Two Months Old

Dearest Sprout,
Well, you turned two months old on Thursday and I'm just getting to your monthly letter now. I'm guessing this is sort of the pattern with the second kid, and I hope you don't feel lost in the shuffle. Right now a lot of your life is spent getting dragged around to your big sister's activities. At some point you might object to this, but so far you're remarkably accommodating about it. We hoist you in and out of your carseat, in and out of the sling, in and out of the stroller, and you sleep or look around or eat or, pretty rarely, fuss. I am in favor of this demeanor, so please keep it up. Thank you.

This is not to say that you're not coming up with new tricks, however. This month you've added smiles and babbling to your repertoire, both of which are pretty awesome. Daddy is definitely your favorite person to communicate with - he gets the biggest grins and the longest chats - closely followed by your big sister and your other relatives, with me as a veeeerrrrrrry distant last. Which: WTF, kid? What am I, chopped liver? I only GREW you and BORE you and stuff. I mean, don't feel obligated or anything.

I really can't complain, though, because the smiles and coos are pretty adorable even when they're not directed at me. And you seem (knock wood) to have figured out your days and nights, so while we not getting tons of sleep, we are at least getting more than last month, and frankly, I'll take what I can get.

Tomorrow we'll go get you weighed and measured and see how much you've grown since the two-week mark. No telling if you'll be as off the charts as the Hatchling, but seeing as how you're already in size two diapers and 3-6 month clothes I'm pretty sure you'll get the stamp of approval. The nursing is going better too, so we're mostly just using formula for when we're out and about or if I have to leave you with Daddy for a meeting. This is especially nice at night, allowing me to nurse you without the lights on in a semi-conscious state. Mmmmm ... semi-consciousness.

And that's really about it for this month, kiddo. You're doing everything you're supposed to do. Oh, and also: You didn't poop in my mouth this month! Which is awesome. So I think we'll keep you. Now give me some smiles!

love,
Mama

Mother's Day

Oof. It has been quite the week around here. Nothing terribly traumatic, but let's just say the Hatchling has begun to embrace her three-ness with a vengeance. Highlights have included a massive poop-on-the-sofa incident and the spilling of an entire glass of iced tea all over the keyboard of my laptop. (which, incidentally, appears to be relatively unharmed except for how I can't type a capital w. I love Macs!) Anyway, around about the time I was obsessively scouring the couch upholstery and wondering just which part of my graduate education prepared me for cleaning up shit, I thought maybe it would be appropriate to acknowledge some of the many, many incredible things my mothers have done for me. Here's an abbreviated list:

• read out loud to me incessantly
• enthusiastically responded to all my accomplishments, major and minor
• sewed everything from my Halloween costumes to curtains for my house to my wedding dress and all my bridesmaids dresses
• professionally edited my school papers whenever requested
• provided on-call medical advice and the occasional pharmaceuticals when needed
• sat with me and held me as I labored with my first child
• asked about my dissertation
• didn't ask about my dissertation
• taught me how to cook and bake
• faithfully attended all my performances, and sent me flowers for every opening night
• made a welcoming home-base to return to from my travels
• took me on amazing trips to Europe
• spoiled your grandbabies rotten
  
• and most of all, taught me the meaning of unconditional love

I can only hope to do so many things for my girls. Happy Mother's Day!

The physics of porridge

This might be the best thing I've read on the internets all year:

The only way that the story can make sense is if, for some reason, the Mama Bear has the smallest portion of porridge. In which case, this is a story with a very different moral than the original-- it's a story about the oppression of the Mama Bear, either because the patriarchy is forcing her to eat only the scraps left behind after her husband and child have had their fill, or because the unhealthy woodland media culture has saddled her with a negative body image, leading to an eating disorder.

You really need to read the whole thing.

Comfort food posting

I know, I know: Where the hell have I been? What am I, blogger or a slacker? Well, mostly I've been trying to sleep, trying being the operative word. For example, here's how nap time goes: put down the Sprout, put down the Hatchling, wash out the accumulated bottles from the morning/previous night, do a half-assed picking up of the kitchen. Start to get really sleepy, lie down on sofa, doze for 10 minutes, get up to put pacifier back in Sprout's mouth, doze for 15 minutes, hear the cat making a racket right outside the Hatchling's door (he does this on purpose), go get cat and shut gate to upstairs, lie down and doze for 15 minutes, get up to nurse Sprout, doze for 10 minutes, wake up to telemarketer phone call, curse all telemarketers, hide phone in sofa cushions, shut cat out on the back porch, put pacifier in Sprout's mouth, take deep breath, lie down, doze for 20 minutes, and then the Hatchling wakes up.

Sounds restful, don't it? I'd probably be better off not even trying to nap, but I'm too tired not to.

Anyhoo, I was all jazzed up for tonight because I was actually going to Go. Out. To A Bar. (!!!) Mr. Squab was going to watch the girls and I promised to be back before the Hatchling's bedtime. It was going to be so awesome, seeing old friends and drinking, you know, the sweet, sweet booze. But then the Sprout decided that today was projectile vomiting day, and she participated with unusual vigor. She's fine - no fever or anything and she seems to have settled down now - but I really didn't think I could leave Mr. Squab at home with a hyperactive three-year-old and a barfing one-month-old. So no night out for me ...

... which leads me to the comfort food, aka the real point of this post. Since I was home, and since we didn't have any sweet treats in the house, I whipped up some chocolate pound cake from my mother's recipe, and holy crap is it good. I frankly don't really understand why anyone makes non-chocolate poundcake, unless it's because you haven't made it with this recipe. When I was little, we used to make my mom take the cake out early so it would fall a little bit and we could eat the extra dense, moist pieces - but have no fear, it's plenty dense and moist even when it's fully baked. We like it warm out of the oven with no adornment, but then I almost always frost it with cream cheese frosting once it's cooled off. Anyway, it's a simple recipe that makes crazy delicious cake, so try it out next time you have a yen for something yummy.

Chocolate Pound Cake
1/2 c. shortening
1 c. butter
2 3/4 c. sugar
5 eggs
3 c. flour
1/2 c. cocoa
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter and shortening together. Slowly add sugar, then add eggs one at a time and beat until fluffy. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together, and add to shortening mixture alternately with milk and vanilla. Beat on medium for 2-3 minutes. Pour into greased and floured tube or bundt pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours. Try to restrain yourself from eating entire cake at one sitting.

Cream Cheese Icing
8 oz. cream cheese
1 stick butter
1 box powdered sugar
6 Tblsp cocoa
1 tsp vanilla

Whip it all together and slap it on the cake. Or eat it directly from the bowl, whichever.

Tell it!

So, it's Friday afternoon, and I'm sitting at the dining room table pumping out some extra milk while checking blogs, and I come across this post on babble which almost makes me stand up at the table and shout YESSS! only I don't because that might wake up the baby and WE DO NOT WAKE UP THE BABY. Anyhoo, it's this essay about breastfeeding and cultural attitudes thereon, and you really SHOULD read the whole thing, but the part that made me want to jump up and yell was this:

We tell women that breast is best, we tell them to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months, we even tell them it will raise their kid's IQ (and we should give that a rest), and then we send them home with formula samples, or with a baby whose throat is too sore to suckle, or a mom whose milk is delayed because of surgery, and we don't teach technique, and we are offended when a woman breastfeeds in public, so we make her feel housebound, and we don't give a mother and her partner paid leave, and we send her to go back to a workplace without on-site childcare, and so her only alternative to formula is to plug her nipples into a machine, and if she's lucky she gets periodic breaks and a "non-bathroom lactation room" in which to pump, and if she's not she gets a toilet, and so on and so forth.

It's no wonder women are ready to burn their nursing bras.

But it's not that these public health recommendations are grounded in some return-to-the-1950s conspiracy, as Rosin suggests; they're grounded in physiology. And science is validating the physiology of the mother-baby dyad — that is, both are healthier when they remain close to each other during the first several months postpartum. It's not simply the milk that's inimitable; it's the mothering. (Indeed, "We actually don't know if feeding infants human milk has the same benefits as breastfeeding," says Labbok.) And mothering is something that our culture does not value enough to support. It is this dissonance between physiology and culture that has women so frustrated, and feminists like Rosin grasping at the bottle as a proxy for equality.

But is that really what we want? Powder rather than real power? In a brilliant New Yorker piece about the rise of the breast pump, Jill Lepore questions the direction of breastfeeding advocacy, which seems to be settling on the pump as a compromise to this conflict, with tax incentives for businesses with "Mother's Rooms" in which babies are explicitly not welcome ("pump stations," Lepore calls them) and Baby-Friendly hospitals sending women home with manual plastic pumps, and the president of the National Organization for Women calling for more "corporate lactation" programs. "It appears no longer within the realm of the imaginable that . . . 'breastfeeding-friendly' could mean making it possible for women and their babies to be together," writes Lepore. "When did 'women's rights' turn into 'the right to work'?"

What a great question. Why did American feminism evolve in such a way that we think of biology as destiny, and that destiny as a prison? Why are we so willing to surrender the parts and processes that makes us female rather than demanding that society support them? We've broken down doors and cracked glass ceilings, when what we need to do is redesign the building.

YEEEEESSSSSSSSSS. How can we get policy makers to hear this and understand it? How can we get the medical establishment to give breastfeeding and mothering in general more than just verbal support? (Did anyone ever mention to me that my c-sections were likely the reason my milk took so long to come in? No. And have I told you about the crazy night nurse who told me I shouldn't breastfeed my baby or hold it for too long?!!?) Breast is best: OK. We get it. But it's also goddamnmotherfucking HARD for a whole lot of us, for a whole host of reasons. Maybe it's time for the people pushing the breast-is-best message to stop using it to make mothers feel guilty and start using it to push for social changes that will actually enable families to breastfeed if they can or find optimal alternatives if they can't. For chrissakes.

Oh, and on the same topic - this post has some interesting information, too.

Plaything for a dud economy

Uses to which the Hatchling put a single piece of tissue paper over the course of an hour this evening:

1. Baby blanket for her doll.
2. Pillows for her head and her doll's body as they lay on the carpet in a meditational pose. (Me: "What are you doing, honey?" The Hatchling: "I just wistening to my music."
3. Changing pad/diaper, again for her doll.
4. Drape for Daddy's foot.
5. Toreador-style hankie to wave in the air.
6. Thing to stuff up her shirt, look in the mirror, and try to find it again.
7. Sculptural material for found art project involving carefully removing tiny shreds of the tissue, balling them up, and placing/stacking them around/on the bigger sheet.
8. Elephant Man-style face mask, looking through the holes torn for the art project above.

And I probably missed some uses. I mean, christ: why did we spend all that money on awesome birthday presents when we could've just gotten her a damn box of kleenex?

Happy Earth Day

Three things:

1. Not to harsh your enviro-buzz, but check out this post by Kevin Drum. Really puts all that recycling you're so committed to in perspective, don't it? (Not that I'm going to quit recycling or anything. But perhaps some legislative oversight is in order, no?)

2. This is a damn good op-ed.

3. Go look at this blog, and crack up. I can SOOOO see the Hatchling doing something like this.

Now go do something tree-huggy.

Three Years Old

Dearest Hatchling,
Boy howdy. You turned three years old yesterday, and what a year it has been! I thought the difference between one and two was big, but the difference between two and three is ... also big! This year has been all about growing up, physically, emotionally, verbally, mentally - you've been covering all the bases. You're wearing 5T clothes and toddler size 11 shoes, and you dwarf every other kid your age at school or on the playground. At some point in the future your Viking-like proportions may be a hurdle to get over, but right now you don't see anything odd in being a good head taller than your peers, and neither do they. Here's hoping that lasts.

But your physical prowess is not limited to growth - oh, no! You also are really good at playing catch - I mean, you actually catch the ball a lot, which is pretty good for age three - and you have a scary throwing arm. Perhaps softball is in your future? But then, we wouldn't want to deny your possibly greater talent for the terpsichorean arts. You've loved to dance pretty much since you could walk, but you've now reached a point where you can incorporate others' choreography (you're particularly fond of the "dancey-dances" from Yo Gabba Gabba) in addition to creating your own. Often, this past winter, as soon as Daddy got home from work, it was dance time for the whole family. You'd spend maybe 10 minutes carefully explaining and teaching us new moves ("Ok-ok-ok, now how you do DIS one is, hands WAAAAY uppa dee air! Good job, evvyone!") and then it was follow-the-leader time in a joyful free-for-all. Sure, sometimes you look more like you're channeling Elaine on Seinfeld than Leroy from Fame (Original Fame reference! HOLLA!), but either way the result is purely awesome to behold.

Verbally, you've expanded your vocabulary by leaps and bounds, and if you're still not *quite* as articulate as a lot of kids your age, it certainly doesn't stop you from communicating with us. Sure, your pronunciation often verges on Swedish Chef, but your dramatic arts are Sarah Bernhardt all the way. The gestures! The expressions! The condescending smiles! The vehement stomping of feet! At our weekly parent and kid class, the teacher refers to you as "exuberant" and that pretty much sums it up. You have big feelings, big reactions to things, and that is both wonderful and exhausting.

Speaking of wonderful, you've been a real trouper throughout the whole pregnancy/birth/baby invasion process. Having a little sister is a beautiful thing, but it's also a biiiiiiiiig change from being the center of attention all the time, and I'm frankly bowled over by how generous you've been with the transition. You love to hold and kiss the baby, and you're the first person to alert us if she cries or seems at all unhappy. The other day after a tiring morning out, you were on the verge of a major tantrum, but when the Sprout started crying you stopped and said "help baby sister, Mama," so I'd be sure to know it was OK to tend to her first.

In fact, you're regularly willing to step aside, stand back and wait for the baby to be cared for before asserting your own needs, and this makes me a little bit sad - because who likes making the switch from star to co-star? - but mostly enormously proud. I know lots of parents who mourn the passing of babyhood or toddlerhood, who miss the previous stages as much as they look forward to the coming ones. I've never really felt that way, because you just keep getting better and better with each year. You're an amazing big sister and an amazing kid, and your daddy and I know we're so lucky to have you for our oldest daughter. Here's to another wonderful, exhausting, exuberant year.

love,
Mamala

The image of grace and dignity

You know what makes an outing to the park on an absolutely lovely spring day somewhat LESS enjoyable? When your nearly-three-year-old makes one of her patented breaks for freedom combined with an attempt to steal another kid's ball, thereby making it necessary for you to leap up, nursing baby still attached to your left boob, yelling COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW and mouthing "I'm so sorry" to the other kid's mom, at which point the baby comes unattached, leaving your boob right out there for the whole park to see.

Not that I'm particularly modest or anything. But still. It's a little wearing.

One Month Old

Dearest Sprout,
Holy hannah, I cannot believe that it's already been one month since we welcomed you into the world! I'm going to do my best to write you monthly letters for the first year, just like I did for your big sister, but let me apologize in advance if I don't make it every month. I had no idea how EASY it was with only one kid until I had two.

I must say that, overall, your birth was a lot more relaxing than your sister's. Sure, you came two days early, but you timed it for when our doctor was on call and Daddy was already off work, so we can't really complain. My, but you were (are) a big baby, though! Almost three whole pounds bigger than your sister was. Way to raise the level of competition from the get go. It took the medical team quite some time to get you out, even with the C-section, and there was an audible reaction to your size as soon as everyone laid eyes on you. "Oh, that one's at LEAST 5 pounds," joked the nurse anaesthetist, and then everyone started laying odds on how big you really were. (The OR nurse called exactly at 10 pounds, 5 ounces.) You dwarfed the other babies in the nursery, and wowed all your visitors with vivid impressions of a grumpy sumo wrestler.

So: one month seems to be treating you pretty well, though as I recall it's the second month that started getting rough last time, so don't think you're off the hook or anything! So far you're an amazingly mellow and sweet little babysquab, happy to sleep and eat and stare around, only crying when you're hungry or gassy or way past needing a new diaper. To say that your place of residence is a little more chaotic than when your sister was a month old would be a vast understatement, but happily you've taken it all in stride, snoozing away while the Hatchling shrieks or dances or pitches fits in the background.

On the one hand, I feel bad that you'll never get the exclusive, undivided attention that your sister got when she was your age. On the other hand, I'm much more relaxed about my ability to parent you, so the attention you are getting is probably less likely to send you into therapy in later years. It all comes out in the wash, right?

Already this month, you've tackled learning how to nurse (still working on that one), getting a bath (hated the first one, loved the second one), getting your nights and days mixed up (you could stop that now, if you wanted), and, oh yes, shooting poop into your mama's face. You've been busy! As for the rest of us, we've been pretty busy, too, adjusting to this new addition to the household. I can say pretty confidently that all four of us are pretty tired and overwhelmed, working on getting more sleep and settling into a more normal routine. But the most important thing, as your father observed the day we brought you home from the hospital, is that "our family feels complete now." Thanks for completing us, baby girl. Now quit pooping in my face.

love,
Mama

There are good moments

Today, I was changing the Sprout's diaper and the Hatchling came up behind me to watch.

"Oh. POOOOP," she observed knowledgeably.

"Yep, I'm changing the baby's diaper. Gotta get that poop off her butt."

The Hatchling patted me on the back approvingly, and then asked, "Scwatchy back?"

"Sure!" I said, "I love having my back scratched."

A brief but pleasurable back scratching occurred; then the Hatchling noticed the Sprout's old diaper, wrapped up and sitting on the arm of the sofa.

"Oh! I take-a diaper, frow in garbage," she said helpfully, and proceeded to do just that.

"Thank you, honey!" I said, "that was very, very helpful!"

"OK," the Hatchling said. You know, like: no big deal, mom.

Those big-sister instincts are definitely kicking in.

I write letters

Dear Sprout,
For your information, the hours between 2 and 5 am are generally considered ideal for SLEEPING, unless you are an owl, a bat, or a college student. As you do not fall into any of these categories, it would be greatly appreciated if you would desist from your nocturnal wakefulness. We enjoy hanging out with you, but if you don't let us get some sleep we may have to consider selling you to the highest bidder.

Sincerely,
your exhausted parents

Seriously?

The Sprout is (knock wood, throw salt over shoulder, sacrifice to the gods, etc.) an extremely mellow and easy going baby, which is a good thing considering the major conniption fits her older sister is giving me lately, but last night she got me but good in a manner that demanded to be blogged:

So all the houseguests have gone to bed, the Hatchling has finally quieted down and gone to sleep, and it's just me and Mr. Squab waiting for the Sprout to settle down so we can go to sleep. I figure I'll change her diaper so she'll feel all nice and clean, so I put her down on the sofa and get started. She's had a terrible diaper rash so once the, um, area is all prepared, I get some ointment out and lean in to make sure I apply it in all the correct places. I've applied maybe 1/2 of the salve when the Sprout ... well, I'm not sure what to call what she did. Projectile shitting? A shart? The unholy marriage of gas and excrement? You get the idea. Did I mention how I was leaning in at the time? Yeah. You don't know from bad parenting moments until your infant child has SHOT LIQUID POOP ALL OVER YOUR FACE. And yes, my mouth was open, since you ask. "Thank god you had your glasses on," was Mr. Squab's response (after running into the kitchen to get paper towels and water to help me clean up).

I tell you what, there is no way to prepare for something like that. But you can be damn sure I'm keeping my distance in all future ointment applying situations.

Still here

Whew - sorry for leaving that depressing blog post up for so long. I have to say, you guys leave some damn good comments. Most of the ones to the last post made me cry, sure, but they were tears of being understood and supported, you know? I've been thinking a lot about the whole feeding issue and hierarchies of motherhood in general, and there's a blog post on that a-coming, but probably not for a bit. (I feel a little odd asking Mr. Squab to go on double kid duty so I can blog.) We're getting into a workable rhythm with the newly expanded family, so now if we can just win the lottery so Mr. Squab doesn't have to go back to work everything will be fine! Y'all let me know if you have any tips for that. Mr. Squab goes back to work on Monday; I have various relatives in town until April 8th to help make the transition, for which I am BEYOND grateful, but ooooooh I still wish we lived in a world where Mr. Squab got three months of paternity leave. Or, like, a year of paternity leave. Or that winning lottery thing. Do you think he could get transferred to France or some Scandinavian country before Monday?

Kids = Stress, Parenting = Anxiety

OK. So, we're back home and starting the process of getting used to being a family of four. The good stuff: I totally missed the Hatchling (and the feeling was definitely mutual) so it's been good to be back at home and get some snuggle time with my first baby. Baby 2.0 - let's call her Sprout, shall we? - is (so far) an extremely mellow baby, sleeping like a champ, only cries when she's hungry or needs her diaper changed, and is generally a very sweet little girl. The weather is getting warmer, we have lovely friends and relatives bringing us food and helping us out - I mean, objectively speaking, things are going pretty well.

So why do I feel like such a basket case? OK, some of it is post-partum hormones. Seriously, I could weep at the drop of a hat these days. It's annoying. And some of it is cumulative lack of sleep and the whole recovering from major surgery thing. But also, Sprout is having some eating problems and it's kind of making me want to stab my eyes out with a fork. Those of you who've been reading this blog since the early days will remember that the Hatchling had myriad problems on the nursing front, starting with being tongue tied and compounded by my low milk-supply and other fun. We had to supplement her with formula from the get-go and never managed to get her completely on the breast, though we did get into a decent groove with it and I nursed her until she was 14 months old. I had a lot of friends who had similar difficulties getting started with breastfeeding, and many of them had it much easier the second time around - copious milk supply, easy nursing, etc. And I had convinced myself that I'd be the same - you know, I put in my time in with the first one, this one would be easy sailing!

I should have known better. Now, Sprout isn't tongue-tied, and she knows how to nurse. But she is also an extremely big baby, and my supply is not keeping pace with her dietary needs. So we're supplementing again, which feels like failure. Sometimes she gets so mad that the milk isn't coming out fast enough that she won't even nurse. When I had to resort to putting droppers full of formula on my boobs while nursing so she'd keep sucking - something we had to do with the Hatchling - it REALLY felt like failure. Sprout had her first doctor's appointment today, and she's not gained any weight, so the doctor says we need to supplement even more, which at this point I'd be happy to do, only for the last day and a half she's been so sleepy it's hard to get her to eat anything at ALL. At a rational level (not a place I'm having an easy time getting to today) I know that this is something that we'll work out, we'll get past it, if I can't nurse her it's not the end of the world, etc., etc. But it's driving me nuts. I'm not enjoying the really excellent baby she is because I'm feeling so bad about not being able to feed her. (Also feeling bad about: the upheaval to the Hatchling's life; being a basket case all the time; not drinking enough water - yeah, we've hit absurd levels.) I HATE that I feel like a failure for the nursing not coming easily. I hate how much it will bother me if I end up not being able to nurse Sprout. I hate that I'm feeling so anxious when I really thought that the anxiety would be better this time around - when it SHOULD be better this time around. I hate that I'm already projecting that things will always suck when chances are that next week or even tomorrow I'll probably feel much better. Argh. I also hate that I can't write a more engaging damn blog post. OK. Sorry for the venting. Here are the positive things I'm trying to focus on when I feel fail-ey:

1. Look, she's really damn cute, OK? I mean, she is a Very. Cute. Baby.
2. Having had feeding problems before, we're at least prepared with all the techniques, so I have some idea what to do in response.
3. The Hatchling is being a total trouper even though all this is clearly stressing her out.
4. Mr. Squab continues to be a tower of strength.
5. This baby actually sleeps in the car, something the Hatchling never quite grasped.
6. My mother-in-law is here, cooking and taking care of us, and she brought a huge batch of my favorite molasses cookies with her, one of which I am going to go eat.

Just ... remind me to focus on this list, ok?

Robinson 2.0

Elise and I are happy to announce Sylvia Charlotte Robinson to the world. She was born on Saturday March 14 at 9:36am, coming in at a whopping 10 lbs 5oz and 21 inches long. Mom and baby are doing very well, Ellie and I are doing our best to keep up. Posting will be light until Squab gets back up to speed.

Right. A little early, then.

OK, so these are definitely contractions. Finally called the docs at around 5:30am and they said to come in. Looks like this little one wants to get here a couple of days early. OF COURSE. On-call sister is on her way over to the house and as soon as she gets here we're heading to the hospital. We'll keep you posted (if you're on facebook, check there for more prompt updates).

The Final Countdown: T minus 2 days

1. The headcold rages unabated. In retrospect, purchasing stock in Kleenex about three months ago would have been a good move.

2. To be honest, if anyone said the phrase "the power of positive thinking" to me right now I would probably kick them in the nards, but there *are* some things making me happy right now, namely:
a) my new spring purse, courtesy Questionable. (The one on the left.) It is so springy and stripy. It defies the weather.
b) It's supposed to be almost SIXTY degrees on Monday! Sure, I'll be drugged up and in the hospital the whole day, but still!
c) Tonight, the Hatchling, after commanding her father to sit next to her on the sofa, sidled up to him, batted her eyelashes and said "Hey, baby."

3. I think I might be having the occasional contraction, mostly in the evenings the last three days. I say "I think" because I don't actually know what normal contractions or Braxton Hicks feel like. When the Hatchling was born, I had nothing in the way of contractions until I was induced, and lemme tell ya, Pitocin-contractions are undeniable. You KNOW you are having one of those. And then you KNOW you are getting an epidural. But this - it just feels kind of like a tightening, sometimes verging on crampy, not lasting or regular, just sort of unsettling and a pain in the ass. Or thereabouts. Thoughts from readers who've done this the natural way before? I go in for a regular monitoring appointment tomorrow so I'm sure they'll pick up on it if anything is going on.

Final Countdown: T minus 3+ days

Under normal circumstances, I think I'm a fairly patient, even easygoing, person. However, as has been extremely well-documented on this blog, normal circumstances do not include the late stages of the third trimester. Which is why if I ever chance to meet Fate in a dark alley, that motherfucking bastard had better WATCH HIS STEP, because giving me a full-blown head cold this morning? NOT. COOL.

Final Countdown: T minus 5 days

Daily Index:

Watching - American Idol. Because my brain is just that fried.
Eating - What have you got? No, seriously. WHAT HAVE YOU GOT.
Reading - Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. Because my brain isn't that fried. Although I can only manage about 10 pages before I fall asleep.
Wearing - only stretchy jersey-type fabrics. In XXL. Don't judge.
Hearing - the harmonious sounds of my almost-three-year-old daughter making up nonsense songs, repeatedly requesting to play with my iPhone or watch a "bideo" on the computer, and running/dancing around the living room with just her diaper on.
Cursing - the fucking SNOWSTORM currently raging outside my windows. Also the fact that the high tomorrow is supposed to be, like, 5 degrees. At least it's supposed to warm up again by the weekend.
Loving - that my long-suffering husband, when he comes home and I'm all pregnant-pissy-cannot-be-pleasant, instead of shooting me the evil eye gets on the phone and orders me my favorite take-out pasta and plays with the Hatchling to get her out of my hair.