The Kindness of Strangers

On December 25th of this year I will be almost 35 weeks pregnant... 

...which means I will be unable to travel to see family for Christmas due to my strong aversion to birthing small humans while airborne.


FUN FACT!  Did you know that it is 26 times more likely that someone will die on your plane than be born? I didn't either until I Googled the above link. Say what you want about this post but you'll walk away from it having learned something!


Because we'll be SoCal-bound for the remainder of the holiday season, for Thanksgiving I felt compelled to fit in a wild round of family visits in advance of my baby-mandated confinement.


First up, I flew to Texas (with children and Mother-in-Law in tow, but without husband, who had stayed behind to work -- a detail which will become important SOON). I spent some time with my husband's family and got in plenty of quality squeezing sessions with my ridiculously cute 4-month-old niece.

And it was great.


But as Thanksgiving day approached it was time for me to make my way to Florida for a turkey-fest with my own relatives. This meant that I somehow needed to transport myself AND two toddlers from San Antonio, TX to Ft. Myers, FL all by my lonesome whilst seven months pregnant.  The journey would involve two legs of a flight and a two-hour layover with two kids (one an 18-month-old 'lap child' despite the fact that I have virtually no lap to speak of at this point, and the other a three-year-old with a tendency to projectile vomit whenever airborne).


Did I mention that I was doing this all on the 2nd busiest travel day of the year?

As I packed up my bags I had visions of travel terrors dancing in my head. I was sure  I would lose at least one of the kids permanently in the cavernous DFW Airport. I was perplexed as to how I was going to balance my current need to pee every fifteen minutes with the requirements of supervising two mini-travelers. I was thinking a lot about the puking.

But I am happy to report that my fears were, for the most part, in vain. My kids were on their absolute best behavior, (and yes, they were also entirely barf-free) and my fellow travelers stepped up heroically to support me at every stage of our journey.


A special shout-out to:

• The San Antonio TSA agent who coaxed Snoodie through the X-Ray machine and then engaged him in a series of ever-more complicated high-fives until I could gather my belongings and achieve full stroller-containment of his brother.

• The serviceman traveling with his own family who missed his boarding group so that he could stay behind and help me fold up my 18-wheel-sized double stroller before getting on the plane.

• The REI-clad woman who threw out a fresh cup of coffee so her hands would be free to carry Crinks on board and then told me with a smile, "I think you must be the bravest woman I've met all day!"

• My full-figured seatmate on the 2nd leg of the flight. When I saw he was a single businessman I groaned inwardly thinking I'd be getting glares for three hours straight. Instead he helped me get my bags settled and even made cute faces at the kids as the plane took off. When I thanked him for being so nice he laughed and said, "Hey, a big guy like me is always happy to have a little guy riding shotgun! You guys made my day!"

And thus, my faith was briefly restored in the goodness of all mankind and the wonder of air travel.

Of course, on the flight home the plane had a flat tire. Snoodie vomited twice. We missed our connection. They wouldn't seat us together on the second leg. Then they lost our gate-checked stroller and car seat, only to return it to us two days later missing two of its wheels.

But all the joy and thankfulness? It was nice while it lasted.

The Terrible Threes

The terrible twos are indeed, fairly terrible. 

There's the constant screaming of, "NO!", the occasional hitting and/or kicking, and, of course, the always beloved tantrum-throwing. But one thing you can say for the twos is that at least they have the decency to give you some warning. 

The horribleness of this age range is consistently conveyed by parenting tomes and fellow Moms alike. Such universal acknowledgement of all the ills the twos contain is comforting, and it helps one get ready. I mean, by the time you have a two-year-old, if you're not prepared to devote a full year of your existence to battles with your offspring over an unending range of senseless minutiae, you've really got no one to blame but yourself.

Then finally your child turns three, and you justifiably believe that your time of turmoil has come to an end. Patiently, you wait for the long-promised door to good behavior to open. Having survived 365 days of "the twos" you are poised to welcome the freedom from strife you have been told is at last, your due.

Until that day when you find yourself asking your three-year-old to put on his shoes...

...and rather than complying with this seemingly innocuous request, your child instead chooses to throw both said shoes directly towards your skull while screaming at the top of his lungs, 

"I DON'T LIKE IT THOSE SHOES!!!!!!!"

You are confused.

What's going on here? By any calendric standards the terrible twos are, in fact, behind you. And yet, where is the calm and delightful three-year-old you've been promised?

You tell yourself that perhaps this incident was some sort of anomaly. Maybe your kiddo had a bad night's sleep. Or perhaps he ingested a bum chicken nugget and it is affecting his judgment. 

You attempt to remain calm.

Several days later, you invite your darling three-year-old into a nice warm bath before bed, as you have done every single night of his life since birth. But instead of thanking you at some length for your thoughtfulness, your child chooses to take several nude laps around the house while shrieking at ear-piercing volume,


"I WON'T GO TO THE BATHTUB!!!!!! I WON'T!" 

Something is definitely amiss here.


And so you seek out fellow mothers to demand some answers. What is going on? The terrible twos are supposed to be over! These are supposed to be the halcyon days of the terrific threes, are they not? 


This is when your friends and peers finally tell you the truth - that three is NOT the end of the terrible twos, as you had been led to believe. Instead 'the terrible threes' are the unannounced rageful sequel to 'the terrible twos'. And they are so terrible that they often make the twos look like nothing more than a mild warm-up act.

You attempt to process this information. Unfortunately, you cannot, as you are far too busy fending off nuclear-level meltdowns from your toddler on subjects including but not limited to:

• I WANT TO SLEEP WITH THE POTTY IN THE BED!
• I DON'T WANT THE CAR TO BE RED ANYMORE! I WANT IT TO BE GREEN!
• I'M SCARED OF THE COUCH!

In your confusion you make the classic mistake of attempting to reason with your three-year-old. You lovingly discuss precisely why the couch is not scary. You carefully detail the downsides of having one's poop receptacle in the sleeping area. You calmly explain that one cannot change a vehicle's color using only one's mind. 

In response your child strikes you about the face and neck before diving to the floor, kicking wildly, and smashing his fists upon the ground. And you come to accept that the twos were just the beginning. But now, the threes have arrived.

Which is terrible, terrible news.

But fear not! From what I hear - the fours are a total breeze.

Vacation

My husband and I spent last week in Hawaii.

And I want you to know that I was -- from the bottom of my heart -- fully intending to write a blog entry from there. But I am here to admit that instead of chronicling my parental mishaps, I did a few other things. 


Here is a short summary.

• I thought a great deal about whether the whole "no drinking while pregnant" thing still applied while I was out of the country. 

• Then I remembered that I was, in fact, in the country and invested a great deal of time trying to concoct alternate justifications for downing a few lava flows.

• Then I used the enhanced buoyancy of my 7-month-pregnant belly to do a little snorkeling.

• Then said belly encountered the coral reef and I realized that snorkeling was not for me.

• Then I sat upon a lounge chair and read 'THE HUNGER GAMES' (which, for the record, I feel that someone might have warned me was the world's most depressing thing EVER before the plot sucked me in for three books' worth).

• Then my husband emerged from the water, plopped down beside me, and we, knowing that our children were thirty-five-hundred miles away in the care of my mother-in-law, chose to spend the rest of our time together doing something romantic, bonding and truly soul-nourishing - which was, of course, pointing at laughing at other couples struggling to deal with their own small children.

And it was awesome.


So, that's all I've got for this week. EXEPT this brief but hopefully exciting announcement! I am now contributing to a really funny new humor site aimed at moms. It also features writing from a bunch of other great writers including Brenna of Suburban Snapshots.


Go visit!       NickMom.com

Lordy, Lordy, Mama's 40

• I am currently experiencing a wicked bout of sciatica

• I have been dealing with raging acid reflux for the past several months

• I am, at present, unable to remove myself from any piece of furniture without making a series of involuntary groaning sounds

...and...

• I have permanently eschewed the varied and tasty meals I used to enjoy in favor of bland and texture-free foodstuffs.

WHO AM I?

Did you guess the world's oldest woman?  Hint: Very close! 

Who feels older?

Instead the correct answer is - - - ME! (A forty plus woman expecting her third baby in four years).

At my age, in strict biological terms, instead of creating new life I should really be engaging in more age-appropriate activities, like maybe whittling, leaf peeping, and/or sitting incredibly still at all times and preparing on a deep subconscious level for the sweet release of death. 

Instead I am running around daily after two toddlers while seven-months-pregnant, and it is providing to be epically difficult.

According to one random study I took fifty-seven seconds to Google, a woman's fertility appears to peak around the age of twenty-two. Which would suggest that one's late teens and early twenties are, in fact, the ideal time for childbirth.

But on the other hand, THAT IS COMPLETELY FLIPPING BONKERS.

Because when I was twenty-two I was living part-time in a van, traveling to divey comedy clubs around the country, and working part-time as a bicycle messenger. In addition, my major love interest of the era turned out to be supporting himself at least partially through the sale of home-grown marijuana.

So, for me, the decades that represented my prime biological years for child-bearing occurred during a period when actual child-rearing would have likely proven fairly disastrous. 

My best friend had her first child at nineteen and now has a two-year-old at forty. She summed up the difference thusly,

"At nineteen, having the baby was a piece of cake. At forty, raising a child is easier."

And to be sure, she did an amazing job with all of her kids. I'm not advocating any "right age" for starting a family. (Though I'll admit believing that having kids young -- when one has the energy to pull it off without getting into bed each night feeling as if you've been attacked by a gang of baseball bat-wielding maniacs -- seems like a really good idea if that is how it happens to work out for you.)

My sister-in-law, who is in her early twenties, recently had a beautiful baby girl. And let me tell you, nothing will make you re-evaluate your life choices faster than standing next to a young woman four weeks post-partum who whips off a swim coverup to reveal a swimsuit calendar-ready body clad only in a hot pink string bikini.

actual sister-in-law not depicted, but take my word, close enough

It has a way of making young motherhood appealing on a whole new level.

But alas, it would appear that my own bikini-sporting days are now firmly in the rear view mirror. As a "late-in-life mom" I am instead relegated to bathing dresses long enough to cover my vein-marred legs and firm enough to subdue my now-permanent love handles.

And there are countless other downsides to my advanced maternal age. There's the general lack of energy; there's the inability to "bounce back" from childbirth in the way I might have as a younger woman; and, of course, there is the general soul-crushingness of having all of my medical paperwork stamped with the phrase, GERIATRIC PREGNANCY.

But, in spite of all of this, I'm still happy to be an older Mama.

I loved being single and carefree in my twenties and early thirties. I spent enough late nights out on the town that the idea of night after night on the couch watching reality TV or snuggling with my husband sounds heavenly instead of limiting. I traveled all around the country without a care beyond meeting my own basic needs and had a great time doing it. And while all that may mean that I'm going to be closing in on 60 when my last child graduates from high school, I wouldn't do it any differently.

Besides, without those years of life experience, how could I pass on valuable life wisdom to my own boys? For example:

Kids! No matter how cold you get when living in a van in your late twenties DO NOT bring the space heater inside the vehicle! It doesn't turn out that well. 

Trust me. Now go get Mommy some Advil, my sciatica is killing me!

The Best Time to Have a Child

I'm expecting Baby #3 on February 1st.

Unfortunately, it is only now beginning to dawn on me that the timing of this birth may have been somewhat less than ideal.


After limping through days upon days of Halloween-themed merriment, it occurs to me that I am now staring down multiple legs of Thanksgiving-related travel, and then moving directly into weeks of Christmas prep and execution.


And the fact of the matter is that being 7 to 8 months pregnant for all of the above is, to say the least, NOT going to make any of the holiday fun any, you know, funner.

At least I'm not delivering in September. I did that with the Snood, and I'm here to tell you that being gigantically pregnant during the hottest months of the year ensures the following triumvirate of miserableness:

• Maternity swimwear in all its unsightliness,

• Overheated waddling,

...and, of course...

• Sand in unreachable netherregions.

I take some comfort in the fact that September made for such a grim pregnancy experience that it can only make early February look swell in comparison.


Crinks was born in mid-May, which was pretty much ideal. His due date meant I could conceal mass holiday-induced weight gain as innocent baby bloat, and then transition directly into a long wintery confinement of coziness until his early Spring arrival. 


I'd say that's how I'd do it if I were to ever do this again, but let's be real here. 


If I ever do this again, I'm likely to care little about when the birth takes place as I'll be serving time in some faraway correctional facility for the murder of my beloved spouse and/or beating my head repeatedly against the wall of a psychiatric institution where I'll have been placed on an extended "rest cure" for my own safety and the safety of those around me.

At which point the optimum time in the calendar year for infant delivery will be the least of my problems.

The Outer Limits

My sister has a new baby at home. 

Her spankin' new son is joining her soon-to-be three-year-old boy, and my sister has had some concerns about their burgeoning relationship. Her older son has been so thrilled by his new brother's arrival that he's taken to kissing and squeezing him on a near constant basis. Worrying that the intensity of this love-fest was starting to border on the violent, my sister decided to consult her pediatrician.


His advice was simple: He told her not to overreact. He informed her that should her son pick up on the fact that his attention towards the baby was getting attention for himself, he would likely take this as a sign that it was time to start playing that beloved childhood game, "I can get a rise out of Mommy by poking the baby in its eyes!"

The doctor said it was highly unlikely that her son would do the baby any real harm as long as she was supervising them and advised her to do her best to ignore her fears and enjoy the adorableness of her son's newfound joy in his sibling.


Which reminded me of one of the best pieces of mothering advice I've yet to receive. When the Snood was a baby, I was fretting to a veteran Mommy friend about one the myriad things I was afraid might somehow damage his little infant self. She responded,


"What you need to realize is that you are nowhere near the outer limits here."


She told me that I needed to start opening the parameters of what I considered dangerous or I would eventually drive myself crazy.


I was confused.


Then, a few weeks later, the Snood had a fairly classic childhood accident. I was visiting family in Chicago when I laid his 3-month-old self down on the bed in order to change into my jammies. Snoodie, in a portent of troublesome choices to come, decided this would be the ideal moment to discover the awesome new skill of rolling over. He proceeded to roll right off the side of the bed and hit his head on the nightstand on the way down before landing on the floor with a horrible thud.

I was terrified. But after a few moments of furious wailing and accusatory glances my way, Snoodie calmed down and seemed absolutely no worse for the wear.


It was almost 10pm as I sat holding my baby and pondering my options:

• I could go to sleep and not worry about it.
• I could bring Snood to the emergency room in a strange city and likely spend several hours waiting only to discover he was perfectly fine.

OR

• I could stay up all night alternately examining my sleeping baby for signs of lingering trauma and pacing the floor like a deranged lunatic.

I chose Option C. I spent the entire night Googling "baby head trauma" (here's a very simple piece of advice that I sincerely hope you will follow. DO NOT EVER Google "baby head trauma". That is all) and/or shaking the Snood awake to make sure he was OK. By the time the sun rose I was fairly convinced that any damage from the night table encounter was neither profound nor permanent.

In an effort to prevent similar episodes in the future, at Snood's next pediatrician appointment I nervously asked what seemed like a deeply self-incriminating question:

"OK, don't take this the wrong way," I stammered, "But exactly how hard does the baby have to hit his head before I bring him to the ER?"

The doctor seemed completely unfazed by my query. She told me it was fairly common for babies to have minor falls and that I should head for the ER if the baby were to lose conciousness, vomit excessively following the fall, or if I noticed clear fluid coming from his ears. 

I was amazed. This was like, SO MUCH FURTHER down the road than I would have thought. I mean, by the time my kid was vomiting or had clear liquid coming from any part of his body, there would be a me-shaped hole in the door and a path of flames leading directly to the emergency room. 

And it helped me understand what my friend meant when she talked about "The Outer Limits". 


She was saying that it was important to find out what things are really a danger for your kids and then try not to freak out until you get near that place.


Here's another example:

Almost as soon as Crinks started to crawl, the kid he decided that the ground was his own personal buffet. Every time I was distracted, (say, by his brother calling for help because he had crawled behind the refrigerator and gotten stuck) I would return to find Crinks gnawing on something unearthed from underneath the couch or perhaps performing a taste test on a sampling of coins from the change cup.

I was lamenting the situation to a doctor friend of mine who also had toddler at home, and I asked her where she drew the line regarding things her kid put in his mouth. She thought about it for a moment before responding, "Oh, you know, cleaning products... dog feces... cigarette butts."  

I'm telling you, people, the outer limits are a lot further out there than you think.


So the moral of the story is, try to relax and realize that you're probably doing just fine. That your kid is going to do crazy stuff, eat yucky things, fall from small heights, and be just fine.


Comforting, isn't it?


That being said, keep your three-month-old off the bed for God's sake. That's not going to end well.

A Little Perspective

This week has not been the best.

My husband had to go to Korea (or as I like to call it, 'Ko-*#@$-rea') from Sunday to Thursday and then had an event to attend in Palm Springs from Friday to Sunday. Yes, this meant SIX DAYS of husband-free child-rearing, during which my emotional state ranged from mild perturbance to deep crabitude.


ON SUNDAY David was with us for part of the day, so we enjoyed some pre-trip family fun time. And by "pre-trip family fun time" I mean David played with the kids while I clung desperately to his ankles crying repeatedly, "Don't go to Korea! Please!!!"


MONDAY was Day One of rolling fully Dad-free. I wrestled the children into clothes, made breakfast, met up with a friend in Griffith Park, rode the train, had lunch, supervised non-naptime, made dinner, did baths, and got both kids into PJs and beds. SUCCESS!

ON TUESDAY I decided to undertake another round of potty training.

Let's not talk about Tuesday.

ON WEDNESDAY Things continued to go off the rails.By the end of the day I'd completely given up and taken the kids to Baskin Robbins to feed them scoops of ice cream for dinner. Then I brought them home, dumped them unceremoniously into bed, and tucked into the Real Housewives Reunion in lieu of some much-needed beer.


ON THURSDAY We got a brief glimpse of Daddy!

• The boys piled atop him for gleeful roughhouing!
• He supervised bathtime and bedtime while I rested!
• I got him to change the diaper genie before leaving again!

ON FRIDAY Sadness descended again as David left for points East.  Luckily, my sister stepped up and accompanied me and the kids to the Long Beach Aquarium.

The upside of the aquarium is that it is a full-day activity during which the kids delight in staring at the fishies.


The downside of the aquarium is EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT THE AQUARIUM.  It is dark and crowded, and you spend all your time watching your tiny offspring disappear between the legs of your fellow fish-peepers and hoping you'll find them again before they decide to dive into the stingray enclosure.


Its not exactly....relaxing.

By Friday night I was exhausted. Getting up with the kids in the morning, making it through the day, getting dinner on, getting baths done, and then staying up half the night on vigilant watch for the scary darkness vampires who only seem to menace me when my husband is out of town was beginning to take a toll.

ON SATURDAY I took one final, epic outing.  A friend of mine and I headed North of the city to visit a pumpkin patch for some child-centric fall fun.

The place is massive and we didn't miss a trick. We scampered about the produce! We pulled the kids in a jaunty red wagon! We took tractor rides! We fed livestock! We delighted in emu sightings!

And we became lost in the corn maze.

OK, people, you know how everyone was busting on that family last week for calling 911 because they were lost in a corn maze?

Well, let me just announce for the record that after my experience on Saturday, I am firmly on TEAM LOST CORN MAZE FAMILY. Because corn mazes are ridiculously terrifying. I entered our farm's corn maze with three children in tow. I was carrying Crinks, and Snood and his friend were walking at my side. 

Within seconds of entering I was down to one child accounted for. Apparently the wondrous sight of corn pathways had triggered the sprint instinct in both toddlers.  I stood frozen, watching their little blond heads disappearing behind the massive walls of corn and tried to decide if I'd rather lose my own child or have to explain to my friend that I'd lost hers.

Fortunately this choice was negated by the realization that my six-month-pregnant self was completely incapable of running down either one of them.

Instead I frantically screamed to my fellow maze-trapped parents:

"Could someone please grab those escaping blond children??" 

I'll tell you, people, the corn maze makes the aquarium look like amateur hour.

45 minutes later we had safely escaped from corn hell and settled down on a nearby hay bale for some much needed snacking.

Next to me was a young woman holding a four-week-old baby. We got to chatting and realized that our kids were almost exactly the same age. I told her I was expecting in the new year and asked her how she was handling the whole "three under four" situation. She sighed and said it was hard. She wasn't sleeping much and on top of it, her husband was away.

I growled in commiseration, 

"Oh, is your husband away? Mine too! Isn't it the worst??"

She agreed. Then she told me her husband was in the military and was on week 10 of a 30-week tour. He'd been away for the birth of his daughter and wouldn't get to hold her for the first time until she was nearly 7-months-old. And while her mother was able to come out and help for a week every month, she was otherwise on her own with her three kids every day. It wasn't easy on a military salary, but she said they were figuring it out day to day.  

ON SUNDAY my husband arrived home and took over. He played with and cared for the boys as I relaxed on the couch watching football and eating take-in food. 

And as I listened to my three fellows laughing together in the yard I looked skyward and said to the universe, 

"OK, I get it. I'm supposed to complain a little less, right?"

All I can tell you is that I'm working on it. I'll let you know how it goes...