Last Week at Home

I'm curled up in a chair right now, holding a sleeping Audrey while Sebastian eats raisins and watches Toy Story.  I called a woman in my neighborhood who can take both kids in full-time daycare starting Monday, the day I start my new job.  I'm excited about work, and I know I'm not cut out to be a stay-at-home mom, but I am going to miss these moments with the kids.  In many ways, these last several months have been one perpetual weekend.  I'm slow to get up, late to get in the shower, and then I'm hanging out, more or less.  It's been better since I've had Audrey because I'm not lying down all day watching PBS Kids, but the days kind of blend.

Today, as I get closer to work and routine, I'm trying enjoy the moment.  After I had Sebastian, I would sit and hold him for hours on end while he slept.  I would fall asleep on the couch holding him and would wake up in the same position.  By the time I went back to work, I had had my fill.

With Audrey, I've had to feed her and then put her down to tend to Sebastian.  I've certainly spent time holding her, but I'm not quite over it.  Honestly, the baby phase is not my favorite.  I'm looking forward to the next few months when she smiles more and starts developing personality.  Sebastian is in a fun phase now - active, talkative, affectionate - so I know that it really only gets better.  But you only get a few weeks to just sit with a sleeping baby, to feel the warmth and peace of a completely oblivious creature who can ground you to one comfy chair for hours, after yanking you from the deepest sleep the night before.

Toe Boogers

Facebook Status: Today was the day we took off Sebastian's socks and he coined the term "Toe Booger."  Keep it classy, kid.

Okay, two months ago, I tried to clean the lint between Sebastian's toes, which he did not appreciate.  Now, he goes looking for it to clean but only gets the job half-done which is kind of gross.  Since I'm the kind of person who CANNOT resist peeling paint the rest of the way, if I see it, I have to clear out the toes if I see them dirty.  Plus, there's something about my kid and hygiene.  I will testify before anyone that I did not give these pieces of lint any kind of name.

Separately, I have had a few occasions over the last few days where Sebastian approached me with his hand extended to and said "booger" so I would clean it.  Out of the context of parent/two-year-old, this is really off-the-map disgusting, so I'm embarrassed to admit I thought nothing of it.

Then it occurred to me that I don't use that word with him.  At least I don't think so.  Bear in mind that I used to call them "the B-word up your nose" when I was young, so it's not a term that doesn't come easily.  Now, I did realize the other week that I use the term "eye boogers" to refer to the gunk in a person's eye, which is really a bit redneck of me, nd I was surprised at how naturally "eye boogers" came out of my mouth, but I'm a bit more careful about using that term in front of Sebastian.

These were separate issues until today when we're taking socks off today and my child, who speaks in some kind of foreign dialect anyway, goes "Wait! The Toe Booger!"

I. About. Lost it.  Could not stand up straight for laughing.  It came out of nowhere and so urgently ("WAIT!") and he was so intent on bringing his toes as close to his face so he could bring the Toe Boogers to justice, that I teared up a little.

It was not a moment of self-control-in-the-face-of-funny, but Sebastian didn't care.  He was so busy with the task at hand that he didn't notice me laughing anyway.

Toe Boogers.  It has potential to assist in familial communication during this time and could, in theory, join the lexicon with "eye boogers," which has served descriptive purposes for me.  At the same time, I like to think we can pass as a classy family, and I cannot, in good faith, perpetuate that myth knowing that my children subscribe to a Toe Booger culture.

Netflix has documentaries?

My husband has just gone to bed, so I am sitting next to a crying baby (who has been changed, fed, and otherwise cared for but needs to get rid of energy for a few minutes) and adding movies to my Netflix Instant Queue.  Did you know that Netflix has documentaries?

This is quite a revelation for someone who used to watch documentaries pretty incessantly.  I LOVED A&E Biography and pretty much everything else on A&E in the mid-to-late 1990s.  They would feature historic, important, or notorious figures and provide a serious but in-depth look at each person.  Of course, Biography was also probably the world's #1 employer of people who called themselves "Royal Watchers," but the overall the series was well-crafted and intelligent.  Several years later, I caught Biography... of Paris Hilton and had to check several times to make sure this was Biography on A&E and not just E.

As disappointed as I was with A&E and what they were churning out, I am now so disappointed in myself.  Of all of the movies I could choose on Netflix, I've been scouring the "TV Dramas" section and have "finally" started watching Army Wives.  If my children are going to have a parent who regularly watches television, it appears I could be making better, more intelligent choices.

I have a book (that I have not yet read - probably because of 2 kids and too much Army Wives) called "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)" by Mark Bauerlein, a college professor who is observant but apparently could not choose a single title for his book.  In any case, he makes the point that though the current generation has all kinds of information available to us digitally - art, music, classic literature, historical documentation, scientific research - we are choosing to spend our time connecting to current events and each other.  This keeps us in an anxious state where we are constantly accessing current and incredibly shallow information.  Rather than reading the WWII Speeches of Winston Churchill or George Orwell's complete works, we are on facebook, twitter, and opinion websites.

I don't know that we're completely stupid, but I know we're wasting a lot of time and talent.  I love to write, but I read more than I create and I watch more than I read.  Sometimes it's 4 PM before I know what the weather is like outside.  As much as I try to set limits for my toddler, he's had to close my computer for me on a few occasions, and I've never lost an important work document because of that because more often than not, I'm doing something that can be done later or not at all.

I figure if I am watching TV while folding laundry, it might as well be intelligent TV for an hour rather than the 7th of 23 episodes of a single season of a show I didn't know or care about until I found it on Netflix and put it on my to-do list.  Perhaps I can instill in my child an awareness of a real world out there with different cultures and facts to learn rather than a group of fictional characters living a very dramatic existence in surreality.

I probably will finish Army Wives someday, but I think it's going to be less of a priority now that I've rediscovered the documentaries I've been missing.

Day 1: Audrey 1, Maggie 0

As I said, Feb 15-21: Fair Game.  I believe Valentine's Day had a strike through it, Audrey Charlotte.  I recognized my false sense of control but were you really greasing the wheels as I was writing that?  For shame.

After posting to the blog, I watched some TV, got in an argument about dishes with my husband (a long one about where Dirty Dish Overflow should live), did some squats as a joke, and then went to bed, where I could not sleep.  Instead of cleaning my house - which should have been a clue - I read the book I got from the Army Maternal Care Unit, a "Goal-Oriented Guide to Prenatal Care" and no I am not kidding.  I read the whole section on labor and delivery, since I hadn't gone all the way through that before.  Then I went to bed.

I woke up with a contraction at 4:40 AM.  I decided to be goal-oriented and breathed until it was over, telling myself "It will only last 60-90 seconds."  Then I went back into a deep sleep.  Another one hit at 4:51, the 5:02, then 5:09, and every 7 minutes until 5:44, when I got up to walk around and tell Aaron I was in real labor and was going to take a shower and edit the Care Sheet for our friends who were taking Sebastian (shout-out to the Jacksons - thanks guys!).

"...You stay in here and do some squats while I'm gone..."

My husband did not learn from last time.  Well, he did, and then he unlearned it.  The week Sebastian was due, I was eating spicy foods, pineapple, we were going on long walks... eventually I took castor oil and BAM, went into labor.  We've spent 39 weeks saying we'd sleep instead of trying to speed things up but suddenly he wants here here like right NOW.  This consists of telling me to jump up and down in an elevator, do as many squats as I can, or just go to Sears and shop for a portable belt sander... and walk around a lot.  Yeah, he snuck that last one in there.

I, meanwhile, have been struggling with a false sense of control over the situation.  Like I have any say when she gets here.  I've been "hoping" for or against certain birthdays, now that we're on the homestretch.  Sebastian's birthday is Feb 22, George Washington's birthday.  I have a C-Section scheduled Feb 24th.  Audrey can arrive anytime before then.  This has left us with a number of options:

2/11 - Would be 2/11/2011

2/12 - Lincoln's birthday

2/13 - Means Friday the 13th, not good

2/14 - Valentine's Day, not fair to future boyfriends

2/15-2/21 - Fair game

2/22 - Sebastian's birthday and our legal anniversary

2/23-2/24 - Fair game

Does it really matter?  Probably not.  My birthday is the day after Christmas and yet somehow I have survived.  I guess I'm ready now, but there's still some laundry to be done around here before we head to the hospital.  Maybe if I put it off, she'll stay in a little longer.  I mean, it would reduce the amount of squatting I'll do anyway to "help things along."

T-minus 31 days

One month until my second child is due and I think everyone is completely unready for this.  Sebastian is, of course, completely clueless, but the child isn't even aware that his 2nd birthday is 34 days away or that there might be a cake in his future, much less a sister.  Right now, I am looking at my husband who is sitting in his comfy bathrobe playing demos on his PS3, drinking out of a water bottle he has sadly come to know as his "sippy cup."  It seems we've got the kid vernacular down, but I don't know if we even have a single newborn onesie, much less where it is and whether it is clean.

And about the kid vernacular, I don't think we've completely settled into the full "parent" role where we are aware of, you know, our language and what we're watching on TV.  A few weeks ago, Sebastian dropped the F Bomb in the car, immediately repeating my husband's outburst; last night, we got our first S Bomb.  Since Eggs are "aess" and trucks are "cucks" and chocolate is "cock," I don't know what's left to avoid (and no, I don't need reminders/suggestions).  We do try to distract him from the crime scene at the beginning of our DVR'd shows - "Hey buddy, can you hand me that thing over there?" - but I think real parents watch those shows after bedtime.

I think we both have this idealized vision of our parents and other parents who seem to have things a bit more focused.  My husband has family members who say that babies "shit" whereas I used to ask permission to use "the B word up your nose."  My mom's favorite show was Murder She Wrote, but I don't think that was anywhere near CSI or Criminal Minds for violence.  Plus, she really didn't watch as much TV anyway.

It just seems surreal that another human being is going to be here in a matter of weeks.  I know her personality - she likes to lodge her foot in my obliques and keeps me pretty under control with horrible heartburn at night - but it seems weird that we're doing this baby stuff all over again.  Things are going to smell like spit-up and I'll spend the first month waiting for her to actually DO something and get surprised at how much stuff I need to just go to the store, especially with two kids.

This should be interesting...