The Complete Idiot's Guide to Marriage

I now take a break from my normally scheduled program- that would be lying on the sofa drinking tea while Adelay tears apart the house- to bring you this shocking update: married people should be having sex! For this and more profound advise, keep reading.
I am passing on this info from today's featured guest on Live!With Regis and Kelly, Dr. Robi Ludwig, who offers these ten genius tips for rekindling romance in one's marriage:
1. Spend time together. (No marriage will work if you don't live in the same house, apparently.)
2. Spend time apart. (This seems contradictory, but the point seems to be that while you must reside in the same zip code, you must also take care not to see so much of one another that you start to resent the very way your spouse breathes.)
3. Pick and choose your battles. (Boil this one down and it's basically an admonition to quit fighting about everything. Just fight about some things.)
4. Compliment your spouse on their strengths. (Dr. Ludwig wished to point out that we sometimes stop noticing the good things and tend to focus on the negative. So, children, what we should do is try to say more nice things and fewer mean things.)
5. Foreplay. (Apparently the one word says it all- make the effort. Lose the sweatpants.)
6. Sex. (Again, it appears to be so simple. Have some, people! Kelly's brilliant side note on this subject? "More sex leads to more sex." Aha.)
7. Have empathy for your partner. (This one was, I thought, particularly insightful. As Dr. Ludwig noted- and this is all verbatim-,"We should try to think about how other people feel. Sometimes we only think of our own feelings. We have to try to think of others." Is this a forum on marriage or an episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood?)
8. Share your dreams. (At Regis's naughty smirk, Dr. Ludwig cautioned the men, "Maybe don't share all your dreams.)
9. Set goals for your relationship. ("Have more sex!" would presumably be one of the suggested goals.)
10. Keep the spark alive. (How to do this? "Glam up" your marriage, was the good doctor's suggestion. Return to the sight of your first date. Provided you even remember it. On the other hand, if the sight of your first date was less than glamorous- more along the lines of a high school keg party, perhaps, than an elegant restaurant- then my thought would be maybe try to erase that memory and make a new one. All of this assumes there is enough money in your expendable income to afford both a babysitter and a hot date. And that there is anyone left in your town willing to babysit your brood.)
So, get to work, folks! Go throw on a lacy nightie and light a candle! Or you could just accept that things change, and that this doesn't always equal the death of a relationship. I read an article on married sex by Dave Barry once in which he noted that women often overate the importance of lingerie. "Just show up naked, and you've done your part," was his thought. From my sofa, in my oversized sweatshirt, I say a nauseous amen.

Will Scream for Wheat Thins

Have I complained lately about how Adelay will eat only about one or two items on any given day, and how usually one (or both) of those items is from the cracker family? You'd think she was the one with morning sickness! I even started keeping a diary of every food I offered Adelay throughout the day and whether or not she ate it, based on some counsel I found in a parenting book that suggested toddlers usually eat more than we realize, and if I were to only carefully observe, my mind would be set to rest.
Well. Consider my mind unrested. (Throughout this story, keep in mind that as soon as Addy has deigned a certain food distasteful, it is immediately thrown to the floor, and I am then howled at in rage until I provide the true and life-giving food, Wheat Thins.)
In a sample day, I gave Adelay bananas and Cheerios for breakfast. She ate three Cheerios, then began screeching and threw the rest of her food on the floor. I gave her apples for a snack. She ate none. She drank a bottle of milk at naptime. I gave her organic (!) macaroni and cheese for lunch. She ate one piece, made a face, and started yelling. As she was eyeing my own cookie enviously, I offered her one. She ate half. She drank some juice. For an afternoon snack, I offered crackers. Surprise, surprise, she ate about ten. She had some milk at naptime. For dinner, we had spaghetti, so I put some on her tray and gave her some pieces of crusty bread. She ate two bites of bread, no spaghetti. (She did smear it all over her hair, the table, and the floor.) Bedtime snack was baby cereal, which is usually a sure thing. She ate about half the bowl. More milk at bedtime.
So, let's add it up: three Cheerios, one piece of macaroni, half a cookie, three ounces of juice, ten crackers, two bites of bread, half a bowl of cereal, and three bottles of milk. I'm no nutritionist, but I'm fairly sure that the above does not compose an adequate, balanced diet.
So, any ideas, anyone? I'm really at my wits end. Adelay's fifteen month check-up is next week, and I'm already going to have to admit I'm still giving her bottles to put her to sleep. And that, in truth, she has not really walked at all since the fluke steps that occured a few days ago. I at least need to be able to say that she's eating her fruits and veggies!

Tea and Sympathy

Mmm, how I do love the first trimester! What I especially love is that jolt of energy you get first thing in the morning, as you hop out of bed and cheerfully head for the kitchen to fry up a batch of bacon and eggs!
Oh, wait, no. Make that the exact opposite. Picture, instead, something along these lines: an unshowered, gritty-eyed mom tiptoeing around, avoiding the creaks in the floor, so that maybe just maybe, her toddler will sleep a while longer so that the nauseous mommy can creap back into her blissfully dark bedroom, pull the covers to her chin, and sip (decaf!) tea and nibble dry Cheerios. Oh, and feel sorry for herself.
P.S. Not too sorry, though- mostly I'm congratulating my hormonal system for continuing to double my HCG levels every three days! All systems are still go.

On Beef Stew

Oh my gosh... Have I mentioned yet that the so-called morning sickness has already begun hitting me? Well if not, let me do so now: I'm officially nauseous. And I usually feel fine in the mornings, is the thing. But then it's all downhill throughout the day, and it's almost always triggered by scent. I'll be doing good, eat my breakfast with no problem, but then the smell of Jim's aftershave will cause me to recoil with a wrinkled nose. Even sweet little Addy's breath- even my own breath, as a matter of fact- will make me sniff the air like a hound dog, demanding, "What is that horrid, sour smell?" And the dog? Forget it. If he so much as opens his mouth in the same room as me, I run for cover.
But today has been the worst, to date. I was taking a nice long nap (while Addy slept for longer than usual thanks to her post-shot Tylenol,) and when I got up I headed first for the kitchen. And that's when it smacked me in the face, the pungent, oniony, mushroomy aroma of crock-pot beef stew, which had seemed like such a good idea two hours previously when I had put it in to cook. And now it seems to have permeated every square inch of the house and I want to run barfing into the streets.
So, note to self: no more slow cooking during the first trimester. The ease of dinner preparation is not enough of a trade off to make the gag-inducing stench of beefy mushroom condensed soup (oh, it made me sick even to type it!) worth it.

Evil Needle

Addy and I were a pair of sad girls today. Our morning errands consisted of dragging both of us out in the wind and cold to get shots, Addy for her flu vaccine booster and me for my blood draw. Fun stuff! I always feel like such a monster when I have to hold her little leg still as the nurse plunges the needle into her unsuspecting self. Her eyes widen with shock for about three seconds, and then the wail of outrage and betrayal begins as giant crocodile tears well up and spill down her cheeks.
When I emerge from the exam room to make Addy's next appointment, all the people in the waiting room look up at me with cold eyes, like, "Oh, there's that lady whose poor baby was screaming in pain just a moment ago. Look at her, so callous and cold." Well, actually, they're probably just thinking, "When is it going to be my turn so I can get out of this germ-infested holding pen?" But I feel as though I'm being judged. And as I scheduled Addy's fifteen-month checkup (I'm behind, I know,) I remembered that she'll be getting four shots at that particular visit. Really, would it be so excessive to ask if she could have some sort of sedation beforehand? I mean, four shots is a lot! I think I might cry. And shots hurt a lot more than just getting your blood drawn, as I rediscovered last month when I got my flu shot. I feel so sorry for her. Poor kid.
I know I've said this before, but I just really think being a kid is so rough. Every five minutes, practically, something is being taken from you, or you're being forced to eat or get in the car or take a nap when it's not what you wanted to do at all. And then the grown-ups get frustrated when you're not just thrilled to uncomplainingly follow their agenda all day long. But the worst must be the scary things like daycare and new babysitters and of course medical procedures, which are constantly and unexpectedly being thrust upon you.
Doctor's visits used to terrify me so much. I remember I would fret about it for at least two days beforehand, the knot in my stomach growing larger and larger the closer the appointment loomed. So I guess I should at least be grateful that Adelay is too young to be consumed with dread about the shots. That will just be me, feeling tense and anxious and miserable the day of the appointment.
But, that's life. And even as I squirm and grimace my way through these vaccine-filled couple of years, I am very thankful that we live in a time and a country where immunizations are available, and where the most discomfort my child is likely to experience is a shot, and not a life-threatening illness. And I feel so much for parents whose children are truly ill. Whenever I'm in a store and I see a flier or donation container for a child with cancer, I feel a jolt of shock and horror. I want to rewind the moment and erase from my mind the very idea that children can get sick. That children can die.
Well, sorry. That was depressing. It's just that life can be such a dull, tedious thing some days, but just throw out there the thought that at any moment it could be snatched from me, and I feel an almost physical compulsion to pull close and protect my life and the lives of those I love. In her January second post, good old Catherine Newman was talking about how she lives much of her life in a state of "anticipation of grief;" that is, that she is simultaneously overwhelmed with her blessings and terrified that those blessings will be taken from her, for surely such luck must run out some time. And that is exactly, exactly how I feel. It's just such a delicate balance, this life of ours.

Big News

*Please check out my newly added links section (thanks to hubby for helping me figure it out!)
Okay, I had like the best day ever! First, one of my good friends called me this morning to tell me that she is pregnant too! Very very early (she is an early tester like myself) but pregnant indeed. On her first try, that lucky fertile woman. I am so excited for her. She was ovulating the day I found out I was pregnant, and she asked me to blow baby dust on her! Guess it worked.
Second, the doctor's office finally got my lab results (after I called them three times- they were starting to sound less than thrilled to hear my voice) and they are totally normal! It was such a huge relief. When I was pregnant back in September and they did the hcg check after the ultrasound revealed nothing, my hcg was only 150, very bad. I pretty much knew at that point that there was no way this was going to work out. But this time- 3050, thank you very much! My body, it seems, has remembered what it is supposed to do! So I'm thinking there is truly reason to be hopeful that come September 4th (probably sooner, actually, given my history,) we will be a family of four.
Thank you, Lisa and Swistle, for your congrats. It's so fun to tell baby news, isn't it? It would almost be worth having a dozen kids, just to get to announce that you're knocked up that many times. Although maybe it would get old after the sixth time or so. People would sigh and say, "Don't you know there's a pill for that?" Anyways...
Ooh, and the third awesome thing that happened today: Adelay walked! Oh my gosh, I honestly was starting to think she had settled on her kneecaps as her chosen method of transport, feeling, apparently, that her calves and feet are purely ornamental. But she took four steps in a row today! Twice! Oh, you should have heard the applause. I was nearly insane with delight. I was getting a little worried, honestly, since I had heard that most kids walk between twelve and fifteen months, and as of January third, we had hit the fifteen month mark. I had visions of her legs and feet in corrective braces, of the doctor shaking his head at us, scolding, "Couldn't you tell that she is horribly knock kneed and her feet are deformed? Why didn't you come to us sooner?"
But, it seems that she has discovered her balance at last. Good thing too- as soon as I start putting on weight from baby number two, her days of being carried around everywhere are numbered!

The Waiting Game

So here's a little question: what does it mean if you get a very, very faint positive line on a home pregnancy test about two days before your period is even due, but the line doesn't even show up for like a half an hour? (Because of course, you didn't just throw the test away after ten minutes like a normal person, but instead left it lurking on the bathroom counter like a morbid reminder of your failure- but a morbid reminder that you nonetheless kept running back to obsessively check every five minutes.)
Well, if you're me, you would obviously go back to the store at eleven o clock at night and buy another test and rush home and take it and see that it was indeed negative. But then, two hours later when you surreptitiously dig it out of the trashcan, you would find that this one too has turned faintly positive! What to do?
You would return to the store in the morning and purchase two more tests, that's what you would do. And both of those would be negative as well, the one you take that day and the one you take the next day- you know, the day your period is actually due. But, what do you know, both of these turn faintly positive as well when checked an hour later. But keep it mind that all of this is taking place on Christmas Eve, so you're a little bit preoccupied, and also the test box keeps sternly reminding you that any results which show up after ten minutes are to be disregarded. So you finally relent and admit to yourself that you must not be pregnant after all, and you go ahead and drink during the Christmas festivities with a clear conscience.
And then? And then your period never comes. One day late, two days late. Hmmm, is what you are thinking. And also, Dang it! Why did I drink? So you call your Ob's office and sheepishly explain the whole situation (leaving out the part about throwing the one test away and then rooting through the garbage for it like a deranged pig.) The nurse on the phone laughs at you and says, "Well, you can wait a while- maybe your period wasn't due when you thought it was, and that's why the tests were so long turning positive. Or, maybe they were just evaporation lines, and you're not pregnant. We can always do some blood work today to set your mind at ease, though."
And yes, yes, having your mind set at ease does seem like the thing to do, so you stop off at the pathology lab on your way to go after-Christmas shopping with your mom and sister. You know, just another boring errand.
You can't stop thinking about it, though. As you walk around the mall, the conflicting aromas of cologne and Cinnabon and those amazingly fragrant roasted almonds are suddenly turning your stomach, and you have to go sit down. Mentally, you scold yourself: You're imagining things. But you are counting the minutes until you can call for your test results.
Which are positive. You are pregnant again.
This was actually the first time I had ever not known what I was going to hear when I called for the results of a blood pregnancy test. I was petrified, my heart pounding erratically. I kept telling myself, "It's not going to be positive. Just settle down." But it was, as the nurse so nonchalantly informed me. I made her repeat it: "So I'm really pregnant, you're sure?" I demanded spastically.
And you know what else? My progesterone level was normal! In the span of a week or so, it had managed to pull itself up from a dismal 9 to a totally acceptable 19.5! That news, received the next day (that would be the day I was tucked into Aunt Nancy's bed, willing myself to live,) was actually way more exciting even than the positive pregnancy test.
And I of course was going to be cautious this time and not say anything until 12 weeks, but then I decided that even if this pregnancy fails as well, I would still want to write about it as an outlet, so I might as well just say it now: I'm pregnant. Only about five weeks, probably, since we had an ultrasound yesterday and only a very faint gestational sac was visible, but no baby or heartbeat or anything yet. Oddly though, after initially freaking out upon not seeing more, I actually calmed down. I'm not bleeding, not cramping, my hormones were fine, I feel all the symptoms I'm supposed to be feeling- I believe that all is well. Nonetheless, my doctor (oh inciter of general panic!) is having me get blood draws three times this week to make sure my hcg levels are rising appropriately, and I will go in next Friday for another ultrasound.
I'm really believing it's fine though. Especially since I'm fairly certain that I conceived later than I originally thought I did, due to the fact that all the home tests were so barely, barely positive even at the point when (according to my period math) I thought they should have been obvious.
So if that were the case, of course there's no visible baby yet- it's like, the size of a grain of rice.
I was still a little bummed though that there was nothing definitive on that screen- no absolute proof of a little living baby in my tummy. But I have a good feeling. Hopefully that's my female intuition, and not just a residual sugar buzz from all my leftover stocking candy!
Seriously though- keep your fingers crossed for me!

A Matter of Time

Oh, I am so tired! But not so much physically tired- I am tired of Addy! Shh, don't tell anyone, I feel awful enough as it is without more guilt. But seriously, she is being so insane the last few days! You know how your kid can be perfectly well behaved, and of course you're happy but you're not exactly sitting around exclaiming every five minutes over how darn content they're being, just sitting there playing with blocks or whatever? You're more like, "Good, they're entertaining themselves in a nondestructive way- what can I go sneak off and do?" And granted this is not the most selfless of parental impulses; it's not exactly cherishing the moment or anything, but sometimes those mini breaks are what keep you sane, you know?
But on those days when you're not getting any mini breaks, and your kid has morphed into some whiny, cranky, other-person's-child kind of child? Well, those days you do notice and exclaim every five minutes about their remarkable behavior: the yelling in the car seat, the kicking in the highchair, the refusing to eat, and particularly the refusing to nap without a nice prenap scream fest. Every five minutes you're muttering to yourself, "What is the deal here? What do you want? Why are you randomly biting me?"
And you understand that perhaps that child has a giant molar coming in, or maybe she's just processing some post-holiday stress or something. Or maybe she's just suddenly sick and tired of being a short, incontinent person who gets around by slowly hopping on her knees and who cannot get the people around her to understand a darn thing she says. And also, she has a relatively limited repertoire of video entertainment options. (Maybe if I myself were forced to watch "Pretty Woman" every other day, I would get a little pissed too, no matter how much I started out loving it. Imagine: my caretaker would sit me down in my chair and talk excitedly while preparing the DVD player, and I would wait in thrilled anticipation- until I saw that it was the same stinking movie I'd watched three times already that week. "Not this crap again," I would think.)
All of this to say, I do understand that a one-year-old's threshold for frustration is pretty low, and that this is not really unreasonable given her situation. But I'm still feeling a bit under par myself, and it's just tough sometimes to maintain perspective when you're home all day with a toddler. You go off to the playroom with noble intentions of engaging your child's mind with some puzzles or books or whatever, but then your child explains (by unceremoniously dumping the puzzle to the ground) that she would prefer to remove each of the stuffed animals from their basket one by one and then in turn hand each of them to you, where you must kiss and hug them, and then hand them back. This is done with much pomp and circumstance, and when it is finished the process may be repeated as many times as Adelay deems necessary. And woe be unto you, silly mama, if, after the third time, you try to lie limply on the floor and feign sleep!
And then, when you stagger off to check the clock (nap time yet?!) you find that a whopping seven minutes have passed since last you checked. It's the same with crying. You lose all sense of time when you're hovering anxiously outside the nursery door, waiting to hear if the sharp screams are tapering off or at least losing their edge of hysteria so that you can stop feeling like an evil child abuser. It feels like the crying has gone on all night long when in fact it has been, oh, maybe ten minutes or so. Yet it colors and characterizes your entire evening's events- if someone asks you the next day what you did last night you say haggardly, "Oh, it took forever to get the baby to bed." That's what you remember.
What is it about kids that makes time such a funny, shape-shifting substance? When you're in those moments of inexplicable crying jags and monotonous games (Candy Land, anyone?) you feel the tick of each second like an eternity. But on the other hand- whoosh, there it went, a whole year, and your baby is a baby no more.

A Family Affair

Yesterday morning I awoke to the distinct feeling that someone was stirring around in my stomach with a hot poker. That was followed very shortly with a run to the bathroom, followed by about six subsequent runs to the bathroom in the next hour, all while I was trying to get ready to go to Michigan for Jim's family Christmas. I said to him at one point, while I sat at the table nibbling wanly on crackers, "Maybe I should stay home." Um, famous last words. I should have realized that if I was even voicing aloud the idea of missing out on opening presents, I must have been pretty darn sick, but foolishly I decided to tough it out and we all set off on our road trip.
About an hour into the trip, my thermos of tea just wasn't helping anymore. I was squirming around, looking desperately for any gas station or fast food place that looked remotely clean. Finally I gave up on that and told Jim to just pull over anywhere, which ended up being a fairly clean looking Amoco station. The bathroom turned out to be a different story, but I didn't really care anymore. As I was washing my hands, I saw that someone had scrawled across the condom dispenser, "Don't buy this gum, it tastes like rubber." Oh, the wit!
A half hour later, my misery had returned, and this time we pulled over at a rest stop, which was actually much cleaner than the gas station. (I should have titled this post, "The Comparable Conditions of Ohio Interstate Toilets.") As we pulled back onto the highway, I vaguely recall mumbling from my fetal position, "Kill me."
At last we got to Aunt Nancy's. As Jim was parking, I informed him that as soon as the car stopped I was leaping out and heading directly for a bathroom, and then a bed, and he was on his own with the presents and the food and the baby. I spend the next five hours curled up in the bedroom loft of Nancy's condo, alternately trying to block out the light and noise by making a pillow fort around my head, and rushing to the bathroom, dry heaving into a trashcan (there was apparently by this point nothing left in my stomach.)
The whole day was a complete blur, probably because I was a little lightheaded due to eating nothing save a couple of crackers all day. Jim came up periodically to check on me and offer sips of water (also to try and convince Adelay to take a nap, which alas did not happen until we were all preparing to leave. She then promptly fell asleep in the bed with me, rendering the arm underneath her head- mine- a useless stump of tingling nerve damage.) He also was kind enough to open my gifts- I could hear him downstairs offering high-pitched exclamations of "Isn't this so cute!?" on my behalf. Also, apparently during my quarantine upstairs, my sister in law was likewise hidden away in the downstairs bedroom, sleeping off her own ailments. I don't think either of us even saw any of the relatives we had driven two hours to visit.
By the time we left for home, Jim was complaining of a stomachache of his own. The car ride did nothing to improve matters, either- Adelay had slept a grand total of a half an hour the entire day, and was a bundle of hysteria and misery. She took her bottle at first and we naively anticipated that she would sleep on the way home. Will we never learn? About ten miles down the road, she decided that her car seat was a cruelly designed torture device, and began howling with rage and flinging her head against the seat.
She screamed so hard and so long (with our offerings of crackers and toys and lullaby Cd's disdainfully ignored) that she began to gag, so we finally pulled over, hoping a diaper change would fix things. We hoped in vain. After the diaper change (on the floor of a disgusting and changing-table-lacking gas station) she became immediately hysterical again upon sight of the dreaded car seat. Both Jim and I were at this point insanely tired and feeling sicker by the minute, so we gave up and I crawled into the backseat to hold Addy the rest of the way home. Shh, don't tell on us.
As soon as we got home, we put the deranged child to bed and then followed suit, at the late hour of eight pm, and promptly fell asleep. The rest of the night was another blur of various and sundry wakings to stumble to the bathroom and the medicine cabinet. In the end, none of us (even Addy) got out of bed until eleven o' clock this morning.
So what was this evil affliction? Stomach flu? Food poisoning? I have no clue, but I am tempted to go with flu, based on the fact that the horrible stomach cramps have also been accompanied by feverish chills and body aches. I just hope Addy doesn't get it. So far she seems okay.
So, suffice it to say, for me the holidays went out on kind of a sour note, and I am ready to bid them farewell. And just the idea of getting into the car makes me feel nauseous all over again, so I am planning on no more road trips for a long, long time.
Hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

A Tale of Two Addicts

Many choices in life are not exactly black and white (at least to those of us who dislike painting in broad strokes) and can be colored depending on how you start out wanting to feel about a particular decision to begin with- also known as bias. For instance, if the choice is one you yourself made, you obviously start out with a bias toward wanting it to seem correct, or at least acceptable.
All this is a roundabout way of getting to the real story of how I let Adelay eat quite a fair amount of red and green M and M's this morning. And how I have colored the story in my own mind to a version of a holiday cheer-filled mother wanting to let her child experience the magic and wonder of Christmas, rather than the bare facts, which are as follows:
A mom is simultaneously checking her email and throwing back handfuls of M and M's with reckless abandon when her innocent, sugar-free baby crawls up, intensely curious as to the source of that frantic crunching at the desk. The mom guiltily shoves the glass candy bowl away and then picks up the yelling child, trying fruitlessly to distract her with empty cups and remote controls. The child is having none of it, and is relentlessly squirmy in her pursuit of the candy dish. The mom, her emails only half read and her coffee undrunk, eventually "rethinks" (read: gives up on) her previous judgement that M and M's would constitute both a choking hazard and a massive sugar overload, and allows her daughter to enjoy her first real encounter with the world of Mars candy corporation.
It turns out M and M's are not a choking hazard, at least not for a kid as genetically predisposed to love chocolate as Adelay. And let me tell you something else: Those suckers do so melt in your hands, at least if your hands are small and grasping, and you are overheated due to your delirious frenzy of joy at this finally realized dream of colorful chocolate pellets.
So what do you think? Is fourteen months too young to be enjoying M and M's? What about lavishly frosted Christmas sugar cookies? 'Cause in the span of twenty-four hours I have allowed both without much of a fight.
I know, I know. Why don't I just throw her in a roomful of marshmallows and let her eat herself into a coma, right? I had such noble intentions of limiting sugar, but after that first slice of birthday cake, it was really downhill, and it's not Adelay's fault, either. I'm a big softie, that's the problem. It's just that she gets so happy, with her wide open bird mouth and little grunts of delight and "uh-uh-uh" noises if you forget to hand her more cookie. It's so cute and adorable and I selfishly want to hand her cookie bits all day long just to watch her enjoying them. Spooning rice cereal into her blank face just doesn't have the same entertainment value.
I really need to strengthen my resolve on this issue, though, because I truly don't want to have one of those kids that you have to bribe with a piece of candy to do anything at all short of breathe in and out. And there's the whole health issue, too, obviously. So, that's my early New Year's Resolution: Stop being a sugar pusher.
The first step, unfortunately, is going to involve eating less of it myself, darn it all. A prime example would be this morning: Addy wouldn't have even thought about the M and M's if she hadn't heard me smacking away with such obvious gusto. Grrr. Oh for the good old days, when people told children to "do as I say and not as I do."

A Second Generation Stuffed Bunny Lover

'Tis The Season

...For scary encounters with drunken relatives! I can't really go into it now, both because I am still a little shellshocked, and because one of said relatives might someday conceivably read this and then I'd really be in trouble. (There are some highlights- including a coed discussion about ways to avoid yeast infections!- that I really wish I could relay to you, though.) But let me just say that last night was memorable. In the way that only a hot, crowded room full of self-centered, fundamentally incompatible family members suffering from the dreaded diarrhea of the mouth can be!
That's all for today. Just needed a teensy little venting session. Whew, deep breath. Okay, I'm good now. Happy holidays, everyone!

Trying To Channel Pollyanna...

So yesterday I braved another blood draw in order to have my progesterone level tested. I was very anxious to see if the Clomid was doing its job- my only indications of its hormone-shifting presence in my body so far have been sharp pains in my side due to increased ovulation, and the irrational frustration which springs up when anything even vaguely annoying occurs (for instance, upon looking at the clock and recognizing the impending dinner hour, I will hurry to the kitchen, whereupon the failure of an entree and two side dishes to have magically hopped out of the cupboards and into the oven might cause me to well up with tears of dismay. Is it so much to ask, that dinner be ready without my having to actually make it?)
Anyways.... I called the doctor's office this morning as soon as they opened, and then waited on hold (listening to gentle recorded reminders that urinary incontinence is a common female problem, and nothing to be shy about!) while the nurses looked around to see if my results had come yet. They had, and eventually one of my favorite nurses, Vikki, returned to the phone to tell me with somewhat forced cheerfulness that my progesterone had gone up- two and a half points. Which is to say, not so much. It is still well below average, but she assured me that it was a good sign that it had improved somewhat. After listening to all her reminders about when to call and when to come in for another ovary check and all that, I hung up and sat down numbly. More bad news.
I was pretty surprised, to be honest. Call me a raving optimist, but I had really expected that with the Clomid, my test results would be wildly improved. I had in fact harbored the not-so-far-fetched hope that I would be pregnant after this first round of drugs. And it is still possible that I am, I suppose, but in a normal pregnancy, even at this very early point, the mother's progesterone level would hopefully be about twice what mine is now. So...
Well. It's still Christmas, even so, and it's time to buck up. I long to wallow in disappointment and self-pity, but there are relatives to go see (in about ten minutes, in fact) and cookies to bake and presents still to get. And I know it's not the end of the world, and I know it's just a setback, and I know I'm very young and there's years and years to grow our family and nothing to worry about. And also, shallowly, how can I be sad when the new EP Jimmy Eat World is playing in my ear, courtesy of the MP3 player my sympathetic husband let me unwrap this morning (a consolation prize, I guess) ?
So I'm going to go get ready to meet my sister for lunch, and I'm going to think about all the Christmas gifts I have already been given, the wrapped kind as well as the more intangible gifts of a good and full life. I'm going to count my blessings if it kills me!

The Jabbing Flu

I have heard that, in one of their many hilarious colloquialisms, the British refer to a flu shot as a "flu jab." Can't you just see them, strolling down the quaint cobbled sidewalk, doffing their woolen caps to acquaintances and politely inquiring, "Cheerio, old chap, had your flu jab this year?" It would certainly be a gentler reminder than the commercials they air here in the good old US of A, which are more along the lines of this: Pictures of cold, wide-eyed children clutching their teddies pan across the screen as a grim voice intones, "A flu epidemic unlike anything we've ever seen is heading our way. If you are between the ages of 0 and 99, you are considered by the Department of Health to be in the 'risk group,' and you are strongly encouraged to get a flu shot before you come into contact with anyone else in the 'risk group.'"
So like a good little citizen, I hurried myself and my daughter to our family physician before the impending flu epidemic could cross our threshold. As I rolled up my sleeve for my the nurse, I inquired, "Is this one of those vaccines that can actually give you a mild case of the virus it immunizes you against?" "Oh, no," Nurse Ratchet assured me as she gave me a hearty jab. "That almost never happens."
Two mornings later, I woke up with a throat that felt like a cat's scratching post and body aches as though I had just put myself through a major workout (I had not.) Hmm.
It was all downhill from there. I feel as though pins and needles are hidden in every piece of furniture I attempt to sit down on, and the only respite is the sweet sleep of NyQuil liquid capsules.
So anyways. I feel quite cheated. This is the first time I have ever been vigilant enough about my health to voluntarily submit to an extra shot, and now I have the stinking flu anyways. The government lies, the doctors lie, they all lie...
More later. Right now my head is spinning, and the aches and pains of the flu are jabbing me right through the temples!

A Shout Out, TRL Style

Well, I know this is overdue, Braden, but here is your very own shout out as requested. Don't you feel special? Here's to you for always listening, rarely judging, and for being one of the most sensible people I know (albeit sometimes to excess- don't forget to crack open that cherry book if you ever feel an attack of old-manness coming on!)
Kelly, this is also for you, my overanalytical one, for faithfully reading, for randomly showing up on my doorstep, and for never failing to refer to me in your comments as "Chuck." (I would sure hate for that nickname to ever die...)
And Lisa, my dear, this is for you, for giving me the best compliment of my life by saying that you check my blog daily. Thanks also for sharing your Clomid success stories. I was only half teasing when I said that you had given me a reason to go on!
Jennifer, here's to you, for posting a link to my blog so that other people (besides those that I shamelessly begged) have found their way here. Thanks also for being a wise and wonderful sister-in-law; specifically, thanks for trying to teach me that hospitality is making people feel comfortable in your home, not impressed by it! It is advise that I plan to staple to my dusting cloths if I ever get out of control again!
Erin, this is your shout out for making the most delicious chicken noodle soup I have ever tasted- it was rivaled only by the heavenly aroma of your homemade bread. People, the woman can cook.
Mom and Mom-In-Law, consider this your public acknowledgement for being the greatest grandmas ever (in particular, for never raising an eyebrow when your grandchild's parents return home from an event a little bit late, or, say, in a taxi!) I am being sincere when I say that I don't know if I could do it without you. I certainly wouldn't want to try.
Jim, here's for you: I wouldn't have wanted to have kids with anyone else, and there's no one else I'd rather see come through the door each night.
And to anyone else who ever drops by my blog, thank you for reading. You are my reminder that even though I may be alone in my house, there are a world of other people all around me, and we're all just trying to keep those balls in the air! :)

Untitled

I know it is the holidays, but the past few months have felt more like a season of sadness for me. First there was the miscarriage and the subsequent fertility issues, and then, at about the same time I lost the pregnancy, I also found out that my grandpa had terminal cancer. Last Saturday, about two months after his diagnosis, he passed away. And, to add to the usual awfulness of a death in the family, it happened literally about an hour before the wedding of a close friend of my husband's and mine (we couldn't get out of it since Jim was a groomsman and I was doing a reading at the ceremony, and we wouldn't have wanted to miss it even if we could have.)
I had been right in the middle of applying my makeup when I got the phone call, so after the initial falling apart and then pulling myself back together, I had to wash my face and redo all my handiwork before the car came for me. A minor mishap, obviously, but it added to the generally rushed and surreal feeling of the day- hastily applying eyeliner and lipstick is not what I usually do after sitting on the floor, going through a box of Kleenex.
The wedding was actually okay; I only teared up when they lit the memorial candles for the bride and groom's deceased loved ones. The ceremony was beautiful, and I was in the moment and enjoying it. Adrenaline, and genuine happiness for my friends, got me through that part. But the reception was a bit of a blur.
It was strange, being so happy for my friends and yet feeling so oddly distant from the whole celebratory mood of the reception. Adding to the isolated feeling was the fact that Jim was about a hundred yards away from me, sitting on a stage at the wedding party's table having a good time, and I was seated at the back of the room. I mean, I wasn't alone, I had friends around, but I particularly missed his presence beside me, you know? I felt a little adrift.
The fact that drinking would probably not help with the whole feeling of disconnect seems fairly obvious now, but I apparently did not see it then, because drink was what I did. I made nice to a big glass of wine at dinner, but didn't get to know the actual food all that well, if you see what I'm saying. I snubbed the cake entirely, choosing instead to celebrate the marriage of my friends by indulging in the blessed union of Morgan and Coke. If you know me at all, that last sentence will have revealed to you that I was pretty far gone. Ordinarily, I have a strict wine-only policy, and an even stricter don't-skip-dessert policy.
So anyways. No further details other than to say that I did hit the dance floor, a usually taboo activity for one as rythmically challenged as myself, but unfortunately I was insane enough by then to believe myself to be a particularly gifted dancing queen. I don't remember too much, but I have a feeling it wasn't pretty. Nor was the 36 hour hangover I enjoyed following the 2-hour-long-willing-myself-not-to-throw-up-in-public-episode. And none of it made my grandpa any less gone.
So I don't really know what to title this blog. "Another Reason Not To Self-Medicate With Alcohol" seems apt, but perhaps a bit wordy. "Why I Should Not Indulge In More Than One Cocktail" also fits, but sounds a bit like the title of a punitive essay one's teacher might assign them. And "Confessions: Part Three" is just getting a little redundant; this blog is, after all, a (hopefully) funny snapshot of my life, not a weekly confessional- or at least, it wasn't supposed to be! So my apologies, and my hopes that this will at least remind everyone again, just in case you need to hear it (but it's probably just me,) that alcohol only numbs pain temporarily, and then makes it worse. It's better just to face it.

The Dreaded "C" Word

So, I get this call from my doctor's office last week, to report on some blood work I had done to make sure I was all "bounced back" from the lost pregnancy, and they say, "You need to come in." And I thought, "Oh- I'm pregnant again already!" And then they said, "Yeah.... You have a really imbalanced hormone level and the doctor wants to get you started on Clomid." As in, an infertility drug. Hello, words I never in a million years imagined hearing!
So we go in, armed with pages of questions from our oh-so-scientific internet research, and the doctor tells us how with my low levels of progesterone he thinks it will be very difficult for me to get pregnant or stay pregnant on my own, and that this Clomid should help fix things. But what Jim and I are thinking is, Why are my levels so low in the first place? They were fine before. What happened? Is there some kind of bigger problem here? But the doctor just kind of brushed those concerns off and said that I should start this treatment. Then he added, after I pressed about side effects and stuff, that it was possible that the Clomid would actually cause my (brace yourself, here) cervical mucus to become "hostile" to sperm, effectively making it much harder to get pregnant, even with the hopefully balanced hormones. So I humbly asked, "And how would that be helpful in achieving pregnancy?" And he said, "Well, most of the time that doesn't happen. But if it does, then we'll do a procedure called artificial intrauterine insemination"- and yes, I will spare you the gory details of that particular process. Let's just say it sounds uncomfortable for all parties concerned!
So I kind of choked a little and said, "Um, artificial insemination? Are we really there yet? I have managed to get pregnant twice on my own without much trouble. Can we just maybe check and see if there's something causing my hormones to be messed up and fix that?" I'm a little skittish about drug taking (except for Percocet!), and I'm just kind of wary about the whole fertility treatment scene as a rule, so I wasn't really on board yet. But we had already taken up about a half hour of the doctor's time, and if you've ever been in an OB office you will realize that that's really pushing it, so we went ahead and took the Clomid prescription and headed out.
But I still wasn't feeling too confident or settled about the whole thing. So I did more online checking last night and found some information about how insulin resistance can cause all the rest of your hormone balances to be off as well, but that they will usually correct themselves once the insulin sensitivity is regained. I thought, "Hey, I'm a known sugar addict, and always have been. Surely it's at least possible that this is my problem, right?" So I called my family practicioner this morning and arranged to meet tomorrow with the OB who works in his office, to get some blood work ordered to find out if I have an insulin problem or not.
So it's something. I at least feel a little more confident that I will have looked into different options besides just meekly accepting the almighty doctor's diagnosis. I mean, yes, I want another baby in the next year. But I also want to be healthy, and I feel like the Clomid might just be a quick fix in order to get pregnant, without really getting to the root of whatever is causing this hormonal problem.
So, that's what's new with me- Oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving! Boy, that's a whole other entry right there, the Thanksgiving topic. We traveled to and from Michigan twice in the span of four days, so Adelay did a whole lot of car riding, but not too much car napping. Which is to say, she was not the most pleasant of backseat companions after an hour or two on the highway. Makes for quite the headache- you know, the pounding in the temples kind, the kind that is unmoved by Tylenol or caffeine or any other known headache remedies, and simply stays with you all day long, throughout the turkey and the numerous pastel jello salads and the hot crowded house full of yelling, wound up children? What's that- you've had that very headache yourself a time or two? Ah... Join me, won't you, in a toast to the holidays!

Life Is Now

I'm just saying that life is only in the days that make up a year, in the moments that make up a day. We have to live them as fully and well as we can- nothing else makes any sense. ~Catherine Newman
Oh dear, I am such a crybaby, but this quote makes my throat get tight every time I read it. It helps that I'm listening to a Dido song about fleeting time while reading it, but still. (For those of you who haven't figured it out already, I am an obsessive fan of Catherine's. She used to have a weekly journal at BabyCenter, which you can still access, and I often do, and she also now writes a weekly blog for Wondertime magazine. She has a genius for describing the exhausting minutiaea of life with children, the "frantic tedium," as she would call it, that is magically interspersed with moments of heartbreaking tenderness that make the frustration so, so worth it.)
Anyways, I just ran across this column of hers while wasting time on the Internet today, and I thought I would make it my early Christmas gift to all of you busy moms out there. Just a gentle reminder, as we approach the holiday season, that we not forget to unwrap the best gift of all, our children's hearts.
http://parentcenter.babycenter.com/general/preschooler/1463676.html

All Caught Up

Ah, life. So very daily, isn't it? Sometimes- only every now and then- I begin to think hard about all the tasks, great and small, which comprise my day-to-day routine, and I just sort of want to... Stop doing them. Because Lord knows, as soon as I do them, they're going to be undone in five minutes.
Example: Mommy unloads the dishwasher. Adelay stealthily crawls into the kitchen and yanks every single piece of Tupperware out of the cupboard as soon as Mommy turns her back. This happens- and this is just a rough estimation, here- about five bazillion times a day. Another example: Mommy mops the floor. Giant horse-dog Fonzie goes outside on the chain, manages to frolic in every single muddy patch in the entire backyard, then comes inside and, despite having his paws wiped obsessively by said Mommy, proceeds to leave footprints like dirty little connect-the-dots all over the house.
And it's not just the fingerprints and grime that appear the second you put your Windex down. It's not the laundry hampers that are mysteriously full again as soon as you congratulate yourself on getting that last load of clothes put away. It's not even the way the food you've just begun to unpack from the grocery bags starts disappearing down people's throats before it ever makes its way to the cupboard, or the way the baby's neck is smelling oddly like sour milk an hour after her bath.
It's bigger things too. You know, stuff that actually matters. Like how, just when the relief of having Addy well and healthy again was starting to sink in, she spiked a fever. Or how, just when you get some giant bill finally, finally paid off, Christmas is here yet again, and with it another joyous season of wracking up debt! And even the way that little grudges against your spouse, if they aren't spoken and dealt with right away, despite the inconvenience or discomfort of it, will build up until they overflow in one giant, destructive volcano of reckoning. It's always something, is what I'm saying. There's always something to which you must attend, something that's slipping or getting away from you.
So, what is my point here, besides of course shameless griping? It's this: don't you wish we could be rid of the whole necessity of staying "caught up" on things, just for a little while? Stop juggling all these balls? That we could freeze things for a little bit, maybe sit back, have a glass of wine, and just enjoy the fruits of our labor (i.e., money, healthy babies, happy marriages, and even clean bathrooms) without the constant awareness that we have to keep that fruit in the air or it's all going to come crashing down around us in a horrifying fruit salad explosion?
Oh well. Such is life, or something like that. It's all about maintenance. There can be no letting it go, aside from the occassional ignoring of the dishes in favor of a movie and my dear friend, the sofa. Because, as everyone knows, the planet will go spinning wildly out of control if we let go of our tight, controlling hold on that scrub brush, right?
Aha, you say. This whole entry is one giant rhetorical question. And you would be correct in saying it. Because what I am trying to remind myself of every day, every single moment I spend sighing over the tedious to-do list in my head, is this: it would all go on without me. Maybe the laundry wouldn't be folded, maybe dinner wouldn't be ready, maybe there would be mud just floor to ceiling, who knows... But the world would not end if I weren't here, cleaning it. No one would die of overexposure to dust.
So, sure, the big things (marriage, kids) it is fine to keep up with, no matter how exhausting. But that's a lot of balls in the air, what with money and health and jobs and church and school and the house. So if you've gotta drop one of them somewhere, I vote for chores! Hey, it's not like they're going anywhere.

The Amazing Expanding Heart

Is every mom as obsessed as I am with kissing their baby? Does that sound creepy? Sorry. It's just that there's this spot on Addy's neck, no matter how long it has been since her last bath, that always smells so irresistably yummy that I am forced to pepper her with kisses, whether she is inclined to be kissed or not (more often than not, it's the latter.)
Adelay has just never been a cuddler, if you know what I'm saying. Like there are some babies who have been giving generous kisses since they were six months old, but our baby... Well, we count ourselves lucky if she deigns to hold still while you drop a peck on her cheek rather than wriggling away as though you had the plague. And if you happen to get one of her kisses (which are a new, relatively infrequent phenomenon, and are usually bestowed with the expression of a fish lunging at you in slow motion,) well, you feel like you must be the most special and loveable person on the face of the earth to have merited such attention!
But the last couple days she has offered me a few genuine cuddles which have picked up my heart from the curb and sent it soaring: last night, for instance, as I was getting her ready for bed after a long day of cleaning, laundry, and grocery shopping, she began to get silly, and giggle hysterically as I pulled her jammies over her head. An all-out tickling session commenced, and there was giant, toothy smiles (oh adorable pearly baby teeth!) and shrieks of laughter and finally, the burying of oneself against Mama in blissful exhaustion. Is there anything more delicious than a plump, grinning baby, her belly lopping over her diaper, looking for all the world like the family's own personal Buddha? And they are really, these babies of ours: our own little spiritual gurus, helping to keep us on the path to serenity.
This morning, I got another surprise: Addy crawled up to me at the computer and put her arms up to be held. I assumed that as usual she wanted to examine all the numerous dangerous and unacceptable playthings which taunt her from the desk- my coffee, the remotes, the cords and stone coasters, and so forth. But she just wanted a cuddle! She leaned back into me, chattering happily, and laid against my chest for like five minutes, completely relaxed, just... Snuggling! With me! No yanking of earrings or constant wriggling and squirming or even any prying into my mouth like a sadistic dentist. Just snuggling!
Some days you just feel like your heart might explode from love, you know? Like it's almost pain, it's so much. You're just not sure if your heart could hold even one more drop of love. But it does, every day it stretches a little more to contain the wonder of our growing, changing children.

All About Barfing

Let me begin by saying this: partially digested cocoa puffs are, on a scale of 1 to 10 on a "things you would not mind seeing puked up" list, about a negative 20 for me personally, falling maybe right before tuna salad but right behind turkey and stuffing.
Let me also say that I in no way hold resentment against the poor litle girl in my Sunday School class who had the misfortune of having the stomach flu hit her right in the middle of song time (the fact that the song of the day involved jumping up and down repeatedly probably didn't help her out any.) I truly felt very sorry for her, as I held her hair back while she puked all over the bathroom- but I also felt just the teensiest bit sorry for myself as well, especially when the smell began to rise and I had to duck out of the room, ostensibly to get her a glass of water, but also to quell the retching reflex that I could feel beginning in my own throat.
Nor do I have any grudge against Adelay for randomly spewing her entire bottle of freshly drunk milk all over the couch, carpet, and my sweater several times this past week, I truly don't.
It's just that I am so not a vomit person. I realize this sounds a little obvious, in terms of descriptive statements- not many people would probably characterize themselves as being "into" vomit. But I think I am particularly, unusually not into vomit. When I had morning sickness with Adelay, I would literally press my lips together all day to keep from throwing up, even though I knew I would probably feel better if I just went ahead and let it all out, so to speak. But the actual process of letting it out is just so revulting to me that I would do anything to avoid it, short of maybe dying.
Even when I was little, I was not one of those kids who was always randomly barfing on road trips and ferris wheels and then magically back to normal. I would feel it coming on and be stricken with dread and panic and cry and whimper for like an hour before I finally did throw up, and then I would cry some more at the horror of it all. And to this day, on the very isolated incidents in my adult life when I have thrown up, I still feel like crying. I know, I know- grow up already. But I hate it!
I thought that maybe being a parent would help me outgrow this particular fear and loathing a little bit. Because kids throw up, right? This is a universal truth, like e = mc squared, and sooner or later, surely you build up a tolerance. Same principle with dirty diapers. But the truth is, I still haven't arrived at that magic point when I am just blase about vomit and poop and all the various disgusting forms they take. I'm not even close.
I remember once when Addy was about a month old that I think I literally took years off of my husband's life by screaming in panic for him to come quick to the baby's room. He came running, mentally reviewing the infant CPR tecniques and bracing himself for some unthinkable catastrophe, and found instead me, paralyzed with horror, in front of a changing table and wall completely splattered with baby poo.
I guess I have gotten a little braver since then, but just today when I went to get Addy up from her nap and was about knocked over by the scent of the dirty diaper awaiting me...? Well, that feeling of panic and dread still came welling up, same as ever. It's just that now I know I am capable of getting through it, you know- now I know that there is life on the other side of the diaper. And when those babies are all fresh and clean and snuggled up on your chest, well, there's just not many feelings that come close to that one.
But still... I am making a mental note never to feed my kids Cocoa Puffs.

Musings from My Sofa

1. How does that Barbie doll-looking Sandra Lee, the beautiful blond hostess of Food Network's "Semi-Homemade Cooking" show, stay so darn skinny? What is she doing with all that food? Is she just tossing all those delightful chicken-fried steaks and decadent cherry pies in the trash and then sustaining herself on a diet of Power Bars and Diet Coke?
2. On a related subject, what the heck is a "widget"? (I ask because today Sandra Lee was referring to her wonderful new "widget," which she was using to make something called a "lattice" on top of her cherry pie, of which she will doubtless take one teensy bite for the camera, then go make herself throw it up.)
3. What kind of person watches gourmet cooking shows while eating such culinary masterpieces as Nutter Butter cookies? (I might actually know the answer to this one quite well.) I mean, how can such a person live with herself?
4. These people who do cooking shows- do they actually cook like that every day? Do they just do nothing but plan menus and shop for groceries? Because they all have cookbooks with names like "365 Quick Easy Dinners" which involve ingredients like "a shoulder of pork" and "cooking sherry" and "three cloves of garlic," and let me just say that the chances of looking around my kitchen and finding all of those things on the same day are about the same as the chances of Sandra Lee appearing on my doorstep to cook dinner for me. (Now, if someone produced a recipe calling for "a stale bag of broken tortilla chips," "a nearly expired container of cottage cheese," and "four bottles of salad dressings, any variety, with roughly a half a tablespoon left in each," well honey, I'd be in business.)

In Praise of Tylenol

Well, the Dark Angel of Feverish Misery has once again visited our household (I must have forgotten to mark the door with lamb's blood again!) And once again, there has been the fussiness and poor appetite and high fevers (which always, inexplicably, burn hotter and fiercer throughout the midnight hours, causing fitful sleep and multiple nighttime wakings soothed only by yet another bottle and a cuddle on the couch while watching the always riveting programming of late-night PBS.)
But this time hasn't felt as awful, honestly. The fever came on very suddenly, but as soon as my lips touched that flushed little forehead and I realized my baby was sick, I began bracing myself for sleeplessness and fluid pushing and hourly temperature checks and all that so that I would not be caught unprepared. Also, there has been less sniffling and congestion this time, and more fever and body aches and lots of daytime sleeping.
So maybe that's why it's been easier, or maybe I'm just more prepared this time, but whatever the reason, I am calm and patient and have had no strong urges to burst into tears or pound my head against a brick wall or anything like that. I have, however, called the local hospital's hotline to ask at what point, exactly, a fever becomes dangerously high (answer: anything over 100 degrees for a small infant, anything over 105 degrees for a child over one.) Adelay's ear temp was reading 104 on Sunday night, so we kept Tylenol in her every four hours and checked the temperature vigilantly, and by morning it was down to 102. It has since crept back to 103, but is usually hanging out at a manageable 101.
Now, let me reiterate: I didn't freak out once, even when I felt compelled to call the hospital. I was still calm and controlled. Nor did I overly berate myself when the nurse on the phone informed me that we had been giving Addy only about half the dose of Tylenol that her weight called for, and that was probably why her fever had continued to go up. I just sighed with momentary guilt, said, "Live and learn," and upped the dosage the next time. What parenting evolution is taking place in me that I did not panic and have to be talked off of my unfit mother ledge?
I don't know; maybe it's just necessity- after a certain number of mistakes, perhaps one simply numbs themselves to the onslaught of guilt in order to survive and go forward. You just cannot get hysterical every time you slip up, or you'll be in your room, calming yourself down with a time-out, more often than your temper-tantrum throwing kid.
Anyhoo, just wanted to give a shout-out to Baby Tylenol, which really does work a happy magic on hot, cranky little babies (when administered in proper doses, of course.) And let me also say this about a cool bath to bring down fevers: it does work, temporarily, but when one's child begins to shiver in the cold, and then has a shudder run through her that shakes her legs uncontrollably... Well, one might in their vigilance completely panic, thinking that their child is having a fever-induced seizure, and further traumatize their baby by snatching her out of the bath to check that her eyes are not rolling back in her head. Just, you know, a hypothetical example of something to be aware of. Not that this has happened to me, because as I stated previously, I have been cool as a cucumber this entire time. Not a single freak out.

Another Link

Hey, no blog here today, just a link to another good one from Catherine Newman! So funny, and so true. http://wondertime.go.com/parent-to-parent/blogs/catherine-newman-blog/10232006.html

Designer Babies

Do we look on our children as accessories? This thought has crossed my mind many times when doing a double take at some of the babies in the mall (and- guilty as charged!- when I have dressed up my own daughter for the portraits which I wrote about recently.) I love hairbows and cute little outfits as much as (or more than) the next person, but there is definitely something creepy about the way some moms seem to tote around their little ones as though they were the finishing touch on their perfect suburban life. Even their baby gear- strollers, playpens, diaper bags, etc. Of course we want the safest and cleanest equipment in which to tote and transport our children and their stuff. But does it have to be the newest and coolest and most expensive? The kid's gonna get it gross in under three months anyways; would gently used hand-me-downs not be smarter?
And the same definitely goes for clothes and shoes and all that. Addy has a ton of cute clothes, I will admit, but the vast majority of them my mom found at fairly inexpensive prices on eBay. This knowledge has made me very happy every time I've had to put away an adorable but outgrown outfit that Adelay wore a grand total of two times. It would have been a lot more painful to say goodbye to that cute dress if it had cost thirty dollars rather than five or six, you know?
But all this grumbling about commercialism in the childrearing realm is actually about something much bigger and scarier than BabyGap. It's about the morality of gender selection, my new focus of obsessive research! Gender selection used to mean abortion of otherwise healthy fetuses who were found to be of the undesired gender. But now it can simply mean IVF methods which require no abortion, but allow you to select the gender of an embryo and then implant it. See, many people now (usually upper class- they're the only ones who can afford it) want to design their own perfect little families, built to specification, a boy first, then a girl, then done, for example. It sounds a little strange, I know, but I have to confess that, coming from a family of four girls, it's very scary for me to contemplate that same fate revisiting me in my adult life- or in other words, I really want a boy! It doesn't have the be the next child or anything, but at some point, it would really relieve me to have a son. Not because I think boys are better or more desirable or anything-far from it!- but because I know what can happen to a household when the testosterone and progesterone levels are severely unbalanced! I love all my sisters dearly, but I can certainly see the benefits of having a brother or two around.
So I did a bit of looking around to see if there's any way, beyond the expensive sperm sorting techniques and in-vitro fertilization, to just kind of up the odds a bit of having a boy. But as I read more, I began to feel a little weird about it, and then I found an article which put into very articulate words all that weirdness I was feeling. Basically, "Maybe this is wrong." (Here's the link: http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/17-1darnovsky.html) Certainly I don't think it's wrong to wish or hope for something, but to try to take matters into your own hands... It's a little strange, and beyond that, a little humanistic in the very worst sense. It's so untrusting, so fearful, to be too scared to leave it in God's hands. On the other hand, maybe you could say that about birth control, too, couldn't you? That it's untrusting, it's taking something natural into our own hands, etc.
I don't know what the answer is, I really don't. I've actually given it a lot of thought (the birth control thing) and I have arrived at no real conclusion. Because where does it stop? Couldn't you also say that taking a medication is wrong because God intended for you to have that disease? Or that wearing glasses or braces is wrong because maybe God meant for you to have those handicaps? Is cosmetic surgery wrong? Is wearing makeup wrong? Coloring your hair? At what point, exactly, does controlling or altering our physical bodies cross the line and become immoral?
I guess I have a problem specifically with the gender selection because it's not just altering a physical characteristic or solving a health problem for an already existing person as much as it is rejecting the person itself. You are choosing a boy and not a girl, or vice versa. One person over the other, even if just hypothetically. So I have decided that much as I may hope to one day have a son, I would just not feel right about taking measures to try to ensure that my next baby is a boy. I ultimately trust that God will send us exactly the right children for our family, and I wouldn't want any children but them!

Read This Blog

http://wondertime.go.com/parent-to-parent/blogs/catherine-newman-blog/10162006.html
Here is your mission: go read this article. (Actually, read everything written by Catherine Newman.) Have yourself a chuckle. Then realize that I could have written this word-for-word and it would have all been true except for the names of the kids. And also that she left out my own personal version of catastrophizing: hearing noises in the night and immediately assuming, not that the wind is whistling in the chimney or that our fifty-year-old house is experiencing normal shifting and settling, but that there is a psychopathic killer cutting through the chain lock on the backdoor and slipping in to murder us in our beds (all while our supposed guard dog snores away in the closet.)
Every night that I can't sleep, after about an hour of lying awake, flinching and sitting up at every sound, I begin to think, "I really need to see a shrink about this, I do. This is insane." And then in the morning everything is fine and I think, "Oh well, I just need to cut down on my caffeine intake and not eat such crazy snacks before bed. That's what is keeping me up at night." When the truth it, what is keeping me up is this very thing that Catherine describes in her latest blog: this constant certainty that the worst possible scenario, the one-in-a-million chance that it's actually going to happen to me kind of tragedy, is in fact happening.
So... any ideas on how to fix this? I just sort of pray myself to sleep, but to be honest it doesn't always soothe my fears that much. I still jump at every sound until finally I'm so physically exhausted that I sleep. Am I insane? (You can tell me if I am.) Or is it just a normal new mom thing to be paranoid and irrationally fearful after you have children?

Capturing the Moment (Or, New Ways to Torture Your Child!)

So here's a quickie for you. I know I already blogged like two days ago, but bear with me 'cause I have no life.
This is an ode to the photographer on duty at a certain portrait studio I took Addy to today (I won't tell you the name of the place, but it rhythmes with "Benny's." "KDBenney's," to be exact.) I have never had a bad experience at this place before; granted, of course, that could be due to the fact that my child is just naturally gorgeous and photogenic and endlessly cooperative. Or was anyways, when she was seven weeks old and not yet mobile enough to crawl away from the photographer, crying in terror.
Because that's what happened today! But I would have cried too, if I had had a cloyingly patronizing voice cooing out my name so loudly that the entire second floor of a department store could hear. Also, I probably wouldn't enjoy having a total stranger shove a ratty, germ laden bunny in my face at random intervals while bellowing, "Who's got her nose? Who's got her nose?"
Really, this woman was just not a baby person, if you get my drift. She was all business while we were hammering out the details of the package price (so grimly that you would have thought we were negotiating a prisoner exchange, in fact,) but when it came time to take the actual pictures, she suddenly morphed into this chirpy little derranged clown. Some people seem to operate under the delusion that children are not small people but are in fact some completely foreign species that responds positively to behaviors which we ourselves would find insulting and annoying. This lady, she was one of those people.
But of course, Addy pulled through for me and managed a few weak smiles, and then I got the heck out of there as fast as was possible while lugging an unhappy twenty-pound child, a diaper bag, and various and sundry toys brought along to amuse said child.
Anyway, the point of this rant is just to question why I feel portraits are some important rite of passage. Why do I need a new 8 by 10 every six months or so- am in some danger of forgetting what my own baby looked like at any given age? Are regular snapshots not enough; I need a shelf of dressed-up poses?
I don't know. It's a little superficial and shallow of me, I suppose, but I really do love how her professional pictures turn out, though- somehow I see her in a little different light when it's just her beautiful, cherubic face aglow against the black velvet backdrop. I spend so much time wiping applesauce and just plain old goop off those cheeks that I seem to forget sometimes how angelic they are. It's the old missing of the forest for the trees problem that I think even the best, most in-the-moment moms fall prey to at times.
So I guess those fancy, overpriced, phoney portraits do serve a purpose for me. No matter how burnt out I am on taking care of a baby who's been yelling and pooping and smearing up her high chair all day, I can walk by the portrait shelf and remember that somewhere in that grumpy monster baby is that same sweet, clean, smiling baby in the picture!

Retrospect

Well, the birthday bash is over- all the cake crumbs and wrapping paper scraps have been cleaned up, the new toys have been put away, and all the leftover ice cream and chip dip is slowly but surely finding its way to my thighs. You know, the usual party aftermath. And now my baby is a big girl. Sigh.
I can't believe it's been a year since we brought home that tiny, five pound bundle of pink blankets, laid her in the bassinette, and then stared at her and wondered what we were supposed to do next. Could I have guessed then how much of a little person she would become in just one year? How intimately familiar I would be with every aspect of her habits, whims, sleeping patterns, and bowel movements? Could I have comprehended the difference in the love one feels for a helpless newborn and the love you feel for a child you have watched growing more and more into herself , her very own personality, with each passing day? Could I have estimated the number of parenting mistakes I would make in the next year? No, no, no, and no.
Here is a brief summary of the things I have failed at:

-my breast milk didn't come in fully at first because Addy was early, and I was never diligent enough about pumping to get it to come in, so by six months I had weaned her completely- and I said I was going to breastfeed until she was a year old.
-I (gasp!) bought the store brand formula after a while, after wising up to the fact that the other brands are probably only more expensive so they can pay for their advertising.
-Along the same lines, I now buy the generic Wal-Mart diapers instead of Pampers. Not the Meijer brand, though. Those things are crap!
-I didn't puree organic vegetables to make my own baby food. I buy jars. I have NEVER pureed anything. There, I said it.
-I often put Adelay to bed with a bottle of milk, even though the doctor always lectures me about it.
-Adelay has four teeth already, and I have yet to buy the little Baby Orajel gum and tooth cleaner stuff.
-I once forgot to give her Baby Tylenol before I took her to get her vaccinations.
-I sometimes don't turn the baby monitor on because when she's restless in her sleep it wakes me up (she is only a wall away, so I can hear her if she actually cries, however.)
-I used to always dilute her juice with water to cut down on her sugar, and now I hardly ever remember to.
-I never buy the jars of peas or green beans because I tried them once and they make me want to vomit.
-She watches a Baby Einstein movie almost every day. Not only that, but while hanging out with her negligent parents in the evenings, she has seen her fair share of more, shall we say, mature viewing material. (The Godfather, anyone?)
-I once had to call Poison Control Center because I found her chewing on an ant trap- and I had been in the same room the whole time!

So, there it is, people. Am I a bad parent? A lazy, selfish one? I think the last one is probably true at least some of the time. There have been days when there was too much TV and playpen time and not enough mentally stimulating interaction, and there have been times when we've kept her out past her bedtime because of our own social agenda. There have been days when I've been more preoccupied with getting my house cleaned up than stopping to smell the roses with my baby. These are not things I'm proud of, but I am facing them, taking an honest look at my parenting thus far. I am striving every day to do better.
And I am hoping that always when parenting I will keep things in perspective- juice consumption and TV watching are not issues to stress about too much, although they certainly have their place. But in the grand scheme of childrearing, there are so many, many things to worry about that you have to pick a few big ones to be a diehard about and then just be flexible about the rest, or you'll drive yourself insane, I think. Big things for me will be honesty, learning healthy ways to express emotions, and just generally being a nice person (i.e., kind, helpful, polite, not slapping your mom in the face, that sort of thing.) And most importantly, of course, is to make sure my kids feel grounded and secure in the love of their parents, and that they have a relationship with God. Everything else is just kind of a bonus. If they eat their vegetables, great. If not, oh well. There's always vitamins.
So there's my parenting philosophy in a nutshell. We'll see how it has evolved by Adelay's next birthday! Terrible twos, here we come.
P.S. I am doing much better about the miscarriage, by the way- the doctor told me that he thinks an embryo may never have formed at all, but only placenta tissue, since we never saw a heartbeat. That thought- that I may not have actually lost a child at all, but only a chance at pregnancy- has comforted me a lot the last few days.

A Surreal Life

First I should apologize for not blogging in over two weeks (that's based on the somewhat far-fetched and egomaniacal assumption that anyone had noticed or cared, but I thought I should begin that way just in case.) The reasons for my absence from bloggerville are ones of joy and sadness both- so, life, basically. Another case of real life getting in the way of my obsessive reporting on it.
Now, I know that some people who read this blog are not intimately familiar with the details of my life, but most of you are, so I am going to go ahead and sum up my last few weeks as simply as possible: I was pregnant, and now I am not. And if you don't know the details of the story, then read on.
I have been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster lately, plummeting from the wild peaks of joy and disbelief to the depth of... well, resignation, I guess, and gratitude for what I have already. And in between those two points was a lot of sadness and fear that I just wasn't ready to talk about until now.
I was thrilled to be pregnant, but was very aware from the beginning of the fragility of my condition, and wasn't ready to announce it to just everybody yet. First there had been the words of caution from the doctor about my low hormone levels, and then had come the bad news that there was no heartbeat. A few days after that, I lost the baby and was then sent into surgery. Basically, my doctor was afraid I had had an ectopic pregnancy rather than a simple miscarriage, so for a while there things were pretty scary. But fortunately it was all over in a day, and by Saturday afternoon we knew that I was going to be fine and that there was no tubal pregnancy. It was all a little overwhelming, although in truth I had had the sense that there was something wrong from the beginning.
So that's where I've been lately. And even as I write this, I'm a little doped up on Percaset, which I probably don't need anymore, medically speaking, but it does take the edge off. There are some unpleasant side effects such as nausea, but it is well worth enduring them to get to take that blissed out trip to la-la land every four hours. When they first gave me the drugs, about an hour out of surgery when I was beginning to get really uncomfortable, I couldn't believe how suddenly euphoric I felt- euphoric and chatty! I couldn't stop telling everyone how much I loved them, how much their support meant to me, and how they shouldn't worry about me because I was just so grateful for my health and for the beautiful baby I already had. I repeated these thoughts about a dozen times to anyone who would listen.
So now, two days later, I really should wean off the prescription-strength painkillers and get back to life as usual, since I'm not really experiencing much pain anymore- now it's more of a depressed, back-to-the-ole'-grind kind of feeling, which I'm pretty sure Percaset is not FDA approved to treat. Now the fuss and the sympathy is over, the blur of condolences and flowers, and it's back to the drawing board, where we must wait for three months before we can even think about pregnancy again.
And it all feels like such a waste, and such a tragedy, even though I know it happens to almost every woman at some point. I can't help wondering why I was even allowed to get pregnant- why, if it wasn't God's will (as people keep reminding me) did it even happened at all? And why to me, when I am so young and in such good health? If there was anyone who should have had a problem-free pregnancy it was me, right? Am I being punished for something- was I too cavalier, too presumptious in thinking nothing could go wrong for us? Or was it a mistake to get pregnant again- did God know I wasn't ready to handle being the mother of two yet? These are horrible things to think, and beyond being horrible, are completely useless and unhelpful. And yet there they are, surprising me at random moments just when I think I'm actually getting over it.
I don't like admitting to this struggle, but I don't want to pretend that I'm totally fine about everything either, that I'm just gracefully accepting and submitting. I'm dealing with it, but it feels insane at the same time- we're in a big rush trying to get all our projects around the house finished in time for Addy's birthday party this weekend, and sometimes I'll stop in the middle of painting or whatever and think, "This is crazy. I just lost a baby. I should be sitting on the edge of the bathtub crying." It's so surreal that it can be over, just like that, and then life is back to normal. I was pregnant, and now I'm not. This is the fact, but it is much harder to comprehend emotionally than it is to explain medically.
I did take some time to grieve, I really did- I did the whole sitting on the edge of the tub crying thing. In fact I frightened my daughter by randomly bursting into tears while I was feeding her lunch, which in turn made her cry and made me totally lose it and flee to the bathroom to sob in private. But I have to confess that throwing myself into my projects and party planning has in some ways been just as cathartic as all the crying in the world. Or maybe that's just what my good friend denial is telling me...
But I guess you just do what you have to do to get through the day, right? I don't know if there's any normal way to feel or to deal with a miscarriage, because everyone's initial feelings about pregnancy are so different. To some women it's not real until they feel the baby move, or even until they hold it in their arms. To others, it's real the minute they see that positive sign on the home test. I'm pretty much in the latter category, but this time I had found out that I had very low progesterone levels (a sign of an increased chance for miscarriage) just a day after I found out I was pregnant. So even though we went ahead and told our families the news, there was a part of my heart that was holding back, afraid to get too excited for fear of the pain if something went wrong. Turns out that was a good instinct, but of course it didn't entirely protect me from the sinking in my heart when I learned that my baby was gone. No matter how much you try to prepare yourself, there's no softening that initial blow, I guess.
And maybe it never really goes away. I suppose you always remember the loss of a child, even very early; you always mentally remember that the number of children you have should be one more. I find myself wishing that I had known the gender, that I could have given it a name to remember it by. And simultaneously I am grateful that I lost it too early to know the sex- maybe it is better that way. Though of course, there is no good way.
The only good things I can say I have come away from this with are, one, a more profound gratitude for my beautiful, healthy baby girl, and two, a more humble and realistic perspective on any future pregnancies. I now know that I am not guaranteed perfect health just because I am young, and and I realize more than ever that each healthy baby born is a miraculous gift! Oh yeah, and the third thing I have come away with is a stronger marriage. My husband and I have really had to be there for each other, especially during that difficult day when the doctor was worried that my fallopian tube had ruptured and that I might have complications with further pregnancies. Both of us want a big family, so to hear this news on top of the loss of our baby was really hard to take in, but we had to be strong for each other, and I think we came out of the experience closer.
So.... that's what's been going on on with me lately. Sorry if that was too much information at all, but it felt good to write about it. If anyone has their own stories to share, please do. And to those of you who have been so supportive this past week, and who were praying for us, thank you!

Rained Out

It's weird how priorities change. I used to be a big makeup person, like, I wouldn't leave the house without it. I refused to even wear regular T-shirts with the round, high necklines because I thought they were baggy and unflattering. And I never wore a regular old ponytail, even on my casual hair days.
Well. How the mighty are fallen. Here I am, two years later, in my big 'ole T-shirt and baggy sweats, with my rain plastered hair in a tight ponytail, my face pale and colorless, and my prim schoolmarm glasses resting on my unpowdered nose. I don't have on so much as mascara. And here's the kicker: lots people saw me like this, and I only felt the tiniest bit self conscious!
Let me explain. Jim and I went to the Michigan game today- my first time at the Big House- and literally about ten minutes into the first quarter, it began pouring rain, the kind with big fat drops that startle you with their heaviness. I was not looking super anyways, since my contacts have been driving me crazy lately and I was already wearing the schoolmarm glasses. Plus my hair was in the ponytail, because after the baby, my number one priority is sleep, not getting up in time to style my hair. But I had on cute jeans, and was wearing some makeup. I was not wholly disgusting yet.
Then came the rain, splattering my glasses and sending my mascara in rivulets down my cheeks, which were already splotchy with the remains of my blush and concealer. My glasses got so soaked I had to take them off, so I got to climb the bleachers, blind as a bat, behind thousands of people as we made our way oh so slowly out of the stadium.
You will recall that I was wearing jeans. Well, now I was wearing wet jeans. Not just damp- my clothes were so soaked you would have thought I had been the volunteer at one of those dunking booths. Jim was in a similiar situation. So after the half hour it took to emerge from the stadium, we had to stand in line another half hour to get into the M Den and purchase entirely new outfits for each of us (because there was no way I was riding home with soaked denim plastered to my chubby thighs.) Nothing like enjoying only an eighth of the game, then getting to purchase lots of overpriced team logo apparrel that you don't really want!
Then came the treat of making the seemingly endless trek back to our car, still in our soaked clothes since the line for the restrooms at the stadium was miles long. I can sum up that walk in one word: chafing. Oh wait, three more words: wet tennis shoes.
Finally, about a hundred yards from our car, we found a private area behind a building, shrouded in tall shrubbery, where we could wriggle free of our disgusting drenched clothes and change into our fresh Michigan sweatpants and T-shirts. That was another fun experience, standing guard for each other as we stripped down in the middle of Ann Arbor. It felt like it took about five minutes to peel off those stupid jeans.
Anyways. It was not the fun outing I had anticipated. And I just felt so gross, you know? I probably looked like a drowned rat wearing spectacles. But I didn't really think about it that much. I just wanted to be dry and comfortable again- who cared about reapplying makeup or fixing my hopeless hair?
That may have been the first time in my life since I was sixteen years old that I was thinking about comfort over beauty while in public. A real milestone, in a way. Perhaps I have finally become an adult! Who knows, I may even venture to the grocery store without lipstick one of these days.

Facing Fears

"I think of the times I've felt — let's face the facts — superior because I was doing well. Because I adjusted so quickly when I had Anna two years ago. "This is easy! I don't know what people are complaining about," I remember gloating to a friend. I think of the times when I've judged other parents, or used their problems to make myself feel better. I am ashamed."
This I am quoting from an online journal, Anna, Clara, and Me, at parentcenter.com. (I hope I'm allowed to do that!) This quote is taken from the last entry, in which the author, Evonne, is discussing her slow descent into depression after the birth of her second daughter. She talks about how it took her by surprise, how it took a concerned call from her ob-gyn after her six-week post-partum checkup for her to even face the fact that her daily crying jags and reluctance to get out of bed in the morning might mean something wasn't quite right.
As I read her bravely honest confessional, I felt my worst and usually unspoken fear being yanked out into the harsh light of day. So, here it is: Sometimes I am really, really afraid of having another baby. I am afraid that I, too, will come undone when we take the plunge and go from being a young couple with a baby to being... a family. Sometimes I wonder if one more child will be what tips the scales and turns my dreamy, playing-house-come-to-life experience of motherhood into a full-blown nightmare. I worry that all my smug self-congratulating- "Yes, she's been sleeping through the night for months now!," "Oh, yes, she's always this easy!"-is going to come back and bite me the second time around. And sometimes, as I am happily contemplating visions of growing our family and watching Adelay with a younger sibling and all that... well, sometimes this creapy shadow of doubt begins to darken those visions, and I have to put them away.
What the shadow does, is it erases the happy visions of four shining faces around the dinner table and replaces it with two screaming, messy faces, two strained, exhausted faces, and spaghettios thrown all over the table. Or the shadow will smudge out my little image of the four of us singing songs in the car on our way to the park, and it will show instead me, by myself with two hot, cranky kids on our way to the grocery store. And when we arrive there, I am steering two carts, one with a twisting toddler in the front and a baby in the carseat in the back, and the other one filled with diapers and formula and the Ramaan noodles Jim and I will be eating in order to afford the diapers and formula.
Reading that aforementioned journal entry this morning... well, it brought to the front of my mind this demon of fear that tells me I am tempting fate to desire another child. I am facing it now, forcing myself to imagine (and not turn away from) the worst possible scenarios involving a nearly two-year-old and a small infant- the fifteen diaper changes a day, the toys and fingerprints and Cheerios all over the house that I won't have time to clean up because I'll be attached at the breast to a hungry newborn. The conflicting nap schedules and midnight feedings which will ensure that I never sleep more than three hours at a stretch. The ordeal of two carseats, two coats and hats, two bottles to pack before we can leave the house, which will pretty much guarantee that I never do leave the house except for some sort of out-of-diapers emergency. The way that the eager offers to babysit always seem to thin out more and more with each child you add to the equation.
So there it is, out in the open, my big ugly secret. I long for a large, happy family, but I in equal measure fear messiness and exhaustion and that constant, needy chorus of "Mom, mom, mom." Most of all, most particularly, I fear that expression of hollow, blank joylessness I so often see on the faces of those women in the grocery pushing their two carts. The way you can see in an instant how the million daily demands put on their time have slowly chipped away at their ability to take pleasure in their children. Where I, the mother of one, might see the delight in my child's face as she eats ice cream, these women, three kids later, would probably just be seeing one more mess to clean.
Maybe my "visions" are wildly exaggerated, but there they are, cruelly taunting me whenever I start feeling excited about maybe having another baby pretty soon. It's because I'm a control freak, of course, or maybe because I'm superstitious and think that by having had an easy go of it the first time around, I'm doomed to give birth to a demon seed the next. Or something like that.
But even as I say all this, baring to you the shameful part of me which puts high value on things like quiet and tidiness and and time to myself, I am well aware that these fears will not keep me from delving deeper into parenthood. We will have another child, I am sure, and then another, and another, God-willing. Because the only thing I fear more than a house full of Cheerio crumbs and chatter and toys underfoot is a house without those things, a house filled with only the loud silence of all that time to myself.