yes, but...
Dr: Then that's all you need to worry about. I'm proud of you for keeping your weight in check. Not everybody takes care of themselves like that when they're pregnant.
Me: I guess I have to give credit to my toddler. He keeps me so busy...
Dr: Are you joking? I can't know how many times I've seen women in here who gained an extra 30 lbs with their first pregnancy, and then took their second pregnancy as an excuse to gain an extra 70 lbs, and are now griping at me about how they need to lose 100 lbs.
Me: Well, I guess I didn't do that.
Dr: Like I said, I'm proud of you.

Yay! My kid has an ear infection!

2006-02-06T18:22:00.000-08:00

After a month of the two of us being sick, and Dada being sick of listening to us cough and whine, I took Isaac to the pediatrician today for his cold. For the second time. I think I rescind my PhD in biochemistry when I say this, but all I really wanted was some drugs for my kid. I don't care what he has going on in his seemingly malformed sinuses, I just want to go buy something, preferably from a registered pharmacist, that makes me feel proactive in the matter.

We saw a different doctor-lady who was as equally wonderful as his regular pediatrician. I knew I really loved her when she didn't even so much as look at my son before she whipped out her prescription pad and said "A month is too long. He obviously needs some help kicking this." Did I mention how much I love my pediatrician's office? And despite Isaac's best efforts to keep her from looking in his ears, she persevered and discovered that he does, in fact, have an infected left ear. Then, to make me want to leave my husband and bear her children instead, she promised me that his antibiotics will make him feel 50,000% better by tomorrow. Now we are all set with a 10-day course of amoxicillin that tastes like orange milkshake. He was seriously disappointed that he couldn't have more after I gave him his dose tonight.

But now I have prescription-drug envy. My ears hurt (LIKE A B...urrito) too. I want some yummy antibiotics too. I made an appointment for myself to see my own doctor tomorrow, so wish me luck that soon I will be on the medicinally-enhanced road to recovery as well.

Waiting is for losers

2006-02-06T10:20:00.000-08:00

No baby. Still some nausea, and the back-cramps are getting worse, but nothing that would rate more than an "well, now, that's a little annoying". What is also getting worse is our collective head cold. Isaac is going to the pediatrician again this afternoon to make sure he doesn't have an ear infection, like I'm pretty sure I do. Do you think his pediatrician would be a sweetie and give us a two-fer on the ear-checks? Oh, the time that would save.

I asked Dr. Google about my symptoms last night and he/she says I am in "prelabor." What this means is that I could go into real labor in a few days...or in a month from now! Yay! Between this disgusting windy cold weather and the Head Cold that Would Not Die, Dada and I are hoping the other labor-shoe will drop sooner rather than later. We decided we are ready to have another baby because we are bored and need something else to do. Isn't that mature of us?

I should probably pack our bags sometime

2006-02-05T13:25:00.000-08:00

I did not spontaneously go into labor with Isaac. I *thought* my membranes ruptured, I went to the hospital, and I was induced. Though I had lots of contractions with Isaac, they were all fakers (like him!): all low and in front. I don't know how many times in the last two months of my Isaac-bearing I called the L&D ward only to have them tell me to stay home and take a bath or drink 42 glasses of water to get my contractions to stop -- and they did.

The moral to the story is that I have no idea what the onset of real labor feels like. Maybe it feels something like this.

Since I ate the world's most sickeningly-sweet Papa John's last night, I have had an upset stomach. No throwing up, just nausea rivalling that of my worst morning sickness. But here we are, almost 24 hours later, and I still feel sick. I'm pretty sure it's not the pizza because both the boy and Dada ate tons of it with no ill effects. Now, after waking up from a nap, I am crampy both in my back and down low in front. No contractions or even pain, just noticeable and annoying uncomfortableness.

Is it labor or is it my continued snotty-nose-head-cold that's turning my stomach? Are they contractions or just my bladder which continually needs emptying? Who knows. I told Dada I thought I might (just maybe) be in labor. His response: "I have to teach on Wednesday!" You know, because it's up to me.

update, 9 hours later -- Tummy = still upset. Cramps in back = eh, very mild, very every-so-often. No baby just yet...but I'll keep you posted.

Poo-poo awareness

2006-02-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

Two recent episodes highlight Isaac's increasing awareness that he does, in fact, poop, and that it may, in fact, be yucky in his diaper. The beginnings of an interest in potty-training? Perhaps...

*Last Saturday, Dada thought Isaac had his poop-face on and asked him if he had to go poop. Amazingly, the boy said yes. I ushered him in to the bathroom suggesting that he try to poop on the potty and took all his clothes off (as we were pre-bath anyway). He sat on his potty, lid down. Any and all attempts to get him to sit on the potty with the lid up were completely futile. But he did at least sit, and I sat on "the big-boy potty" next to him for a few minutes, encouraging him to do his thing. Nothing happened. I asked again if he had to poop, and this time he said no. Giving up, I left the room to acquire bathtime necessities. Not more than 10 seconds later I hear him screaming "Yucky! YUCKY!" from the bathroom. I run back to find him stepping on the edge of the most enormous poo-poo pile the earth has ever known, deposited neatly, not on or in the potty, but in the center of the bathroom rug. As I wipe off his feet and end the yuckiness, he becomes excitedly curious, asking "What's that? What's that?" over and over. I realize: the child has never seen his own poop before. I explain to him gently what it is, along with the obvious benefits of leaving it in the potty instead of on the floor. I thought the whole thing was unbelievably hilarious until I started cleaning up the mess and saw on the back of the rug those three little words that belong on no object in a house with a toddler: "Dry Clean Only."

*Tonight, Dada and Isaac were playing trains at his train table. Suddenly, Isaac breaks away from playing and runs to stand next to the front door, still facing Dada, but fussing and crying. Dada can see the poop-face going on, and asks Isaac if he is pooping. "Noooooooo," he wails miserably. Well, would you like to come back over and play trains? "Noooooo," he wails again. Turns out Isaac was passing a big boulder-poo, which probably didn't feel too great, and evidently didn't want to do it near his beloved trains.

He could still care less about peeing, and when I let him roam the house sans diaper he cares not whether he pees on the rug. But I think these new poo-poo happenings are quite promising for demonstrating a newfound potty-training potential in Isaac. Too bad they only seem to happen when Dada is around.

He's a faker

2006-02-03T18:31:00.000-08:00

A goodly portion of my posts on this blog have been devoted to my son's apparent sleep disorder. The funny thing is, though we obviously have issues with consistent and uninterrupted nighttime slumbering, he has always been an excellent napper. The even funnier thing is that his napping cues are almost completely invisible to anyone but me, possibly because we share a lot of the same behaviorisms when we're tired. The two of us are a) the world's slowest at waking up from any kind of sleep, and b) able to run 90-to-nothing two seconds before collapsing in a sleep-heap. When we are around other people, inevitably this leads to discussions, or at least looks that say "uh-huh...sure...", from those who don't believe me regarding what's appropriate for him and his trips to the daytime Nod.

Exhibit A: Both sets of grandparents, upon seeing what a groggy, cranky horror he is when waking up in the morning, or even an hour after waking up, often suggest that he looks like he's ready to pass out and I should put him down for a nap. "He's a faker!" I say, and he will suddenly awaken from his illusion-of-sleep glazed-over look and start burning the toddler oil.

Exhibit B: Today we went on a playdate to the home of Isaac's friends Anthony (4) and Carlos (2-1/2), where there is an enormous collection of boy toys, trikes, and things to jump on. Oh my goodness, the delight and the fun of playing with slightly older boys and their toy-avalanches...at times I thought Isaac might keel over from a heart attack. After 2-1/2 hours of screaming with glee and hurling his body this way and that, Isaac was still able to put up the facade that his energy was boundless. Yeah, right. I felt so horrible trying to explain to his buddies' mom that he was ready for a nap as the toddler-monster pushes a trike around me in circles. "He's a faker," I told her. Oh, the horrible wailing as I dragged him away from his buddies (and their toys). But sure enough, 5 minutes into the car ride home he was snoring.

That mommy, sometimes she does know what she's talking about. Sometimes.

U.B.'s 37-week appointment

2006-02-02T17:49:00.000-08:00

U.B. and I had yet another prenatal appointment today. This time we saw a real doctor, a lady, who actually possessed tact and compassion, unlike one of her nightmarish male compatriots. She was very sweet, especially since she gave me permission to take Sudafed for the Head Cold That Would Not Die, and she said I could also take Tylenol PM for my insomnia. Not sure if I feel comfortable doing both of these at the same time, but a little dab of pseudoephedrin made a world of difference this evening.

U.B.'s heart rate was 160 bpm, and his house grew by 1 cm (for a total of 36 cm, if you are keeping track). He is very active, a big squirmer. Whereas his older brother was more of a kicker, U.B. is a constant (and I mean CONSTANT) twister, like he can't get comfy in there. Poor guy. Like his brother before him, he also hiccups all the time. I was surprised when Isaac came along that he continued to hiccup almost constantly for a few months outside the womb; his pediatrician offered up that some babies are just prone to them.

I gained a pound since last week, and this time my blood pressure was actually down a bit, to 123/70, which was sweet. No internal exams this time, so I have no idea if Ms. Cervix is continuing her process of dilation and effacement. This particular visit, from my entrance to the waiting room until my exit from the office, was less than 30 minutes, leaving me with plenty of time on the clock to get a pre-dinner Slurpee. Let's hope for a repeatedly speedy performance next Thursday, eh? If we don't have a baby by then, that is.

The Play-Doh menagerie

2006-02-01T19:40:00.002-08:00

In Isaac-world, playing with Play-Doh is the new coloring. We have played with Play-Doh every day for the past week. I can't even get near the kitchen table (our Play-Doh studio of choice) without pleadings of "Pway-oh? Pway-oh?"

At first, our Pway-oh sessions started innocently. It was fun to make balls and squish them unmercifully with fingers, noses, necks. But late last week, I helped to flip the switch. There are only so many times one can reshape balls without going insane, yes? So, conjuring my inner Grandma Jane (Mistress of the Play-Doh), I used all of my grade-school art class skillz to start making Play-Doh critters upon request. I try to encourage Isaac to make his own unique creations. He is still stuck in squishing mode, though when squishing takes the form of dismembering animals it is apparently infinitely more interesting. Thus, though my repertoire is growing rather large, none of my Play-Doh creations lasts for more than a minute without heads (or tails) being parted from their respective bodies. Some of our handiwork --

Isaac maiming a snail:

A mouse, only temporarily saved from Destructo-Hands (note the approach of the Blurry Monster in the upper left corner):

One of Isaac's most requested is a kitty with a kitty-bed and food dish. He actually allows this ensemble to exist for 5 - 10 minutes before the kitty's head must roll:

Here's a turtle:

The same turtle after the Isaac-treatment. Note the severed leg in the kitty's food dish:

Happy Birthday, Ella!

2006-02-01T19:40:00.001-08:00

Today is Isaac's buddy Ella's first birthday. We were invited over to her house for a party this evening, replete with cake and ice cream. After a marathon nap this afternoon, Isaac was in rare form. Ella's mommy snapped this one of Isaac and Ella cruising the halls, presumably in search of more icing:

Happy Birthday, Ella!

Sleeping like a ...

2006-02-01T19:39:00.000-08:00

The Precious Angel version of Isaac in the middle of one of his classic 3-hour afternoon naps:

A pat on the uterus

2006-01-31T20:05:00.000-08:00

Today U.B. reached 37 weeks and is considered by anybody to be full-term. He could come along at any time in the next 4 weeks and be a fully-developed little person, with tons of body fat and Mama's antibodies and all. For this acheivement, I would like to thank him, but I would especially like to send a shout-out to my uterus, who managed to carry two fat baby boys to term with almost no complications or other stressful weirdness. Way to do your job, Girly Parts.

Not that there are any signs of his impending arrival, but I give U.B. official permission to show up, for two important reasons. First, after weeks of searching, today I found the Baby Bjorn, buried in a box in the basement. Now it's in his room, and if he's an 8-pounder when he comes along, he can start his Bjorn career right away. I'm really not sure how one is supposed to take care of a baby and a toddler without some sort of manner of affixing the baby to one's person, so at least that is taken care of.

Second, on Saturday Dada picked out the perfect name for U.B. I've even got Isaac calling my belly by this name, which he thinks is pretty cool. The funny thing is that this name was the first name we came up with for U.B., but we ditched it along the way for one reason or another. I know I've teased about having picked out a name before, but before when I resisted blogging it, I did tell people in real life. For some reason, whenever we have revealed potential names to anyone, it immediately sours us on the name for one reason or another. This time, with this perfect name, no one knows except Isaac. Not even Grandma Jane, who I must admit I had the most fun ever with on IM Saturday night as she guessed her brains out and I would just e-cackle and say that even if she guessed right I would still not tell her.

I will tell you that our previous pick, now discarded, was William. After about a week we decided that was a little too generic and courted Willem for awhile, and then decided that sounded like we were trying too hard for it not to be William. Our new name (not William or derivations thereof) follows all posted rules, and even its meaning is appropriate, and slightly hilarious, when one thinks about U.B.'s relationship to Isaac. After her guessing and my not telling her, Grandma Jane is convinced that we have picked a weirdo name, the boy equivalent to Gwyneth's Apple. I promise you, despite Dada's coworkers insistence that we name our child Gunnar Prometheus, or Oliver Neal (get it -- O. Neal O'Neal?), we stuck to our guns and refused to name our child something which would overtly scream for a playground butt-kicking. At this point I would go on and tease you about how I am withholding such juicy information, but really, no one has that much longer to wait.

Boys will be boys

2006-01-31T08:28:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine recently admitted that, when she runs out of things to do at home with her 4- and 2-1/2-year olds, she plops them in the van and drives to construction sites. They just sit in the car and watch the big, manly machines go to town.

We say all the time how Isaac is seriously lucky to have two grandpas who play with big, manly machines every day (Grandpa O'Neal is a mechanic; Grandpa Ross sells lawnmowers, tractors, and light machinery). But too often we forget how much tool-y crap Dada has lying around. And the scary part is that most of it is for his job. In addition to his office, he has a lab space all his own, which he took us to see for the first time on Friday night. Given Isaac's reaction, Dada's new plan for helping out when U.B. is to take Isaac to his lab when I need a break from toddler-land. See, Isaac can help Dada push around his big equipment cart:

He can measure stuff:

And don't get him started on the orange traffic cones. Those things are apparently as attractive as cookies to toddler boys:

Amazing, isn't it, how naturally drawn boys seem to be to tools and machinery? Where could this possibly come from?

Single-mommin' it

2006-01-31T08:11:00.000-08:00

Dada left early yesterday morning to traipse around Shenandoah National Park in Virginia this week and likely won't be back until Thursday, so it's just me and the boy and our head/chest cold here at La Casa O'Neal. Yesterday we had an easy day to start off the week, with storytime at the library in the morning, a 2-1/2 hour playdate with Ella after lunch, and a 2-1/2 hour nap. Nope, nothing too tough until bedtime, when it took me nearly 2 hours to get the boy to go to sleep. And that was with starting the "sleep" process with him climbing in his bed at 10:00. I mean, I know he's coughing up a lung every two seconds, but come ON. I had all these grandiose plans about blogging a ton last night until that happened; by the time he did go down I was barely conscious enough to make it through my TiVoed episode of 24 before it was time for me to hit the sack.

But I was very proud of myself at how little TV we watched yesterday -- less than an hour in the morning, an episode of Little Einsteins when he woke up from his nap, and then a Wiggles + Einsteins combo flanking his bathtime. This is all thanks to Dada, who let me sleep in two extra glorious hours on Sunday, giving me enough energy to carry over into the week. Well, for a day at least. We colored on paper, on our markerboard books, played with sticker books, did puzzles, read, listened to a lot of music, played with trains, and played a little on the computer. I think today we are long overdue for some hot PlayDoh action. Hopefully sleep will come more swiftly this evening -- he slept so poorly last night that it already looks like he's playing catch-up today, going down for an uncharacteristically early (10:30) nap.

I've mentioned that, the second time around, I deserve a boy who sleeps, yes?

A new era of luxury -- trains off the floor!

2006-01-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

So far, all of Isaac's choo-choo adventures have occurred in the living room, on the living room rug. That is really the only place with enough space for tracks of significant entertainment levels to be built; it also conveniently doubles as being right in front of the TV so that the Head Track Engineer can get his Headline News on while he does his daddy duty. However, inspired by the exorbitant prices Dada has seen for Thomas tables and the recent acquisition of an ungodly number of power tools, Dada, with his own two hands (and said power tools), built Isaac a train table today:

It's not quite finished yet. The sides are all solid board, and I have been promised that they will be cut out and fashioned into "legs" to allow for storage underneath the table. Dada also has an itch to paint the sides of the table with red enamel, to match Isaac's new dresser. But as Dada is going out of town for four days starting Monday, he felt it necessary to deliver the highly useable, if unfinished product, for our entertainment while he's gone.

It's so very nice to have a handy Dada around. And did I mention he built the whole thing, and it is sturdy enough to jump on, for 15 bucks?

No beer-smelling microphones for this crowd

2006-01-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

A shot of Isaac with his buddies Patrick (middle) and Nathaniel (outside) jamming at playgroup on Thursday:

We were trying to make our exit, but Isaac wanted to play the "pee-oh! pee-oh!" Could YOU say no to these guys?

Overheard

2006-01-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

Isaac (to no one): Love you, Dada.
Mama: Jerk.
Dada: What are you calling my boy?
Mama: I called him a jerk. He said he loved you and you weren't even here.
Dada: Good man.
Mama: I sort of got an "I love you" today.
Dada: Oh yeah?
Mama: After his bath, when he was still naked and cold, he wanted me to hold him and not let go. It was really sweet. I said, "I love you, Isaac" and waited to see if he would say it back. He didn't, so I asked "Do you love me, buddy?" and he whispered "Yeah" in my ear and shook his head up and down, still engaged in snuggling, to make sure I knew. I almost cried.
Dada (grinning like the Cheshire Cat): Yeah, I've told lots of chicks I loved them so they would snuggle with me, too.

The hostess with the mostest

2006-01-25T19:22:00.000-08:00

Dear internet,

Until very recently, I had been sipping the luxurious nectar of a 1 gigabit, unlimited bandwidth hosting service, provided completely for free for me as a student of the University of Washington. This week their tech department caught up with the registrars office and has cut me off. No more movies. No more banners. The hubs, completely unbeknownst to him, is currently hosting my banner, but he has a seriously limited amount of web space and will need it back very very soon for real-life things, like big ol' files and course websites and other things he gets paid to do.

Because I have been living la vida estudiante for my entire web existence, I know absolutely nothing about how to choose from the myriad web hosting services available. How much space will I need? How large of a bandwidth? How much will this all set me back? What I do know is that there are several lovely people who read this blog and are experts in this arena, or at least have a modicum of real-world experience. You there! I am begging for your advice. Help a poor girl who has been abandoned by the web, won't you?

36 weeks U.B. check-up (OR 1/5th of the way to babydom!)

2006-01-25T10:01:00.000-08:00

In stark contrast to my appointment of disappointments last week, this week everything was coming up roses for U.B. and myself. Thanks to my new pregnancy snacks of bacon and whole milk, I've gained 3 lbs in the last week. Complimentary to this news was that U.B.'s house now measures a healthy and respectable 35 cm, up from the normal but slightly worrisome 31 cm it was a week ago. My practitioner and I feel incredibly reassured knowing that my baby really is getting big and fat in there, and as I blog I am toasting our growth accomplishments with an embarrasingly large bag of M&Ms.

Other numbers...whereas my blood pressure was slightly elevated last week, this week it stayed about the same, at 132/70. U.B.'s heart rate was around 150 bpm. The blood is obviously flowing well in both of our bodies.

Today was Invasive Visit day, where I got to be ~~internally roughed-up~~ examined for the purpose of collecting some routine cultures in preparation for delivery. While she was down there, my N.P. took an incredibly painful look at how my cervix was doing. Turns out the cervix-monster is totally doing her part, and has already dilated 2 cm and effaced 50% of the way. The N.P. said this level of dilation doesn't really mean U.B. is in a hurry to get here at all, but that it is extremely encouraging that my cervix is starting to ripen on its own. Now it just needs to figure out how to "ripen" 8 more cm and then we have a baby, yes?

Cough cough, sneeze sneeze: off we go!

2006-01-24T16:58:00.000-08:00

Isaac, along with the rest of us, has been battling a cold for the past week and a half. While this cold hit me exclusively as a sinus thing, a week ago Isaac developed this unique and disturbing phlegmy cough. At first it was just something that happened at night, which sucked because it would wake him up, but now it is pervasive throughout the day as well. He never ran a fever or anything, just had a snotty nose (which is nearly cleared up). Nevertheless, the fact that his cough is so gross and has lasted for so long -- coupled with the knowledge that his older cousin Nate, with whom he had interaction over Christmas break, is recently cured of pneumonia (!) -- drove me to take him to the pediatrician yesterday afternoon. I called this morning and they were able to schedule him in after his naptime.

While Isaac did not enjoy anything about his visit from the second he got in the exam room, I am so glad we went. I have naturally been worried about his picky eating, and the nurse weighed him with his clothes on on the baby scale. Unless his ear-shattering screams weigh something, I believe he has gained weight, as he is now up to 28 lbs 2 oz. That was good to know. Shortly thereafter (note: not 45 minutes!), Dr. Modi walked in the room and the screaming began again. However, his sweet and lovely doctor was so patient with him and tried all of her doctor tricks to get him to calm down. Not that any of them worked, but she did take her time to make sure through all this writhing and wailing that he would not be too freaked out AND she would get all the observations she needed. Her conclusion was that Isaac does not have an infection -- his lungs and ears (yay!) were clear, and thus his cough must be coming from snot dripping down the back of his throat. And then, on top of my being impressed with her incredible patience with my uncooperative child, she, like a conscientious doctor, told me she didn't want to give him antibiotics for his cold, but that I should call back if he spikes a fever or anything.

It is so wonderful to have a pediatrician that you just adore. We even talked a bit after she was done with Isaac about U.B.'s impending arrival, and while I had called her office earlier to make sure, she confirmed with me that she does take on newborns and that she or someone else from the practice would visit U.B. at the hospital, so now both of my kids will grow up under her excellent watch.

U.B. grows -- 35 w 6 d

2006-01-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

Less than a calendar month to go now. I'm thinking, maybe, there's a baby in there. I don't recall swallowing a basketball.

For reference, here is the last belly pic I posted.

We are getting ready to go. We have the car seat unearthed. I dug out Isaac's old 0-3 month clothes from the basement and washed the new clothes we bought or received for U.B. A delightful coworker of Dada's even gave us a fresh package of Pampers for newborns. However, Dada still needs to put the crib back together (and buy a mattress for it). And then I suppose might U.B. need a name. Perhaps we should default to Isaac's suggestion of "Pickle"?

I love Dada

2006-01-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

Today Isaac told Dada that he loved him, like this:

Dada: I love you, Isaac.
Isaac: I love Dada.

After I successfully picked Dada's molten body up off the floor, I tried the same thing but it didn't work for me. At least the idea is out on the table. I'll get mine soon enough.

Shamelessly soliciting last-minute travel advice

2006-01-21T20:33:00.000-08:00

Dear Internet,

I have a question to pose to you. See, I have this baby coming in one month, give or take a few days. I also have this toddler who is going to need babysitting while I am in the hospital. While we have buddies, and back-up buddies, lined up to babysit in the interim, the current plan is that Isaac's Grandma and Grandpa Ross will be doing much of the babysitting when Dada needs to be at the hospital with me after the birth, but in an ideal world, also while I'm in labor.

Herein lies the biggest problem of living away from home. We live in Delaware. The Rosses live in Indianapolis. Now, finding fast flights from Indy to Philly (the closest airport to us) is extremely easy and cheap, should one know in advance the day one would like to travel. For example, if I knew that U.B. would arrive precisely on his due date, I would have my parents book a ticket online with Northwest to fly in the night before and they would fly nonstop from Indy to Philly for $150 a piece. No joke. But obviously U.B., like most babies, will come when he darn well pleases and such a date and time is shrouded in mystery, even to She to Whom He Is Covalently Attached.

We did a similar thing with them when Isaac was born, but we weren't in a terrible hurry for them to get here like perhaps we are now. Dada called them in the afternoon when I was 6 cm dilated, and they showed up to the hospital at 3:30 in the morning to scoop Isaac up in their arms. This response time was phenomenal, especially given that they were going from Indy to Seattle and had to change planes. But I secretly feel horrible about it. I never did ask them how much they paid for those tickets, because I think it might make me hurl.

Okay, so my question. What kinds of options do you think Grandma and Grandpa have before them when it comes to last-minute travel without making them take out a second mortgage? Could they, say, buy a ticket now for a date in the future and then change it when they need to travel for U.B.'s arrival? Or are there any websites or travel agents you could recommend for purchasing cheap cheap cheap last-minute tickets? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Our Saturday

2006-01-21T19:56:00.000-08:00

After a luscious night's sleep, Isaac and I started today with some breakfast and Saturday morning "cartoons":

Later we took advantage of the gorgeous, if windy, near-60-degree weather to go for a walk outside. Somehow we always end up on the sand volleyball court behind the dorms:

Is his hair not the most stinking precious thing you have ever seen? Nod your heads silently in awe at my child's beautiful albino hair.

Isaac and I took a luxurious nap, ate a snack, and then headed out for some more outside time. We again hit the sand volleyball court, but this time we brought along some trains! SHHHHH don't tell Dada!

When the sun went down we made plans to meet up with our buddies at Starbucks.

Isaac and his friend Ella (who will soon be turning one)

Ella and her mom, Sarah

After Starbucks, we rented some movies, notably March of the Penguins for our Saturday family movie night. The movie was amazing, though a little slow for Isaac's taste, and while I liked it, I disliked how Morgan Freeman kept showing me dead baby penguins. That's just not cool.

The hospital tour

2006-01-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

Last night I took a tour of the hospital where U.B. will be born. Note how I said "I" and not "we". We had babysitting all set up for Isaac and everything, and he had to go and start coughing like an 80-year-old smoker. Dada stayed home with him while I went to the hospital to take the tour by myself, with my fingers too swollen to wear my wedding ring so I could pass for a single mom.

It was actually hella lame, and, while I got to ask lots of questions and learned many things I wanted to know, Dada would have been bored out of his gourd so it was probably good he stayed home. To make sure I was adequately entertained without his presence, I picked up a huge Slurpee before I hit the hospital and spent the entire time sucking it down mercilessly in front of all these starving/thirsty heavily pregnant moms. That was fun. I am such a good planner.

Almost everything I learned about the hospital was entirely reassuring, and we seasoned birth vets got to laugh at the first-time dad who asked "So, how long does the delivery take? One hour? Two hours?" I'm surprised his wife didn't sock him in the arm. I got to talk at length with a couple expecting their third & fourth children in April (that's right, twins), and not only did she compliment me profusely on how tiny I was, but she also revealed that whereas her first labor was 20 hours, her second labor lasted five. Can you say "sweetness"?

I did learn one extremely depressing thing about this hospital: their postpartum rooms, with incredibly rare exceptions, are "semi-private." This means that, while I will labor and deliver in a swanky suite of my own, I will have a roomie, probably the entire time, while U.B. and I are recuperating there. A roomie whose screaming baby will likely be sleeping the exact hours when my screaming baby is not sleeping. Whoever's idea this was, they totally do NOT get a cookie for it.

I got home to this picture of my Jedi knight-in-training:

As Dada got ready for bed, Isaac lusted after his shirt and refused to take it off the entire night. Dada did yet another good job this week taking care of Isaac, as I was gone for nearly 2 hours and both of them were still alive when I came home.

They needed to be bigger anyway

2006-01-21T19:29:00.000-08:00

When I was pregnant with Isaac, a near-constant concern of mine was that there was no way a decent-sized baby would be able to pass through my hips. For those who don't know me, my hips are extremely small and narrow. Think teenage-boy hips. My O.B. with Isaac shared my concerns, but noted that she thought Isaac would be small, like 6 or 6.5 lbs, and also suggested that, as in all other areas in life, with your hips it's what's inside that counts, as someone who appears to have narrow hips can actually have plenty of room in there to ferry a baby on through. Apparently this was me, since my 8-lb Isaac made it out into the world the old-fashioned way.

For the past month or so, my hip joints have been aching almost uncontrollably, as if they were being stretched apart on The Rack or something. On a lark, I measured them today to see if they really were getting wider. The tape doesn't lie. Six whole inches bigger my hips are than before I got pregnant with U.B. Perhaps he is going to be a big'un after all.

And right after my time-out post...

2006-01-20T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today Isaac and I had a huge row. All this morning he would do things just to set me off. I would tell him not to throw his raisins on the floor, and then he would, or worse, he would get a mouthful and then spit them out all over the hardwood floor. I would tell him not to play with the blinds (which he could easily damage this way) for the millionth time, and then he would continue to bang on them, turning towards me and laughing. I would forbid him from getting on the back of the couch (from which he could fall and/or break the front window if he got rowdy enough), but he would hoist his little leg up there again and again and again and just laugh at me and my "stop or I shall be forced to say stop again" line of discipline.

After endless pleading, redirecting, and finally screaming (on my end), I took him into U.B.'s room to the time-out chair. I listed off his various offenses and told him he was in a time-out for a full minute. During this minute he found Dada's telescope within his reach and proceeded to giggle and entertain himself with it and the bubble wrap around it. As this does not meet my definition of punishment, I got a little angrier and grabbed both his arms and pinned him to the chair to try to finish the time-out. He clearly thought this tactic was my best idea for a game yet and adroitly giggled and squirmed his way out of my grip.

I just lost it and started crying. Seeing that he was completely safe where he was, I stormed out of the room and marched into my bedroom to do a little mommy-fussing on my own and calm down. And then, from U.B.'s room, I finally hear Isaac getting upset over his predicament. Because I left the room? Possibly. Because he was "stuck" in the chair? Oh, absolutely.

You see, because Isaac has been feeling bad, which I totally understand, he's been asking me to pick him up more than normal, especially to mount and dismount things that we both know he could conquer on his own. He insists I pick him up to get out of our bed, when he knows that he can turn around and drop feet first if he slides on his belly over the side. He will rarely get down off the couch by himself if I am around, for which there is no excuse whatsoever because this is something he has been doing by himself for a long time. Yesterday Dada was gone from before Isaac woke up until after Isaac went to bed, so I had a whole day of picking up a 27-lb toddler. Given also the fact that I am carrying ~33 lbs of extra weight with U.B., this equates to lugging around 60 extra pounds for a goodly portion of the day. I literally could not walk to bed last night until I lay on the couch with a hot pad on my back for an hour and a half. There was to be no more of this business today.

And so back to today. In the end, though my time-out was clearly ineffective, I found a more appropriate and more useful "punishment" for Isaac. I didn't stay gone from U.B.'s room for more than a few minutes, and Isaac cried the whole time. As soon as I got back, he lifted his arms up towards me, begging me to help him down off of his time-out chair, which is quite low-to-the-ground and from which I have seen him ascend and descend at will again and again in the past. I gently told him that, if he really wanted down, all he needed to do was turn around on his belly and slide off feet-first. More horrible wailing ensued. Unscathed, I sat down on the spare bed in that room, not four feet from him, and busied myself removing the price tags from U.B.'s new wardrobe. He didn't stop crying the whole time. Every two minutes or so I asked him if he'd like to get down; he would say yes, and I would gently suggest he do it himself and tell him how. Repeat horrible wailing. When I finished with U.B.'s tags, I went over to him and helped him get on his belly, wherein he then slid off the chair with ease, still sobbing. I gave him a big hug and told him he needs to do those things himself because my back hurts and I can't pick him up all the time. Then we held hands leaving the room and played with his sticker books together for a half-hour.

It's these kinds of things, really, that make me think having a younger brother will be excellent for him. He is such a capable little guy, but relies on me to do many things for him that I know he can do. When U.B. comes, he will be forced to do more for himself, simply because I won't be able to continue my enabling behavior. When he gets big, I hope he appreciates that his mom forced a little independence on him.

Time-out poll

2006-01-19T20:17:00.000-08:00

Isaac has been at a stage for sometime where he clearly knows when he is doing things he's not supposed to. If he tries to do something we just told him not to do, he will first look slowly in our direction with a certain gleam in his eye, begging us to recognize that he is about to misbehave. If we don't intervene, he will try his hand at committing the crime over and over again.

So far we have found great success using a very stern voice from Dada. I have slightly less success in my disciplining techniques, which usually include some redirecting and an explanation about why we don't bang on the windows/eat the cat food/hang from the tub rail like it's a monkey bar. If my initial attempts don't work, I remove him from the situation or take the object he is continually putting in his mouth away. Any of these works wonderfully most of the time; none of these work well, or at all, if he is tired or cranky or hungry.

I have done a couple of time-outs with Isaac, the few times that he took a swing at me or cat-brother on purpose. I told him he was getting a time-out and why and for how long (usually a minute), sat him in a chair, and stood in front of him to block his escape, watching my watch with my angry-mom face on until the time was up. This policy seemed to work both times, but it feels lame and I wonder if there is a better way, especially since this procedure is not exactly portable should we have incidents in public that require a time-out.

So help a girl out. What would you do? For those of you who have practiced or do currently practice time-outs, especially with toddlers:

How exactly do you go about the time-out? What infractions necessitate a time-out? How long does it last? Where is it done? Have you ever given a time-out in public?

Finally, something interesting from my iVillage pregnancy calendar

2006-01-18T20:14:00.000-08:00

Today's entry:

With one month to go, she weighs about six pounds and is fattening. Her full length from crown to feet is about 20 1/2 inches.

These numbers are averages, I'm sure, since Isaac was only 19 1/2" long when he was born (one day before his due date). But it's good to know that it's possible for his brother to be 6 lbs already. Get fat, little U.B. We like fat babies here.

What Isaac's been up to

2006-01-18T19:36:00.000-08:00

I've been slacking on the blogging lately for several reasons. My pregnancy-induced insomnia is reaching new heights, which would normally give me more time to blog, but I keep convincing myself I should try to go to bed and give sleep a chance. The aforementioned Head Cold that Would Not Die is also stealing blog-time, because it means all I want to do is lie down (but not sleep! Dear God no, not that!) and blow my nose. And then there's TiVo conspiring against my blogging, having recorded for our viewing pleasure, all since Sunday, the crappy, crappy Colts game, of which we will not speak EVER AGAIN, the 4-hour season premiere of "24", a fresh "Gilmore Girls," two new "Scrubs" episodes, and this new "Love Monkey" show on CBS. Why blog when you can lay around and destroy your mind with such a beautiful bounty of TV?

This weekend we took care of a long-standing goal: getting Isaac a new dresser so we can shift his dresser/changing table combo into U.B.'s room. I had my heart set on this 8-drawer number from IKEA in white to match his bed, so we went up there on Sunday to take advantage of the sale they had going on this weekend. A note to anyone who lives within driving distance of IKEA: please, take your toddler there. The South Philly IKEA is set up with little play stations every so many feet, which actually makes it fun to shop with your toddler. FUN! Can you believe it? Here is Isaac frolicking in a "basket of blueberries" with another little dude (note the serious static going on with his precious little hairs!):

We ended up finding the very dresser I desired, but we instead opted to buy it in red because it was on sale for $40. Dada put it together and it has such a deliciously small footprint, but still holds all of Isaac's clothes. And Isaac loves pulling all of them out and showing them to me because he can open the drawers himself. Perhaps a mixed blessing, in the end.

Monday Isaac and Dada let me out of the house for an hour and a half to go to Starbucks with my friend Sarah and NO KIDS. It was so unbelievably delicious to talk to another grown-up who is not my husband. Words do not describe the happiness that was mine as we chatted like old biddies about our families and how much writing your dissertation sucks.

Actually, because of my date with Sarah, my cold, the contractions, my prenatal appointment, and Dada's curious school's policy of not convening for Spring Semester until February, Dada and Isaac have been spending an unusually large amount of time alone together. They play with trains a lot, play on the computer, and watch TV together. Isaac has fallen asleep in Dada's arms most nights in the past week as they watch some Dada TV. The best part is that Isaac's so cool with just hanging out with Dada. Dada said, when I was gone with Sarah, that Isaac asked "Where's Mama?" just once; Dada told him where I was and, instead of the expected fussing, Isaac shrugged his shoulders and went back to playing trains. I think this is an excellent sign for he and Dada getting lots of quality time together when U.B. comes, but perhaps not such a good sign for Dada being gone for 4 days next week as he leaves to do some field work in Shenandoah National Park. Jerk.

Isaac has started saying two new and cool things.
* "Read book": instead of my suggesting it, or him just bringing books to me, he goes over to his bookshelf, picks something out, says "read book" and either starts reading it himself or brings it over to me to read it to him. I've also tried to get him to read some of our more frequently-read books back to me, and while he can't yet recite most of the words, he will talk endlessly about the pictures he sees on the pages (which is also what we do when reading a book).
* "Love you, X": Dada and I have not yet been the recipients of this long-awaited phrase, but today I heard him tell his Percy train and his stuffed Mambo Bear that he loves them in this fashion. It's only a matter of time now...

U.B. visits the doctor, 35 weeks

2006-01-18T18:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went for another prenatal checkup, my first in 6 weeks because of our long holiday in Indiana. This time I saw my "regular" nurse practitioner, who sucks significantly less than Dr. Suck v. 2.0. However, she, like he, made me wait 45 minutes to see her this time. This does not bode well for me starting a weekly-checkup schedule next week.

I simply don't think I can stand for waiting that long every time I go to the doctor, especially when I am always on time. I mean, come ON, losers. I have a toddler who requires babysitting while I am there. Luckily for us, Dada has the most flexible job in the universe and can serve as my babysitter, but obviously he is taking time off of work to do this. You may think I could try to take Isaac along with me to these things, but trapping him in a room behind a closed door while I wait forever for the practitioner to show up is so not cool with him. Watching me lie down on a table with a doctor-person leaning over me? Also not cool with him. In fact, the least destructive thing he did the one time I did take him with me was to pull out little (unused) canisters of Pap smear tests from a drawer and stack them. That was a little gross for me.

But back to his little brother. Going into this visit, I have to admit I was a little worried on two fronts.
Problem 1: We have all been sick since Wednesday with the Head Cold that Would Not Die. This has only enhanced my pregnancy-induced insomnia, and now that Isaac is also full of snot, he is waking up at ungodly hours to make sure I get no sleep whatsoever. Dada, bless his heart, is stepping up to help with the noctural Isaac situation like a trooper, but his lack of sleep also helps no one. I discovered in October that, when I sleep 3 hours or less, I start to have lots of contractions. Because of my not sleeping with this cold, contractions started up on Friday night and went all through the night and the next day with 2 or 3, and sometimes 4, every hour until Saturday night. These were clearly not contractions that were doing anything; they were all low and in front and completely non-painful. But this doesn't make them any less freaky. We are very close to U.B.'s scheduled arrival date, but coming this early would still make him premature, with inherent problems for him now and later. Again, Dada was very helpful and forced me to nap and lay around on the couch a lot, and I think this has done the trick to helping them die down. They have not vanished, but perhaps this late in the game it is time for some cervix-ripening activities anyway.
My practitioner's answer: Not to worry about them. If they get too frequent, I need to rest more and drink more water to help them calm down, but contractions like these are largely to be expected now.

Problem 2: According to the mish-mash of home scales I have weighed myself on, I didn't appear to have gained any weight since I had last been to the doctor. This is despite Christmas cookies/pies/cakes, abnormal quantities of Steak-n-Shake milkshakes in Indiana, home-cooked dinners, and enough McDonald's on the road to turn my life into "Super Size Me". Dada says (and I agree) that I am certainly getting bigger, but I was seriously concerned that I might be hurting the baby with my lack of weight gain.
My practitioner's answer: I actually had gained 4 pounds, but she would have preferred I gain 6 over the 6 weeks since my last visit. However, U.B. measured on the small side of normal for the first time since October (coincidence?), with my fundal height clocking in at 31 cm when it should be closer to 35. She said, while I need to start packing on the bacon, overall my measurements were still within normal operating parameters and that she was encouraged by the fact that I had gained 32 pounds overall so far.

Other statistics: U.B.'s heartbeat was about 145 bpm. My blood pressure was elevated as compared to previous readings (perhaps due to our head cold?), but not out of the range of normal. I also learned that, should U.B. go over his due date, they will induce me when he is one week late, unlike most other facilities where they will wait two weeks. Thinking that U.B. is coming in February no matter what seems like the best news I've heard in a long time.

Why one has babies: a photoessay continued

2006-01-14T21:32:00.000-08:00

Because what else are you going to do with that $90 Baby Bjorn?

Dada with 2-week-old Isaac, exiting a Mexican restaurant

Dada with 1-month-old Isaac, taking me out for Mother's Day brunch

Dada with 6-week-old Isaac at the U-District Street Fair (in a rare moment of not getting mercilessly checked out by the college honeys)

2-month-old Isaac strapped to Uncle Chriskey in front of the Fremont Troll

4-month-old Isaac with his Mama eating at the U-Village

From my iVillage pregnancy calendar

2006-01-14T21:15:00.000-08:00

I went to check my personalized (oooh!) iVillage pregnancy calendar to hear the latest stats about how big U.B. is, that X or Y organs are done cooking, et cetera. Instead of interesting developmental biology, however, tonight I got these "reassuring" words:

"If you have other children, you may feel guilty about the sacrifices they will have to make to accommodate the new baby. No matter how many children you have, each new baby is a leap of faith that the sacrifices will be worth it."

A leap of faith. Great. Thanks. No longer is my unborn kid a bundle of joy, but the emotional equivalent of a lottery ticket.

Wise words from the next day:
"If you have other children, this can be a poignant time, because it is the last few weeks of being a family in the way that you're used to. It can seem hard to imagine that there will be enough of you to go around, and you may wonder if it will ever be possible for you to love a new baby as much."

That's it. With no reassuring and NECESSARY Hallmark missives about how yes, it will actually be possible for me to love a new baby as much. This is supposed to be helpful how?

And then, my favorite, from the day after that:
"Don't forget to arrange care for any children or pets for the two to three days you'll be in the hospital."

Of course I need to hear this because I am so scatter-brained in my pregnant state that I have forgotten that my major duty as a mother is to not leave my 21-month-old at home by himself. Riiight. And what's with the "Children OR pets"? Because they're roughly equivalent, you know, and in the same category. Because a cat-sitter easily doubles for a toddler-sitter. Better yet -- cat-brother as a sitter for Isaac! You've all read Good Dog Carl, right?

Can't these people get a proofreader or something?

**Editor's note: You will really have to excuse me and my snarkery from here on out. According to Dada, I have turned into "one grumpy, pregnant ho."

Why one has babies: a photoessay

2006-01-13T20:29:00.000-08:00

To see that certain look in your husband's eye -- that mix of heartaching love, wonder at the mysteriousness and greatness of the universe, and poop-his-pants-style fear:

Dada and 12-hour-old Isaac

To see that husband morph into an overglorified baby-holster (and suddenly become even more hot than ever before):

Dada with 2-week-old Isaac

And, of course, to place your baby in things he is way too small to belong in and take his picture:

2-month-old Isaac in a swing

Isaac's birth story, take 1

2006-01-13T19:37:00.000-08:00

I started this blog when Isaac was four months old. Thus, unlike the blogs of certain other, smarter blog-mommies, I never got a chance to tell Isaac's birth story as it happened. Given my recent obsession with hospitals and the impending birth of U.B., I find myself reminiscing about Isaac's coming into the world. I am further inspired as Isaac and I look through his baby pictures, which I've heard is supposed to help him understand (as much as can be done) that he used to be a baby and to acquaint him with what babies look like and what babies do. Goodness, it feels like forever ago that I was staring at his squid-like skull being held aloft by the attending O.B. from the other end of a hospital bed. So, given that I will be able to blog about U.B.'s birth story for posterity in a few short weeks, it seems appropriate to me to do the same for his older brother. I will likely make this, also, into a serial novel, since I can only sit upright for so long now before U.B.'s feet begin again in their attempts to reshape my ribs into unholy shapes.

Isaac's Birth Story, Chapter 1: Mall-Walking and the Famous Latte Trip
Isaac's due date was Wednesday, April 7, 2004. Naturally, this meant I was clamoring for an April 4th baby so he could be born on 4/4/04. Doesn't get easier to remember than that, does it? I went in for what would be my last O.B. appointment on Friday (4/2/04), with my adorable and wonderful obstetrician Dr. Julie Lamb. We initially chose her entirely because of her name, because what could possibly go wrong when your doctor is someone with such a gentle and unoffensive name as Dr. Lamb? At this fateful appointment, Dr. Julie informed me that I was already 4 cm dilated, and she would have me admitted to the hospital except for the fact that I wasn't having any contractions. We agreed that she should strip my membranes (what fun!) to try to get things going, and she suggested that if I hadn't had a baby by my next appointment the following Friday she would schedule an induction.

Mike and I did our part to help Isaac along his way by mall-walking. All afternoon Saturday (4/3) we walked the length of one mall. Nothing happened. All afternoon Sunday (4/4) we walked the length of another mall. This time, at the end of one circuit, my back was in such searing pain that I was crying and needing help from Mike to get back to the car. I called the hospital when we got home, and they told me my pains and symptoms sounded like the beginning of back labor, where Isaac's gigantic cranium was pushing in an unfavorable way against by lower back- and pelvic bones. The nurses suggested I spend the rest of the day with my head on the floor and my butt in the air to try to tilt Isaac around. I did, and it helped. Still no obvious contractions.

At 5:00 the next morning (Monday, 4/5) I couldn't sleep and lay in bed tossing and thinking. Suddenly I felt something, like maybe my water had burst. I went in the bathroom to check, and it did seem like there had been an awful lot of fluid. But had I ever had a baby before? No. Was I sure my water had broken? No. After thinking about it for way too long, I called the hospital at 5:30 and told them I thought my water had broken. They told me to pack my bag, hurry up, and come on in. I woke up Mike, who wisely suggested instead that we take it easy and enjoy what would possibly be our last childless morning. We took showers. We packed leisurely. We even stopped at Tully's on the way to the hospital. We got there at about 7:30, lattes in hand.

Before they were going to admit me, the doctors had to be sure my water had broken because I still wasn't having any remotely regular contractions. The doctors at hand (not my O.B.) checked me and said I was 4 cm dilated. They were very impressed with this until I opened my big mouth and told them I had been that way since Friday. A senior resident and a brand-spankin' new family practice resident then whipped out several ultrasound machines in an attempt to measure the amount of water around the baby, with the logic being that if my water had actually broken there wouldn't be much. After a loooooong time of looking and several discussions among different residents, the senior resident decided that there really wasn't that much water around Isaac, that my water HAD broken, and that therefore I was staying in the hospital and they were hooking me up to some IV pitocin immediately to get the party started. They also guestimated for me, from the ultrasound, that Isaac would be pretty small, like 6 or 6 1/2 lbs. I called my coworkers and told them I wouldn't be coming in that day (or for the next 3 months). Mike and I got shown to my fancy L&D suite and turned on the Headline News, preparing ourselves for the wait.

The right things in the wrong order?

2006-01-13T19:19:00.000-08:00

Isaac's sleep issues have been a constant subject of this blog; if you need catching up, let me sum it up for you: the boy still doesn't sleep through the night. The major problem with this is that, yes, we HAVE tried everything, but this "everything" was sprinkled over his entire lifetime, and what didn't work once may work now that he is older. This surely makes things even more frustrating than ever, since one can never rest on her "I tried that" laurels. The toddler, he likes to keep one on one's toes.

For many months now, we have tried a bit of a bedtime routine with Isaac, which goes like this.
7:30 -- a cup of warm milk; an episode of the Wiggles taken in in the comfort of an arm-crook.
8:00 -- a bath.
8:10 or 8:30 -- jammies and teeth-brushing.
8:45 or 9:00 -- quiet stories in his room.
9:15 or 9:30 -- in bed.
**a special note to all you mommies out there whose toddlers willingly go to bed at 7:30: I secretly hate you.

This routine began to go a bit awry when I told Dada it was time for him to take over bathing duties, as Dada immediately decided that the boy only needed a bath every other day. On non-bath days we would try to fill in the empty space where bath time should have been with another rowdy activity, like dancing and singing or wrestling or running around the house. Regardless of the presence or absence of a bath in a day, however, the boy would sleep through the night maybe once or twice a month.

This week I am trying something different. Monday night and Wednesday night the boy was bathed by myself or Dada, and I noticed that he is really starting to enjoy lingering in there. Bathtime is officially a half-hour long affair from which Isaac can only be dragged away kicking and screaming. On both nights, his bath came first, then milk and Wiggles. Monday night he slept through the night. Wednesday night he woke up at 1, but then quickly went back to sleep and stayed that way until 8. Tuesday night, when he did NOT have a bath, he was up from 1:00 to 3:00, until I dosed him up with some "Vitamin B" to knock him out.

Noting the correlation here (though admittedly the sample size is very small), I gave him another bath last night. Again, he slept through the night. Tonight he got another bath, and while I am tempting fate by blogging about this, perhaps we have finally found the right order of the right things (applied at the right time in his life) to help him stay safely away in dreamland in the middle of the night.

"Cookie" for monsters?

2006-01-13T19:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got an offer in the mail to subscribe to a brand-new parenting magazine, Cookie, from the fabulous people who give us Jane. This magazine presented itself as an "upscale lifestyle parenting magazine" that will make it "a stylish and worldly, [sic] mom treat ... for busy but choosy women to explore the best new choices in everything". Basically a cross between Parenting, the Pottery Barn catalog, Vogue, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. While I was slightly off-put by the whole Nanny Diaries feel of the moms they were trying to appeal to, I was flatly appalled by their attempt to sell this mag to me (and I am not exaggerating in my paraphrasing here):

"Are you the kind of mom who
* will never allow your child to be seen in clothes with characters on them?
* refuses to cut food into little shapes?
* demands nothing but the best for yourself and your family?

Then Cookie is for you!"

So, this is a magazine for child-toting women who abhor childhood? I am certainly not a cutesy, girly mom who is ruled by her toddler (as much as he would like to think so), but who am I to not let my boy wear his very favorite Sesame Street T-shirt, bought from (gasp!) K-Mart no less? And who am I to argue with the fact that I can get my child to eat an entire grilled cheese sandwich by cutting it into stars and trees with my cookie cutters?

Bring it, U.B.

2006-01-11T19:16:00.000-08:00

I've finally reached that simultaneously blessed and obnoxious point in my pregnancy. I am ready for U.B. to come.

Physically ready? Perhaps not -- Isaac is still not sleeping through the night; U.B.'s bed is in pieces and lacks a mattress; we are still not entirely sure what we are doing for the whole Isaac-sitting during labor; we have decided that our chosen name bites a big one and are back to square one with baby-no-name.

But all that doesn't matter, because I am fired up and emotionally ready to receive a new tiny boy, and then to stand on one leg and juggle two small boys at the same time once we get him home. There are several factors that have helped me to reach this point:

*I am big. And uncomfortable. U.B.'s very favorite position is with his feet pushing my right ribs outward. I can't sit upright for extended periods of time.
Because of the bigness/uncomfortableness, there is no sleeping for me at all now, what with the peeing and the tossing and turning and the original Boy O'Neal and his nocturnal habits. So really, what's one more factor to add to the not-sleeping mix?

*I broke down and spent almost all of my Christmas money on brand-new duds for U.B. Somehow I just could not make peace that this new boy of mine should have to live his life entirely in hand-me-downs from Isaac. Luckily for me, I had my shopping therapy at a Carter's store with Grandma Ross along, and she has apparently instituted a kind of baby-clothes-fund matching program. You know those employer matching programs or whathaveyou where you contribute X dollars and then the employer, out of the goodness of his/her/its heart, contributes another X dollars towards the same cause? Yeah, it's like that. So, in combination with the three-day wardrobe U.B. received from his Aunt Robin, he's got more onesies, more rompers, more pants, hats, socks. He deserves his own stuff every once in awhile, don't you think? And having brand-new baby clothes does makes having a brand-new baby seem ever so much more real.

*The name-that-was-not-to-be helped, too. Seeing that Dada and I could come together in that fashion, with our long and stringent name requirements, gives me hope that my second-born might have a name. Before he goes to college.

*Venting about the hospital where U.B. will be making his arrival also helped. Even better was the reaction of the lovely Carolyn, who emailed me with a personal testimonial from her sister-in-law, who had both of her babies at this same facility, helping me to know not only that this hospital really does deliver babies, but also that it doesn't double as a crackhouse.

*Isaac can't seem to get enough of taking care of his stuffed animals, or even cat-brother for that matter, and tries to feed them, diaper them, and even suggest that they go poop on his potty on a daily basis. Obviously this will translate well as I embark on my plan to mold him into my perfect little helper.

So. Six more weeks. Did you know his lungs are basically fully developed now? If he was born now, a few weeks premature, he has a greater than 99% chance of making it and being a completely normal and healthy dude. As much as I would like the right side of my ribcage to return to its normal shape, though, I encourage him to come out when he's ready, knowing that his mom is ready for him and whatever he's dishing out.

Living vicariously through his boy

2006-01-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

Ever since Dada blew his Christmas Sears plastic on some fancy new pneumatic man-badges, he has been itching to build stuff. He built a mount for a dry erase board to put it over the unslightly and useless exterior fan in our kitchen. Did I tell you he installed Pergo flooring in my parents' dining room over Christmas vacation? Yeah, he needs stuff to do. With all our newly acquired trains and train accessories, an obvious next project for him would be to build a table, possibly with drawers or a similar storage solution, upon which Isaac can go to town with his Thomas obsession. I pointed out to Dada a nifty trundle-style table with drawers, advertised in a Thomas flyer that came with one of Isaac's trains, which would be awesome and space-saving. Dada suggested we go to Toys R Us tonight and let the boy play with their pre-assembled Thomas wonderland while we do some train-table recon.

Oh, that Dada. He is vicious and deliberate in his lies. We spent about two minutes looking at tables, and the rest of a solid half-hour with Dada intent on shopping for more trains and train sets. While I flatly insisted that Isaac only needed a Gordon, Dada pushed for Annie & Clarabel (who, by the way, were on sale for $5.40 for both!) and a construction-themed set with more track, three more trains, and two off-track vehicles. As we were leaving the store with our wallets $60 lighter, I suggested we could have used that money to AHEM buy a mattress upon which our unborn child will eventually need to sleep. Dada pointed out how much he and Isaac enjoy their boy time together building (Dada) and destroying (Isaac) various track configurations and racing trains around the living room floor. Like other daddies we've heard of, apparently this is a chance for Dada to live out a long-harbored train fantasy. Regardless, the train explosion was obscene enough at Christmas without our latest addition -- I'll have to take a picture soon (before we make any more of these trickster runs to Toys R Us) to show you the full extent of the addiction.

U.B.'s hospital birth

2006-01-09T19:29:00.000-08:00

U.B. will be born here. It is less than 15 minutes from our house and our insurance will cover absolutely everything. Everyone I have talked to says it is a great place to have a baby, with fancy L&D suites with jacuzzis and practitioners who will follow even the most granola of requests.

Other than the above information, I have pretty much neglected to find out anything about more minute details regarding this hospital and its policies. Now, trying to be a good girl, I am going over the birth plan form they want me to fill out and once more I feel spoiled by my experience having Isaac at the UW Medical Center. A few troublesome, if not completely stupid and mystifying items discussed therein:

*My primary support person (i.e. Dada) is considered a visitor. Because they apparently don't have anywhere in my fancy room for him to sleep, they will boot his butt out of the hospital between the hours of 10 p.m. and 9 a.m. They don't make a distinction to say if he is allowed to stay during these hours while I'm in labor. Thankfully, Dada seconds my incredulous reaction to this; his response was something like "They'll be prying my cold, dead corpse from my wife and new baby to get me to leave."

*Because of their visiting hours where I am allegedly to be alone for goodly portions of the day, they say they will put U.B. in a nursery should I need to sleep or shower. Umm, I will be echoing Dada on this one. U.B. can sleep with me, in my hospital bed, just like Isaac did. And who needs showers?

*The birth plan suggests I will be staying in the hospital for two days following a normal, uncomplicated, non-C-section birth. And what, exactly, is my toddler to think about that? I was in the hospital for exactly 34 hours after I had Isaac, and that was plenty.

I'm thinking my next prenatal visit, next Tuesday, will be an ideal time to get a few of these issues straightened out with my practitioner. Or perhaps it may be time to switch hospitals, even this late in the game. Grrr.

Bodily functions -- two firsts

2006-01-09T18:58:00.000-08:00

1) Ever since we got back home, Isaac has been a pill. He's been whiny, clingy, and sleeping quite badly. He wants to be carried everywhere, all the time. He's eaten almost nothing. We figure several ominous fronts are converging on his poor system at once: i) exhaustion from traveling, ii) the arrival of some back molars, and iii) a stomach bug floating around Indianapolis most of the time we were home (he did have a one-day fever thing on New Year's Eve that made that holiday extremely lame for Dada and I). Saturday night was the most horrible of horribles. He woke up at 1 or 1:30 and didn't go back to sleep until almost 5:30. Lucky for me, Dada has decided to step up with the nocturnal Isaac duties due to the upcoming arrival who will clearly be requiring my attention at night, and so we switched off, each doing our best. At 3:30 I wondered if he might be hungry and offered him another sippy of milk, which he gratefully slurped down. 15 minutes later as I continued with my repertoire of sleep-coaxing tricks, he sat bolt upright in his bed and spewed a gigantic wall of milk from his mouth, all over his and my jammies and his bedspread. This was the first time he had ever thrown up, and he was momentarily stunned by the experience. He quickly recovered, and adopted an "I told you so" kind of look about him. Dada suggested I pull him into bed with me for a movie marathon until one of us passed out. Watching Thomas reruns eventually did the trick. And no more puking ever since.

2) I have been extremely hestitant to push the potty-training business on Isaac. My number one reason? Every time you ask him if he is pooping, as he is purple-faced and grunting in a corner, he will tell you most matter-of-factly "No." And then when he is done with this "non-pooping" business, he is just as happy to sit around in his mushy filth as not, playing as though nothing really did happen. Today I heard him grunting quite obviously in the other room, begging the question: "Isaac, are you going poop?" and, to my surprise, the answer was "Yeah." When he was done: "Can I change your diaper?" "[running full speed with a full dipe in the opposite direction]NO NO NO NO NO NO NO." One out of two is definitely a start.

A sigh of relief comes from He Who Must Not Be Named

2006-01-07T20:36:00.000-08:00

As previously discussed, we have had the most awful time coming up with a name for U.B. Dada and I have so many rules.

1) (Me) No dorky author names. No dorky names period. The degree of dorkiness of any given name is to be decided by me, and said ruling is final.
2) (Me) No reusing Isaac's names. Reuse of any of Dada's names must be relegated only to a middle name.
3) (Dada) Absolutely no names that end in an "ee" sound, such as Bailey or Toby.
4) (Dada) No first names that start with B, to avoid the odious initials "B.O."
5) (Dada) No names that could possibly be converted into heinous nicknames.
6) (Me/Dada -- and this is the worst one) No names that belong to other people we know or have known, except certain ancestors.
7) (Me) The chosen name must not sound ridiculous when yelled in tandem with "Isaac" (thus Abraham, for example, is out of the question).

After Isaac went to bed one night in Indy, Dada and I sat with Aunt Jean to gaze at her gigantic Catholic family tree in hopes of finding a name that didn't sound hideous and met most of our rules. And the insane part? We found one. That we both like. And so far, we have both liked it for almost a week now. I think this means U.B. will actually have a name.

So what is it, you ask? You'd like to know, you say? Ha! Too bad. I insist you live in suspense for another month and a half. Hopefully not more. Gawd, please don't let it be more.

21 months

2006-01-07T19:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Isaac turned 21 months old. Aside from racking up some serious mileage in the car seat, what has he been up to in the past month?

*Eating. Pickier and pickier. He won't eat cheese anymore. He still will only eat meat if it comes in hot dog or meatball form. He is losing his appetite for applesauce and graham crackers. But all trends toward eating disorders are quickly solved with pizza. The child will eat anything without hesitation, be it meat, vegetable, or fungus, if it appears on a slice of pizza. Cold pizza is even better.

*The moving vehicle obsession. As you have rightly guessed, Thomas was an enormous hit this Christmas. He now goes to bed most every night with between one and three trains. But it doesn't stop there. Thanks to books, road work along our way home, and having a Dadaw who's a mechanic and a Pawpaw who sells tractors, he also knows and can effortlessly tell you the difference between a car, a truck, a bus, a tractor, a backhoe, a crane, a loader, a bulldozer, and a train. To name a few.

*Sentences. Lots and LOTS of sentences. At least 60% of the words in these sentences cannot be understood by anyone without a toddler translating device, but hanging out with him helps one to understand the end of the sentence, which is apparently the most important. His sentences usually take this form:
Suhbluashdgulboushdfh STAR!
Hekokjbklskodkjlskdjl TRAINS!
Buhnsdkobokslkcasoiek BACKHOE!
But, simultaneously, he is also putting together the most astounding phrases. Some of these have recently emerged from conversations with inanimate objects. Two days ago he was playing with his Little Einsteins DVD case when I told him we needed to leave to pick up Dada from work. His immediate response was, naturally, to inform the Einsteins. "Okay, Einsteins!" he said, "Let's go get Dada!" He also does this frequently with his new Bear (of Big Blue House fame). His perception of things, and subsequent vocalization of that perception, is at once strange, amazing, and unbelievably hilarious. One night at Meemaw and Paw-Paw's we were heating up some milk for his bedtime dose in a coffee cup in the microwave. In a household such as ours where so much coffee is consumed, he has come to associate coffee cups with coffee, and started screaming at Meemaw and I when he saw the coffee cup going in the microwave. "Milky milky milky!" he fussed. Meemaw and I patiently told him that, in fact, we were heating up his milky in the coffee cup, and Meemaw lifted him to eye-level with the microwave so he could see. You could see a huge wave of realization passing over him and he exuberantly exclaimed, "Is no cah-kee; is MILKY!"

*Colors. Two weeks ago he discovered how to clearly and confidently name the color of almost anything upon request. It started with the Wiggles colors -- red, blue, yellow (yeh-yoh!), and purple -- but thanks to Percy he also knows green; thanks to Pawpaw, who sells Kubota tractors, he knows orange; thanks to my pants, he knows brown; thanks to his cat-brother, he knows black. Temporarily this week we had a setback where he refused to say the color of an object, but would instead call it the Wiggle of corresponding color. For example:
Me: What color is James, Isaac?
Isaac: Murray!
Me: What color is that bee, Isaac?
Isaac: Greg!

I think he is pretty clueless on the upcoming-baby front, but there are many signs that he will make a great big brother. All the time I try to tell him that my belly is so huge because it houses a young person in it, but of course this is a little much for him at this point. Both grandmas got him a "I'm going to be a big brother!" kind of book for Christmas, which he finds extremely interesting. As aforementioned, he greatly enjoys talking to his stuffed animals and, more promisingly, taking care of them, showing great concern that they are all without diapers. Perhaps most fun for me recently was to watch him play with a baby doll this Christmas at Grandma O'Neal's. He would try to diaper it, feed it milk from a bottle, and even take it in the bathtub with him and wash its hair. If his brother came today, I don't delude myself into thinking it would be completely fun for him from the get-go, but once he gets over the initial shock I think will make a fantastic Big Helper for Mommy.

Christmas in the City of "Beautiful Homes, Churches, Schools and Parks"

2006-01-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas, Dada, Isaac, Uncle Chriskey, and I left for Jackson, Missouri, where Isaac's great-grandparents and my extended family all live. Isaac is exceptionally lucky in that he has a full set of great-grandparents on his mother's side who have seen him and are among the blog-faithful, and, while we don't make it to southeast Missouri as frequently as we would like, we hoped to make up for that a bit by driving the extra 6 hours from Indy to visit them for a belated Christmas get-together.

As was the trip from Delaware to Indianapolis, so was the trip to Missouri -- completely painless and full of naps, Little Einsteins, stickers, and book-reading. Here is the toddler, busy with the booklet that comes with his Little Einsteins DVD:

Our first stop was at Great-Grandma and -Grandpa Ross's (Grandpa Ross's mom and dad). Here is the proud Pawpaw showing off his grandbaby:

And here is the grandbaby's mama, growing large enough to accrete small planets to her belly (this is at 31 weeks and 6 days):

Looking on, a boisterous part of the family whoops it up on the couches with Dada -- Pawpaw's sister Cindy, her hubs Billy, and kids Ross and Lucy:

After gorging on dinner accompanied by delicious, handmade "butt rolls" prepared by Great-Grandma Ross (and two pieces of homemade cherry pie for the pregnant lady), we were opening presents again. Off the top of my head I recall that Isaac got two nifty and interactive books, a track suit, some money, and this really neat LeapFrog Fridge Phonics set that we are playing with a lot now that we are home. Dada helped him open the latest haul:

The next day we headed over to Great-Grandma and -Grandpa Peetz's house (Isaac's Grandma Ross's mom and dad -- confused yet? Let's refer to Grandma Ross as "Meemaw" to keep it clear) for a huge country breakfast, lovingly prepared by Meemaw. Here is Isaac shoving grapes in his pie-hole after eschewing the sausage links:

...which was probably a good thing, since all the wrasslin' done by he and Uncle Chriskey would have surely resulted in some serious upchucking:

After breakfast we headed down to the basement to open gifts. First, though, Isaac had to show off some of his new Thomas collection (the entirety of which had accompanied us to Jackson) to the adoring crowd:

And then the haul began. Here, Isaac got (again, off the top of my head) candy, Spiderman house slippers, a groovy dump truck with a rubber handle on top that he is currently using to transport his trains from place to place, Christmas ornaments for next year's tree, and, the crown jewel of the Peetz Christmas, his very first big wheel:

We spent that night in Jackson and then we were headed back home to complete our whirlwind Great-Grandparent visits, and to spend the rest of our Christmas vacation in Indianapolis. It was so nice to see the family we don't get to see so often. Hopefully we'll get a chance to get back to Missouri this year before Christmas rolls around again.

editor's note: all pictures provided by Isaac's Meemaw, except for the adorable picture of Pawpaw and Isaac, provided by my great-aunt Carolyn -- thanks, ladies!

Christmas at the O'Neals

2006-01-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

And at another household, on another side of Indianapolis...

First things first. Each year, we have a Christmas Eve tradition. Mike and I (and now Isaac) are joined by the annual visitor, Matt (Mike's buddy from college and the best man at our wedding), and Dadaw O'Neal at Skyline Chili for some rotgut grub. This year was Isaac's first bite -- he ate a hot dog:

Back at the casa de O'Neal, Isaac enjoyed many pasttimes while awaiting his present onslaught. He found much entertainment in shelving Mamaw's potatoes:

Or wrasslin' on the floor with Dadaw:

Or watching some bedtime Wiggles with Dadaw (here, a rare moment where Dadaw wasn't being used as a pillow):

We opened presents at the O'Neals on Christmas afternoon, with Aunt Robin, Uncle Joe, and cousins Nate, Emily, and Sarah in attendance. As always, Mamaw provided quite a spread for our constant snacking pleasure, which was enjoyed by all except poor Emily, recovering from a tonsilectomy:

Onto the presents. After a lengthy search, Dadaw finally found the clothing item he most desired for Isaac -- a bomber jacket. Isaac was totally impressed, as you can see from the "Ooooo" being mouthed in the picture:

With so many other presents being handed out at first, Isaac got stuck in a clothes rut and decided to lavish his attention on Sarah's new Furby:

Shortly thereafter came some awesome toys -- a Little People dump truck, an Aquadoodle, a fabulous Melissa and Doug sandwich-making play-food kit, and a lift-the-flap puzzle -- all of which continue to be big hits.

You can see Isaac playing with his dump truck in the background, though you may have to shield your eyes from Sarah's blinding smile as she opened her makeup kit (which also intrigued Isaac after awhile):

After all presents were opened, Isaac was shooed upstairs so his REAL present could be assembled, and the Thomas madness continued. You may have guessed that this one was made a huge impression on our young man:

Matt shot a movie of Isaac on his train which I make available to any who wants it, but it is 32MB and thus only for the very, very Isaac-faithful or potential ride-on Thomas buyers (though it is still extremely cute to see the boy waving and saying "Bye-Bye Mama!" as he rides around and around in a circle).

Dada got more Sears gift card lovin' with which to spoil himself; I got lots of BEAUTIFUL maternity clothes (and some fat cash to blow on myself), and U.B. even got a three-day wardrobe from Aunt Robin and Uncle Joe. Too bad Christmas only comes once a year, eh? And we're not even done yet. It's onto Missouri after this.

editor's note: thanks to Matt for all Christmas pictures and the gigantic movie!

We're baaa-ack

2006-01-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

We made it home from Indianapolis yesterday in one fell, twelve-hour swoop. Both to and from, Isaac was an angel, due mostly to the constant droning of the Wiggles or the Little Einsteins from our spankin' new portable DVD player. Dada, who initially had his doubts about the necessity of forking over the $200 we ended up spending on player + FM broadcaster + back-of-seat sling, recanted all such misgivings about 20 minutes into the trip as Isaac sat peacefully in his car seat. I'm sure we've subtracted a significant number of IQ points from our young man with all that TV-watching, but I think we've also saved Dada and I from going gray early. Dada and I actually got to talk to each other uninterrupted for most of the drive, almost like a date. Can you even imagine?

Christmas vacation was nice. Of course it was hectic, and we probably put 3000 miles on the car with all the driving around we did, but it was wonderful to see everyone and for them to get some face-time with Isaac. It was also nice to have a few extra pairs of eyes and arms to watch the young one so I could do my share of laying on the couch, and so Dada and I could go out to not just one but TWO dinners all by ourselves. We met up with old buddies and showed them our little buddy. We made an additional drive to Missouri to see Isaac's great-grandparents. In total, we had FOUR Christmases, of which the photoblog diarrhea will begin shortly and in chronological order. Because Isaac has adopted a 10:30 bedtime temporarily, I will not be posting all Christmas pictures tonight, but perhaps over the next few nights, like a serial novel. All the better to generate suspense. Did he get 50 gazillion Thomas the Trains, or was he naughty and got only coal? Soon, soon you will know all.

We had initially planned to stay away until late next week, but we were brought back early by a suddenly scheduled and highly necessary meeting of Dada's. In truth, I think we're all glad to be back in our little shanty, sleeping in our own beds. We even got together with some buds tonight for pizza. Now, if we could just figure out where all this new stuff is supposed to go...

Christmas at the Ross estate

2006-01-05T19:49:00.001-08:00

We did our present-opening on Christmas Eve night at Grandma and Grandpa Ross's house, with Aunt Jean and Uncle Chris (pronounced "Chris-key") in attendance. We had spent that day playing hard at the O'Neal's house, which meant Isaac fell asleep in the car on the way there. Here he is, snoozing on his favorite pillow-person:

This was actually kind of nice, as it meant we could do grown-up Christmas first and be rowdy about it, and then let it be the all-Isaac show as he unearthed items from his present-mountain piece by piece. Everybody got what they wanted. Dada got an obscene amount of Sears gift cards to blow on tools for his man-bench. I got my every domestic wish fulfilled -- a dustbuster, a waffle iron, and a food processor were all waiting for me under the tree. Uncle Chriskey got money to support his tube-amp habit:

And Aunt Jean and Uncle Chris-key got matching Bob Sanders jerseys:

Just as Jean and I were opening our last presents, Isaac woke up. Aunt Jean began the present cascade with an avalanche of the most awesome pop-up books in the history of mankind:

And then we moved on to opening the stuffed Treelo and Bear (of Big Blue House fame) Uncle Chriskey bought for him, which Isaac hand-picked for himself at the Disney Store:

At some point in the pile we hit the Thomas jackpot. Grandma and Grandpa went hunting online to find him his very favorite train, Boco (you can almost hear him through the picture screaming "IT'S BOCO!"), which joined a larger collection of trains and props before the night was through.

Isaac also got a Kubota tractor (from Grandpa who sells them), snowsuit, pajamas, more books, DVDs, puzzles...at some point in the evening I'm sure I started screaming about how all this would never fit in our house. And this was before we even hit the O'Neal Christmas blowout. Stay tuned.

We'll be home for Christmas

2005-12-17T19:41:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow afternoon we are leaving Dela-nowhere for Indiana, because we prefer our winter weather to be of the bone-chillingly-cold variety. Well, I guess there are grandmas and grandpas there, too, and they have promised that there will be presents and (more importantly) food for us there. Because we are driving, and because Dada doesn't start teaching again until February, our schedule is quite flexible. I think we will be gone for 3 weeks. I hope to spend most of that time with my feet aloft on fluffy pillows and my mouth loaded with bonbons. I also hope that, when I am not off my feet, I can sneak in a few dinner dates with Dada, no toddlers allowed. I will do my best to blog, especially since now everyone has high-speed internet and my mom and dad even have wi-fi, but that may require I get off my butt for a second or two, and I just can't guarantee that that will be happening.

Wish us luck with the 10-12 hour road trip. Dada and I decided to buy a portable DVD player instead of getting each other presents this year. But really, what is a better present than Isaac sitting contentedly through most, if not all, of a long road trip? This evening we hit Wal-Mart, God of Stores, and loaded up on $50 of Isaac-friendly DVDs. You name it, we got it...the 'tubbies, the Wiggles, the new Little Einsteins movie, Thomas and his homeboys. And, after a rough start of Dada and I figuring out how to burn a movie DVD on his desktop from work, we are also bringing along a library of TiVoed Wiggles and Little Einsteins episodes from the Disney channel. Oh, there are other non-TV-related things that will be coming along, but I am particularly proud of our massive selection of movies that Isaac will be drooling over, and especially that Dada figured out how to magically transport stuff from the TiVo ether onto hard, shiny DVDs.

Getting our vitamin FD&C Red #2

2005-12-17T19:27:00.000-08:00

Isaac and I were invited to a cookie-decorating party on Friday, held at our buddy Sara's house. It was plenty of fun, and we got lots of yummy sugar cookies to take home. Isaac's personal favorites were not so much the cookies as the chocolate jimmies. Perhaps because they bounce better.

Here is the cookie-decorating crew, minus myself, Sara, and the infants:

Sara in her infinite genius nature designed the icing such that it could be painted on. Isaac took to this with his typical artistic gusto...

...though when he would get the errant red icing on his fingers, it was, of course, "yucky" and the best way to dispose of it was by wiping it on my shirt. Turns out icing comes right off in the wash. Did you know that?

One thing I didn't really expect at this party was the NOISE. There were four moms there, including myself and Sara, along with three 4-1/2 year olds, three toddler boys (including Isaac), and two infant boys. That makes two moms with two, one mom with three (under 5 years!), and myself with my lowly one-plus. I think I've been officially cured of any desire I might have had to have three babies.

To my surprise, Isaac was a little freaked out by the noise. My typically sociable guy spent most of the time playing in a separate room by himself, away from the more boisterous older kids. When he did play towards the end, he gravitated towards the oldest, the only girl there, she seemed like she really enjoyed his company. I guess it does stay pretty quiet in our house during the day, because while we had a great time, I know *I* was sure ready for my nap at the end of our visit. After a large helping of milk and cookies, of course.

This is my confession

2005-12-15T19:12:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Flinger tagged me to do a blog-board confessional thing. Alright, alright...but because I've been meaning to do something like it for awhile now, it will be Confessions: Second Pregnancy Edition. This all, therefore, must come with an important disclaimer.

U.B., I love ya. You were very planned, and you are very wanted.

With that said...

Confession: I have eaten complete crap while pregnant with you. Lately I have been more conscious of this and have done more to eat fruits and vegetables. When I was pregnant with your brother, I ate a large bowl of oatmeal for breakfast every morning, yogurt for a morning snack, organic vegetarian dehydrated soup and a piece of fruit for lunch, and then something at least moderately healthy for dinner. No wonder your brother is a fruitatarian. I think you, U.B., will be composed of 50% fudge and at least 30% Lean Pockets.

Confession: I haven't been as religious with the prenatal care as I was with your brother. Oh, now, not to the point of maternal negligence, but still. I didn't see any practitioners between 9 and 20-or-so weeks, when I should have had 2 or 3 visits. Your dad and brother and I are getting ready to go on a long vacation and I will probably not get back to the doctor until you are almost full-term, meaning I will be skipping another two visits. I didn't interview your O.B.; in fact, I've only ever seen one actual doctor in my pursuance of your care. When I was pregnant with your brother, Dada came to every prenatal visit with me. Now, Dada is my babysitter and I go by myself because your brother is a holy terror inside an exam room. Despite all this (and perhaps what encourages me to think that most of these visits are probably not necessary anyway), you appear to be thriving, all of your own accord.

Confession: Your middle name will be Michael, after your father. We still don't have a first name picked out for you. Yours is much harder than your brother's was, because now we feel we must pick something that is not only good for you, but also one that won't sound ridiculous when said quickly next to your brother's. Your dad comes up with the most awful names. He wants to name you after crusty authors: Bertholdt or Landon or Clive. Don't worry, I won't let him. Unfortunately, if he weren't around to stop me, I would ensure you a lifetime of teasing with my own name choices. First I wanted to name you Jackson. Dada laughed almost to tears thinking I wanted to name my child Jackson Michael, you know, in mirror image of a certain child-molesting pop star. Then I wanted to name you Ryan. Apparently there is already a very famous actor named Ryan O'Neal, and you would forever be saddled with stereotypes going along with the lead character from Love Story. We have pored through our ridiculously unhelpful baby name book and we hate everything. Hopefully we will get our act together and your name will not go in hospital records as "TBA O'Neal".

Confession: I have a secret fear that you will be a camper. If I hadn't unknowningly lied about my water breaking, I bet your brother would have been, too. I have been told that if you run two weeks late they will induce me. Today, I realized that two weeks late = March 8. My birthday is March 9. I don't want you to mess with my birthday. I think we both deserve our own birthdays, don't you?

Confession: I am deathly afraid of your coming. Not in that short-term-labor-pain sense. I could really care less about that. In fact it has always angered me mightily to hear whiny ho-bags (like Britney!) losing sleep over how much pain labor will cause them. No, my fear is more in the whenever-I-pick-up-another-baby-your-big-brother-totally-freaks-out sense. In the when-exactly-am-I-supposed-to-sleep sense. My lame attempt at self-soothing is to TiVo episodes of "A Baby Story" where the family is expecting their second. In the last one I watched the dad said, and I quote: "Having two makes having one seem like having none." Great. I am still not sure how this all is supposed to work, with me being shared between you and your brother. I am only slightly reassured by thinking that I probably would never be capable of knowing until you actually come along and I am thrown into the den of little-boy lions.

Now I am supposed to tag people, but everyone I regularly read has already been tagged, so this is the end of the road for this confessional lineage. Unless Susie wants to carry the torch.

Big Bird needs a diaper

2005-12-15T18:39:00.000-08:00

This morning Isaac found his little stuffed Big Bird, who had apparently been buried deep within the toy box strata for some time. After running around joyously with his newfound buddy, something suddenly dawned on Isaac. He laid Big Bird down on the couch and started making hand motions around Big Bird's naked waist, saying "Bye-per Bye-per" (Isaac for "diaper"). Then, almost in a Garden-of-Eden moment, Isaac became very upset that Big Bird was unclothed and, worse, might get caught unawares without britches to catch his inevitable poops and pees. I fetched an Isaac-sized diaper and had Isaac help me put it on Big Bird, but it was way too big and that would just not do, oh no. Finally I found an errant swim diaper that was a little smaller and, after rolling up the waistband, the diaper fit Big Bird to Isaac's satisfaction.

Not so much later, as I was helping Isaac dress for the day, it again dawned on him that, while he was donning a shirt, Big Bird had no shirt. Repeat above process for finding Big Bird a shirt. Followed by pants. Oh, and then Isaac's big stuffed Mickey Mouse needed a diaper. I, of course, took my cue and heartily heaped on the praise about "what a good big brother you're going to be!" He's done a little of playing the caretaker with his zoo of stuffed critters before, but never quite like this.

U.B. grows -- 30 w 1 d

2005-12-14T20:11:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of me with a basketball strapped to my belly. Oh wait, no ... that's my second kid, isn't it? According to ivillage, he already weighs over 3 lbs and is around 14 inches long.
The close-up:

The full context:

For reference, here is the last belly picture I posted.

Reusing our Christmas card

2005-12-14T19:48:00.000-08:00

Since everyone should have gotten their O'Neal family Christmas card already, I decided it was cool to reuse the picture as our lovely new season-aware banner. Now the blogisphere can share in the joy that is my cutie-pie in the shirt and tie we bought him last year for a wedding as he is allowed to momentarily touch the tree.

U.B.'s 6.5 month appointment, AKA Dr. Suck v. 2.0

2005-12-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

After my last prenatal appointment with my genuinely nice and caring, but seemingly a little loopy nurse practitioner, I scheduled this visit with one of the practice's many O.B.s. I will be griping about him shortly, but the important stuff first: U.B.'s house measures 29 cm (and here I am at 30 weeks, meaning U.B. is growing perfectly); U.B.'s heartbeat is great; my blood pressure and weight gain are peachy. So far I have gained 27 lbs, which, if you account for the Christmas cookies I have yet to eat, puts me possibly a little over my end-goal of repeating my total Isaac-carrying weight gain of 35 lbs. Oh well.

Dada and Isaac came with me and waited in the waiting room while I did my thing. Isaac did his part to reassure all the first-timers out there waiting nervously with their husbands. Dada said Isaac saw another little girl come in with her pregnant mommy; he went up to the girl and said "Hello!!" before giving her a hug. And then he asked the receptionist to turn the TV on Sesame Street, and as we left said "Bye, Cookie" to Cookie Monster. He is a walking advertisement for procreation, my buddy is. Except for the no-sleeping part.

Meanwhile, there was me, and the waiting. This board-certified dude made me wait for 45 minutes, you know, because his time is more valuable than mine, my husband's, and my son's put together. I instantly hated him: he is the kind of doctor that thinks it's best to carry about him an air of absolute authority, yet has no ability whatsoever to listen. This kind of doctor (and he is usually a dude) cracks me up, because I likely have more education than he in the area in which he is trying to operate.

After strolling in abominably late, with no apology whatsoever, he asks me a few lame questions that were covered by my N.P. in previous visits (and marked as such in my record). He measures me, and I ask, as I always do, how big I am. His response? "Your mother and mother-in-law may have their own opinions about how big you should or shouldn't be, but the only opinion that matters is mine." Thanks, genius, but I just want to know for myself. He then took about a year to find U.B.'s heartbeat, which I'm sure my N.P. would have found in a jiff because she knows (again, from reading my records) that U.B. is already lodged head-down. After the medical business, he informs me I am now on the 2-week visit schedule (um, read my record: isn't it two weeks since my last visit, when N.P. told me the 2-week visits should begin?), and so I need to come back in two weeks. I tell him I will be out of town for awhile, and won't be able to come in again until the third week of January. He "reiterates" what I said, writing down for the scheduler to find me an appointment in the *first* week of January. ARGH.

Oh, but none of these are the best part, the one that really makes this woman-doctor version of Dr. Suck worth blogging about. Editor's note -- this part requires a disclaimer to be fully enjoyed: I, Isaac's mom, am not and never have been a skank. I do not have herpes. In fact, our entire household is disease-free. Shocker!

Back to Dr. Suck... here is what transpired shortly after he got in the room.
Dr. S: So, has anyone talked to you yet about a herpes treatment plan?
Me: Um, no...
Dr. S: Well, then. It's very important that we have a treatment plan in place to control your herpes. If you should have an outbreak when you deliver, you could pass the disease on to the baby.
Me: Um. Um. (half-chuckling) I don't have herpes.
Dr. S: Oh! Oh. Um, well, it says here in your record...
Me: I get cold sores. Oral herpes. I don't have genital herpes.
Dr. S: Oh! Oh. Um, well, when did we test for that? We don't usually test for that.
Me: You didn't. They tested for it, along with the disease-equivalent of the kitchen sink, at my old practitioner's in Seattle. LIKE IT SAYS IN MY RECORD. (another note -- my previous O.B. said that around 80% of the population tests positive for oral herpes. Who doesn't get cold sores?)
Dr. S: Oh! Well, um, I guess that's taken care of, then, isn't it?

And then this lamewad doesn't even apologize for his sheer incompetence at not recognizing the difference between HSV-1 (oral herpes) and HSV-2 (skank herpes). I made sure to tell the scheduler NOT to reschedule me with him. Like, EVER.

Oh, but U.B. and I are just fine. This pregnancy is a snap even compared to my extremely easy pregnancy with Isaac. I can still wear my wedding ring -- I had to take it off when I was 4.5 months along with Isaac. Now, if we could only think of a name...

Santa comes early (and brings along his fat sister)

2005-12-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

Seeing as how we are taking off next weekend for the Midwest, we thought it only fair that Isaac should open his remaining Christmas present today to give him ample time to play with it. Dada insisted we take lots of pictures of this, the sole present-opening event at our house this year. I got this first picture of Isaac lusting after his "Toy! Toy! Toy!". This is immediately before he tried to get into the box by peeling off the cardboard, layer by layer, with his fingernails:

After that, Dada took the camera as I helped the boy unpack the many parts that go to his Little People Garage. I had hoped the focus of these pictures would be on Isaac's excitement and unbridled glee at his new "Toy! Toy!", but instead the eye is drawn, like to a car wreck, to the gigantic woman sitting next to him, trying to read the assembly instructions as her belly flops out of her shirt. So attractive.

Having a baby changes things

2005-12-08T20:17:00.000-08:00

Today the babysitter came over for a little so Dada and I could enjoy a Starbucks run alone in honor of his birthday. As I walked home by myself, I happened to look up and see that the moon was out, already, at 4 in the afternoon. I grinned like a madwoman, thinking of the dimples that erupt in my child's chin when he sees the moon in real life ("Isaac, look! It's the moon!" ... pause ... look of delicious recognition anoints his face ... gigantic smile spreads from his twinkly eyes, crinkled-up nose, gigantor teeth, pointy dimpled Irish chin ... then an echo in a voice a little higher, "It's DA MOO!").

I couldn't help but think, before Isaac came along, that I probably saw the moon hanging in the sky thousands of times and thought nothing more than gee-that's-pretty. Now, I can't see the moon without thinking about my boy and the dimples that only come out in his chin when he smiles that big.

This one goes out to the one I love

2005-12-08T19:20:00.000-08:00

Dearest Dada,

Today you are 36 years old. This morning we played a fun game where we decided your new age was a magic number, since many numbers are factors of it. The fun in this game stopped, according to you, when we realized that 2 and 18 were factors of 36, meaning that you are now twice as old as the freshmen you would be teaching. Then you decided that birthdays suck and that you are tired and old and fat. Honey, you aren't fat. Now go be a good boy and eat that pumpkin pie I made you.

Yesterday we found out that Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli are getting divorced after 24 years of marriage. You are a big Van Halen fan and we have always enjoyed talking about how Eddie wrote this or that song for Valerie, and how their Hollywood marriage has endured where many others have failed. Tonight you asked me if I would still love you in 24 years (you will be 60 then, the age your mother turned yesterday -- Happy Birthday, Mamaw!). Did I even hesitate to say yes? How can you not want to be with a guy who:
*is a superstar at his new job
*is not intimidated, and in fact is proud, that his wife has a Ph.D.
*can cook a mean Thanksgiving turkey. And make his own gravy (from scratch)
*intends to install a wood floor in my parents dining room over Christmas. In two days. By himself. And is also entertaining the idea of building a house for me and our two babies
*is the world champ at making up alternate, child-unfriendly lyrics to Wiggles songs for my amusement
*is GQ enough for the both of us, who makes my girlfriends so jealous of me because I don't have to pick out your clothes for you, because you are appalled to think that your peers believe black sneakers can double as dress shoes. Someone whose genetic material must carry such ideas along because, after 8 years of your loudly loathing my beloved but probably worn-out and tacky maroon Mary Jane Doc Martens, today your son told me they were "yucky" and brought me some nicer shoes to wear as we were getting ready to leave the house
*is unabashedly in love with and beloved by our beautiful, genius child
*continually reassures me that having a second child will be so much fun and will, in fact, not result in my demise (and puts up with my moody pregnantness)

Oh, I could go on, and get generic about how you're smart, funny, thoughtful, and all that Hallmark stuff. But I would prefer to let your actions continue to speak for themselves, to let the list continue to refresh daily, as it does, giving me and the boy more reasons to be so thankful each day that you are ours. Forever. Whether you like it or not.

Yours,

Mama

Oh yeah, about that...

2005-12-08T19:12:00.000-08:00

People keep asking me how I did on my 3-hour glucose ~~torture triathalon~~ tolerance test. Funny how, when you're worried about something it's at the forefront of every thought, and then when you find out it was really nothing all along you forget it ever was a problem. I called the O.B.'s office on Monday to see if they had the results back and the nurse I talked to said all four of my blood-glucose readings "looked great". Obviously this is insanely good news, given the amount of holiday cookies and chocolate confections I am expected to consume in the next 2 to 3 weeks. Yay for not having gestational diabetes.

20 months old

2005-12-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

Jeez. Will you just look at him, and remember with me for a second that a year ago at this time he couldn't walk?

A snippet of what has transpired with our fledgling young man-child in the last month:
*The truck/tractor/car/bus/boat/airplane/train/moving vehicle obsession continues to grow like a virus, now infecting his every waking moment. He wants to read about trucks. He wants sheets with trucks on his bed. He wants to wear, or carry around, his Thomas the Tank Engine T-shirt. He wants to watch TV shows with moving vehicles (our new favorite is Little Einsteins, solely because of the rocket). He uses his superhuman hearing to point out to me when the garbage truck is rolling by on the street outside. He carries his trains ("choo-choo") or toy airplanes ("air-mane") around the house, in the car, to the store. Looking for a guaranteed Isaac-pleaser for Christmas? Look no further!

*As of ~ 2 weeks ago, he can put blocks (circle, square, star, triangle) through all four holes in his shape-sorter with almost no hesitation. To do this, he looks at each and names them, then finds the appropriately shaped hole and points to it, and then fits the blocks to the hole.

*If I ask him to throw something in the trash, no matter where we are in the house, he will take it, run into the kitchen, throw it in the trash can there, and run back.

*When he is in a good mood, he is excellent at sharing, or even giving others toys, either of his own volition or at my request. This is incredibly sweet to watch, especially with his 10-month-old friend, Ella, to whom he likes to show different objects. When we are away from Ella, he will pick up his old baby toys and say her name, as if he thinks that she would enjoy playing with such things.

*Interestingly enough, though I have often blogged about his show-boatery, this growing desire to share and be helpful to others keeps him from being aggressive. For example: at the end of each storytime, the teacher asks the kids to line up around her if they'd like a stamp on their hands (and who wouldn't?). I ask Isaac if he would like one and he says "Yeah!" (more on that next) and runs up to her by himself. However, he sometimes ends up coming back to me without a stamp because all the other obnoxious kids have pushed themselves in front of him (and the stupid teacher takes no notice that he is waiting there quietly and patiently). Though he clearly knows what he wants, he is content to sit back and watch others be jerks rather than being a jerk himself. You can see this, too, at playgroup when a particularly awful child wrenches a toy out of his hands. While most any other kid would start bawling and throwing tantrums (and rightly so), my kid looks after the Toy Thief for a bit, like, "Whatever, man, if it's that important to you..." and then moves on to play with something else.

*The biggest and most exciting development on both sides: he is no longer the "NO!" machine, but readily says and nods "Yes" when appropriate (and sometimes when not). Isaac was an all-around nice guy to begin with. But with the doors that have opened to him since he learned that saying "yes" can get you everywhere, he is simply a jewel at almost all times. It has become clear to me that the ability to distinguish "yes" from "no" in interactions with others is really quite key for him, and really for everybody -- it doesn't really matter how many gazillion words one can say if they don't help others to understand one's wishes. In learning the meaning (and usage) of "yes", he is less frustrated because it is easier to get what he wants (duh), and, here's the greatest part, to understand why he can't have what he wants at certain times.

Twenty months. It's great. It's like the Golden Age of Isaac. I can't wait to show him off to everyone at Christmas.

Shop 'til you drop

2005-12-06T10:22:00.000-08:00

We were forced to brave the snow and crazies for a diaper run. Here is what happened to my poor precious boy after 10 minutes of KMart:

We did manage to score a 92-pack of size 4 Huggies on sale for $20. Costco prices without the journey to Costco!

3 inches of snow is "yucky"

2005-12-06T09:40:00.001-08:00

Beautiful, storybook-quality snow started to fall on our fair town at around 7 last night. The snow, with its obscenely large, fluffy flakes, literally sparkled in the streetlights as it fell. We woke up this morning to a healthy 3" accumulation, though the university salt trucks had made sure that driving surfaces were completely snow-free. Dada and I showed Isaac the winter wonderland through our front window, to which he responded, "Oh no." All his beloved cars were completely covered. You could see his little brain already forming negative opinions about this strange "snow" business: Where did this white plague come from? Would it ever go away, with its car-tainting nastiness?

Regardless of his indoor impressions of the white stuff, I figured I wouldn't be a mommy worth my salt if my little boy stayed inside this morning. He doesn't have a snow suit or a really heavy jacket yet (because we suck and are lazy), but surely 4 or 5 layers of clothes does the trick. I promise he donned gloves immediately after these pictures were taken.

"Kicking the snow could possibly be fun..."

"...but that leads to the white stuff getting stuck on my shoe. And that is YUCKY."

"Will you fools please stop taking pictures and get this crap off my shoe?" (note him saying "shoe")

Rockin' around the tree in oh-five

2005-12-04T19:41:00.000-08:00

Last year we didn't get a Christmas tree. Isaac was a psycho-fast crawler and we had a hard enough time the year before that trying to keep cat-brother from littering the floor with shards of glass ornaments he had batted off the tree -- we figured together, the two of them were a recipe for disaster (or at least for hospital visits). This year, as far as Isaac goes, the curiosity and mobility are much advanced, but we decided having a tree now would be good for all of us to help spread the Christmas cheer (and to train us for the inevitable tree encounters that will occur when we visit the grandparents for the holidays).

We bought our tree at a small lot run by and benefiting a local boy scout troop. The scouts and their leaders were so nice and helpful, and one of them even volunteered to snap this picture of us in front of our chosen tree.

We ran to KMart for a tree skirt and some candy, because Dada and I needed chocolate fuel to help us be extra merry. We ended up buying a big canister of Martha-Stewart-approved red jingle bells, which were nice and unbreakable; we also let Isaac choose an ornament (an airplane) for himself, something that should make a nice tradition to continue in the coming years. At home, I busied myself stringing the bells up with gold ribbon (more toddler-safe than rusty metal hooks, yes?) while the boys decorated the tree together. A picture-perfect Christmas so far, don't you think?

Long overdue Thanksgiving pictures

2005-12-04T09:12:00.000-08:00

Finally, I get around to posting pictures taken from our holiday of two weekends ago. We had four guests who drove all the way from Indiana to eat Dada's delicious turkey. We all enjoyed it, except for the resident fruitatarian, who had pancakes and blueberries for dinner:

Because of the foul and cold weather, we were mostly stuck inside. We would have bored our poor houseguests to death had it not been for ~~our resident one-man-three-ring-circus~~ Isaac. He engaged us all in some quality toddler time. He and Aunt Jean and Uncle Chrissy became fast friends. Aunt Jean caught them in the act of learning about the potty through the magic of a flushing story:

...and horsing around with Isaac's playhut:

Isaac's greatest discovery was that he could rope just about anyone to sitting down for endless hours with the Thomas the Tank Engine website. Here is Grandpa assisting our Junior Web Surfer:

...and then Chris and Jean teaming up for the job:

Another highlight was introducing the houseguests to their nightly show, AKA the Diaper Dash. Remember the bit from a Dana Carvey stand-up about his kids: "It's NAKED TIME!" Well, that's our guy -- opening the bathroom door after his bath is like opening the gates at the Belmont Stakes, with him shrieking gleefully and running like the dickens to flee the inevitable re-donning of the diaper. Aunt Jean caught him running out of his Cozy Coupe as a Diaperer approached:

For the entirety of the weekend, Isaac was a total ham. He can't get enough of being the center of attention. I'm thinking that our returning the visit at Christmas might be okay by him.

Several billion pokes later...

2005-11-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

I went in bright and way-too-early for my 3-hour glucose tolerance test this morning, having not eaten or drank anything but water since 6 the night before. I got there just before they opened the lab/clinic doors at 6 am and there was a long line already formed outside of old geezers who, like me, had been required to fast for one test or another. It took another half-hour for me to get called back for PokeFest 2005. During this time, I suggested repeatedly that we get the show on the road (Hel-LO! Starving tired pregnant woman here!), making the receptionist/phlebotomist decide I was too rambunctious and cranky for her liking. At one point she suggested that she "would be here all day, so I can make you wait another three hours if I like". GrrrRRR!

Eventually I did get called back by an elderly black gentleman who introduced himself as Rufus, "your cousin." Rufus's last name was also O'Neal, "of the black Irish O'Neals", he joked. I liked Rufus very much, but my veins did not. No finger-sticks for these professionals, nosirree. I had to undergo 4 full-on blood draws (one before my sugary beverage, then one each hour for three hours thereafter). Rufus took two unsuccessful stabs (literally) at the first draw before passing me on to Evil Receptionist/Phlebotomist (EPR), who got me on her first try. I drank my near-nauseating amount of sugar and then took it upon myself to pace in the waiting room for at least a half-hour, probably disturbing the geezers but certainly helping my metabolism. Who can sit still with 10,000 liquid Pixy Stix coursing through their veins anyway?

Rose, a talented lady, did my second draw on the first try. EPR did my third draw, and showed great determination to make her poke-hole gush, drawing the needle IN and OUT and IN and OUT of my left arm, which is now so bruised I can't bend my elbow. Rose did my last draw, and, after failing in her first poke, took after EPR in her repeated plunging to score with a deep vein in my right arm. Can you say OUCH WITH A SIDE OF FLYING BURRITOS?

But it is over now. Due to the tube-enclosed nature of the samples they took, however, I have no idea how I did. I should get the results from my prenatal office by the end of the week; please oh please let me pass this time.

Oh yeah, and the boys...Michael took care of Isaac all morning long while I was in my medieval torture session. I called once and asked how Dada was taking to his job of Isaac Breakfast Procurement (a task to which he is a stranger), and was informed that there would be PopTarts, and probably pickles involved. This is Dada-Speak for "leave me alone, woman, I know what I'm doing". Later on, when we met Dada for a pre-lunch payday Starbucks run, he revealed that he had seriously enjoyed his morning snuggle-time with the boy. And then he took off of work at 3:30 to help us grocery-shop. That Isaac, man. He's addictive.

How to get your toddler to eat his grilled cheese sandwich

2005-11-29T16:48:00.000-08:00

Festive, don't you think? And highly effective.

U.B.'s appointment, 5.5 months; Confessions of a glucose flunkie

2005-11-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

I went in for another routine prenatal checkup last Wednesday -- now that we are in the home stretch (can you say YIKES?!?!?) I go every two weeks. This particular visit was earmarked for my glucose tolerance screening, to test for gestational diabetes. After being weighed and before I went in to see my practitioner, a nurse's aide gave me what must surely be caffeine-free Mountain Dew to chug. More on that in a bit.

Once again, U.B. is so healthy he is boring. His house measured in at a within-normal 26 cm (with me at 27 w 1 d, though I can ASSURE you it has grown since then). His heart rate was around 145 bpm. I had gained two pounds in the two weeks since my last visit, which is exactly what I am supposed to be shooting for. If I keep it up, at this rate I will gain 35 pounds total, exactly what I gained with the Isaac-monster. And my blood pressure is nice and low, at around 90-something over 50.

While I have been happy overall with the practitioner I happen to get scheduled with each time (who, I should mention, is a NURSE practitioner and not an obstetrician. Not that there's anything wrong with that), there have been a couple little hiccups that have suggested to me that she may not be the shiniest apple on the tree. First, there was the whole "it's a girl!" fandango from my first interaction with her. This time, I mentioned that we are staying with the fam in Indy for a nice long time at Christmas. Her immediate reaction was to express concern and to recommend, out of the blue, that I run to Babies R Us and drop some mad cash for a personal fetal heart monitor. Um, because I'll be missing at least one appointment and apparently that is a near medical emergency. When I gathered myself from suppressed laughter and suggested to her instead that it would be easier (and free) for me to monitor the baby's movement, she conceded, "Yeah, that would work, too." You know, because babies that move may just have hearts that are functioning properly. And, my dear N.P., this is supposed to instill faith in me that you know what you're talking about?

The whole shebang, from glucose-chugging to exiting the exam room, lasted less than half an hour, so I was shown to the waiting room and told to sit my expanded butt in a chair for another 30 minutes to allow myself adequate time to metabolize the aforementioned tasty sugary beverage. After being annoyed by The View for far too long, I was called back, my finger pricked, and my blood glucose level revealed to be 148 mystery-units. This is 8 mystery-units above the highest allowable passing level for the screen. Because of this, on Wednesday, I have to go in to an independent lab for a 3-hour glucose tolerance test, during which I can't leave the premises. I don't think I need to alert anyone to the obvious problem with that situation -- if you think I'm taking my toddler along for THREE STINKIN' HOURS you clearly don't know him. Perhaps a less obvious problem is that I have to fast, consuming nothing but water, for twelve hours before the test, and then absolutely nothing for the 3 hours of the test. Did I mention I ate half a dozen Oreos while composing the first paragraph of this post? What really busts my buffers is that, when I was preggers with the Isaac, I took, and passed, not one but two of these here initial screening tests. At that hospital, they gave me the tasty beverage at the end of my visit and told me to come back in an hour. As I worked in the building, I wasted my hour by walking to my office, checking my email, and then walking back. It makes me think...if those numbskulls at my current prenatal practice had just let me walk around the hospital a bit (which is what I would have been doing at that minute anyway had I not been in their office), I probably wouldn't need this excruciating follow-up test. Grr. Wish me luck.

We're famous

2005-11-28T10:04:00.000-08:00

You may recall some time ago that a freelance journalist commented on a post on this blog, saying I should get in contact with her as she's writing an article about mommy-blogs. I did, and she interviewed me over email. Later, a newspaper photographer came to our house to snap shots of me, the boy, and my laptop. And now here we are, spotlighted in her story about Delaware moms who blog, which was very recently published in Delaware Parent, a section of the News-Journal. You have to go check it out, at the very least to see the adorable picture of my boy, featured very prominently in the print version of the article.

Can't blog now...busy getting butt kicked by 3rd trimester

2005-11-28T09:49:00.000-08:00

Apparently my third trimester officially started on Saturday or something. My body seems to have gotten the memo because I feel like I ran into a brick wall. I even went to bed before Isaac last night. Today the crock pot is being a big pal and making me and the elder O'Neal some beef stew. Hopefully I will soon get a chance to blog about our Thanksgiving weekend, spent squeezed into our house with 4 extra adult bodies ... it was actually quite lovely. It was so nasty-cold we didn't get to do much around town, and my son was, of course, being his usual sleepless self, so I don't know if our visitors had a good time. But I know Isaac certainly did, being the object of constant attention by either a grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, mom, or dad OR any combination thereof; and I know Dada and I did as well since we got to go on a double date with Uncle Chris and Aunt Jean to see the new Harry Potter movie. In the meantime, here are some family pictures from Grandma's camera to tide you over:

Me, Isaac, and Dada

Uncle Chris, 'Aunt' Jean, and Isaac

Grandma and Grandpa Ross and Isaac

U.B. makes waves

2005-11-22T20:10:00.000-08:00

Lately U.B. has cranked up his own little in utero dance party to a whole new level. He is one seriously active dude. Laying down to take in a delicious new Gilmore Girls tonight brought on ripples from my tummy, visible through a layer of clothes and a blanket, but he doesn't need a whole hour to start his motor moving. Even if I sit down on the floor while playing with Isaac I can feel U.B. squirming around. I think this time, now, is my favorite part of being pregnant -- when the baby is big enough so anybody (especially me) could see or feel him moving, but I am still small enough to tie my own shoes.

I don't know why, but I somehow still have some crazy mommy vibe that U.B. is a girl. I don't care what those online Chinese Gender Charts or the radiologist says. Everybody's heard stories of radiologists who insisted the baby was one gender, but the end result was completely unexpected. Where this vibe comes from, I have no idea. Perhaps it has something to do with my being completely in love with our chosen girl name and still completely at a loss for a decent boy name. Seriously, folks, it is bad. Nothing sounds good to us. I never wanted to do this, but (just in case my mommy-senses are wrong) can I throw it open to the peanut gallery? Do YOU, dear readers, have any suggestions for us? We are pretty sure we want Dada's first name, Michael, as a middle name, and any first name of course must not sound terrible with our last name (O'Neal, as in no to "Noah" or "Neal").

What Isaac's doing now

2005-11-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

*I hope you don't tire of hearing "what's that?", because that's all he has to say now. Even towards things one knows he knows the names of: "what's that?" I've read in books that one should direct the question back at him, and we try this, but it only results in a drawn-out game of "what's that?" ping-pong. For some reason, I am able to tolerate this, but I think poor Dada is going nuts.

*Late last week he gracefully stepped down the four steps from our porch to the walkway all by himself. Not that I will allow him to do this often, but it's a start.

*He can count to five by himself, and can sometimes even count 5 individual objects. He has also, on occasion, told us how many fingers we are holding up. More often than not, though, he gets caught up in the fascination of counting to three and tries to tell me I have three eyes or three feet. His counting prowess is entirely due to Dada, who teaches him new numbers in pairs each week and is currently working on six and seven. We think he got 1-2-3 down from walking around with us -- he knows that, if he is holding a hand from each of us and he counts to three, we'll swing him up in the air.

*He is fascinated with naming colors. We know he can distinguish blue, yellow, and purple in particular, but, in the vein of "what's that?" insists on calling all colors blue, probably because he knows we'll tell him what the color really is.

*His very favorite book now is Dig!, given to him by his friend Jen Horwath when he was one month old. It is in our repertoire now to read it every night. This is not a terribly short book, but he will sit through the whole thing because it has pictures of a backhoe on every page. The truck/tractor obsession grows.

An easy week in the SAHM biz

2005-11-21T10:02:00.000-08:00

Gotta love the short weeks. Not only does Dada get off work Thursday and Friday (though, knowing him, he'll probably be working some anyway), but we are expecting a literal van-load of family around Wednesday lunchtime. Grandma and Grandpa Ross and Uncle Chris and "Aunt" Jean (who will soon be rid of those quotation marks) are driving here from Indianapolis to spend Thanksgiving weekend with us. Where we are going to put all those warm bodies in our dinky house is completely beside the point, because it is all about non-stop entertainment for the Isaac-monster and luxurious naps for me. Yee-hah!

On top of that, Isaac's sitter came over this morning, so I got nearly 2.5 hours to myself, which I should have used to vacuum and dust and scrub and blah, but I instead used to lust over apple pie recipes like this one. This is the first Thanksgiving dinner we will have shared with family since 2000, when we moved to Seattle. Every year there we had the same conversation: "Should we fly home for Thanksgiving?" "Not when we're flying home for Christmas two weeks from then." This year will thus be quite a special occasion for us. So special, in fact, that I think it deserves both pumpkin AND apple pies, handmade with love by me in my temperamental rental-house oven.

And did I mention we got our 18-pound turkey for free from our local grocery store for being loyal and otherwise spendy customers?

We can't wait to see everybody. Please drive safe.

Bless you TiVo, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Insomnia

2005-11-19T19:14:00.000-08:00

Isaac is still waking at night. But the past few nights have not been so bad. The night before last he awoke only because he fell out of bed, poor thing. Last night he awoke, came to find me, walked back to his bed and climbed under the covers, and then, with me right there, was out like a light in less than a minute. He sleeps through until sometime between 5 and 6; if he wakes closer to 5, I pull him into bed with me and we sleep some more. If he wakes closer to 6, he's up for good, and probably cranky for the rest of the day.

I suppose, over all, my main concern with his sleep disorder is what it will mean for the impending arrival of Sleep Disorder, Jr. in a few short months. Less than a hundred days, actually, according to the ticker on the blog. This seriously was nearly giving me panic attacks. "How do people do it?" I wondered. "How do people have two kids this close in age and survive?" Yes, millions and millions of parents before me (including my own) have had kids two years apart and lived to tell about it, but I am so locked in my own world as to think that I am the only one with this issue.

Last week after I posted my rant about Isaac and his crappy sleeping, I myself had a hard time falling asleep one night and turned on the tube to see if TiVo had anything worth watching. To my surprise and delight, TiVo had gone out and fetched me an episode of "A Baby Story" without being asked. As I watched this episode, I could feel the throbbing vein in my forehead slowly quieting. I heard the story of two parents expecting a boy, with a 2-year-old boy already running underfoot. Sound familiar? The mom and dad were calm and collected, and so ecstatically happy about the upcoming addition to their family. When their #2 did come along, #1 was such a good big brother, and they reported no incidences of jealousy or acting out or anything.

I realize things could go much less smoothly for others, but seeing these people and their success with two very young'uns made me feel much better about my own situation. It made me step back and realize that I am really not the kind of mom who is interested in forcing my child into situations he is not ready for. Clearly, Isaac is not ready to sleep through the night. Can I make him do that? Not likely. I can do my best to make sure he is well-fed, well-rested, warm, and comfy going into bed at night, but it is up to him, and only him, to figure out the rest. I won't let him sleep for three hours during the day anymore, but I will do my best to let him wake up on his own from naps to ensure he's getting the sleep he needs during the day. And if I have to be up for a little to help him get back to sleep at night, so be it. If he puts up a fight? I'll bring him in bed with me, because our (read: his AND mine) is so important right now. I realize people have different opinions about this kind of behavior, but I don't know how many people I have run into, and these are not hippies, who profess that their kids spent more time than not in bed with them before age 5. These things just happen. It's rough being a toddler, or even a little kid. When U.B. comes, we'll deal with it as needs be. Who knows? Maybe Isaac will learn how to sleep by then and we won't need to do anything.

The funny thing? Since I have made this realization and have been much calmer about our collective insomnia, Isaac has slept much better. Meaning he has been both easier to get to sleep at bedtime, and to get back to sleep upon night-waking. I think he can sense that I'm not stressed about it anymore, and that that is calming to him. I also feel more rested with the sleep that I get. So far, so good. Let's just hope I can keep this 'tude alive for awhile, because it is really helping things, in many aspects of life, a lot.

Operation: Bottle Bye-Bye

2005-11-19T18:00:00.000-08:00

Why is it I run into all the talkies at Costco? You know, the ladies who obviously need to get out more, because they insist on telling their troubles to complete strangers. Like the lady with the scary mullet and teeth straight out of The Big Book of British Smiles who, seeing Isaac, decided to tell me all about her three-year-old charge's toilet training experience, sharing with me as a fellow insider her complete and utter disbelief in the necessity of Pull-Ups. And then there was the cashier who, upon seeing Isaac gleefully sucking away at his Nuby sippy cup, shared with me her complete disdain for how her granddaughter is still drinking from a bottle, the horror! Trying to make conversation with this latter lady, I ask how old her granddaughter is. "Eighteen months," she says. "No kid should still be drinking from a bottle at eighteen months."

Well, thank you for your sweeping pronouncement, complete stranger, and thank you for making me feel like a terrible parent. Because yes, my 19-month-old still drinks his "milky" from a bottle. For a time, he was excellent at drinking milk with meals from a big-boy (not even sippy) cup. But that time is gone, and now he will only take it from a bottle without a fuss. So sue me.

But we all know that eventually the bottle must exit stage left, so I figure now is probably a pretty good time to do it. This is mainly because 1) we have now accumulated an impressive collection of Nuby cups and 2) in planning our trip home for the holidays in a little over a month, the bottle collection would be a convenient thing to leave behind. Today was day one. Isaac asked for his milky in the morning and in the evening, and each time he barely noticed that it was served in a Nuby and not a bottle. Not that a Nuby is a large stretch from a bottle, but hey, it's a start.

Gloves, anyone?

2005-11-19T06:19:00.000-08:00

Suddenly, rapidly, winter has come to Delaware. Isaac and the babysitter went outside yesterday morning to play (so I could clean in peace), and could only stay out for an hour before my son became a fussy Isaac-cicle, crusted snot around the nose and all. This morning there is a heaping mound of frost on the ground and the car, and the Weather Channel is forecasting snow for Thanksgiving Day. SNOW, people.

This poses a major problem for us because Isaac has no gloves that fit him. Last winter in Seattle (well, what could only loosely be called "winter" anyway, with no snow and all rain), Isaac's outside excursions were limited to hour-long walks in the stroller, during which he was forced to wear fleece mittens sewn for him by Grandma Ross. When I say "forced" I mean no disrespect to the mitten-crafter, but rather refer to super-bitty Isaac's inability to remove his own mittens, much to his extreme frustration. Clearly this limitation no longer applies to the boy who regularly removes hats, socks, and even coats at will. Additionally, I doubt he would stand for the encasing of his precious fingers in mittens, where he would be handicapped against his long-term project of picking up every single acorn from a meadow by the dorms to throw in a nearby creek.

To this end, I throw the question to the audience: how do YOU get YOUR toddler to wear gloves? Where did you get your gloves? Do you have any you would recommend?

Worst sleeper EVER

2005-11-16T18:26:00.000-08:00

I used to think, from reading the Flinger Files, that lil' LB Flinger was probably the worst sleeper ever. And then I remembered that, when Isaac was LB's age, he was a terrible sleeper. And look at him now ... all growed up at 19 months old. And STILL THE CRAPPIEST SLEEPER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

The magic of the toddler bed still exists, though in a different and not-as-desirable form. Isaac dearly loves his bed, but he hasn't slept through the night in a week. It turns out that, like other sleep experiments we have tried, something "working" means he will sleep through the night for a few days, and then he is right back to square one. Two nights ago was the worst. He was up from 3 until 5 in the morning, not fussing, not asking for anything...just wide awake. He would get up from his bed and toddle around until I would catch him. All I had to do was tell him to get back in bed, and he would. I would cover him over with sheets, replace his doggy in an arm-crook, and Isaac would dutifully lay there, eyes wide open, until I left him to his own devices, at which point the entire process would repeat. Finally I refused to come back in his room, and, exhausted puppy that he was, he lay in his bed, screaming, for 15 minutes before he got up and walked to find me. When I pulled him into bed with Dada and I he slept until 9.

We tried cutting his naps back. He hasn't slept his usual luxurious 3-hour stints during the day since we got the bed. At first it appeared that rudely awakening him at the 1.5- or 2-hour mark was the key to a blissful night's sleep, but no more. Yesterday we even cut him down to a single painful hour (far too short for any sleep for his poor pregnant mommy), and he was up at midnight and 3 before getting up for good at 6.

In our cribby past, we have tried putting him to bed earlier, following the whole "sleep begets sleep" theory. Putting him to bed at 8 or 8:30 (instead of his accustomed 9 or 9:30) resulted in him getting up, for good, at 5 or 5:30 (instead of his accustomed 6 or 6:30).

In all our sleep deprivation and desperation, I have read I don't know how many books and listened to (and occasionally tried to implement) the advice of friends, relatives, or even strangers. When something works, it works for a couple of days and then we are back to night-waking. Something that continues to stick in my head, despite all the advice, are ringing voices of my mother and mother-in-law, who both attest that their sons (my brother and Dada, respectively) didn't sleep through the night until they were 2.

So I ask you...is this all just stupid? In all of our attempts to prolong Isaac's sleep, Am I trying to force an answer that will come about only when it is good and ready? As far as I can recall, the babies/toddlers I know that sleep through the night have either always done so all by themselves, or did so once their moms and dads turned off the baby monitors and quit interfering. Obviously ours has never done that. Should I keep up with our sleep experiments, which are quite frustrating in their inevitable defeat, or should I just try to relax and let Isaac sleep when he does and live with it when he doesn't?

Left brain, right brain...we got 'em all

2005-11-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

Isaac has always been into books. Lately he also likes counting. He can quite easily count to three, or count items in groups of threes, and, when prompted heavily, can even count to five. But his most recent passion is coloring. Every day we have coloring time, which consists of him sitting at the kitchen table in his booster seat surrounded by the washable chunky crayons I bought him long ago and the many skinny crayons we have acquired from restaurant visits. I use clear packing tape to tape down at least one piece of printer paper so he can mark on it as violently as he likes. Usually these sessions start by him picking up a crayon and going wild, but after a few minutes I start making requests. "Can you draw me the moon? An airplane? A kitty?"

Tonight, to try to calm him down, we colored for a half-hour before bedtime. I suggested he draw an octopus. After five minutes, here is what he decided was the end product:

You may be impressed enough that my 19-month-old can draw in near circles, but that isn't even the most genius part about it. Look a little closer with me now, into how the drawing began. Here, highlighted is the first thing he drew on the page, upon my requesting an octopus:

It's a head, with a mouth and eyes. He drew it, stopped, pointed with his crayon, and said "Octo" (Isaac for 'octopus'). Underneath, buried in the copious swoops, are some jaggedy lines for tentacles. Immediately after he finished his octopus, he made his first of many big, repetitive swoops, highlighted here:

After a few of these, he stopped, pointed with his crayon, and said, "Skur-kle" (Isaac for 'circle').

Maybe it's late and I'm a little loopy myself...but is he a genius-monkey or what?

Real estate for the ambitious and broke

2005-11-13T20:01:00.000-08:00

Like many others, we are also half-heartedly house-hunting. One may recall that, right now, we are at least in a house as opposed to an apartment, but are still paying rent, and to the big University machine no less. We enjoy our rental house, but after two years (three if we have a really good reason and we beg), they will kick us to the curb. We are not in the least interested in throwing Dada's hard-earned cash-flow to the rental gods ever ever again after this place. We must find something to buy.

In this we have several major problems:
1) Do you know how much a starting professor makes? It is okay. We will not starve; we will continue to walk to Starbucks, and possibly buy things there, more than once a week. But it is not too much. Now that my salary from leaky grad-student pay has run dry we are uncomfortably realizing that we must (GASP!) make a budget and (DOUBLE GASP!) follow it.
2) Have you seen what the housing market is like? In our "looking at houses", which consists of Dada seeing houses nearby listed online and us driving by them while Isaac naps in the car, we see that three-bedroom crap-shacks held together by crap-straps that are two blocks from the railroad tracks go for between $250-$300K in our town. It is not pretty, and we can't afford this right now.
3) Some of you may not know this, but in a former life Dada both built and contracted houses for a living. As far as we know, he is still a licensed professional drywaller in Indiana. While this makes him very handy to have around, unfortunately this also means he knows way too much for his own good about how crappily one can build said expensive crap-shacks, and he wants no part of that whatsoever. Obviously any shacks that are made of materials that didn't come from the sewer are even further out of our price range.
4) Dada has strong opinions about where he wants to live, and especially who he wants to live next to. You there, with the tires in your yard? Dada doesn't want to live next to you. You there, crazy old lady with the unbelievable array of highly-decorated bird mansions in your front yard? Yeah, he doesn't want to live next to you either. You there, with the gigantic lawn ornament professing your love for the Eagles? You there, walking out of Wal-Mart with the 8' inflatable snow globe to decorate your front lawn? You guessed it...you have the cooties also, according to Dada. He also doesn't want to live in a "neighborhood", where houses are built such that one can quite easily stare in one's neighbors' side windows from one's own side windows. Our Dada is an annoyingly discriminating individual, but he is usually right on, and in this case also has potential resale value in mind.

After another depressing session of "looking at houses" yesterday, Dada and I came to a conclusion today with which we have both found inner peace. We will build a nice and small house to Dada's exacting specifications. In the spring, we will buy a plot of land, probably out in the country, within a half-hour's drive from the school. In the summer (when Dada's salary will temporarily double), Dada and others will lay the foundation and frame us up a house. Sometime in the following year, Dada will wear his contractor's hat once more and will find reliable people to do the work for him finishing up our house. This will work especially spectacularly for us because there are parcels of land out there that are easily affordable and easy for us to put a downpayment on, and then we can finish up the house as we can afford to do so.

What put the extra zen in our nirvana was this house plan I found online today that we know is the one for us. Like I said, it is small; this is the key to our being able to afford to build. But small is all we need. Do I want to clean some gawd-awful mansion anyway? Heck, no.

So that's our new life-plan, and boy what a load off it is. Let's hope the stars continue to align for our little family and we can make our dream of non-crap a reality.

How to do a late-night meeting up right

2005-11-13T18:52:00.000-08:00

Dada had a super-late faculty meeting Thursday night -- it went till nearly 8:30. I don't think I need to say that I was not terribly excited about our looooooong day, but these things (sigh) happen. We had playgroup that morning, where we ran into our friends Sara, Nathaniel, and Patrick. Sara and the boys, being closely tied to another Geography faculty member, were also affected by this heinous drawing out of the day. Sara, the experienced SAHM that she is, suggested we come over to her house to rough it together in the evening and have pancakes for dinner. Well, all you have to do is mention the words "Nathaniel" and "pancakes" in relatively close proximity, and Isaac is counting the seconds till dinner time. It was just fantastic -- Isaac got to play with Nathaniel (and Patrick of course) and all of Nathaniel's toys, and I got my first experience cooking pancakes on a stand-alone griddle. (Note: I am apparently not a real housefrau as I do not own a griddle or waffle iron.)

We ended the evening with a photo shoot of the boys engaged in Isaac's new favorite activity -- doodling. Here he is in action, with Patrick doing his best to help:

And yes, the artwork covering the entire board is courtesy of Isaac. Have I mentioned that we color now, every day, for about an HOUR? I hope you all are ready to receive his artwork for your fridges, cause mine is full up.

Claire's recipe for a pregnancy-friendly Cosmopolitan

2005-11-13T16:22:00.000-08:00

1) Get bored of drinking water.
2) Pour self a nearly full glass of water before realizing there's cranberry juice in the fridge.
3) Top off glass of water with a splash of cranberry juice.
4) Enjoy and use the word "fabulous" way too much.