and that’s a good sign?

in her pregnancies, carole has, er, vivid dreams. i’ve already mentioned the problems with post-dexter nightmares; she’s also had to cease reading crime novels (one of her favorite pre-sleep activities), because of the scary dreams they’ve inspired.

today i’m thinking i need to put her back on the scary stuff. see, she has this tendency while pregnant to have somewhat romantic dreams, which is all well and good as long as i’m involved. but, of course, i’m not. when she was pregnant with mairin, it was swimmers (yes, plural — two, to be exact): two long, lean, muscular, speedo-clad michael phelps clones shining with chlorinated water, glowing with good health and unselfconscious masculinity. fortunately for her, i have a healthy sense of the distinction between dream life and waking life (unlike natalie imbruglia), so we joked about it for months: “what are you gonna do, run off with your swimmers?” “my swimmers wouldn’t say such things to me.”… and so on.

but the other night she may have crossed the line. i may not be able to handle this one. she’s outdone her dream self, and easily trumped the two swimmers and any other dream dalliances she may have wisely kept quiet. she had a version of every regular guy’s worst nightmare (fill in the madlib and see how close you get): his girl is swept off her feet by [famous heartthrob] and doted on and adored by said heartthrob in [unattainable romantic destination].

the correct answers? orlando bloom (this one, not the fey legolas). paris.

grrrr.

on the other hand, in the dream he broke up with her (his parents disapproved), and then kept showing up to have the same tormented, torturous, post-breakup conversations over and over again. maybe, deep down in her dream, she could hear me snoring and felt bad. yeah, that’s it. she felt bad. about orlando bloom. right. that’s my story, and i’m stickin’ with it.

new kid’s great, by the way, and still “new kid,” until i (or carole) get a flash of naming inspiration.

can you help me pick this up?

saw the doc (carole’s doc, that is) today for her “first OB” appointment. seems a little silly, since i think it’s technically her fourth with this pregnancy, but there you go — it apparently means something specific: bloodwork, exam, history, etc. we get in, stop here so the nurse can check bp and weight and draw blood from both of carole’s arms (one was uncooperative), come in here for a bunch of questions, go in there and strip down (not me), and then enter dr. l.

how are you, feet up here, exam, blah-de-blah…yawn. i’m thinkin’ about lunch, since we were in the waiting room for half an hour and didn’t eat much breakfast and the extra (good) coffee i had at the emporium has made my tummy a little acid, and hey? what’s this? the doc gets out this little stethoscope-y thingie with two ear-sets and where the little round disc would be there’s a 1970’s transistor radio, and he and carole put on earsets and he turns on the radio and he’s rubbing the radio on carole’s belly, and he and carole have the earpieces in their ears and i can’t hear anything and apparently neither can they because their smiles are getting tighter and carole’s eyes are getting distant and the doctor is going over the same arc with the little transistor radio and i’m thinking well, of course you can’t hear anything with that — do you have anything from the last forty years? and then he stops and takes off his earpiece and he’s not really looking us in the eyes right now and he smiles and says, “well, let’s not wait” and we hustle down the hall (carole in a sheet) to the ultrasound room and now i’m hearing something it’s a whoosh in my ears and the sound of my heart hitting the floor and (no not again) i know this feeling i know it and hate it and hey at least i won’t ever have to feel it again because this is it and we’re done after this oh my god there’s no heartbeat; wait: not there’s no heartbeat he just couldn’t find it on that dinky transistor radio and that doesn’t mean anything caroles’ still sick and her belly’s like five inches bigger than it’s ever been at ten weeks and

could he take any f*cking longer to get that thing going?

i’m grasping for carole’s hand remembering the time in minnesota when we went for a routine ultrasound and the tech couldn’t find the heartbeat and she wanted to get the doc’s opinion but the doc was somewhere else and we had to drive to another clinic to learn that the bean’s heartbeat had stopped, wasn’t there, miscarriage, boom; and the time between knowing and knowing was awful and at least we just had to come down the hall for this one, this last one.

and then there’s the new kid. and the new kid’s heartbeat. and nothing’s over. not yet it ain’t. and as if the new kid knew that her dad (because after all, we do make daughters) was looking around trying to remember where exactly his heart had dropped onto the floor, the new kid danced a little muhammad ali float-like-a-butterfly dance jab-jab, just for me. later, just for carole, she did a little somersault.

new kid’s the greatest. and just fine. and now that i’ve metaphorically linked the new kid to muhammad ali, i suddenly have this image of her in a diaper (or boxing shorts), neck veins bulging, arms stiff at her sides, leaning over my prone knocked-out body, eyes bulging, shouting: “what’s my name? what’s my name?”

workin’ on it, kid.

jartime, or, dad makes a hit

mairin is going through a big container phase: in the bathtub, she likes nothing more than filling a plastic yogurt or cottage cheese container and pouring it down her front or into another container; she picks up her bottle of baby lotion or boudreaux’s butt paste and pretends to pour a bit on her hands and rub it in; she takes empty gatorade bottles (the only thing carole could keep down for a few days there) and pretends to drink from them; and she regularly empties the cabinet with the leftover containers to engage in all manner of play.

so last week — the interminable week during which mairin had a fever and was a real trooper — when we had a snow day that closed our workplace and we were all home, a little ragged and a lot stir-crazy, i HAD to get out of the house for a few minutes. i went over to the local bookstore, which has a great kids’ section with way more than books, and found her a little wooden set of pretend kitchen jars with magnetic lids. there’s jam (purple), and olive oil (green), hot dog mustard (yellow), and ketchup (red), and salad dressing (orange). they’re solid, so you can’t actually put anything in them, which had me a little worried, especially since m has always been a little slow to warm up to new toys.

not these, though — she won’t put them down. in fact, after several days of walking around with two, one in each hand, she figured out that she could keep more of them with her by putting them in a bag and carrying the bag around. she pours them into her hand and rubs around whatever comes out, she drinks from them, she offers us drinks from them — she even offers the dogs drinks from them. she pours from one to the other, she interchanges lids — in short, she’s creative with these little jars in all the ways people have told me that kids are creative with whatever they play with, and it’s a hoot to watch.

the new kid: a hard taskmaster

when carole was pregnant with mairin, the baby (then known as poppy) would wake her up most mornings around 5:30. didn’t matter how tired carole was, or how much she wanted a little extra sleep: 5:30 am would roll around, and carole would be awake. for good. i know this is true, because she would often simply begin talking to me as though of course i was awakened by the fetus in her as well. grr.

well, the new kid has a slightly different and more disruptive schedule. see, 5:30 is annoyingly early, but it was close enough to a regular workaday wake-up that carole could simply adjust her bedtime a bit earlier and still get a decent night’s sleep (until the foot cramps started, that is, but don’t get me started on that…yet). the new kid, on the other hand, is made of more devious stuff, and has set 2:30 am as as good a time as any to wake up mama. for at least 90 minutes.

if you’re awake at 4 am, you kinda start thinking about how little time there is until you have to get up and start the day, which of course only makes it harder to get back to sleep for that little precious sliver of remaining time. in essence, carole’s been sleeping from bedtime (for her, around 8:30 pm nowadays) until 2:30 am, and 6 hours ain’t enough when you’re building organs.

all of which is to say that when i left for work today, there were two wan females waving weakly out the window as i drove away: one, short, pudgy, a bit bleary and with snot encrusted to her cheek (and hair) from a hard night of draining; the other, tall, lean, looking a little gaunt and green under the gills, with two toothpicks carefully propping her eyelids open.

i hope they’re both sleeping now.

this one’s for sophie

when mairin was a wee, wee thing (oh, so many pounds ago) her sweet cousin sophie gave her a board book for christmas. sophie had chosen the book all by herself at her school’s christmas sale. it’s a bright and colorful book, featuring shiny foil easter eggs that one) can be counted and two) are described using prepositions. two eggs among the flowers. four eggs underneath the birdbath. it’s a perfect book.

unfortunately, mairin has not liked books. or, more specifically, she has not liked kids’ books. she will gladly leaf through a cookbook — or, pen in hand, riffle through a crossword book. but board books? no interest. no interest at all.

suddenly, though, things are different. mairin has spent the last two fever-ridden days carrying around her christmas book from sophie. she sits down to read it, then walks over to bookshelf and puts it away. turns around and walks away. walks back, picks up the book, sits down to read it. puts it away. gets it out again. reads it. carries it around for a while. brings it to me to read with her. puts it away. gets it out. carries it around. it goes with her everywhere.

now mairin loves her book! thank you, sophie!

new kid is great…

…but the rest of the family is a little frayed at the edges. Specifically, Carole’s nausea continues and is compounded by excessive fatigue — the result of a sleepless night following a vivid and scary nightmare following an episode of Dexter. Hell, I got scared when she told me the nightmare, so I don’t blame her one bit for a little insomnia. Plus, we now know that the new kid doesn’t like grim comedies about ser.ial kil.lers, no matter how solid their motives. The Wire, on the other hand, has produced no such aftereffects. Go figure.

Mairin, on the other hand, scared the heck out of us last night by coming home from a visit to the grandparents with a spiking fever that ultimately hit 105. A nervous call to the on-call physician from our peds’ office let us know matter-of-factly that “this is going around” and sent me to a 24-hour pharmacy for some extra fever reducers (The big-box bullseye, by the way, is not open 24 hours, at least not in our ‘hood). We’ve got the burn under control for now, but I’m ever more convinced that children are designed to take years off the lives of their parents. Intelligent Design? try Diabolical Design.

seventeen months, wherein carole continues her quest to win the mother of the year award

last month was the month of shoes. this month, the month of food.

i know i should count myself lucky to have a child with a hearty appetite, who is, if anything, an intrepid diner. she has eagerly devoured, at different times this month, my plate of collard greens, my bowl of cuban beef stew, and my morning serving of steel cut oatmeal. (in the meantime, i’m getting an enforced and not entirely welcome lesson in portion control.)

but mairin’s new favorite thing: spice. the hotter the food, the better. yum.

her first (to us very surprising) expedition to the land of exotic spices was on a night that we made burritos. homemade burritos have become something of a staple in our home over the last few years: they are cheap, quick and delicious. they are pretty healthy (if you ignore fat content of the flour tortillas, which we do). most importantly, they scratch shannon’s itch to make mexican food without requiring that he haul out the hand press to make corn tortillas from scratch while he slaves over a chicken mole. 

on the particular night in question mairin had already had her dinner, and shannon and i were settling in for a quick bite and a beer before putting her to bed. i had made the burrito filling that night, and since they’re not my thing and since i am WAY too lazy to use measuring spoons, they were spicier than normal. yummy, but spicy. i was chomping away when mairin walked over to me and asked for a bite of my burrito.  i always let her try what’s on my plate, so i dutifully handed over my burrito. she took a not-particularly-delicate bite, chewed a bit, and leaned in for more. surprised, i held the burrito out again. she took a bigger bite, chewed, and again asked for more. shannon got up to make her own burrito, we put mairin in her high chair, and she ate about half of her own burrito before her eyes started watering. a few more bites and the tears were running freely down her face. but she kept eating. she kept eating. she did not complain. she did not ask for water. she did not push the burrito away. she ate the entire damn thing, tears pouring down her cheeks. then she happily put on her jammies and went to bed.

amazed, we called our good friend mr. springfield, the only person we know who would truly appreciate this remarkable toddler feat. and then we wrote it off as a one-time experience. a good story. too bad we didn’t get pictures to torture her with show her when she’s older and easily embarrassed.

between then and now, mairin has continued to eat widely and well. she continues to love burritos. but then last night we hit a new high. (or low, depending on whether you’re measuring her perserverence or my mothering): mairin ate my leftover thai beef with basil.

i had eaten half of my portion and half of my fried rice at lunch, knowing that i shouldn’t put too much in my tummy these days and figuring that if the first half stayed down at lunchtime, the second half would make a good dinner. and it did: for mairin. as usual, i prepared my plate of food and didn’t even try to put it at my own place at the table. instead, i put it down on mairin’s high chair tray, and pulled up a chair so that i could sit with her. i gave her a bite of fried rice, which she gobbled down. and another. and another. and since the fried rice had more or less mixed with the beef and veggies and basil, i started giving her pieces of the vegetables and chunks of beef. yummy, mama. more please, mama. i tried to pick off the giant pieces of hot pepper attached to the food, but she wouldn’t always wait for me. gobble gobble.

worried that she was getting too much hot food too fast, i tried to slow things down. i put the fork down. she gave me the evil eye, picked up a handful of rice with her fingers, and shoved it in her mouth. then beef. then mushroom. all covered in yummy, hot and spicy basil sauce. i tried to take the plate away. she cried. i put it back. she shoved more food in her mouth.

and then it hit.

as if on cue, the skin around her lips and around her nostrils simultaneously flamed a bright red. the skin under her eyebrows turned so red that it looked like someone had slashed lipstick across her forehead. and her eyes, her poor eyes. so many tears she could barely see.

and the kid kept eating.

until suddenly her brain caught up with her taste buds. she looked at me desperately, holding out her hands to be washed. i washed them. she shoved them in her mouth. took them back out, holding them out to me. i asked if she wanted me to wash them again. she said no. she wanted to put them in my mouth. so i let her. that obviously didn’t help. we washed them again. she stuck them back in her mouth and started pulling. at first she looked like she was chewing on her knuckle, as if under her manic, tear-stained cherry-red clown face she was being thoughtful. then i realized she was trying to pull out her tongue. i offered her water. she said no. i offered her milk. she said yes. (how do they know at so young an age?) shannon told her beer would be even better. she said no and gulped more milk. asked to have her hands washed again. stuck her clean and cold fingers back in her mouth. i gave her some cold grapes. a few slices of cold apple. she ate the sweet fruit and drank more milk. we washed her hands again and she stuck them back in her mouth, but this time with a little less desperation. her heat rash was slowly fading to a soft pink color, but the tears were still coursing down her face.

and still, she never cried. never pushed away the food. would have kept eating if i’d let her.

i swear, this kid is going to grow up to give anthony bourdain a run for his money.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a very few, relatively calm pics from the month 17: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chabries_smith/sets/72157603870128348/

ultrasound pix

on the left, the new kid; on the right, the vanishing twin.

it’s more effective when you can hear the thump-thump of the heartbeat, but the picture works, too.

is nothing simple?

last week, c was in the throes of an unprecedented nausea: unable to walk without motion sickness, weak, disgusted not only by food but also by the smell of everything and anything (one morning we were walking into the office, in the parking lot, no one within twenty feet, and she muttered, “my god — his cologne.” i don’t wear the stuff, and i’m still not sure of her referent, but i know she was close,very close, to decorating the blacktop at that moment…) — anyway, one day last week, I jokingly said, “wouldn’t it just figure that your morning sickness is so strong because you’re having twins?”

i was immediately incinerated by c’s glare. not only that, i was eviscerated by my self-reproach — i have become a very superstitious fellow: i watch what i say, i watch my verb tenses, i never vary my routine when preparing c’s heparin shots, i try incredibly hard not to assume too much and stay focused on what is true right now, and i really really don’t joke about anything that might emerge as a complication for this pregnancy.

especially now that it turns out that i was right.

see, last week, c was having twins.

but not now.

we went to see the best OB in the universe yesterday for an ultrasound. quick as a wish, he got the new kid up on the screen, pointed out the crown, rump, and yolk sac, and then found the heartbeat. hooray, baby! hooray, new kid!

then he looked around a little more, and said, “well, will you look at that?” we stopped in mid-hand-squeeze.

he’d found another, second pocket in the uterus, this one with a much smaller, inert mass inside. after a little examination, he determined that this would-be new kid had probably stopped growing some time ago, and was what is known as a vanishing twin. these are apparently pretty common (as docs have discovered with improvements in ultrasound technology that have permitted earlier and earlier exams); more important: the vanishing twin poses no threat to the new kid.

Since nothing is uncomplicated in our reproductive history, why should this be any different? i’m incredibly relieved that we’re not facing a twin pregnancy and all the attendant complications for the next 6 months; i’m ecstatic that we have a baby growing on pace with a strong heartbeat; i know that vanishing twins usually vanish for very real chromosomal reasons; and yet, when i set those positive feelings about the new kid aside, this feels a little like another loss.

but just a little. frankly, i have to work for those feelings. my emotional dance card is too full already. i’m too busy finding food that c can keep down, reveling in the meteoric development of the new kid’s big sister, and looking forward to an uneventful and successful pregnancy, culminating in the arrival of the new kid at the end of the summer. due date, according to the u/s? september 16, 2008. mark your calendars.