The Small Family     

Once again, you’re getting the blog a day early because I’ll be gone for a good chunk of Sunday! My good friend Amber is going to be in San Francisco and had a free day, so we arranged a girls’ outing to Hubert Keller’s Burger Bar and then either a trip to the Museum of Modern Art or a movie date. You may remember that Hubert Keller’s more upscale restaurant is where I took Chris for his birthday last year--and we had the most phenomenal meal! Burger Bar is a much more casual burger place, but by the same chef. Amber lured me there because (1) I enjoy her company, (2) I have a crush on Hubert Keller, and (3) there is the promise of…wait for it!...Nutella milkshakes! Oh yes--Nutella milkshakes! Could it get any more yummy? Even though dairy makes me sick right now, I will deal with the illness to have a Nutella milkshake. Oh yes, I will! (If I weren’t pregnant, I’d be all over the Irish Coffee milkshake, but alas, no whiskey for me…) I’m also intrigued by the promise of Beer-Battered Jalapeno Pickles (can you tell I’ve studied the menu??), though really, it’s all about the milkshake for me.

Chris graciously offered to spend a boys’ day with Theo, as he has absolutely zero interest in the Museum of Modern Art or the movie we plan to see. So it’s a win-win for all! The only slight downside is that the 49ers playoff game is scheduled in SF for the same day, so I’d imagine BART will be packed with game-goers. Ah well, hopefully they’ll be polite enough to allow the nine-months-pregnant woman a seat on the train. ;-) (I refuse to drive in on a game day--we drove to Berkeley last weekend when the 49ers were playing, and the traffic was horrible.)

All is well here in the Small household. It was a relatively uneventful week in terms of activities, though Theo and I did have our excellent music class on Thursday, so that was a lot of fun. This week he got to play a French horn and a pocket tuba, which he said were his favorite instruments of the week--though watch him on the drums, keyboard, and electric guitar, and you’d assume those were equally fun to him. He’s a drumming machine--in fact, I’m wondering whether his birthday present should be a drum set. He really loves them and is pretty darn good at drumming, actually.

Once again, he participated happily in the whole class, so I was pleased. It’s kind of funny--we’ve reached the point where he walks pretty much everywhere. For one, he’s nearing four, so he’s able to walk decent distances without tiring. And two, I just can’t lift him much anymore. But this comes with its challenges, because when he’s not motivated to walk, he tends to hang off my arm, try to pull away, twist and turn, get in front of my feet to trip me, lag behind, etc. You name it--walking is just not a pleasure much of the time. But when it comes to music class, he walks perfectly with me and in fact practically runs to get there, chattering happily the entire way. (We usually park a few blocks away and walk, since parking is really limited right by the class.) I think he actually has a slight crush on his instructor, Jon--he talks about him all the time. On Thursday morning, he got up at 7am and announced he wanted to go to music class right now. I said, “Well, I don’t think Jon’s awake yet. He has to wake up, then he has to wake up his instruments, and then they all need to get in the car and drive to Berkeley. So that’ll take a while.” Theo immediately got one of his pretend phones and said seriously, “I need to make an emergency call.” He then proceeded to “call” Jon and say, “Jon? It’s time to wake up. You need to wake up the instruments for music class and drive to Berkeley.” And for the next couple of hours, all I heard was Jon this and Jon that. He even drew a picture of a rainbow on our iPad and announced, “Jon will be so happy to see this!” He seriously has a bit of hero-worship going on, which is rather amusing.

Speaking of music class, this week Theo seems to be working on timing. We have worked on that in class for the past two weeks--but as with everything, it’s done in a very informal, fun way, and there’s certainly no homework involved. But Theo just seems to be gravitating to it anyway. We noticed him keeping time to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” on his little electronic drums, while he sang along. And his new favorite song is the Beatles’ “All Together Now,” which he plays over and over while appearing to try to strum in time on his guitar. It’s fascinating to just sit back and watch him learn and explore music. As I said, his class, though it covers a lot of genuine musical concepts, is very informal in its instruction--the goal seems to be “let’s have a lot of fun together, and in the process we’ll pick up some musical knowledge.” So we’re not formally pushing Theo in any particular direction in music--just sitting back and seeing where his interests take him. And I’ll be darned if they don’t take him all over the place--different genres, timings, playing styles, etc. So neat to watch a young mind at work!

Jon and Chris have both commented that Theo plays the guitar like a lefty--but according to Kaiser, he is right-hand-dominant. We have noticed he does most things right-handed but will switch to the left hand with relative ease, so we’re wondering whether he's ambidextrous. If he is, he certainly didn’t get it from me--I have no skill with my left hand at all!

I wish I had some pictures for you this week, but alas I have none. We had planned to take Theo somewhere fun on Saturday (and thus I would’ve had some pictures), but our plans were scrapped due to one neurotic little pug. You see, Miss Zoe decided to eat part of a foam doorstop on Wednesday night. At least, we assume she did--we couldn’t find the missing piece anywhere. She vomited a couple of times on Thursday, but we decided to wait it out and see whether she would pass said doorstop--especially given that we just spent $1,800 on vet bills for her partner in crime. She seemed okay on Friday, but we woke up Saturday morning to a couple piles of rather alarmingly colored dog puke. Lovely. I called the vet to make an appointment for a few days out (still hoping she’d pass the doorstop), and they said due to the color of her…um, piles of delight…we should bring her in that morning. So we did, and $260 and a set of Xrays later, we discovered that she did indeed ingest the doorstop part, and that hopefully it will eventually pass on its own. Until then, she’s on Pepcid and a bland diet--the vet’s theory being that because it’s not a full blockage, she should pass the item on her own, and the vomiting is just because having a foreign object in her stomach has upset her system.

So, yes, that was our Saturday--and there’s nothing photoworthy about it! What I should have photographed was Chris climbing the very steep hill in our backyard to retrieve some delicious oranges for his very pregnant wife. The neighbor behind us has an orange tree that our landlord said produces delicious oranges, and one thing I’ve been craving all through this pregnancy (but particularly the past few weeks) has been citrus: oranges, orange juice, lemonade, lime-flavored things, etc. Now, a good chunk of this tree is hanging into our yard, making it fair game--but Chris still felt like a thief going up there to get the oranges for me, so it made for a rather entertaining sight. Our backyard is a very steep reverse hill--anyone who sees it says, “What happens when it rains?” because it looks as if a good mudslide would do some serious damage to our family room. So imagine Chris, trying to scale this mountain as quickly and quietly as possible to avoid attracting attention, while I yell from the bottom, “SIR HILLARY! HAVE YOU REACHED THE TOP OF EVEREST YET?? HAVE YOU CRESTED THE SUMMIT?” Yeah, he didn’t find it nearly as amusing as I did. (For the record, they are very tasty oranges, and I will be having him make another ascent soon, much to his chagrin! I’d do it myself, but I’m so front-heavy these days that I’m afraid I’d tumble right now the hill on descent.)

Speaking of my front-heavy self, I might as well give you the pregnancy update: I had my 35-week appointment this week, and all looks good. I was semi-amused to find that the parking-garage elevator at Kaiser was broken when I had my appointment, and because that Kaiser is always busy, I had to park on the roof. I made some remark to the receptionist that perhaps climbing five flights of stairs to get back to my car might make me go into labor, and she said, “Oh, you can’t be that far along--you’re not very big!” I told her I was 35 ½ weeks, and she said, “Oh my goodness--okay, I guess you are!” I just find this small belly size endlessly fascinating because it was so not the case with Theo! I was pretty whale-like by now with Theo, and with this one, although it’s now obvious that I’m pregnant, I’m still very small. So weird to me, because I still went to the gym for an hour every day while pregnant with Theo--and with this one, I haven’t been to the gym in months. And I’m eating the same with both. Go figure. The human body and how it processes things just amazes me. The neat thing about being smaller this time is that I’m sort of “all baby.” When I was pregnant with Theo, I never could tell what any of the baby parts were--I had enough padding that I could feel him moving, but I couldn’t tell where any of his body parts were. With this one, because I don’t have the extra padding or water or whatever, I can feel everything! I kept telling Chris I was pretty sure the baby’s cute little bottom was pressed right up under my right breast, and sure enough, the doctor confirmed it--the adorable little protrusion right there is indeed our baby’s little butt! And sometimes I can feel a leg up there, too. It’s really kind of cool to be able to identify things this time around.

Speaking of differences in pregnancies… At the moment, it appears as if this little guy is setting himself up for an easier delivery than Theo’s. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part, but here’s why I say that: First of all, I’m having tons of contractions, and I don’t recall having any Braxton Hicks (the practice contractions I’m having now) with Theo. I looked up Braxton Hicks, just because they’re all new to me this time around, and according to what I read, they’re actually very helpful in preparing your body for the real contractions that accompany labor--that is, if you have Braxton Hicks ahead of time, it sort of “preps” your uterus for what’s to come and makes labor a bit easier. So it’s good that I’m having so many. Second, the baby is currently positioned head down and facing my spine--which is the correct position for labor! Theo was facing sunny-side up (away from the spine), which is how you end up with the more difficult and painful “back labor.” Supposedly babies come out much easier when they’re facing the spine, so as long as this little guy stays that way, things should go easier this time. Now if he just keeps his hands away from his face. One of the hardest parts of Theo’s birth was that he decided to have a hand up near his face during delivery. Hopefully his brother will not follow suit. Anyway, it may just be wishful thinking on my part, but I’m taking all of these signs and thinking positively that this time, things will be much easier. If any of you want to think that along with me and send good vibes my way, I wouldn’t mind! :-)

I’m measuring slightly smaller this week, which the doctor says probably indicates that the baby has dropped somewhat. This, too, is a good thing. I was pretty sure he had, as I’m not feeling as much pressure up under my ribs and my bladder and hips feel like they have constant pressure on them. So, the end could be soon! I’m still having a lot of prelabor signs, and although those can last “from hours to weeks,” I do think it’s a sign that we’re nearing the home stretch. In a mere 9 days (Monday the 30^th), I’ll officially be full-term, so any time after that would be just fine with me!

The other grand event of the week was the demise of Theo’s crib. Well, not demise, really--it’s just been moved into the baby’s room. But he’s now in his big-boy bed full time. This is good and bad. It’s good because now I don’t have to lift him into the crib anymore. It’s bad because now he doesn’t nap anymore. He stays in his room during naptime (because I insist on it--but he’s pretty good about adhering to that rule), but he is just wild and crazy and generally doesn’t nap. The problem with this is that by about 5pm, he is way overtired because he hasn’t napped, and so the next 2 ½ hours are long and tedious, to say the least. An overtired Theo equals a cranky, wild, uncooperative Theo--and so by the time bedtime rolls around, Chris and I collapse in exhaustion from trying to keep up with the sleep-deprived child. Oh well--all good things must come to an end, right? Perhaps he’ll eventually settle down and start napping in the bed. At this point, though, all we can do is insist that he at least remain in the bed for naptime--there’s certainly no way to force him to actually sleep!

I have to say, though, that I’m really glad we did the bed the way we did--even though we certainly got plenty of disapproving looks and comments about letting him sleep in a crib for so long. I know a lot of people switch their kids into beds much earlier for various very valid reasons: their kids are climbing out of the crib so it’s no longer safe, or they need the crib for a new baby coming along, etc. Both very valid reasons, and if that had been the case in our house, I’m sure we would’ve done the same. But it wasn’t the case for us, so we saw no reason to rush the transition: Theo was comfortable in his crib and slept very well, so it didn’t bother us to let him stay in there. And now, at almost four years old, he’s old enough to understand staying in bed (even if he’s not sleeping) for a certain duration. If we had made this switch 18 months ago or whatever, he wouldn’t have been old enough to understand that, and we would’ve faced what countless other parents do: repeatedly putting him back in bed over and over and over as he got out. I’ve heard horror stories, and I believe them! Given Theo’s iron will, we figured that would likely be the case in our house. And I do think it would’ve been, perhaps even six months ago. But now he’s quite good about staying in his bed, even if he stages his own rebellion in that he refuses to sleep. (He actually sleeps fine at night; it’s just naps that he stays awake for.)

And actually, the transition was pretty painless for him because we did it gradually and gave him some say in it. (We let him choose the day the crib would eventually move to the baby’s room, and he chose January 20^th. We built a small incentive into that day to give him something to look forward to--a moon that Chris would hang in his room that Theo can control with a remote to show as a full moon, crescent moon, etc.) So when the big day came yesterday, Theo was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. Other than deciding he won’t nap in it, it’s really been painless. So, another milestone achieved in a way that ended up being painless for our little family--bliss! If his brother doesn’t climb out the crib, I suspect we’ll do it the same way with him.

And, we now officially have two car seats in the car, just in case Theo's brother decides to arrive soon. The downside to this is that we've discovered that our car really isn't as roomy as one would like for two car seats. Theo is behind the passenger seat and kicks it nonstop. (That child is incapable of sitting still--has been the case from Day 1.) The baby is behind the driver's seat, and to get his bucket car seat in and out, you have to move up the driver's seat and tilt it forward, then go to the back door and get the car seat out. Then readjust the driver's seat after it's back in--and I now have to drive with the seat pulled up closer to the steering wheel than is actually comfortable, but there's not a lot of choice in the matter. Well, I could put Theo behind me instead, but then he'd mercilessly kick my seat, which I find endlessly annoying, so I'll just drive way up near the steering wheel instead. It's almost embarrassing to admit, but we long for a minivan just to deal with the space issue. Yes, we have become those people, who long for a minivan! Ah well, happens to the best of us....

So that’s the news from around here. I’m increasingly uncomfortable and thus slightly cranky, but otherwise all is well. If I don’t post on time next weekend…well, it might just mean that the little guy decided to make an early appearance. More likely we still have another two weeks or more…but you never know!