Daily Kvetch

It's a GIRL!

We had our 18 week ultrasound today.  I was a little nervous going in, as I usually am.  I fought off the dark thoughts of being told the baby didn't have kidneys or that my amniotic fluid was too low or my fibroids had grown into watermelons.  It is pretty easy for me to go to the negative so I stopped en route and got B and I some Starb*cks and put my happy face on.

The room they set me up in was hot and humid, the air conditioning had apparently broken.  The tech asked me if I wanted a "little fan" and I thought it might be one of those little personal fans that would blow on my face.  Instead she handed me a napkin and mimicked waving it in front of her face. 

We had the doctor this time for the whole thing and he was very chatty in that he narrated everything he was doing, which I liked.  This of course didn't stop me from interrupting and asking about things that would make him say "I am not there yet, I will tell you when I get there."  He was nice about it though, unlike if say B were the doctor and would just tell me to shut up and wait. :-)

He asked us if we wanted to know the sex and, unlike with LM, we decided to find out this time.  He focused in on the genitals and I, convinced so utterly it was another boy, saw what I thought was clearly a penis.  Nope, he informed me, it was a labia.  This baby is a girl. 

I have to say, I am shocked.  I was really convinced it was a boy based really on the fact that I wasn't so sick the first trimester and I wasn't sick the first trimester with LM but boy howdy was I sick with my T18 baby.

So, long story short, everything looks good and is right on target for an early January birth.

I called my mother from the parking lot and told her the news.  She loves LM more than anything but is through the moon at the thought of a grand daughter.  I think she is already out shopping for pink things.

B's job is to look for names.  In Jewish American tradition we use the initials of a deceased loved one.  LM was named for B's aunt Lydia who lived to her 90s.  Unfortunately, we just have vowels left.  A, E, and I to be exact.  All from my side.  Apparently we Jews love the vowel names!

If it had been a boy, we were debating between Ivan and Andreas.  Sadly, names I used to love were nixed by meeting people with the actual names who sort of sucked:  Ari, Avi, and Ian for example.

Do you have any names you used to love before you met people who had the actual names?

Also, suggest some girl names!  Remember - A, E, or I!

Potty Training

We have finally moved LM into underwear during the day in our big attempt to enforce potty training.  There have been mixed results.  Whereas he is 90% good at letting us know when he has to poop with enough time to get him to a potty, peeing is another matter.  It works best if we take him to the toilet every 2 hours or so, even when he insists he does not have to go.  However, there are times, like last night, when he just doesn't seem to know when he is going to pee until it is too late.

Witness:

He had just told me he had to go poop and we rushed upstairs where he did his business in the toilet happily and then pointed at the turds in the bowl and described to me their shape and color before flushing them down and wishing them bon voyage.  I cleaned him up but he rushed off to play with a toy he saw in the bathroom so he was bottomless when he came to stand over me with the toy.  It was then that I noticed I was being peed on.  He peed all over my lap and didn't seem to notice until I grabbed a towel and held it to him and said "You are peeing on Mommy!"  He was surprised and, as always, highly amused.

Sigh.

One thing that has helped is allowing him his choice of underwear.  Did he want Diego? Cars? Transformers?  batman?  Nope - princess themed.  So there we were in the girls section of Target with my holding up a packet of princess themed undies and one of Dora and asking him which he preferred.  As I hung the Dora packet back up I noticed the shocked expression of another mom shopping for underwear with her own daughter.

Oh well, I refuse to be one of those parents who make their kids feel bad about liking things that aren't gender stereotypical.  If my 3 year old  son wants to wear pink panties, then he can.  If he likes to pay with dolls, go for it.  I am sure the time will come when the gender stereotyping will be too much for him to ignore and he will pick spiderman undies to fit in even if he prefers princesses on his tushie.

Until then, as long as he stops peeing on me, he can wear whatever he wants. 

Le Update

Sorry I disappeared off the universe.  I bet you think I was busy reading Book 4 of the Twilight series but I actually polished it off in 2 days and unlike the other 3 books, will not be rereading any part of it.  If you look the book up in Am#z*n there seems to be as many reviewers who gave it 1 or 2 stars as there are 5 star reviewers.  I am in with the former.

So anyway, we went on vacation!  I have learned that long car trips, though economical (how much gas does the Prius need for 400 miles?  Not even one full tank o' gas - suck on that Hummer owners!) really suck when you have a certain child of mine with you.  Oh we stopped every 2.5 hours for bathroom/food/run around breaks but it didn't stop him from entertaining himself by shrieking loudly or throwing his shoes at us from the backseat.  We even had to threaten to pull over to the side of the highway to take a certain toy away from him...and then do it! 

We started the trip with 2 days in Philadelphia.  I had lived there for 2 years almost 12 years ago and had loved it.  We stayed at a nice hotel downtown and took public transportation and walked so much that I got massive blisters from forgetting that city walking demands sneakers. 

Of course, my experience of the city as a mom was vastly different as my young 20-something counterpart.  Instead of going to the restaurants and galleries and spots that I had nostalgic connections with, we spent half of the first day in the "Please Touch Museum" which is a paradise for the little kid set and nothing but misery for the parents who need more sleep and a big does of coffee.  Instead of sharing my special city with B, I lugged an overactive and overtired child and a cranky and overtired husband to places I thought might be good for LM. 

The highlight for me was some quality time with my good friend C who was my best friend when I lived there and is still a close friend.  We hadn't seen each other, and hardly talked, in almost 4 years.  She met us for lunch and then B took LM off to nap (which he refused) so she and I could catch up.  Part of the experience was she and I walked around the city streets talking, much like we did 12 years ago.  Even though we are both nearly 40 and lots has changed, our rapport did not and it honestly felt like we were transported through time all those years ago.

Then, not even 48 hours after we arrived in the city, we took off for the outskirts of Allentown to visit B's good college friends who got married and had 2 kids and had been there for years.  They had just moved into their house days before we arrived and insisted we still stay with them, seeing that we had them stay with us years ago a week after we moved into our house and were living out of boxes.  Pay back time!

This was the truly wonderful vacation part of the trip where we relaxed and enjoyed good company.  LM was so excited to be with their kids that he was hardly the clingy demanding son we knew.  In fact, whereas he is usually demanding my attention all the time, when I would go over to him he would get mad at me, thinking I was going to drag him away from the fun.  It made me glad that his sibling was on the way.  I can totally see the merit for him not being an only child.

See, wasn't that more positive thinking about the baby than you've seen from me?

We were sad to go and we wondered why we hadn't visited sooner and heck, we live on the same coast, why not plan to visit more frequently in the future?  The answer was in the car ride home.  Seven hours of driving with LM was hell on wheels - literally!  I guess it is time to check in and see how air fare rates are.  Sorry Prius!  Sorry Al Gore!

In other news, I finally met with my cardiologist this morning.  The original problem, my heart seeming to skip beats, had almost disappeared but over the past few weeks I had noticed my heart racing, mostly at night, for 3-5 seconds at a time.  The doctor looked at my holtor monitor results, asked me tons of questions, examined me, and then declared that he was not worried at all.  He told me the signs to look out for and is going to see me 2x more - once in 3 months and then again 3 months after the baby is born, just to be careful. 

Oh and finally, I need some book recommendations from you!  I read Stephenie Meyers's "adult" novel The Host while on vacation.  I loved it.  It is ironic to me that I have developed a taste for scifi and fantasy novels (with a touch o' romance) so late in life.  It wasn't so long ago, 10 or so years actually, when I found myself looking for the latest book for my book club and not finding it in the fiction section.  Everyone in the club got a turn to pick a book and when I asked the information desk if they had the book and found out it was in the (gulp!) science fiction section, I panicked.  I don't want to read science fiction!  What if someone sees me in that section!  Who the hell picked this book anyway?

Turns out it was a really good book too but after it ended, I put this off as an aberration and went back to my snooty fiction and nonfiction tastes.

Now here I am craving more of it.  I will definitely be trying His Dark Materials, recommended by both Melissa and Elizasmom, since I also liked the Golden Compass movie based on the first book.  However if anyone has a recommendation, especially if there is some sort of hot lovin' in it, well let me know and chalk it up to pregnancy hormones because I will never admit to you that as a teenager I used to steal my moms romance novels and flip through the pages until I found the sex scenes.  Nope, you can't pin that on me! (page 142, always good for heaving bosoms and "hard shafts").  Seriously, pregnancy hormones.  Now get me some recommendations and some mint chocolate chip ice cream, pronto!

Husband of the Year

Friday afternoon I was instant messaging with B when I mentioned that I was actually and stupidly pondering going to stand in line at midnight to get the new Stephenie Meyer Book, Breaking Dawn.  I can barely stay awake past 10pm so being out and about, let alone unsure of when I would arrive back home, was a real surprise to both of us.  He told me that I should do it and then I joked, "If only I knew a real night owl" because that is exactly what he is, hardly ever coming to bed before 1am no matter what the wakeup time might be.

So, long story short, B went in my place and secured me the book at the break of midnight.  Oh it is not without comedy, to be sure.  He had to go to the store at 6pm to get a wristband that would guarantee him a book and a space in line at midnight.  Not knowing anything about the book, other than it had stolen me for a week, he asked if there was anything he should know.  I told him to just tell the truth - sad pathetic pregnant wife at home who is obsessed with the book series.  But he wanted some more info so I told him that he might be asked which "team" he is on, based on what I had read on the fan sites.  There is "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob."  I told him to say Edward.

So it came to pass that as he waited at 6pm for his wristband he was asked by the woman at the counter which team he was on.  He repeated what I told him and the 12 year old girl standing in line behind him touched his arm to get his attention and said, "Good choice!" nodding her approval.

At 11:30pm the phone rang waking me up from my deep pregnant slumber. B was filling out a trivia questionnaire to win prizes and damn it, if he had to wait in line with 100+ teen aged girls to get me a book, we were going to win some swag!  So I had to give him answers to the questions and occasionally I could hear him conferring with young girls on the answers.  There was blatant cheating.

Anyway, I woke up to find him asleep next to me and downstairs there was my copy of the book and some Twilight themed Godiva chocolate.  He relayed that he bought some books for himself too and after securing my book, he went to a nearby bar and got some beers and bar food and read in the corner till after 1am before coming home.  The night, he mused, was for the young and he no longer fit in.

You might surmise that I owe B big time and it is true.  He is buying some very rare and expensive German board game as we speak.  But more so, he is truly a prince among men to do this for me.  I guess some pregnant wives send their husbands out in the middle of the night for burgers and ice cream.  I send him to hang around with teen aged girls for a teen fiction sequel.

The kicker of it all?  Book 4 is a HUGE disappointment.  I am halfway through it and instead of feeling compelled to keep reading like I did with the first 3 books, this one I am reading to see how it ends but otherwise, I am really not impressed with the route she took with the main characters for this book.

I guess it is good to end it this way so I can get my life back to normal.

Oh lest you think B should be sainted, his first comment after seeing my new hairdo (I got it highlighted and cut Saturday) was to wince and say "You look like a soccer mom."

PS.  The OBGYN said it was safe to get my hair colored in the 2nd trimester so I did it.  His advice, "Do it in your 2nd trimester but only do it once for the whole pregnancy."  I didn't mean to have it be so blond.  B-L-O-oh I don't know!

Oh Noes Pierce Brosnan

Last night I did something that I don't do too often - I went out after work with a girlfriend to see a movie and get some dinner.  It isn't that I have anything against socializing, it is just that a) I don't have a lot of female friends nearby here and b) going out during the week means I don't get to see my baby for a 24 hour period and that kind of sucks.

Anyway, we went to see a movie our husbands both openly mocked when the very subject was broached: Mamma Mia! See, you have to add the exclamation point to the title to promote how over the top this movie was.  Now I had seen the stage show in San Francisco years ago and had a fabulous time.  I love the music of Abba (seriously, half my gym playlist is Abba) and nothing screams chick flick like Colin Firth with a touch of Pierce Brosnan.  In addition, this particular friend, the wife of the couple that ditched our party and borrowed our tent, is one of the few girlfriends I have made in the area and tent borrowing during our party aside, I like her a lot.  We had been trying to get together for a while and this worked out.

I will not lie to you, the movie is....not good.  What is the opposite of good?  Crap?  I found I laughed a lot, but not out of enjoyment, more out of embarrassment for the actors and for us in the theater watching the terrible choreography of dozens of hunky 20 something year old boys in scuba flippers trying to dance like penguins.  I didn't actually think there was much worse than witnessing Pierce Brosnan sing his solos (I just hope I can enjoy the song SOS again after he massacred it).  Plus, can I ever get back to my Colin Firth Mr. Darcy fantasies after watching him in all sorts of colored 70s spandex and platform boots dance and sing and dare I say prance?

My mother, by the way, had called to rave about it the weekend before I had seen it. She and my dad found it "delightful" and she said many people stood up and cheered at the end.  In the theater when we saw it, people shuffled out laughing at Pierce Brosnan.  Overheard in the bathroom, "Didn't they hire him a voice coach?"

Anyway, aside from snarking at the theater I have been up to precious little that is blogworthy.  B and I have been trying desperately to resolve the mystery of the gnat infestation in our kitchen and now that we keep everything sparking clean, we have decreased the population to be sure, but still, there are some flying around when we eat and we don't know what is keeping them alive.  (I did discover one culprit may be the moldy coffee grounds in our coffee maker since I think the last time we actually brewed coffee in it there was snow on the ground).

I am still pregnant and things seem ok.  I have another ultrasound in 3 weeks - the big 19 week one.  We plan to find out the sex this time, unlike with LM where we chose to be surprised.

We are also going on vacation part of next week, some days in Philadelphia (where I used to live but haven't been for 10 years) and then a few hours away visiting old friends.  B and I are so excited to get away it is almost like we are planning for a week in Hawaii.

Oh and Book 4 of the Twilight series gets released at midnight tonight.  Part of me wants to show up for a midnight release party at a bookstore a 20 minute drive away whereas the almost 40 mother/pregnant part of me knows I can rarely stay awake past 10pm.  Maybe I will, maybe I won't!  You don't know!

Reprieve

Hi, I’m back from the long lost nose stuck firmly in book space I have inhabited for the past week.  During that time I read all 3 published and available books in the Twilight series cover to cover, reread the first book (Twilight) and my favorite parts of the other two.  I also worked at my job and took care of my son.  That is all I did.  I did not exercise once in the past week.  I did not do any housework other than cooking dinner and cleaning up the mess so we won’t get bugs (we have some gnats in the kitchen driving me insane).  Moreover, I did not watch any TV or pay a speck of attention to my charming husband who was very visibly chagrined.

 (To his credit, he only tried to pry the book from my hand and throw it out of the car window once)

 I have to admit, I had mixed feelings about being so taken and obsessed with this series.  On the one hand, it felt really good to be so interested in something. I can’t remember the last time I was so completely and utterly lost in the enjoyment of anything.  I don’t rewatch movies.

 I don’t remember just wanting to read and think about a story or a world that story created.  The only memory that comes close is years ago when I was a teenager and first read and watched the Thorn Birds book/mini series.  I also remember being in college and one summer discovering the books of Tom Robbins by accident.  I had found a copy of Jitterbug Perfume at a used book store and devoured it.  I was so excited to learn that this previously unknown to me author  had many other books published and that summer of my memory was a pleasant one filled with nonstop reading.  Of course, I was young and unfettered and just had to show up 30 hours a week at my coffee house job.

 (As an aside, I haven’t read anything he has published in the past 10 years after trying and failing to get through Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates).

 Book 4 is to be released this Saturday and although I cannot possibly make a Friday midnight book release party at a local bookstore, I do plan to do everything in my power to buy it as soon as possible.  I am, as they say, obsessed.

Anyway, now that I am coming out of my coma, I have to pay the price for my infatuation.  Our place is a holy mess, seriously not sure why there isn’t a FEMA trailer outside (sorry Chickenpig, it was a very good line!) and my body aches.  B took LM to a museum for 4 hours on Sunday so I could pay penance and clean.  I made a dent.  I also went to the gym.  I am using this time as a reprieve to get my life back in order before I loose another 2-3 days to Book 4.

I think after that is done, I will need to stop reading for a while lest I find another obsession.  Getting so caught up, although highly enjoyable, did seem to take its toll and I am not sure I can handle it.  I know for sure that B can’t!

The Book Widower

Throughout most of this summer I polished off the last 4 books of the Harry Potter series and felt a little sad and lost when I read the last page of the last book.  It had been a wonderful ride and I felt a little like I lost something important for the day or two after I finished.  Although I read most chances I could, I still functioned well putting my job, my son, my family, and my general well being first.  I just read when I could.

Last Friday, on my way home from work, I stopped by Target to get some supplies for a camping trip that ended up not really happening so much as anticipated (more on that later).  As I rushed through the aisles with my list of necessities in my head, I passed the book section and something caught my eye.  It was a book I heard a lot of good things about and also had been the recent focus of one of the entertainment magazines I am so found of.  It was Stephanie Meyer's Twilight.  I knew it was about a vampire in love with a human and that it was a cult book, sort of like the Potter series, in that there are rabid legions of fans out there.  I knew it was a series.  But other than that, I didn't know much but I put it in the cart and brought it home.

I opened the book to page one Sunday night after LM was in bed.  I finished it 24 hours later.  I have done nothing more than read in that time.  I am not kidding.  I barely slept, I brought it to work and read it in my cube while leaving the volume on my laptop on so I could be alerted to emails and instant messages, and the second I could get LM down, I sprang to my bed and finished it barely saying a word to my lovely husband who is referring to himself as the book widower.

Even worse?  There is a bookstore in the basement of the building I work in and I bought the next 2 books in the series yesterday and started Book 2 last night.  Book 4 is coming out in 10 days and I think I will be ready for it.  I skipped Krav Maga class this morning to read.

This is not good people.  I haven't been this obsessed with a series since lord knows when.  Even worse was when I couldn't find the books in the store and had to ask if they had any in stock, I was told they were in the "teen fiction" section.

How lame is that?  I am ignoring my job, my health, and my husband to read "teen fiction."

And now most likely ignoring my blog too.  Sorry folks, I got pages to turn!

Random Randomness

I don't think many things suck less than when your kid gives up naps for good, especially when they so desperately need the midday sleep.  LM has given up the nap ghost and we are all suffering for it.  On the weekends we enforce quiet time which he abides by but when we leave the house in the afternoon and drive to some park or place designed for him to play, he falls asleep in the car.  He has always been a good car sleeper but why oh why can't he just sleep at home?

On the days that he doesn't nap, if we don't get the bath, bed, books routine done by 8pm at the latest, he turns into crazy feral boy who literally bounces off the walls and screams his hysterical moon language.  I have had to seriously wrestle him to the ground in these instances and hold him down to get him dressed for bed.

Last night we got the process done by 7:30pm before the true craziness began in earnest but he still had requests at 8:30pm for more water and to report a bug in his room.  LM sees phantom bugs everywhere, he is obsessed.  There is nothing like having him tell his germ obsessed grandparents on the phone that there are "50 bugs on my bed!"  It is hard to explain to a 3 year old that his grandfather has OCD and a pacemaker so icksnay on the bugs-yay.  (I failed pig latin).

This is of course leading to some problems at school.  After a nice couple of weeks of reports of great days, we are back to being talked to about his behavior at naptime.  He won't lay quietly on his cot reading books but rather likes to run around the room, weaving through sleeping kids, yelling.  He is just so much like his father.

Speaking of, we were at a Bertuccis last weekend for dinner and B was entertaining LM with the roll if uncooked pizza dough they give the kids to play with.  He was making it into fake eyes, eye brows, nose, and beards that he would put over his own face.  It is a very family friendly restaurant with plenty of kids and babies around yet the other side of the booth was a dour older couple and the woman gave B a look that would shrivel the nutsack of any normal man.

Didn't she know who she was dealing with?  Her actions only feed B, my starved actor who hasn't been able to take the stage since he became a dad!  He began working on even more humorous dough creations that delighted the kids in another table near us and the more sour looks he got from the lady the more artistically creative and theatrical he got.  I am just glad she left before he started making dough penises.

In other news, I am continuing with Krav Maga.  With the precautions the teacher is taking plus my own work to take more water and heart slow down breaks, I think it is safe enough for now and my OBGYN agrees.  Plus I now know what to do if someone tries to put their hands around my neck and choke me, even if they have me against a wall.

The last class there was a new guy and he was thin but way out of shape.  He got whooped by an overweight and pregnant lady who may or may not have gloated. At least there were no dough penises involved.

I blame it on the bacon

LM was playing with some Knight toy figurines and making them talk to me. I pointed at one and asked what his name was.

LM:  Captain Money!!!!

Me:  Oh, and what is his name? (pointing to the other)

LM:  (lifting it up high in the air):  KIKEY!

Hmm, Captain Money and Kikey.  I don't know whether to laugh or call the anti-defamation league.

Change of Topic

I love getting personal mail that is not some bill or junk that fills up landfills but a letter or package from a person I know.  It doesn't happen that often so I cherish it when it does.  The other day I got an amazing package from Meghan who decided that a toddler and newborn triplets might be enough so she sent me plenty of her maternity clothes.  She is usually not so big but being pregnant with triplets catapulted her into my size range maternity clothing wise.  It was so awesome because I don't have any maternity clothes and this way, I can wear these and pass them along when I am done.  She is, as they say, the bomb.

You know what is also awesome?  Watching teenage couples fight. No, not a physical fight but more a lover's quarrel or as most teenagers, scream at each other  on the sidewalk.  I saw not one, but two such couples today.  They are just so amazingly dramatic.  The women scream and the hand gestures are all over the place and then you hear words like skank and slut because the fights always seem to be about the boy paying attention to another lady.  The guys always look dumb and confused but stand there and occasionally shout back which makes the girls even madder.  It is usually very entertaining for the onlooker.  I mean, it is so rare to see a more mature couple scream at each other for all to hear, unless there is a certain bar fly vibe to them, so clearly they will grow out of it.  One hopes.

And finally, rounding out the awesome.  We had our follow up appointment today with the social worker whom our pediatrician recommended to help us deal with discipline issues with LM.  Pretty much everything out of his mouth was "yes, that is a typical 3-4 year old behavior" and he said we were doing all the right things and gave us some more advice.  It is nice to know that a) nothing is overtly "wrong" with LM and b) we are doing the right things.

It is just too bad that LM decided to give up napping, especially when it is obvious he really needs a nap!