move along, folks. nothing to see here.

for the eternity that is life with two kids under three last two days i have been mentally drafting a post about how unbelievably terrible shannon is. sure he’s a good dad and all. but he’s a terrible, selfish, unhelpful, in-the-way, smelly-man kind of partner. all i’ve been able to think about is how to escape, preferably without anybody noticing.

and then, sleep.

after 6 weeks of sleeping no more than two hours at a time, eamon is returning to his good-baby ways. two nights ago he slept from 8-3; last night, from 8-5. this morning i awoke and the sun was shining and the birds were chirping and the house was perfect and somehow shannon had morphed into a kind, loving, gentle, and considerately (and considerably) fresh-smelling partner.

so scratch the drama. 

ahhhh. blessed relief.

 

for now.

snow days!

we had two forced days at home due to weather. (don’t laugh at us, you hardy northerners. this wasn’t our idea of an emergency.) you can laugh at us, though, for being unprepared for mairin. who thought we’d need to get her snow boots? (not me, that’s who.) so on day 1 we improvised with plastic bags and rubber bands. mairin thought this was so great that even though we had boots for her on day two (it wasn’t so much of an emergency that we couldn’t get to the shops across the street from us) she still wanted to wear bags held up by rubber bands. i’m thinking we’ll start a new trend.

toddler hip waders, day 1

throwing snow at mommy, day 2

mommy throws back, day 2

eamon rolls over!

we didn’t manage any rolling-in-motion pix, just ‘before’ and ‘after’ ones — but you can see them here.

go ahead, lad. say it to my face.

(more evidence that i birthed an old man, this one an irish politician. definitely not a vinnie.)

say ‘cheese sample’!

item 1.

mairin loves cheese. i assume that she will do her birthstate right and grow up to also love brats and beer, but for now that girl loves her cheese. and she has evolved from shaving her own block of parm — yes, her very own, reserved especially for her (since she is wont to chew on it) — over her noodles while belting out “oh, i LOVE NOODLES! NOODLES with PEPPER & CHEESE!” to requesting trips to whole foods. specifically for the cheese samples.

“mom, you need to go to the grocery store?”

“um, well, we are out of milk.”

“mommy, i go with you?”

“sure, honey, when i go to the store you can come with me.”

mairin walks around the dining room, pondering this answer.

“mommy, can i have some milk?”

“(sigh) ok, sweetie, let’s go to the store now.”

“whole foods, mommy?”

“sure, sweetie, let’s go to whole foods.” (which, lest you mock our extravagance, i should tell you now sells 1/2 gallons of organic, pasteurized and non-homogenized local milk for $2.99 a half gallon. that’s a better deal than we can get anywhere else.)

“okay, mom! whole foods! cheese samples!”

and while we shop we must be quick to make our way to the cheese section, where we either sample the cheeses out for our pleasure, or buy cheeses to take home to make our own cheese samples. 

item 2.

a few weekends ago we bought a new laptop and went wireless in the house. for mairin, this means regular access to PICTURES! and THOMAS VIDEOS! but the pictures are her favorite part. we watch slideshow after slideshow of our sets on flickr or from our computer’s photo folder.

which has prompted mairin to ask for her own camera.

“mommy buy me a small camera?”

“a what?”

“a small camera, mommy. i take pictures.”

ah, so we’re back to the whole extravagance thing. shannon “gave” mairin his small handheld camera that he takes on bike rides. when you turn it on a green light glows on the top, the lens telescopes open, and the camera makes a cute little chirping sound. mairin walks around with this camera for hours on end. she holds it johnny carson-swami style against her forehead with her eyes closed, turns her face toward her desired subject, and squeals “say cheese.”

until she realized, while munching on our plate of (note the non-extravagance) monterey jack & sharp cheddar, that her two favorite things were on a collision course to funny. “say cheese samples mommy” she hollered at me, kicking over my glass of water and waking eamon with her giggling fit.

because you know you want it

come take a look at our goings-on:

eamon, four months.

new year’s in columbus.

and a bonus pic just for visiting us today:

 

someone likes herself some frosting

because i’ve heard late is better than never…

look!

i marilyn!

she slays me …

… she really does.

yesterday evening the kids and i bundled into the car to go pick up c from work. mairin, who had a good nap, kept a monologue going for the whole drive, occasionally asking me if we were going to pick up mommy at work. we get to the parking lot, and she starts peering up and trying to see over the back of her seat, saying “we picking mommy up from work?” again and again. when carole came out, and got into the car, mairin could no longer contain herself and blurted: “hi mommy! i so happy to see you!”

i’m perfectly willing to believe (in fact, i know) that you had to be there, but for some reason this gobsmacked both of us: it made us giggle for the incongruity of such a grownup phrase in such a toddler’s voice (and enunciation), but it also was one of a number of moments recently that highlight how quickly she’s developing language — in fact, it’s so fast that i think we’re missing a fair chunk of it.

and with a four-month-old who looks more and more like a little kid and less and less like an infant every hour (rice cereal?!?! already?!?!?!), all this crazy high-speed development is a little dizzying, and makes me want to s-l-o-w down just a little.

not much chance of that. and when push comes to shove, i wouldn’t have it any other way.

four months!

some days its hard to imagine, let alone remember, that at this time one year ago i was crippled by morning sickness, that we didn’t yet know we were having twins! we were not having twins!, that gus wasn’t here.

but boy oh boy is he here now. “he looks fantastic!” the doctor glowed today, noting that the kid has gained more than two pounds in less than a month. he’s also grown more than an inch and a half and his head–thank the good lord above–has grown merely a centimeter. this puts g’s numbers even closer to the hwp stats parents like to see. (the particulars: 25th percentile for weight [up from the 10th! up from the 3rd!]; 50th percentile for length [up from the 25th!]; and 76th-ish percentile for head size [holding steady from the 75th].)

lest you think for one minute that our concerns about food are over, however, i bring you this: solids.

dr: how is his development?

me: um, well, you know, he’s only four months. so he’s not out running any races, y’know? 

dr: looks at me askance. (or askew. or akimbo. take your pick.)

me: okay, well, yeah, he’s really social. he won’t take his eyes off his big sister. or my dinner fork.

dr: you don’t say?

me: seriously. when i eat and he’s in my lap, he watches my fork from plate to mouth. 

dr: well then it’s probably time to start him in on solids.

me: WHAT? my BABY? on SOLIDS? why, he’s just a little guy. so tiny. he can’t even TALK yet! why would i want to start him on solids?

dr: um, well, because that’s what we do with kids. you know. we help them grow up.

me: harumph.

so it’s not exactly a medical concern (like the slow weight gain) or a dictum (like the injunction to supplement him NOW and OFTEN). it’s just what parents do. apparently. but my BAAAABEEEEEEE! he can’t be ready for solids! next thing you know he’ll be all, like, hey mom i’m stopping off on the way home from work to buy some beer, can i pick something up for you? and i’ll be like, oh, honey, remember when you were a teeny tiny little gu— and he’ll be all, fer crying out loud, woman, not again.

so next time i go to the grocery store (a trip i will now postpone as long as our pantry full of jam and pasta will allow) i will be purchasing rice cereal. and there goes my baby. all grown up. just like that.

another cold, wet evening …

… and we’re all hanging out in the living room, me sprawled on a chair, carole and eamon on the couch, and mairin (as she is wont to these days) running around the wall separating our kitchen, dining room and living room, squealing “look at me — i running!” over and over again until she’s so out of breath that it sounds more like “loo — gasp! me-i — heave! ning!” and we watch her like she’s reality tv or the teletubbies or something equally mind-effacing. the heat kicks on, and for the first time in hours mairin changes course, leaving her loop of “look at me!” and angling toward us. we brace for the affectionate hurtle into one of our laps (“da-ee pick-a me up-a!”), and carole instinctively shields eamon’s eyes, ears, and fontanelle. but mairin ignores us, landing instead on the floor register, which she stands over, hair wisping in the upward gust of warmth, coyly grinning at us, saying:

“look — i marilyn.”

this time last year, part 2

and then, a year ago today, i blogged this:

things we throw in the trash

mindfulness meditation only works when you remember to use it. to pause whenever you feel your body’s systems start to rev up and remember to really think about what’s going on, to breathe deeply, and to face what is happening with an open mind.

 i have been trying these last few days, i really have. i was disappointed at the negative test but relieved to start cramping. i was pleased at the idea of an endometrial lining that had never seen 2007. but underneath all that, i kept hoping, as many of us do despite ourselves, that the test was wrong. so i wasn’t really calm, or mindful. i had hopes. i had hopes that felt close to expectations. and we all know how bad that can be.

two days after stopping prometrium, when i still hadn’t started bleeding, i started doing a wee bit of research about progesterone withdrawal bleeds. my memory (never that great to start with) was that it took at least a day and maybe three, but not really any more that that. dr. google neither confirmed nor denied, but i read enough to know that i could be expected to wait 7-10 days before really worrying (whatever “really worrying” actually means). so i was ready to wait. and to calm the hell down revisit my mindfulness.

s asked about the cramps, which had stopped, and about any spotting, which i would have normally expected but which hadn’t started. he asked whether i should test again. i reminded him that dr h (the doc who brought us m) usually asked me to wait 5 days between tests. s thought maybe three days was a good window. i was happy to hear somebody besides me say that; i always feel such a fool when i keep testing and the results are the same.

i was prepared for it to be negative. so when, bleary-eyed and half-awake i peered at the stick and saw what i thought was a shadow of a first line, my heart leapt. and then the strong second line came. and then i couldn’t see the shadow of the first line. i turned the stick to catch different light and screwed my eyes up real tight but nope: no first line.

i tossed the stick in the trash and went back to bed.

a few hours later s asked whether i’d tested. yes, i told him. it was still negative. ok, he said. and he left to buy coffee.

i got up and grabbed m and the dogs to go for a walk. on my way downstairs i saw the pee stick, half-sticking out of the bathroom garbage. i always feel self-conscious about those damn things sitting around — what if my mil drops by?! – so i grabbed it, lifted the trash lid to re-deposit it, and gave it a closer look.

two lines.

it’s hard not to worry that the first line is too faint. that it appeared later than the 3-minute window (which i DEFINITELY did not wait for) as the result of some chemical reaction that has nothing to do with my body’s production of hgc. that i quit taking progesterone for three days and so have doomed the pregnancy. or that some piece of 2007 is still lurking in my body and is out to get to me.

but still: two lines.

happy day!