I Wanna Know... Do You Wanna Know?

Corey was born in 1993, a time when women were just starting to find out during pregnancy whether they were having a boy or a girl. Unless a woman needed amniocentesis or they had excellent insurance... or private funding, I suppose... it just wasn't that common. And for those who found out via an ultrasound, chances were high that the doctor was wrong. My first husband was in the military, so our insurance was pretty good. And if memory serves, we were told that we might be able to find out the baby's sex. I do recall very clearly wanting to wait for that grand announcement from the doctor. So whether we could or not, we did not find out Corey was male until he was born.


When I look back on those days, I see a different me. Back then I knew I wasn't grown up yet. I couldn't even formulate an opinion and keep it for long. Present a great opposing argument and count me on your side! Along with that was an easy acceptance of life as it came. I wasn't much of a planner (except for when it came to diapers... I was very concerned about not having money any time we needed them, so I insisted we start buying a pack a week somewhere around the five months mark... I clearly had no idea how long an infant wears newborn diapers). Mom isn't a planner either, so it probably comes from her. I was flow-er... I went with the flow. Not finding out fit in with this philosophy.


Fast forward to the end of 2007 and the me I have become. I am a woman who generally has very strong opinions... though I can be swayed, but you'd better bring your best arguments. Having spent 12 of the previous 14 years as a single mother, I can plan out my budget for the year in less than an hour (not that I do... but I have already mapped out the money through the middle of July). Planning is fun, exciting. I love being ready. I am not fond of unpleasant surprises (happy surprises? yay!). It all flows together, if you will, quite nicely.


Finding out the baby's sex was a no-brainer to me. Not only could we pick names, but we could decorate (this from the woman whose walls are still bare... egad!) and buy clothes. With Corey, I chose a ton of white onesies and a pastel blue and green Winnie-the-Pooh bedding set. It was cute and definitely served its purpose, but c'mon!, these days everything is either for a girl or for a boy, because everybody finds out.


Somebody forgot that Tom wasn't having his second baby, and he didn't want to know. I did not nag or stomp my feet to get my way... those tactics work with Tom right up to the point where he realizes he's been had and then he's pissed. It ruins everything, so I gave up that method six or seven years ago. Instead I cleverly countered his argument.


"Well it'll ruin the surprise."


"No it won't. The surprise happens when you find it out... it'll just happen sooner, that's all." (Said with my most innocent and convincing smile.) It seemed to be working, too.


Although my doc had an internal ultrasound that was used freely during the first few weeks, once the heartbeat could be heard, the ultrasound machine was nowhere to be found. So we planned for the "big" ultrasound that would be coming sometime in November. I wanted it as early as possible to, once again, verify that everything was okay. But we also wanted to have the best chance of finding out if we were having a boy or a girl, which probably meant doing it later. We mentioned our plans to Doc, who already thought we had our priorities mixed up because:

• I wouldn't get the amnio test done despite my advanced maternal age of 36 (I realize that my anecdotal information is nowhere near the statistical info, but knowing that 2/3 women whom I've known to have them had subsequently lost their babies is really enough for me... and what would it get us if there was something wrong? Five months of worry and stress, that's what. We couldn't go through with an abortion on the off-chance that we were one of the many "false positives" out there. Thanks, but no.)
• I wouldn't get the flu shot (the last time I'd had the flu was in 1991)
• We questioned every test and procedure
• We had already stated we weren't getting the newborn eye drops since I don't have gonorrhea or chlamydia and that's what they're protecting against
• We dared to ask if there was any medical reason to support getting a circumcision if we had a boy ("The only reason I need is that GOD. TOLD. ABRAHAM. 5000 years ago and that's good enough for me." "Uh, okay, but what about medical reasons?")

So he should not have been surprised that we wanted to find out the sex and we should not have been surprised to come up against resistance. He promptly educated us on the reasons not to find out.
"I've been delivering babies for over 40 years and I can always tell. You can always tell when the parents know. It changes things. It just does."
And then the final blow to any argument I could ever make:
"The joy. is. not. the. same."
Tom ate it up and my cause was lost.

Under Pressure

When I was pregnant with Corey my mom told me that people would be falling all over themselves to open doors and take packages out of my arms. It just wasn't true. The only person who ever did help me, came to my rescue when I was trying to go to the laundry room with a newborn placed on top of a pile of his dirty clothes. But she didn't stay to help, she just got me to the room and that was it. So I didn't expect much when I was pregnant with Mad. However, I have a job that can involve some pretty heavy lifting at times, and that had to be cut back. My doc recommended, but didn't insist on, a 10 pound limit. I mentioned that to Nance and my days of lifting anything were over.


My office consists of a group of women, all but three of whom are mothers and/or grandmothers,(oh, and one happy-to-be-the-lone-male guy). Women declared themselves surrogate grandmas. One person said it really was the *place of business* baby, not just mine. All of this was said in good humor and with love. I was extremely well cared for during my pregnancy.


In the beginning I was exceptionally concerned that I could lose the baby or that the baby might at that very moment not be doing well. So I was at the Ob/Gyn more frequently than the average mama bear in the beginning. It's sort of strange, because I'd taken exactly the opposite stance with Corey... I figured that if "this one took" after so many miscarriages, then it was meant to be and if not, I was done trying for a while. I didn't even rush off to the doctor as soon as I suspected I might be pregnant. Once I heard his heartbeat at the doctor's office, I don't recall ever worrying again that he would be anything other than perfect. And he wasn't.


But I put so much pressure on myself regarding having a healthy baby with Tom and avoiding anything that would cause heartbreak and disappointment for him and his parents, especially his mom. Not to mention that my own father had been plotting and scheming to convince somebody... anybody... to give him another grandchild. Nobody else put this pressure on me; it was an overactive congeniality gene or something. I just wanted to please them and let them be pleased for themselves. And since Mad wasn't planned, I especially wanted her to be as beautiful as Corey had been. Of course, she was, as evidenced by this, her best photo EVER:

But back then, I didn't know that this was the glorious girl who was waiting to meet us. So I fretted a bit. Okay, Nance would say a lot. But she got to "meet" Madelyn via ultrasound because I just had to confirm one last time that everything was okay before we told the fam, so I don't think she'd complain too much about it.
Pregnancy and I get on very well. I had raging morning sickness for the first and last three months of my pregnancy with Corey, but I still loved every minute of it (well, I didn't especially love puking my guts out in the mall shopping center between expensive cars every time I couldn't make it to McDonald's from the bus stop... and heck, making it there wasn't so great because it always seemed to be filled with moms and kids listening to my insides hit the bowl... but aside from that, it was pretty great).
With Mad I was nauseated most of the time for just over half the pregnancy. One time the nausea was so bad that I went into the bathroom absolutely sure that this was it. I couldn't bring myself to look at the toilet because I knew the sight of it would bring me down faster than anything. So I stood in front of the toilet, facing the wall and talking to myself about how I needed to tighten the towel bar and how I was not going to turn around. Thoughts of the watery bowl behind me kept trying to creep in, but I shot them down with, "what a lovely shade of lavender the wall is despite how shockingingly bright it'd seemed at first, lalala."
It worked. I didn't throw up once during my pregnancy.

History of the Madelyn Girl

I was reading some of the responses on The One Minute Writer today and it took me back to last year, when Madelyn was born. I had written most of it down... or typed it up... on the computer, but when we had that crash in January, everything was lost. So I'm going to put some of what I remember about my pregnancy and delivery and Mad's early days here. This first bit is from an article I submitted to DivineCaroline in November of 2007.

My husband and I have been together for nearly eight years and married for two. We’ve discussed having children together. Sometimes I felt the pull of the daughter who is “out there” waiting for me. Other times I knew for sure I didn’t want to go through that again. For my husband, I think he has worried about how good of a father he’d be “from the get-go.” I have been married once before and have a fourteen-year old son. Tom has been wonderful with my son, who is now our son.

For the better part of a year we had been discussing whether or not we wanted to have a child together. If we weren’t having a baby, then I wanted to get my tubes tied so I could go off the pill and live a less chemical life.

Sometime early this summer we both decided that not having a baby was the better decision for us. We’ve been working on some financial goals and enjoying the freedom that comes with having a teenager. I was in agreement with the decision, but I wasn’t ecstatic about it. I told Tom that I would take a little time to absorb the finality and then I’d make the appointment. However, our summer schedule was insane. Our son started an independent study program that meant I was essentially his teacher. When we weren’t working eight hours a day on schoolwork, we were off camping. We had so many trips scheduled, and not all with definite dates. So there wasn’t really time to have surgery. I planned to make the appointment for early October, when life would be back to normal and taking a few days off work wouldn’t be such a big deal.

I remember the time that I think the baby was conceived. In a small part of my mind, I thought about our decision ... but I had thought about it other times as well. This particular time, though, was so incredible and magical. It felt like making a baby.

A few weeks later when my period didn’t come on Sunday, as it had been for a few months, I wasn’t too worried. The original reason I got on the pill was to regulate my period, and even with that help, the only thing I could guarantee was the week that my period would start and stop ... not which day. When my period didn’t come on Wednesday ... typically the latest day ... I started to wonder. When nothing had happened by Sunday night and I was starting to feel “different,” I was concerned.

One night while Corey was away and Tom was playing tennis, I did a little online research to see if maybe I had cancer or something else that caused my missed period. It sounds crazy, and it probably is, to say that a major ailment could be better than being pregnant. But this is where I was at: Life was so good. Tom, Corey and I were settling well into married life. We had been incredibly happy. Getting pregnant without both sides consenting seems to me a lot like betrayal. I know I didn’t do it on purpose, but I think that the part of me that wanted to have a child with him feels guilty anyway. The thing I kept thinking was that this pregnancy could be the key to unlock the happiness of our marriage and send it away for good.

I stopped sleeping well. I couldn’t fall asleep and I couldn’t stay asleep. For the next couple of nights, I probably averaged two to three hours over the course of the night. Even though I’m off during summers, I couldn’t sleep late because I was now home schooling our son.

Relief came in the form of a camping trip with my brother and his family. Tom couldn’t join us, so Corey and I headed out to the Eastern Sierras without him. By the time Corey finished setting up the tent, I was so exhausted that I went to take a nap. This is not something I normally do on vacation, and especially not on camping trips. I slept for an hour and then when we all headed to bed later, I crashed right away. Part of me knew this was probably a bit of being pregnant and a lot of not having to face Tom with this news.

We stayed away for three nights. I slept so well for the first two, but the night before we went home, I could feel the tension welling up again. I couldn’t sleep to save my life. When I did sleep, I dreamt that his best friend tried to kiss me and that I was sort of letting him when Tom walked up. I don’t remember it as clearly now, but one of us said to the other, “We have a lot of things to talk about.”

When we got home that night, it was too beautiful outside and too stuffy inside, so I spent most of the evening on the grass in the yard. When Tom got home and joined me, I listened to the events of his past few days without us and told him a little about our time in the mountains. I told him about the dream and then, without my meaning to, but also without my being able to stop, I told him that I thought I was pregnant. Well, I told him that I was either pregnant or very sick and that I’d done research that pretty much negated the possibility of very sick.

I thought I saw him smile (or grimace) a little and I saw tears welling in his eyes. I didn’t have a clue as to what he was going through. I was as ready as I could be for, “You know I said no, so you can deal with it on your own.” (This really wouldn’t be like him.) To my complete relief, what he said was, “Well this is just another adventure for us, isn’t it?”

The next morning we went together to buy a pregnancy test. He waited for me to take it and made me promise not to look without him. Once it was confirmed, we went to the bookstore, where each of us got a pregnancy book. He has attended every appointment with me, and insisted after the first one that we change doctors because of the demeanor of that doctor and his staff. He gets to decide if we find out or not about the baby’s gender, and we both have to love the names we choose.

When it came to telling our families, he made me wait until his was out here in late September (we found out in August). In reality, this made perfect sense because I have a history of miscarriages prior to having Corey, and I was only a few weeks along. And telling all of our parents at the same time would be fairer. I’m glad we waited, but it was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in a few years.

Our son is thrilled to finally be getting the brother or sister he’s always wanted. My father almost knocked me down when he came to hug me after getting a copy of the first ultrasound photo. My mother, who is almost blind, just sat there perplexed as to why she was given a photo of an owl until she heard my mother-in-law gasp and saw her come running up to hug me. My father-in-law, who’s never been one to think women can’t do anything they want to, has suddenly become very concerned that I not go out of my way to do things for others, or otherwise over-exert myself.

And somehow, this news, this pregnancy, did unlock a key to the happiness in our marriage, but instead of letting it fly away, it has deepened and become more intense and exciting and fun. Life is good.

Ah-Ah-Ah-Allergies

Did you know that pregnancy offers significant protection against allergies? Well it can, and it did for me. Prior to getting knocked up with Mad, I'd been on various allergy meds for nearly 10 years. According to my allergist, I am significantly allergic to nearly every plant that grows in our area (well, our area when we lived down the hill anyway). Every animal, but cows, too (don't tell me not to have a cow!). I would have been an excellent candidate for shot therapy, except that I'd had an allergic reaction to a half dose of children's benadryl (that doctor's rescue medicine of choice). Ugh!

It took a couple of itchy, sneezy months for the "pregnancy protection" to kick in, but once it did I was like a new woman. I noticed that my allergies have gotten worse the less I nurse Madelyn. Since she doesn't nurse every day now, I feel like a character from The Simpsons.
Now that we have Maisy, my allergies are getting out of control. As I sit here, my eyes are red and irritated and I have what sounds like a smoker's cough. Much more of this and I'll be back on an inhaler, something I haven't had to deal with since taking the meds.
It was in this condition, coupled with areas of itchy skin I might add), that I blurted out to Tom in front of Corey, "I either need to get pregnant or get back on medication stat!"
I didn't see Corey's reaction, and I'm not going into Tom's exact response. I'll just say that my man makes me smile happy smiles.
Mad has brought many good and beautiful things into our lives, including new music. Sometime around her birth, I heard a story on NPR about Barenaked Ladies' new album, SnackTime. Their alphabet song was what sucked me in ("P is for pneumonic, pterodactyl and psychosis"). There are many excellent songs on the CD.
Another great one is "Allergies":

Work

Aside from a recent rant, I generally don't talk about work here. That being said, I have to get this out.

I work with high school students who have moderate- to severe developmental disabilities. They can stay in high school until they are 22; I've had this job for six years. Even though there isn't much time to "hang out" in any one class, I have gotten to know some of my students pretty well over the years.

My first year was more about not screwing up than really getting to know people, since I'd bumped a beloved woman out of the job. So when three students died that year, it was shocking, but not personal. Almost every year we have lost students to congenital illnesses, one to cancer (who, regardless of her level of disability, was eventually able to say "no more" to the treatments; she was over 18, unlike the boy in the news). We've had kids age out of foster care and have to leave school prematurely. The grandmother who cared for one of my favorite students ever (he had Grandma buy work boots so he do the jobs I brought to class... even though the jobs involved envelope stuffing and the like, not anything requiring steel toes and good traction) passed away, so he was taken in by an aunt and uncle. He now goes to school about 25 miles away.

Two years ago I even "lost" a student to runaway marriage. That was an experience, let me tell you.

Last year, no one died. All of the "losses" were simply due to aging out of the program.

This year, knock on wood, so far so good.

Except that things aren't all that good.

Today I learned that the heart of one girl is essentially giving out. The parents are "happy" that she will likely make it to graduation, since she was never meant to live this long. This girl isn't all that aware of her situation, which is a sort of comfort.

Another one of my students, I'll call him Raj, has a brain tumor "so deep they can't operate." The good news is that it's not untreatable, but the boy is understandably upset about the whole thing. He's one of my exceptional kids. Any set of tests and assessments would indicate that Raj is well within the mentally retarded range of functioning, but he gets things. A neighboring teacher mentioned that they'd just gotten the news and that Raj was crying earlier. Fortunately, he's surrounded by loving adults at school (which is not always the case, despite what most people think). Before I left his school this morning, I pulled him out of class briefly to tell him I'd heard, that I'd be pulling for him, that I love him and that everything will be okay. I gave him a hug.

One of the persnickety parts of working in education is the righteous outrage toward adults who physically overstep their bounds with students. So part of me was thinking, "You could lose your job for this." Displays of affection, no matter how innocent or well-meant can be misconstrued. I'm not seriously worried about it; the hug took about 1.5 seconds. Still, it did pop into my mind.

When I was talking with Raj, I acknowledged that he can't have surgery. Even though his eyes showed his emotions, his response was classic teenaged boy: "Yeah, but it's good, because then they'd have to shave my hair off." He ran his hand over his head as he said that, and I could feel his relief. I didn't chuckle, but it wasn't easy. We talked briefly about alternatives to surgery. He seemed to have a pretty good understanding of the basics and we didn't drag things out.

After leaving I wanted to call Nance and tell her, but it's hard to know when to say what to someone who's already dealing with so much medical drama. Yesterday Ken was re-admitted to the hospital, into ICU no less, for a rapid heartbeat. Hopefully he'll be home again soon. So I didn't call her. I'm telling you instead.

Tattle-Tale

I drive a lot for work, regardless of the commute. Driving that much helps a person put things into perspective. So I slowed down a bit and stopped getting involved in little tete-a-tetes with what my mother always called "the other crazy people out there" (as in, "it's not you I worry about, it's the other crazy people out there"... um... what does that make me?... oh).

Once I started slowing down, I noticed a new unattractive habit popping up. If someone's being a jerk on the road, I don't slam on my brakes in front of them (a brilliant tactic passed down to me from Mom). Even if I want to, I don't stay in front of them just to piss them off and I try very hard to avoid all visible hand gestures. Instead I imagine them getting pulled over by the police... for something completely unrelated to their "crimes" against me. Here's where I am extremely lame:

I picture myself pulling over with them and telling the cop, "You know what else they did?!?"

Still working on achieving adulthood over here.

Division of Labor

We have been phenomenally busy for the first time this school year (why yes, there are only five weeks left... this probably explains why we started this pay period with 40% of the budget untouched). Here are some stats:

• Our roster has 119 students
• We take jobs to 17 classes
  ... at 11 schools
  ... in three districts
  ... in seven cities.
• One class cannot work because the teacher sucks at paperwork and couldn't manage to get work permits made out for the entire year (yeah, the school would re-issue, but she doesn't follow up).
• One cannot work because the district is hassling and won't issue work permits at all (is that steam coming out of my ears?!?).
• One we won't take work to because he jacks everything up and doesn't currently have an aide we know well enough to trust with the jobs. The one he does have whom we know... well, she's very nice, but nice doesn't get the job done by the students.
• One class has done very well in the past, but recently... not so much. When I tried to address some specific problems with the teacher, she abruptly ended the call. Along with her chances for more work this school year.
• One class could get work, and is frequently offered work, but just as frequently turns it down. The last time he did it, I told him that was fine as long as he quit telling people from my office that he "doesn't get work projects"... as if he hasn't turned down the last eight jobs!
  
  As of 10:30 this morning, I had every single available class working. By the end of the day I was able to clear jobs from three classes, give missing items to two classes, pick up an Avon job, have it done and get it back to the employer the same day. We have one job spread over four classes. It's not a lot of pieces (3200), but the boxes are enormous. They take up too much room in the classes. I can fit about 350 pieces in my Escape at one time. So I had to go to a few classes several times, as well as to the employer's warehouse, which is about 17 miles away from anywhere. Not including my commute, I put 183 miles on my car today. That's insane!
  
  Normally Nance and I would be working together in separate vehicles, but she needed to take Ken to City of Hope for an extra check-up. If he passed, he could go home; if not, he would be re-admitted. I'll save the suspense and tell you he's happy to be home tonight.
  
  Tomorrow I have to work from home because there is no Mad-a-care. My niece is graduating from USC (ahem... with a double major and a couple of certificates, after only three years... apparently she never got the "not working up to potential" marks that I so often received, haha), so Grandma will be in L.A. for the day. Additionally, Nance won't be able to deal with any jobs tomorrow. We had two of our classes bake about 80 dozen cookies this week. They packaged them quite nicely, and Nance's task for the morrow is to take the rest of our allotment to the employers I couldn't get to today. It's a little thank you for the work that is saving our program. Add all that together, and I had to get as much done today as I could to alleviate the burden for Nance tomorrow.
  
  This evening Corey stayed at Mom's. I picked up Mad tonight because Tom had baseball practice (he usually brings her home). We had a brief hang-out with Grammy and Corey and then headed home.
  
  Mad is one of those "terrible twos" kind of girls. Tom mentioned it looked that way several months back and I denied it vociferously. But now she'll sit down and/or yell with or without tears shooting from her eyes if she doesn't get her way. She did it this morning when I had to push Pooh still in her hands under the carseat strap so I could get her out. Then, before a stress-filled, high speed day, I reacted by simply turning my head and ignoring her until she stopped (about 1.5 seconds).
  
  This evening it happened again before bathtime. The kids' bathroom has two doors, the "outside" one and the one that closes off the tub and toilet section from the sink. I was in the tub area, she was in the other. When she started screaming, I shut the door. Not all the way; she stopped screaming and opened it. When she started again, I canceled bathtime and scrubbed her appendages and pits with baby wipes. She's quite ticklish, so that was fun.
  
  Dad got home in time to put her to bed. This is "his job," as is bathtime. I'm generally the one who handles the morning stuff, which works well for us. Mad and I were quite relieved when Daddy walked through the door. If he hadn't, I'm quite sure that bedtime would have involved some rocking/walking, some squirming, a bit of fussing when I put her down. Instead she got to rock with Daddy in the big chair and when he saw that she needed to get some last energy out, he let her run around and play hide and seek with him (he was in her closet and she opened and shut the door) until she climbed into his lap for a last snuggle. Then she went down with hardly a peep.
  
  Sometimes it's my turn to be Supercool Mama, sometimes Tom is the Dad With All the Tricks. This is why we must have two parents in this home.

Oh Mama!

Wasn't sure what to expect for Mother's Day after the birthday debacle. Mom was coming over and I asked Tom Saturday afternoon if he had any thoughts about what we should have for dinner.

"Nope. You?"

"Hm-mm."

There was a long pause as I considered what I might make and he apparently bent over and pulled his head out of his... well, anyway...

"What would you like to have?"

"Hmm... probably something new."

And then we went to find something yummy.

The next morning I got up early with Mad and Maisy. When Tom got up a couple hours later, I headed back upstairs to nap.

Tom had made the bed! I took myself back downstairs to thank him and tell him it made me smile.

While I was napping, Tom and Madelyn went grocery shopping. They came home and Tom began the food prep for dinner. When Mom arrived, I was able to hang out with her. Mom, Corey and I played Scrabble.

Dinner was amazing. For dessert we had a fine vanilla ice cream with a bunch of fresh berries that Corey had cut up and sweetened with a bit of orange juice. Once Mad was down we played cards.

Corey seems to be relaxing into himself more and more. I see him smile more often and I hear him laughing. Sure, he's still a teen filled with the angst of place-finding, but he seems to be on a good path right now.

Tom, Corey and Madelyn each gave me cards. Madelyn's had her "signature" while Tom's and Corey's each had a lovely note. This was the do-over, and it was wonderful.

I hope you all had the same.

Not Ready. Ready? Not Ready? Ready.

I was reading a post over at Blite not whack about baby fever and having people ask if and when the next one's coming. It's something I can relate to pretty well. Pre-Madelyn, Tom and I went back and forth about whether we were really up for a baby together or not. He never really said that he was, and I didn't exactly either. What I did say was something along the lines of, "If you do, then I do because I don't want you to miss out on something as amazing as parenting from birth if that's what you want. If you don't want to, then I really don't because I don't want to be that woman who pressures the guy or gets pregnant on the sly."

I am that wishy-washy, however, that subtle suggestions or gentle questioning from friends (and yes, strangers) would get my mind headed down that path. There was a period of true baby fever once. I can't recall if it was before or after we were married, but it didn't stick.

Around this time two years ago, and after a lot of discussion and thought, Tom and I agreed that it wasn't about not wanting to have a baby together as much as not wanting to change our lives. Things were incredibly good between us... something akin to the beginning, but with the knowledge and love that came from making it through what was then the middle. I'm personally opposed to having babies after 40, so we talked about the possibility of adopting later should we change our minds. I don't care what's medically possible. I want to have a chance of being in my children's lives well into their adulthoods.

***No, I don't judge too harshly those who do have babies later. I feel for their kids, but I also know that I could be hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow.

***Please don't let me get hit by a bus tomorrow!

Anyway, life was good. It was a good decision for both of us. I was a little sad at the thought of never having that experience again, but not anywhere near enough to try to plead a case I didn't feel strongly about. Tom was brave enough to say what we were both thinking. My response was that I'd schedule an appointment to get my tubes tied. I figured that early fall would be best because our schedules would settle down by then. A few weeks later, I was pregnant with Madelyn.

Despite early qualms about how Tom would take the news, I knew almost instantaneously that I'd be having a baby. I'd had a sense for many years that I had a daughter "out there" waiting for me. When she was born... heck, once I felt relatively sure that she was really on the way... life took on a new completeness. I have a son and a daughter and a husband to be the father they need.

Sometime extremely early on, I was contemplating the future of our family. Tom was, too, but in a different way. Possibly even the week of our first prenatal appointment I nearly blurted out, "As soon as this baby's born and assuming he or she is healthy, I'll get my tubes tied." It occurred to me that I might want to choose my words more carefully. The really good news is that I thought about it before I said anything.

I have a tendency to be much more blunt than Tom (ahem... or a lot of people) prefers. So when the thought arises that I could be more smooth, I usually try to heed it. Good thing I did, too, because here's how the conversation went down:

"So... after this baby's born... *hand wringing and searching the ceiling for the right words*... is this... this is it, right?"

"Ahem... well... I was thinking that we should... unless we're having twins, which would be ideal..."

*internally* "WHAT?!?"

"... we should probably have another one. Corey's so much older than this one that it's like having two only children. I don't think it's fair... I think it would be better for them... not... to be only children."

*GULP*

Since then I have constantly pondered the next child. We call him/her the PFC... potential future child. We spoke about said child while on our way to the hospital to have Madelyn. Same thing a couple hours after she was born. On our anniversary last year Tom and I shook on it. He's got a very convincing logic at times, and the gleam in his eyes... well, I'd defy any of you to deny him his request if he looked at you that way.

So we were in agreement. Sometime this summer we would try to conceive another baby. Even though Mad was a total surprise, the timing of her arrival could hardly have been more perfect. After all my maternity leave and some of the FMLA pay was exhausted, I went on summer break.

Last month I thought I was pregnant. The timing wasn't right for me. I wanted to stick to our plan. As is the case with just about any important decision, I went back and forth. Ultimately, when I got my period, I was relieved. So relieved in fact, that I merely told Tom how I felt about it and didn't even ask him. I realized it later, but by then it would have just stressed my oversight, so I never asked him.

All signs point to Tom wanting to have another baby, sooner rather than later. I suppose I will do this dance of indecision until we really are expecting our third child. In the meantime, having a puppy and a new house has meant that no one is looking to us to bear the next baby. It does help that two of my coworkers have had grandbabies in the past two months. The baby fix is in for now.

Bad Mommy

I just awoke from a nap because Maisy was whining to go out. As the fog cleared, I remembered that Madelyn had been in bed with me, nursing. However, she was nowhere to be found. So I got up and checked the upstairs baby gate: closed and locked. All of the doors in the hall were shut, so I raced to each one and opened it to see if she was inside. I started with the priority rooms: the bathroom and Corey's (with the 75 gallon tank). She was not in those rooms.

Laundry room? Nope.

Hall closet? Uh, no, but thanks for checking.

Her bedroom? No.

Wait. What's that in her crib? *sigh* It's a sleeping Madelyn, safe where I'd left her two hours ago before I went to lay down.

Sure she'd been nursing in my bed today... about six hours ago! And how I thought she could get off our bed without my noticing escapes me. The top of the mattress comes to my waist and I'm 5'7".

I would have gladly gone straight back to napping once my heart stopped pounding, but a plaintive moan from the downstairs reminded me that I was still needed.

Kids, Swine Flu and My Hands, Oh My

Corey is continuing his streak of helpfulness and minimally abrasive attitudes. I'm beginning to hope that it's not about a honeymoon, but that perhaps we've hit the right combination of various therapies and living in a home where he feels safe. (I may be a little defensive here, but we were completely safe in our previous home. The only problems he encountered were during those middle-of-the-night jaunts.) He continues to be an amazing big brother to Madelyn, as well as a fine junior pet owner for Maisy. We've had her for a week and he's already given her two baths... on top of the one that the dairy kids gave her before we brought her home.

Mad, on the other hand, is where our eyes must constantly be these days. People hear that her birthday was on Easter and they ask if she's walking yet. Uh... yeah... she started walking at nine months and three days. At this point she no longer has much of that baby way of walking. She's beginning to master the heel-toe, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other method. We have gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. She refuses to crawl up them. She will either be carried or you will hold her hands and let her use your thighs as a head rest as she marches one foot per stair on up, thank you very much; the thigh-as-headrest thing is because she has to lean back at about a 45 degree angle to accomplish one foot per stair. She doesn't mind. It gives her a chance to look up and smile at you. Grandma Margaret suggested that we teach her to go down the stairs backward.

Yeah, right.

Today, for the first time, one of us left the bottom gate open. Each of us thinks we are the culprit. It was a little hectic because we were having my brother's family and our mom over for dinner. I was playing with Maisy when I heard this sound from Madelyn that was not a word, but the verbalization of "Oh, crap. Help?" I looked up to see her trying to walk down from the second step... in the same manner that she goes up. One leg was perpendicular to the ground and then she went over. I was on my way before she landed, but not quite close enough to save her.

Mad seems to like her injuries clustered over a single day, with long respites in between. Today, in addition to the stair scare (she was fine), she experienced these things:

• Got tangled up with Maisy on the back patio; fell over backward and bonked her head... hard.
• Purposely put a foot into Maisy's water dish and then slipped trying to make her get-away... twice.
• Stepped on a book and had it slide so far that she fell down sort of in the splits.
• Fell while carrying said book, thereby jamming it into her neck.

Aside from the head bonk on the concrete, everything was relatively minor. But by the time that last one occurred, Corey was clearly distressed and said that this wasn't a good day anymore and he wanted it to be over.


Further indignities Madelyn suffered included not being allowed to go outside while Maisy was romping around out there.

• Sampling a dirt clod and discovering that it's not as great as it looks.
• Being allowed out, but only while carried because she was in sock feet.
• Being forced to come inside from her wagon ride because she was strapped into the wagon and that's where her brother and Cousin Sarah pulled it.
• Sampling a bathtub crayon and learning that it, too, does not taste as good as it looks.

Fortunately the night ended with a few high notes, including having two bites of lemon lavender cake that Auntie Gina made and having the whole family around for story time. They applauded for her when it was over. And of course, there's always the mostly popular (tonight very well-enjoyed) quiet time with Daddy while she settles down for sleep.

Our old apartment was tiny, crowded with our belongings and cluttered. One of my friends who helped us move said sympathetically, "I've heard that larger places are easier to keep clean." I figured she was lying and wondering how long it would be before we trashed the next place. Turns out, it really has been pretty easy. Sure, we have a ton of unpacked boxes in the garage. A lot of them truly are kitchen items. Most of the cupboards are bare because I still haven't gotten back on the painting, and who wants to set up the kitchen twice?

***Niece Sarah loves the color, by the way. Yeah, she's cool. Super cool, in fact. She attends a performing arts magnet school for theater arts. They are performing Rent next months. This video was taken four days after the parts were cast. I know it's mature subject matter, but she can handle it; she's grown up with my brother. Sarah is the one in the dark jacket. The video quality is poor, so she mostly doesn't seem to have a face and then appears to have a moon face. In fact, she's quite lovely.

My point about our old place was that our new place didn't take that long to get ready today, aside from food prep and laundry, most of the tidying has been maintained. One of the bonuses about having guests (even Bro's family, for whose visits I feel almost no stress) is that I can convince Tom to get something else done before they arrive. Today it was the kids' shower curtain rod. Of course it's only important to Corey, since Mad is a bath girl. Poor guy hasn't had a bona fide shower since we moved in. Thankfully he doesn't mind baths. Tom had a lot of trouble with the shower curtain rod. It's a curved one, and anchoring it well took three or four trips to Home Depot. Corey could take a shower at home tonight, except that he went home with Grammy so he can go to church tomorrow (ahem... and play computer games at her place, let's be honest, shall we?).

While Tom did the shower curtain bar, I prepped the marinade for the chicken. It was a new recipe for Beer Lime Grilled Chicken that I'd gotten from an email yesterday.

You know how the news is all about washing our hands in warm water with lots of soap for at least 20 seconds because of Swine Flu? And how moms of babies may wash their hands more than other people because of diaper changes, etc.? And people who have a dog with round worm may be especially vigilant about soap and 20 seconds? And how no matter how bold the lettering on the pump declares that it's moisturizing, in fact it will dry your hands faster than anything else out there?

Imagine sticking those hands into marinade that included the juice from about six limes.

Yeah, that hurt! Still hurts.

I took part of a CPR/First Aid class yesterday (it was a crap class, so I left). The instructor did make one good point about why we should all use gloves when dealing with another person's bodily fluids: You probably aren't aware of every tiny little cut here or there. I guess she was right, but I can identify most of them now! My goal between now and Monday night's sign class is to constantly moisturize so that the raw meat look goes away, or at least starts to get better.

Maisy Day

As it turned out, a young man said that he would take the boy puppy, so we just got the girl. Do I sound disappointed? I'm not. The relief that washed over me as I heard we were only getting one made it pretty clear where I stood. First off, the boy turned out to be quite a handful. He'd already led the others out of the backyard at the dairy their second day there. Said escape required pulling down lattice! Secondly, it would have been cool in a couple of months to have both, but the initial expense of one is more than enough for us right now.


Crate = Free (thank you Nance!)
Puppy package of shots + an exam by the vet = $162
Lab tests on poop for parasites = $42
Assorted toys, food, bowls and a bed = $175
Leash and collar = $20
Return them because small dogs have delicate bones, collars are no good = -$20
Buy a leash and harness even though you've now heard that collars are just fine = $22
More toys (what, you didn't get squeaky toys? no soft plushy things for the dog so she doesn't snag Mad's?) and some snacks and shampoo because somehow you forgot them = $25
"Extra Tall" Puppy playpen (that actually shows a huge dog sitting obediently inside) = $86
Take it back because right after Tom said, "I give her three weeks" she jumped out = -$86
Largest wire kennel available because you want her to be able to play during the day = $132


***And we're wondering why the 30K tune up might have to be done in bits and pieces each week?
We all wanted to name her, of course. I suggested that we each come up with something and then vote.

Corey wanted to name her Bebeh, but after he hung out with Destiny at our friends' son's birthday last weekend and she suggested Ellie, that was what he entered.
Tom chose Teebeedee (as in To Be Determined).
I made several suggestions, but when it was voting time I submitted Maisy.

She is such a Maisy.

Corey loves her, but not more than his sister. When Maisy's getting too frisky with or around Madelyn, it's clear whose side he's on. Still, he's been just as likely as any of us to be the one taking her out at night or first thing in the morning.
Madelyn is used to little dogs since she spends her days with the ones at my dad's place. However, during much of the times when Mad's awake, they are either in their kennel or out back. Mad loves Maisy in her crate. She is intrigued by Maisy in the kennel. Heck, she's intrigued by the kennel. It's tall enough that Madelyn can walk right into it without ducking. Mad is less thrilled about the tug-of-war she and Maisy had over the box of Kix that Madelyn likes to get from the cupboard when she needs a snack. Same is true about her purple bunny. Toe licking during bottle time is gauche, according to Mad.
Tom is clearly happy to finally have the dog we've talked about for the better part of five years. He and Maisy have already slept together (no, not like that, sicko!), which is the true sign of love between man and dog, I think. This was their first night together:And me? Well how could I not love her? She's sweet, smart, easily getting the whole potty training thing, fun to play with and cuddle, and she makes sure I'm up early enough to get to work on time. Yeah, that last part is good, but I was just getting to enjoy the fact that Mad's been sleeping until 6:15 each morning.
I took Maisy to get her shots the other day. She does have round worms, so that's a bummer, but apparently easily treated. Aside from that, she's in great shape. The general consensus among the puppies' vets is that they're around three months old.
This evening I tried to put her harness on for the first time. I thought she and I could go across the street to get the mail. It reminded me of the first time I tried to put Corey into a high chair. Straps were clearly in the wrong place and he knew it as well as I, but I couldn't figure out what to do to fix it. My next step is to Ask Jeeves.
Oh, here's a little shout-out to some people who don't even know this blog exists: To Andrew and Olivia, niece and nephew of the woman who found the puppies on her property, thank you, thank you, thank you for giving Maisy a bath and flea treatment before we got her. I cannot express how much easier that made our lives.

Overheard

... at lunch yesterday:

Daughter: "How old are you, Mom?"

Mom: "Seventy-nine."

Daughter: "Does 79 sound as bad as 80?"

Mom: "No."

Dad: "I hated 79, but not 80. Seventy-nine is so old."

Daughter: "And 80?"

Dad: "Eighty is mature."

No wonder I still get acne.

About My Boy

We haven't had any really big problems with Corey since moving here. Moreover, he has been much more helpful around here than he tended to be at the apartment. Is it a honeymoon phase? I don't know. It's lasted a month. He said he feels safe here, unlike our old place. He loves the house and the neighborhood. I believe he's proud of our home.

Sure, we've had some downs with the ups. For example, Corey nearly garnered a truancy last month for not turning in enough credits. However, as much as Corey is responsible, my mom is also part of that problem. Despite my telling her three different ways in the past month (not to mention countless other times before it was this important) that Corey needs to do schoolwork during school hours, she just doesn't seem to get it. She says she does now. And she's our only solution to the dilemma of what to do with Corey, so we have exceptionally limited options but to try to believe her and otherwise stay on top of things.

One of Corey's major achievements is that he found out on Tuesday that he passed the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE... pronounced like Casey). Am I surprised that he was able to pass both parts on the first try? No. Am I surprised that he did it? A little. This is my guy who, when being tested in seventh grade by someone who'd never met him before, gave such lame answers that he was referred to a speech program and "how did he get this far with pre-kindergarten skills?!" Yeah, right. When he was pre-K, Corey tested at a second grade level (testing in that case was for entry into a private school... he was accepted for skill and then recommended to wait a year for behavior... I wish I could have gotten a better hold of my ego on that one).

Another major success is that (and I'm praying that I don't jinx myself right now), Corey hasn't been hoarding anything. Not food, not weapons, not things that can become weapons. For the first time in about 9 months we had a counseling appointment that was never angry, hostile or sarcastic... on anyone's part.

Things have been going well enough with Corey that Tom called yesterday to see if I wanted to pick up Madelyn and let him get Corey... something he hadn't offered to do since living here. Too bad we were already up the hill. But it really says something about Tom's being able to let go of a little of his anger regarding Corey's past choices. That's been a righteous struggle for Tom over the past several months. I am sure to be one of a few people who shall be crushed if Corey goes astray again.

This morning I had to drop both kids off about much earlier than I usually do. Corey knew this. I got nearly no sleep at all last night, probably from subconscious worries about being late to an important meeting. Ten minutes before I was going to get up, I heard Corey head down the stairs. He made a bottle for Mad and fed her while I dressed. He was ready when it was time to go. I dropped him off 10 minutes ahead of my have-to-do-it-by schedule.

Tonight, despite how hard things went on Tuesday after I complimented him, I told Corey again that I am proud of how he's handled things this week. It's sad to be fearful of praising your kid lest he self-destruct again, but I focus on the fact that it's worse not to do it anyway.

One of the best things I've ever been able to tell Corey... that I knew he would be thrilled with immediately (he was thrilled about Tom and I getting married and especially about my being pregnant, but I wasn't sure he would be) is this: Tomorrow we are getting a puppy. A little girl whose name has not been chosen. We may also acquire one of her brothers, but that is not a given. Corey will be helping to rescue at least this one dog of three who were left in a box on the corner of a dairy owned by a family I know. As good as he is with his sister, I know he will be with this sweet, skittish, darling being. He may also try to get out of the majority of feedings and any excretory cleanups, but he will show her (them?) love and playfulness. Tomorrow evening will be quite busy, as we need to handle shots and a serious flea bath before we can converge at home (here's an unexpected bonus of living up the hill... fleas are not a problem unless one lives near one of the lakes or the aqueduct... we do not). And since we won't know until tomorrow if the brother is coming, too, we'll have to get the doggie bed and whatever other supplies are still needed.

I'm happy to say that Corey's feeling up to the challenge.

Comin' Together

***Although this post was started on April 11, it wasn't finished/posted until April 22. Until I remember how to change this, it'll read as if from a time warp.

Hard to believe we've lived here a month already. Now I know why shows like House Hunters revisit the new owners after they've been settled in for three or four months. Only crazy people have housewarming/first birthday parties three weeks after moving in.

Of course, only crazy people move in five days before escrow is really closed.

The party went well, though, and I'm glad it's over. And for my coworker who is almost done with her own home buying experience, we have set the bar comfortably low for her party. Most of the stuff we really can live without is still packed up and making a wall in the garage. Our cabinets are still only painted on the ends. Some people loved the color. Some thought it was black. Some didn't care for it. One of the things that I love about them is that they are not for everybody.


Our dining table is still in the box. Staining the chairs has gone very badly. I'm not sure if the problem is that it's a cherry stain or if it's water-based. I'm leaning toward the former, because Corey stained Mad's dresser with a rosewood water-based stain and it came out beautifully. In a couple of weeks I'll deal with that. At the party we just used our old dining table which was, as usual, way too small for the occasion.

The walls are still bare. We still only own three lamps. Thank goodness for battery operated camping lanterns or I'm not sure what Mad would use for lighting in her room. We still have no dishes. Probably Mother's Day weekend we'll deal with that.


We haven't brought our computer desk over from my mom's place yet. I hope we do soon, though. I've used this table of Tom's for the past three and a half years and it isn't that comfortable.

The day of the party was pretty cool. We had just over 50 people in and out. Most of them stayed a lot longer than I'd anticipated. I'm not sure why I thought people might come in, have a tour, snack a little and leave, but mostly they didn't. The only ones who did were Tom's coffee drinking relatives. When my mom arrived without her promised coffee maker (yeah, I have one... I decided to clean it with vinegar... who knew it wasn't supposed to be an entire pot of vinegar? OK, you knew that, but I didn't), I headed off to Starbucks to get some of their travelers. Took a bit longer than I'd figured. If I were a thinking girl, I'd have sent someone. Like my mom. But it would have felt like punishment to her. By the time I returned, the coffee drinkers were gone. They live in Santa Monica and L.A., and felt like our old place was "out there." C'est la vie.


Mad handled the party like she handles anything new and overwhelming. She was confused and upset for a little while, then she was fine. When she saw Grandma Margaret, however, she was free and happy to roam around and check people out. And so was I. Margaret was Mad's familiar face and arms in the crowd. She made sure that Mad got something to eat, gave her the afternoon bottle. And when it was naptime, Margaret climbed our staircase so she could rock our baby in the same chair that Margaret used to rock her own babies.


I point out climbed our staircase because it impresses me that she did it. That she can do it. A few years back she and her two daughters and their five kids were in a van that rolled three times. Margaret was the second most badly injured. The "relatively simple surgery" to repair some broken vertebrae took triple the time we were told to expect. Afterward Dad and I met with the neurosurgeon, standing over Margaret's unconscious body. Dad asked her, "When will we know if she's paralyzed?"


"Mr. S., she is paralyzed. In a year we will know how much she can recover." Ugh! It still pains me to think about it, even though I know what she's done since then.


So having Margaret get up those stairs is amazing. It's not easy for her. She has to use both hands on the handrail (it's not a super wide staircase, so there's only one rail) and pull herself up each step. She'd already been up once to see the place, but for Madelyn she did it again. Margaret doesn't say I love you, but she does.

One of the activities we'd planned for the party was Easter egg coloring. We had 10 dozen perfectly boiled eggs (thanks again, Margaret!) for people to color and take home. Apparently nobody got the and take home part of the message.

Madelyn's part of the party was nice. Naturally my camera wouldn't even turn on when it was time to do the cake (yes, I'd charged the battery the night before... this is just not supposed to be my camera). Meija saved the day by snapping photos for us. The other activity was designing our backyard. Out of all the people there, we probably had a dozen entries. Two were from a six year old boy. His dad also did one, which included grass growing up the sides and dirt overhead. Imagine what the boy's looked like!


We had two prizes: For the winner, a prize of questionable greatness ($50 gift card for Red Lobster/Olive Garden); and for the loser, tools and gloves to come work in our yard.


There were two contenders for the loser prize. One from my friend Jesse. It had four stick people, a rat dog and a tiny house (roughly the same size as the adult sticks) with a chimney. She came in second. The winning loser was Tom's friend Ray. His had a pond with a "No fishing" sign, a horse in a cage (yeah, the yard's decent, but not horse-sized) and an outhouse with yellow stuff leaking out the bottom. Have another beer, Ray!


There were four top choices for winner; two were really pretty and two were very technical. One of the technical ones won. It has a garden on the side (yay!), trees and a place for Mad and Corey to play. Sure, Corey's nearly 16, but he's a very young nearly 16. We can't imagine Steve and Meija eating at Red Lobster, so we're getting them something more appropriate... a gift card for an organic nursery.

We're pretty good about making sure Mad gets organic baby cereal and I make all of her fruits and vegetables and meats. But if we can't find something organic, we move on. When Meija couldn't find organic barley baby cereal for her daughter, she found organic barley and ground it herself. As Tom said, "Whoa. They're hardcore." Props to them.


After the party was over, some of Tom's guys stuck around for a poker game. They're fun guys who really enjoy giving one another a hard time. I had a lot of laughs hanging out with them.

Oh, we did have a neighbor come by to welcome us the day after the party. We thought he was pretty cool right up to the point when he said, "You know, there are a lot of blacks in the area." Oh well, better to know up front than to find out later, I guess (uh... I mean about him... we'd already seen the neighbors before moving here... they looked nice).
Dad and Margaret brought my sister's family up to check out our new home this past Saturday. That evening Mad attended her first birthday party for a friend. She was quite a hit in her party dress.
Since our party day, nothing has been done besides laundry and a bit of straightening. We have only had one evening as a family (tonight). It was spent pulling Mad around the neighborhood in her wagon. We didn't meet anybody, but one woman waved. She's one of "the lot" but saw fit to be friendly with those of us who are pigmentally challenged (do I sound jealous? I might be) anyway. Go figure.

Shooby Dooby Whoop Whoop!

I'd say it finally happened, but I'm not sure I really expected it would. I periodically participate in the One Minute Writer. The other day I saw a topic that I felt I could respond to, so I did. And I won! My head's about as big as the room I'm in right now and it's mostly a toothy grin.

Check out my cool button and then go check out Beth's site.

The One-Minute Writer: Today's Writing Prompt: Job#links

Me vs. The World

About a week ago I was stressing at work about how much we need to get done before our party this coming Saturday. Have I mentioned the party? It's an open house shindig for Madelyn's first birthday and our housewarming. How long have we lived here? Well by Saturday, we will have lived here for three whole weeks.

Jill sat down and gave me the old "you have your schedule, but don't forget that the world has its own schedule and sometimes we have to bow to the world" speech. I nodded and agreed outwardly. Inwardly I was thinking, "True, but I still have to get all of these things done by Wednesday."

Many of the things on our to do list are really necessary before Saturday. A lot has been done, but they're not the big pretty things, like painting the cabinets or staining the new table and chairs. Last weekend Tom and my dad installed all the really important blinds, changed our front door lock (again!), replaced a part on the washing machine connection and fixed the garage door opener (it worked fine, but had been disabled while the house was up for sale). I cleaned up the cabinets that Corey and I had started painting. During this past week Tom has been busting his hind end to get boxes unpacked and things put into place.

I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. To say I'm overwhelmed is... not even close. This morning I woke up because I thought I heard someone telling me that I shouldn't be sleeping at a time like this. You mean at 5:15 in the morning? After being up with Madelyn for 90 minutes starting at 3:00 AM because she's got a head cold and her afternoon nap turned into bedtime?

During the past few days I have been paring down the list of have-to-dos. Finishing the cabinets is no longer in the equation. In fact, I'm not sure how they snuck into the equation in the first place. When people show up on Saturday, we will have deep dark cabinets on either end, but the center will be wood.

Last night I finally got to work on our new chairs. We also have a ginormous new table that is still unassembled and raw. It seats 10. Let me tell you how glad I am that the chairs we loved best are discontinued; we could only get 8 chairs. Whew!

Today Corey and I got all the chair sanding done, and a couple coats of stain onto four of the chairs. Tomorrow I'll be working on the rest of them, along with the table. I have to go to work on Friday, so Corey'll be in charge of sealing everything. Lucky for all of us, Corey's helped with every staining project I've ever done, and he's the only one who worked on Madelyn's dresser before she was born. The boy knows what he's doing.

Aside from general cleaning and unpacking, the other things that have to be done are for Tom: installing all the cabinet doors and drawers that are painted; putting blinds in the downstairs bathroom and installing all the toilet paper holders and hand towel bars.

And in the midst of all this, we are getting sick. Margaret has a cough that sounds awful, but she feels great, I guess. However, now Mad's gotten the cough and the muck in the nose to go with it. Tom is also catching something, probably due to exhaustion he's more susceptible. And I... am either PMSing or I'm not.

Baby Goat

When Tom and I first started hanging out, we did a lot of hiking in the local mountains.

***I always assumed hiking was done in the mountains until we went on a "hike" (walk, really) to the highest point in Wisconsin.

I've never been exceptionally steady on my feet, so leaping from this stone to that was never my gig. Tom, however, loves it. And he's good at it. In fact, I don't know if I've ever seen him fall. The occasional stumble, sure, but that's it. Tom said it's because he's part mountain goat. Ask him which animal he'd be if he could and it's a mountain goat.

Madelyn has definitely demonstrated her two-sided heritage. The first time we brought her to this home, she mastered the stairs. It's been two weeks and today she insisted that I hold her hands so she could walk up them. Of course the stairs are nearly as high as the length of her legs, so she has to swing her straight leg all the way around to the side and then up and over, but she did the whole flight.

We've unpacked 30 or 40 boxes, but we still have several sitting around here and there. One was in the living room, probably blocking her access to the wiring behind the TV stand. It's a regular banker box. Madelyn started figuring the thing out yesterday. Today she managed to climb up and have a seat. As Corey and I were debating whether I should let her do such things (you can guess where the protective big brother stands), it looked like Mad was going to fall right off because she was trying to sit down where there was no box. But she moved and we cheered. I was pointing out that we have to let her test things out or she'll never learn. Then, for reasons we'll never know be sure of (I'm guessing "testing gravity" was in there somewhere), she very slowly leaned all the way over to the side.

Mad's got a scrape on her temple. Mama, Daddy and Brother all had their hearts in their throats. And Brother spent the next half hour or so glaring and not talking to Mama.

Madelyn will be one in exactly one week. I can't even believe it. I looked on my MySpace blog to see what I'd done on this day last year. Tom and Corey set up the crib. I organized some of my belongings well enough that Tom made files for me, and we swapped out bookcases in our room, from an extra large that might fall on the baby (we had a cinderblock wall in the bedroom, so we couldn't anchor it) to a smaller one that held all of the books we'd gotten from a shower at work.
Here was my last line of that blog: I guess that’s enough for one very pregnant day. I can’t believe we’re into the single digits now. Eight days... and really, today’s pretty much over. I really can’t wait to meet this person!

We didn't know if the baby in my womb was Madelyn Kenzie or Oliver Canyon. It was a pretty exciting time. I worked halfway through that Wednesday. I was so afraid that not having enough scheduled things to do would result in the same "I'm-off-work-and-whew!-I'm-exhausted" feelings I had with Corey. I left work three weeks in advance of his due date. The next morning I felt like I had been concreted to my bed.

This time, I even scheduled an early morning manicure for my first day off. Bev massaged my hands in hopes of helping to stimulate labor. Then I took my car in to get the oil changed. While there I walked a few blocks away in not the best part of town to get a late breakfast. That was an experience! It's an area sometimes known for prostitution, but who'd have thunk that a nine-months pregnant woman wearing jeans and a collared T-shirt would garner any attention.

That evening Tom and I were laying in bed, chatting about our days before he headed off for tennis and I went to the grocery store. Sometime around 5:30 I had my first painful contraction. About 36 hours later, she was born and we knew her name.

I Love This Town!

Having lived down the hill, but occasionally working up here or working with people from here, I had a certain impression of the residents. Desert Rats is what many people call them... er... us. What I had noticed was that the people who came to my test sessions, whether it was for the GED or vocational assessment, were down-to-business, not necessarily polite. Generally speaking, they were also very smart. Considering that my main office... and main source of examinee interaction... was in downtown San Bernardino, smart very well could have been relative.

Oh, okay, I knew it wasn't. There's a sizable Ukrainian population up here, and even the majority of people I tested from Ukraine flew through the tests... in English. Sure, they had an interpreter, but most didn't need her.

Still, we've always said that people from up the hill were a different breed. That could mean the High Desert or it could mean up in the mountains, but either way, they were not the same as the flatlanders.

So I walk around the local shops and businesses with an air of suspicion. Maybe they're just waiting until I'm comfortable, but they're going to let me know I don't belong any minute. Yesterday I was sure the jig was up.

I went to the post office to deal with our mailbox lock. I'd like to add again in such a way that you know I have dealt with this three times now, but honestly, I can't muster the sarcasm. Here's why.

Early last week I went to our post office to see about getting keys for our mailbox. Every couple of blocks shares a box, so we have to have keys. I purchased the lock for $15. The woman who helped me told me I could do that or I could hire a locksmith to do it for about $150. No dummy here, heh! Corey and I couldn't get the old lock out. Tom couldn't either. We meant to get back to the post office, we just hadn't yet.

On Saturday morning the doorbell rang; it was our postman. (Nope, he didn't have to ring twice, but I'll bet he would have.) He offered to change out the lock for us. Half an hour later he came back. The lock turned to the right and we needed one that turned to the left. His supervisor said that if we trusted him, he could take it back to the post office and get the kind we needed. The Monday mailman would install it and give us the keys. We never got the keys, but I wondered if he'd stopped by while we were at work during the week.

Yesterday I went in to see about the status of our exchange. The woman recognized me immediately. When I explained the situation, she asked for my phone number, address and directions to our place. Then she said she was about to go on lunch, but that she'd drop by and get see what she could do. Half an hour later, there she was calling my cell phone. I looked out the window and saw her personal car sitting in front of our mailbox. She had opened it up and there was our mail from this week, as well as a bag with the keys to our new lock. I am still a little stunned. I cannot imagine the Upland post office doing this, and I lived about a mile from there. Our home is easily five miles away... and well away from any place that woman might have been going for lunch, too.

So I am re-evaluating my position. Not on the Desert Rat thing; I'm sure that'll stick. But over and over again I get the sense of living in a small town, even though the population board says we're just over 100 thousand people. Life is good!

Do Over

Man this was a rough weekend! We started some major projects, but really haven't finished anything. Tom was feeling pretty discouraged about his drilling abilities, and I kept reminding him that these are learned skills; people get paid to know how to do that stuff. We've never had a big reason to learn, so now we're stretching our brains.

As I worked along on the priming and painting, I was thinking about other things. Maybe that's why I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped. However, it was all worth it because one of the things I pondered (again) was my birthday. So in a relatively happy moment (right after he'd finally gotten about 99% of the paint off the patio), I told Tom that I should really get a do-over for my birthday. I explained that if he didn't do something to make up for last week I'd be forced to buy him a pack of Altoids for his birthday, and that I wouldn't be able to tell anybody about it and feel good about myself... especially his mother. We chose next week on Monday night as his time to create a lovely evening for me. Naturally I'd forgotten that I'll be teaching on Monday nights now, so I had to text him today and ask for a new do over date. We'll see what happens.

Back to work... by Sunday evening, I was feeling less than thrilled with our progress. The one thing I did think was cool is that one of our cupboards was finally done (well, minus the inside of the door, but that'll be a snap). The color is gorgeous. If I have a spare second, I'll snap some pics and put them up here so you can check it all out. That'll probably be after we're done. Back to the cabinet... I had done all the touching up I could see the need for and had Tom double-check me. It was done. I removed the tape from the back... where the refrigerator will be covering. It came off beautifully! I wouldn't say that my heart was pounding; it was more a quiet satisfaction. I pulled the tape from the bottom, which was no big deal because I'd accidentally pulled it loose earlier. Then I removed the tape from the front.

Oh holy hell, it pulled paint off with it!!! Argh!

There are a few theories and at least twice as many remedies that people have showered on us today to explain and resolve this situation. All I know is that was the moment that Tom and I switched places. I declared that I was "going away" and promptly took myself upstairs. Unfortunately I didn't bring my cell phone, which needed to be charged, so I had to go back down, where I declared that I was "not staying. I'm still going away." I got into bed. Tom was there a few minutes later, snuggling me and telling me we'd get it all worked out soon enough.

Yeah, Kim. I think you're right.