Pregnancy Portraits Fourth Time Around

Here are the long awaited pregnancy portraits. Usually I take them all myself, some kind of make-shift tripod arrangement and a million takes. This year I had the handy help of a pint-sized 6 year old photographer, Ru the magnificent.

So, here I am...all 38 weeks of me and Baby. Impatient and panicking by turns about the time left.

Sweet Sleep

Mattresses are important, people! I had the best night of sleep last night that I have had in forever: dreamless and smooth, rippling on and on, with only a few hip aching moments of dim awareness as I rolled over in the night. I usually sleep pretty well during pregnancy, I'm just lucky like that, or chilled out like that or desperate like that or something. But this pregnancy has been different...our mattress had done its most valiant but there are limits. It had been with us through a decade of marriage and who  knows how many years with another family before us. I honestly think our mattress was from the 60's or 70's. This year it reached astounding heights of absurdity. A and I had begun to joke about going sleep in the soup bowl every night but truthfully it was more like sleeping in a real life game of Chutes and Ladders. There springs poking up, gooshy holes, hard ridges, and broken plastic handles sticking out in gouge-ready positions.

Thankfully, oh so thankfully....I report to you that we are now the proud owners of a new to us, 2 year old mattress that feels like heaven. We lay in bed laughing this morning about the strangeness of sleeping on such a nice bed in our own room, we felt like we were at a hotel! So silly!

Before we carted our old lump-fest of a previous bed to the dump I whipped out a pair of scissors and zipped off the beautiful fabric that covered the box springs. I've been eying it for years and knew even when we first got it that I would someday strip that cloth off for another use. The bonus of ancient mattress sets is the psychedelic, vintage fabric that they come wrapped in. What do you think? Curtains in the bathroom or the kitchen or something more creative?

Birth Music

Spending more small moments today. Drizzling, chilly, rainy afternoon with a bit of a break in the action. I spent some time mouthing middle name possibilities in combination with our short list of boy names, roasted some chicken wings, folded laundry, washed the counter tops and put dishes away....and then this evening while I waited for A to call to say he was on the train home I started my birth soundtrack.

For both the boys births I have compiled a cd of songs to listen during labor...my first cd (for Ru's birth) was a source of great comfort during a really tumultuous hospital birth and many of the cheery tunes I picked are burned forever into my memory in association with his arrival. For Dee's birth I had a more mellow, snuggly soundtrack, not quite as peppy...I guess, I was feeling more calm about the whole arrangement and just wanted music to wrap me in that mood.

This time around, honestly, I'm not sure what I want. I keep waffling and scratching my head. But, yeah frankly, at this point...I don't have enough time left to keep putting it off and deliberating so, I'm going to kill two birds with one stone and just make two cds. I have "Zen Birth" and "Peppy Birth" in the works. We'll see what suits when the moment comes I guess. I've only gotten partway through both compilations but, so far here's a taste of what I've got:

Set one is "Zen" and set two is "Peppy."

One more day!

Well, today was the beginning of the end of our California trip. We made it as far south as we're going and tomorrow we backtrack up the coast from San Diego back to Los Angeles and dip our toes into Hollywood, Beverly Hills...the insanity of the glitzy world that has created American cinema and then cool off with a fabulous cousin-heavy BBQ (Latin style I hear....carne asada all round!!! Wooohoo!!!). I am really looking forward to this big reunion. The downside of living across the country is that when the family starts rapidly expanding (which seems to happen with impunity in this stage of life) there's suddenly about twice as many people and most of them are people I don't know. Blast. Am making it a goal to get rid of strangers and fit names and vague relationship titles with real individuals and personalities.

                              Ru thinks this cousin and I are unspeakably twin-like...waddya think?

Today we had what sounds like a more low-key kind of day but, honestly, it was one of our most hard core plans so far. We got up and had breakfast with our kind cousinly hosts and then the plan was:

• See Mission San Juan Capistrano
• Eat an In n' Out burger
• Go to the San Diego Zoo

That's about it. But, remember people...the San Diego Zoo...is...um....immense. We were there for about three-ish hours and we didn't even see half the exhibits. We picked what we wanted to see before we went in and just hit the star attractions on our list and breezed past the rest. Sanity requires this approach. Truly. 

The zoo was great though. We had zero meltdowns and A was very gracious and handled both boys completely on his own so that I could just walk with the camera and take my time. I stopped, a lot. I drank a lot of water. I went really, really slowly. And I made it...after we left and I got back to the car I fell asleep instantly and was comatose for about an hour but hey...that's healthy!

The animals at the zoo all seemed pretty happy, some amazingly so...which always makes me feel good. One of the things about zoos that often makes me cringe is the sight of some magnificent animal (often admittedly, endangered in their native space), pacing obsessively back and forth across the space of their, clearly too small, concrete cage floor. There wasn't a lot of that at the SD Zoo. I think it helps to have the climate to create real rainforests for the animals to live in and not lean so exclusively on concrete and plastic substitutes. The orangutan came right up the glass, palms against the window and stared each visitor down thoughtfully, cocking his head and looking in our eyes before loping off, the big male gorillas were taking lazy naps in the sunshine right up against the window and the mama and baby sat happily in full view for a good while too and the flamingos had built themselves nests and were pridefully standing up from time to time to let us all see their giant single egg on the mud mounds where they incubate (super cute). But there was the polar bear, pacing mournfully in front of the door in the back of his cage where his keeper comes and goes, bellowing over and over in wretched misery. I wished I had a big block of ice I could give him. I wonder how much the California climate causes those guys trouble and how much was some other cultural concern. Hard to know as a bystander why the animal appears unhappy. Captivity sure isn't all its cracked up to be, even if it is in some cases better than extinction. All that to say, the zoo was really a fabulous experience and the boys trekked through very energetically...like I said, we didn't have even one meltdown point which is saying a lot for a two year old who is totally off his schedule and being asked to run non-stop. They even kept going through their normal nap-time.

Mission San Juan Capistrano was good too, although I think I liked Carmel-By-The-Sea most. There was a lot of pretty sculpture in the Carmel mission and although it was smaller it seemed more intimate somehow and less production style. San Juan Capistrano had a lot more going on in their space:  a tannery, a wine press, olive pressing, herb gardens, a hospital...etc.etc. That's all once upon a time of course, today there are just a lot of docents everywhere, explaining loudly how this pit was used and what that stone area over yonder was called. It was still pretty, still had historic gravity, a beautiful chapel, lush gardens...the whole package but, somehow it was just, not quite as romantic as my first introduction to the mission idea had been.

Leaving San Fran Behind...

So, when we first arrived (literally the first night), Dee came down with a wretched cold that his big brother generously shared during the plane flight over. We tossed and turned and sat up and back patted and offered sips of water and rubbed our eyes and somehow we made it through the night. There are times when its really nice to be two people parenting and not just one. We just kind of traded off when it got insane and we were wishing for toothpicks to hold our eyes open and between the two of us we both managed to scrape up survival levels of sleep. The next night was the worst (although mercifully Ru has improved more and more and has been sleeping like an angel every night) and then we had one more wretched night at A's maternal relative's home. The great mercy here was that they had us set up in two separate rooms (intended to be kid and parent quarters) but what it actually allowed was for the "off duty" parent to get some quiet, closed door sleep while the other person took a shift. A and I both slept more deeply, even though there were still not really any more hours of shut eye between us. But folks, that was the blush of dawn on the horizon...last night there was no wheezing and many fewer wakings and so much less anguished wailing. Praises be...we felt downright normal in the morning. So, here we sit, preparing to dig into the quilts at a new mom and pop joint and we have every hope of getting decent rest for the second night in a row and ending up positively giddy on the road to Hearst Castle in the morning! *glorious whoops of victory all round*

What else has happened? Well, both A and I were surprised how sane and reasonable San Francisco struck us. New York feels considerably more grubby, fast paced and harried. A even ventured to say that San Fran felt like a "town" to him and although I would personally never go that far, I do have to agree that it doesn't have the staggering metropolis feel that NYC feels swathed in. We're both curious how L.A. will strike us.

Another surprising bit has been the fact that besides San Francsico and of course Los Angeles and San Diego (which we know are looming down the coast ahead of us), California feels like a long and fairly empty state full of wilderness, big trees, empty tracts of land, long winding roads and scattered small towns here and there for punctuation. We can't get over how the dominant conception of the state is materialism, city, urban, glitz and yet the real sum total of the state seems more like wilderness with a couple token cities. I guess, its a little like New York state that way although on a larger scale. New York-staters (I hesitate to write New Yorkers) are always complaining that they are not reasonably represented by New York City. Upstate has so little to do with the rush of Midtown. A and I are have learned that we need to quickly check our cell phone messages and rush to update our directions and mapping plans in the cities and bit towns we pass through because big swathes of the state have no cell coverage of any kind and are quite remote feeling, albeit really beautiful, keeps us on our toes with planning and is taking apart our conceptions and silly constructions.

Right now we're spending the night in Big Sur, one of those big wildnerness areas I mentioned, a redwood scattered, turquoise bathed coast with giant black rocks sticking out of the sea cliffs where our path, Highway 1 winds on and on. We both find it curious that the west and east coasts have a Hwy.1 that runs the length of the shore! We never noticed before. We're starting to toss around the idea of reproducing our idea here on the Altantic Coast just for kicks. A nine day drive from our home in Connecticut (or better yet from the top of Maine!) all the way down to Florida's tippy toe. Sounds like fun, no? Sounds like even more fun, knowing that someday I will be un-pregnant and that this imaginary trip might very well fall in that space in time.

(putting my puffy ankles up on the dash as we cross the Golden Gate Bridge)

The shine, I'm afraid, has worn off. I'm good and ready to have my body back. I think this week was the first time I've started to really feel like, "Okay, all this other stuff is all well and good but, I think when we get home...job number one needs to be Baby." I'm ready to be done. I can't wait to feel comfortable again, I can't wait to lie on my own stomach, I can't wait to just be alone in my own skin, call me an introvert...I'm ready for some personal space. I am also of course so excited to meet the baby and very interested in getting home and having a little time to get organized before the actually make an entrance etc. etc. BUT...but but but....I'm up for the next stage. Its time to be un-pregnant good and soon folks and that's the way it ought to be right about now.

So, that's the scoop at the moment, friends...life is good, California is different but different/good and we're about halfway down the state, squiggling our way towards my warren of maternal cousins in Orange County.

And one more thing...(how crazy is this bit of familial info that A and I just put together)....we both have, Aunt Nancys...who live in California, are teachers by profession and had sons named Matt. What are the odds, people? Nuts. Life is just wild.

So, goodnight California, quirks and wackiness and double-takes galore...we're glad we're here and we'll see more of you in the morning.

Chuggin' On Down The Coast

Well, how in the world can I begin to re-cap our adventures so far? Just a couple of days in and the "Moments to Remember" are beginning to dog-pile in my brain to ridiculous heights. We've walked through redwood forests, eaten seafood, driven along the sea cliffs, had a great (albeit very short) visit with A's maternal relatives, eaten about three rounds of fresh California strawberries and had many a happy talk together, driving winding California roads while two short people snore behind us in the backseat. So far, so good.
As my dear, midwife told me..."This kind of [very pregnant] travel is just a different thing. You must just wear a different lens and adjust your plans as needed." And indeed we do find ourselves adjusting. We walk slower, we take a lot more breaks and we have learned to get up in the morning, read our supposed itinerary and then chuckle up our sleeves together and make guesses at what we'll actually do. I'm holding up pretty well although I do find that I start crashing at about 8:30 at night and absolutely no use to A in the "supplying directions to our intended hotel" department. I basically snore while he and his gps take us on down the road to a good, soft bed. Its a great feeling to know you can be replaced electronically if needed.


Photos not uploading tonight for some reason so I will try to add a few in the morning and hope to keep sharing photographically as we go some more....

Packing Everything, But The Diapers.

Well, folks....it feels amazingly good to be able to tell you that I met my goal of potty-training Dee before we left for California. Tomorrow we take off in a plane bound for the "other coast" and in our suitcase will be a lot of training pants and 2T underwear but just enough diapers to serve us at nighttime. Boy, is victory sweet!

I am so very proud of myself. I think I was a much more level-headed and kind potty training coach this time around although I'm not sure how much of that I can take credit for and how much of it is just his personality versus Ru's. He's less confrontationally stubborn and I feel like he is easier to work with. That said, I know I've grown and become a better mommy since I went through this stage with his big brother. How can you not grow? For one thing, I'm just older and more mature and for another, experience of course, is a wise teacher. There were not tears on my part this time. There were very few floor messes and there have been no meltdown shouting matches over "sitting right down on that potty young man, right now!" Whew.

It is positively mind stutter inducing to pack bags for our first trip with two potty trained children. I keep looking at their suitcase and alternately thinking "What's missing?" and "Where will I put all the diapers though?"  Then I catch myself and have one more good laugh about it and give myself a mental slap on the back. Nothing like reliving your own glorious success accidentally!

I have even stopped putting him in diapers at naptime because he doesn't want one on and most of the time manages to stay dry anyhow! I'm so proud of him I could bust! What a big boy! And can you believe my extreme luck? I will have only the baby in diapers in a month or so! WOOHOO!!!!

Tomorrow, our plane flies out and we'll haul all those triaining pants (and of course everything else we're bringing to the check-in desk) and head to Medford, Oregon where to adventure begins. I am bringing the laptop and plan to photograph and blog our way down the coast, thus to stay in touch (like a good blogger) and more clearly remember our exciting journey. I'll see you on the other side, wherever I get a chance to sit down with the keyboard and unload in the next 24 hrs.

Bon Voyage to us!!

Spring Is In Full Swing!

Well, life is as jolly as it gets around here. Dee has been given his own little dolly baby by my good friend Pintura who smuggled it out of their house and snuck it into my backpack this morning at MOPS. She has an excess of baby dolls at her house (two daughters seems to do that to you) and we needed one for a sweetly paternal little boy who has been wrapping everything and nothing in little baby washcloths and cooing them around the house in cradle hold. Just the perfect trade. Everybody wins. He's been super cute all day, carting "Baby" around with him announcing that now Baby was sleeping and now he was giving Baby milk and now Baby was "cying!" Sweet little man. He's going to make a top notch big brother.

After MOPS the boys and I cruised up to the farm for milk and eggs and a visit with the farmer's baby chicks and then we whizzed to Nutmeg's house for a little yard romp with Sprig and a cold glass of iced ginger/orange/lemon tea...MMmmmm! Hard to believe that its warm enough for ice tea already but, today was quite warm...on our way to pick up A from work the car's thermometer said 89 degrees at 5:00 in the afternoon. Awfully fun but, pretty surreal in the same breath.

And as Nutmeg quipped..."It isn't time for iced tea. This is an illusion." It will be back to spring instead of summer in a few days if the weatherman is right. True, true...and yet...who can resist the joy of flip flops and a sizzling back patio lounging session with a cold glass in their hand...seasonally appropriate or no.

We're neck deep here in magnolias, cherry blossoms, bradford pear blooms, forsythia, daffodils and flowering quince. The world has become a frothy sea of floating petals and misty  floral wonder. Every night when we're driving A home from work now I say, "Look! Look! Look at that!!" I hope it never gets old and that every spring I am stunned by the breathless beauty of it all. So far, so good.

Drowsy, Rainy Day...

Am feeling so foggy suddenly: slow moving, sleepy, sluggish, and a little mentally fuzzy to boot. Didn't do a lot today except stay in and watch the rain mist down on the daffodils, fold a little laundry, wash dishes and read books with the boys. OH yes, and nap. I napped. I never nap but, I couldn't seem to help myself, bed was calling and wow was it hard to get up afterwards.

The baby has settled pretty low, my lung capacity doesn't seem to be so affected and although I need smaller portions than normal at mealtime, I'm not having heartburn or any other symptoms of Baby Bird floating high. I am having quite a lot of practice contractions and feeling like I have to run to the bathroom every few minutes. Just not a lot of room left in the lower quadrant anymore.

The weather is feeling more and more springlike too which makes me think more and more about how close I'm getting to the end. I'm in my 33rd week this week and A plays poking games with Baby Bird in the evening and in the morning I watch the pussywillows floofing out into pale yellow baby chick fuzz on the tree outside our bedroom window. The crocuses are done and faded to ragged bits of grey petal amongst their stripey leaves, on to the daffodils and hyacinths! Just this weekend the forsythia really opened and I expect we'll be seeing the tulips any minute. We're to the part of the year where this quote goes round and round in my mind a lot:

“First a howling blizzard woke us,
Then the rain came down to soak us,
And now before the eye can focus –
Crocus.”
- Lilja Rogers

As I type I can hear the local spring peepers churring up a storm outside just beyond the top of our driveway. I am happy to have it really settling in to spring weather and starting to feel the pressure to get baby plans all squared away, I'd like to have things pretty much figured out before we leave for California in just a couple of weeks.

All is a bit of a foggy muddle in our home at moment, A is all about taxes, I am thinking about Baby and the boys are as focused as possible on getting outdoors every time the door opens.