Today I received my first "You must be having that baby any day now" comment (OK, technically it's my second, as I did get one from a male colleague several weeks ago, but I don't count it since he's a man and might not know any better). This was from a woman I work with. I know she has at least 2 kids of her own, one of whom is only 8 or so, AND she is a nurse, so she should really know better. As I was walking down the hall and turning toward the ladies' room, she walked quickly by me down the hallway and said, "Oh, you must be getting very close!" Always awkward, but I just chirped "Two more months to go!" and left it at that. Or so I thought.
But this must have concerned her, because weirdly enough she ended up turning around and following me into the bathroom. Not immediately, but about 60 seconds later. As I discovered when I heard her call to me through the locked bathroom door (not a stall, an actual door - our ladies' room at work has a separate handicap bathroom inside with its own door, sink, etc, and I figure my huge belly counts as a handicap so I typically use it instead of the teeny-tiny stalls with their swing doors that always hit me on the belly when I open them). How awkward to be sitting on the toilet and have a colleague (one I don't know very well at all) try to carry on a conversation with me through a door. All so that she could ask me if the baby was measuring large, because geez, I'm just so tiny!! HA, no one has EVER told me that before. Good lord, I know I'm short, but TINY!?!?! I'd like to adequately convey the mental guffaws of laughter that run through my head even now as I type this, but there is no emoticon or phrase that will suffice.
I'm sure there were intonations of incredulity, laughter, and embarassment as I answered back, through the door, my voice echoing over all the tiles "Everything is measuring right on track, thanks." Then I heard her turn around and leave the main bathroom, the door closing behind her.
Weird, right? It's not just my imagination? Why would you follow someone in to the bathroom and try to talk to them about their hugeness while they are trying to pee?
On a related note, I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday - the run-of-the-mill, 10 minute type. The doctor noted no concerns, and even commented that my weight gain (23 pounds to date) is great. I'm not sure what I am measuring this week, but at my last appointment 2 weeks ago I was 28 weeks 2 days and 28.5 centimeters. So I wasn't just trying to get this woman off my back, I truly am measuring right on track. No matter how much I complain about how huge I feel. Aarg, can't wait to have 9+ more weeks of this!
I know I have said on a few occasions that I would post pictures (of my belly, of Finn, etc), and that instead I have been a horrible, absent blogger. My follow-through has been stinky. I have managed to progress to the point where I have uploaded pictures to my computer at home, but alas, my motivation has thus been stalled. The truth is, I haven't really wanted to blog because we're going through a tough time with Finn right now. He is sucking the energy out of both of us with his tantrums and fits. At night, once he's finally asleep, M. and I just want to veg on the couch for a bit, then drag ourselves to bed. Work has been too busy for blogging, and weekends, well there just isn't enough time in the day for all the things we need to get done (although you can read accounts of Stacey's baby shower and MommyEsq's twins' baptism to see some of what I've been up to, and even a couple of pictures of me - I'm the slightly less pregnant one in the triplet photos).
What's made Finn's tantrums even harder is that he is being VERY mommy-centric. He will not allow M. to do anything for him, and is constantly shouting and crying for Mommy. It's endearing but frustrating for me, and just frustrating for M. It's hard to have patience, but we are trying. I'm just afraid for what's to come, as in a week and a half the major changes will start for Finn. He starts his new daycare then, and a mere 8 weeks or so later, his entire life will be turned upside down by a baby. If we think it's rough now, I shudder to think of the tantrums we will face in a couple of weeks.
Fortunately, Finn's also in a very affectionate stage - lots of kisses, tight hugs, and "I love you, Mommy"'s (and even some "I love you, Daddy"'s, too) coming from him. It's like he's holding on tighter because he knows change is coming. Whatever the reason, I am reveling in those hugs and kisses!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
From the Mouths of Babes
Last week was the "Zoo Unit" at daycare. A resulting conversation:
A: Finn, you are a boy (not sure the genesis of this statement)
Finn: No, I a monkey!! (Monkey sounds ensue)
M: Is mommy a monkey, too?
Finn: No, elephant!
Ah, so true these days. I'll try to upload a pic later this week, taken of my ever expanding girth at 29 weeks. It ain't pretty.
M., by the way, is apparently an ostrich.
A: Finn, you are a boy (not sure the genesis of this statement)
Finn: No, I a monkey!! (Monkey sounds ensue)
M: Is mommy a monkey, too?
Finn: No, elephant!
Ah, so true these days. I'll try to upload a pic later this week, taken of my ever expanding girth at 29 weeks. It ain't pretty.
M., by the way, is apparently an ostrich.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Searching for a Title
That appropriately conveys the massive failure of last night's sleeping experience. Perhaps:
The Words, They Were Written Too Soon
or
Jinx, Jinx, Jinx!!
or
How Life Likes to Remind You That You Still Have No Idea How to Parent
or simply
Ha Ha Ha (The Sleep Gods Laugh)
All seemed well. Finn went to sleep without any crying after I lay down with him in bed for about 10 minutes. We were anticipating a night even better than the last. We've turned a corner, he doesn't need the paci, doesn't even miss it, hurrah, we are wonderful parents!! Ha.
It's 10:30 pm. I turned off my light a few minutes earlier, way too tired to comprehend the words of the book I am reading. Sooo ready for some sleep. Then, somehow, something woke up the sleeping beast. Who, upon awakening, apparently only remembers that he has a mother and not a father, because the mantra of "mommy, mommy, moooommmmeeeee" is chanted/cried over and over again and aired over the monitor. M. goes down to settle him down. But instead of quiet, I hear lots of crying and "Nooooo" over the monitor, so it's mommy to the rescue. But it's not that simple. Because Finn is tossing and turning, playing with the damn fire truck and Thomas the Tank Engine that he somehow conned us into letting him bring to bed. Asking for water, for a snack, to watch the movie Cars. At one point, he said to me, "Mommy, I need stuff." Hopefully you get the picture here - wide awake toddler doing his best to NOT settle down.
At different points in time, whoever was in Finn's room would get totally frustrated and leave, with the child still awake. We would huddle up in bed, until the next round of cries started over the monitor, and then it was the other parent's turn to enter the fray. I gave up for good at 12:30, turning off the monitor. But M. went back down one last time, and somehow had the patience to sit with Finn until he fell asleep. He believes that he got back to our bed at around 2:00 am.
Then, Finn was awake again at 6:00 am. I raced down to his room as soon as I heard the noise (monitor was back on) just to try and buy us more time and keep him from fully waking up. I managed to comfort him back to sleep for another 45 minutes or so. The bottom line is that no one, not even the cat, got more than 3 or 4 consecutive hours of sleep. It's going to be a fun day, eh?
M. and I are both feeling a bit guilty, because we definitely lost our tempers at different points. I was just so MAD! I had been so tired, so ready to drift off the sleep. And the crappiest part was that, even when I was back in bed and off duty, I COULDN'T fall asleep. All the fuss and frustration had completely erased my sleepiness. And my sleep is precious these days! M., I'm sure, was able to sleep solidly as soon as he got back to bed at 2:00 am, and probably during some of the little jags in between wake up calls. But not me. That is the beauty of pregnancy sleep. I can usually only count, depending on when my first wake up of the night is, on 3-5 hours of solid sleep. After the first pee trip of the night, I toss and turn from then on, stealing little snatches of sleep if I'm lucky. Lots of reasons for this, of course. Increased blood flow and congestion has screwed with my nose. Combine that with the super-dry, hot air in our chimney of a bedroom, and I'm guaranteed to have at least one crusty nostril when I wake up to pee. And then I fixate on it. Even if air flow is only blocked by about 20% in one nostril, it bugs me (usually it's more, of course). I feel like I can't take a deep breath, like I'm whistling. And because it's so dry, no amount of nose blowing really takes care of it. I can't even lie propped on my back to drain anything because lying on my back makes me REALLY uncomfortable unless I'm basically sitting up. The same thing happened with Finn, too - probably something about the way I carry my babies super high, I suppose - the position of my uterus must cut off some kind of vital blood supply while I'm even semi-reclined.
If I do manage to either ignore or fix the nose problem, I spend the rest of the night trying to manage hip pain. I'm getting to the point in pregnancy where, when I flip over to give the hip I'm lying on a break, it still continues to hurt. And no amount of "pillow between the legs" helps. And soon enough, the other hip starts hurting too. So I flip from side to side, trying to get comfortable, until it's time to pee again.
All these symptoms are held at bay until my first wake up, usually some time between 2:30 and 4:30 am, and I can get solid sleep before then. Which means last night, my best hours of sleep were completely interrupted by Finn's shenanigans, and I was left with only the crappy, tossy-turny hours. Which totally pissed me off, and I'm afraid it made me have some not so pleasant feelings toward my child. I wasn't very nice to him at various points, though I did try to maintain some level of patience.
The one silver lining is that Finn, while he asked for many things, never asked for his paci (though it was clear, from how often his fingers touched his teeth/mouth, that he was missing it). And while M. was ready to give Finn the paci at around 11:30 or so, I convinced him not to. So, while the night may have been mostly sleep-free, it was also completely paci free, for better or worse.
I don't really have any tricks or tactics up my sleeve to try to help tonight go more smoothly. I guess we'll just do what we've been doing, and hope that it gets better. And for sure, I'm not writing/talking about any successes - no need to shoot myself in the foot.
The Words, They Were Written Too Soon
or
Jinx, Jinx, Jinx!!
or
How Life Likes to Remind You That You Still Have No Idea How to Parent
or simply
Ha Ha Ha (The Sleep Gods Laugh)
All seemed well. Finn went to sleep without any crying after I lay down with him in bed for about 10 minutes. We were anticipating a night even better than the last. We've turned a corner, he doesn't need the paci, doesn't even miss it, hurrah, we are wonderful parents!! Ha.
It's 10:30 pm. I turned off my light a few minutes earlier, way too tired to comprehend the words of the book I am reading. Sooo ready for some sleep. Then, somehow, something woke up the sleeping beast. Who, upon awakening, apparently only remembers that he has a mother and not a father, because the mantra of "mommy, mommy, moooommmmeeeee" is chanted/cried over and over again and aired over the monitor. M. goes down to settle him down. But instead of quiet, I hear lots of crying and "Nooooo" over the monitor, so it's mommy to the rescue. But it's not that simple. Because Finn is tossing and turning, playing with the damn fire truck and Thomas the Tank Engine that he somehow conned us into letting him bring to bed. Asking for water, for a snack, to watch the movie Cars. At one point, he said to me, "Mommy, I need stuff." Hopefully you get the picture here - wide awake toddler doing his best to NOT settle down.
At different points in time, whoever was in Finn's room would get totally frustrated and leave, with the child still awake. We would huddle up in bed, until the next round of cries started over the monitor, and then it was the other parent's turn to enter the fray. I gave up for good at 12:30, turning off the monitor. But M. went back down one last time, and somehow had the patience to sit with Finn until he fell asleep. He believes that he got back to our bed at around 2:00 am.
Then, Finn was awake again at 6:00 am. I raced down to his room as soon as I heard the noise (monitor was back on) just to try and buy us more time and keep him from fully waking up. I managed to comfort him back to sleep for another 45 minutes or so. The bottom line is that no one, not even the cat, got more than 3 or 4 consecutive hours of sleep. It's going to be a fun day, eh?
M. and I are both feeling a bit guilty, because we definitely lost our tempers at different points. I was just so MAD! I had been so tired, so ready to drift off the sleep. And the crappiest part was that, even when I was back in bed and off duty, I COULDN'T fall asleep. All the fuss and frustration had completely erased my sleepiness. And my sleep is precious these days! M., I'm sure, was able to sleep solidly as soon as he got back to bed at 2:00 am, and probably during some of the little jags in between wake up calls. But not me. That is the beauty of pregnancy sleep. I can usually only count, depending on when my first wake up of the night is, on 3-5 hours of solid sleep. After the first pee trip of the night, I toss and turn from then on, stealing little snatches of sleep if I'm lucky. Lots of reasons for this, of course. Increased blood flow and congestion has screwed with my nose. Combine that with the super-dry, hot air in our chimney of a bedroom, and I'm guaranteed to have at least one crusty nostril when I wake up to pee. And then I fixate on it. Even if air flow is only blocked by about 20% in one nostril, it bugs me (usually it's more, of course). I feel like I can't take a deep breath, like I'm whistling. And because it's so dry, no amount of nose blowing really takes care of it. I can't even lie propped on my back to drain anything because lying on my back makes me REALLY uncomfortable unless I'm basically sitting up. The same thing happened with Finn, too - probably something about the way I carry my babies super high, I suppose - the position of my uterus must cut off some kind of vital blood supply while I'm even semi-reclined.
If I do manage to either ignore or fix the nose problem, I spend the rest of the night trying to manage hip pain. I'm getting to the point in pregnancy where, when I flip over to give the hip I'm lying on a break, it still continues to hurt. And no amount of "pillow between the legs" helps. And soon enough, the other hip starts hurting too. So I flip from side to side, trying to get comfortable, until it's time to pee again.
All these symptoms are held at bay until my first wake up, usually some time between 2:30 and 4:30 am, and I can get solid sleep before then. Which means last night, my best hours of sleep were completely interrupted by Finn's shenanigans, and I was left with only the crappy, tossy-turny hours. Which totally pissed me off, and I'm afraid it made me have some not so pleasant feelings toward my child. I wasn't very nice to him at various points, though I did try to maintain some level of patience.
The one silver lining is that Finn, while he asked for many things, never asked for his paci (though it was clear, from how often his fingers touched his teeth/mouth, that he was missing it). And while M. was ready to give Finn the paci at around 11:30 or so, I convinced him not to. So, while the night may have been mostly sleep-free, it was also completely paci free, for better or worse.
I don't really have any tricks or tactics up my sleeve to try to help tonight go more smoothly. I guess we'll just do what we've been doing, and hope that it gets better. And for sure, I'm not writing/talking about any successes - no need to shoot myself in the foot.
Friday, January 30, 2009
The Big Binky Bye-Bye
Ok, we don't call it a binky in this house, we call it a paci, but the aliteration just wasn't there with paci.
M. and I have been talking about getting rid of the paci for a while now. Finn only uses it at night, and for naps on the weekends, but he's still quite dependent on it. He will ask for it when he's upset (though we don't give it to him), and occasionally try to sneak it out of his bedroom. With a new baby on the way that will be encouraged to use a paci at any old time (I'm all for a great nursing relationship, but have no desire to be a human pacifier), we are afraid Finn would start demanding to use it more often, or try to take the baby's paci. We just returned from a vacation (sleeping in a strange environment is not the time to take away a comfort mechanism), and we have about 4 weeks before the next huge upheaval (starting at a new daycare), so we decided to go cold turkey on the pacifier use this past Wednesday. No big lead up to it, no cutting off the tip and having Finn throw away the "broken" paci's, etc. We just told him he couldn't have it when he asked for it, and that was that.
So far, things have been going well (knock on wood). The first night, it took Finn an hour to fall asleep. He cried off and on, but when M. or I were in the room with him (we went in a couple of times to lie down with him), he was fine - just not very sleepy. He didn't have that "trigger" of sucking on the paci to tell him to be tired, so he was a little wired. He woke up early the next morning at 5:30, but M. got him back to sleep until we were ready to get him up for daycare. All in all, not a bad night of sleep for everyone.
Last night, night 2, it took only about 20 minutes to get Finn to fall asleep. M. had to go back in his room after I put him down, but the crying wasn't terrible. He slept all the way through the night, until 6:20 or so.
It's crazy how easy it has been, we have been dreading this for soooo long. Fingers are crossed and double crossed that things continue to go well. I have a feeling naptime this weekend will be a challenge!
M. and I have been talking about getting rid of the paci for a while now. Finn only uses it at night, and for naps on the weekends, but he's still quite dependent on it. He will ask for it when he's upset (though we don't give it to him), and occasionally try to sneak it out of his bedroom. With a new baby on the way that will be encouraged to use a paci at any old time (I'm all for a great nursing relationship, but have no desire to be a human pacifier), we are afraid Finn would start demanding to use it more often, or try to take the baby's paci. We just returned from a vacation (sleeping in a strange environment is not the time to take away a comfort mechanism), and we have about 4 weeks before the next huge upheaval (starting at a new daycare), so we decided to go cold turkey on the pacifier use this past Wednesday. No big lead up to it, no cutting off the tip and having Finn throw away the "broken" paci's, etc. We just told him he couldn't have it when he asked for it, and that was that.
So far, things have been going well (knock on wood). The first night, it took Finn an hour to fall asleep. He cried off and on, but when M. or I were in the room with him (we went in a couple of times to lie down with him), he was fine - just not very sleepy. He didn't have that "trigger" of sucking on the paci to tell him to be tired, so he was a little wired. He woke up early the next morning at 5:30, but M. got him back to sleep until we were ready to get him up for daycare. All in all, not a bad night of sleep for everyone.
Last night, night 2, it took only about 20 minutes to get Finn to fall asleep. M. had to go back in his room after I put him down, but the crying wasn't terrible. He slept all the way through the night, until 6:20 or so.
It's crazy how easy it has been, we have been dreading this for soooo long. Fingers are crossed and double crossed that things continue to go well. I have a feeling naptime this weekend will be a challenge!
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