Binkytown

Suffocating

I don't just mean it's hard to breathe, although it is. I'm a few weeks shy of my third trimester and although I don't look like this (seriously, either she's lying or I'm a beached whale. I'm going with the first one) I seem to have exploded over night. For real. I'm getting stretch marks and all and I am not happy about it. It seems that being pregnant over the winter (during an extremely particularly harsh winter at that) will test even the most exfoliated, moisturized and pampered skin. I'm huffing and puffing and getting winded trying to carry the laundry up from the basement and finding it hard to carry on a conversation without occasionally (gasp) pausing (gasp) illogically between words. Yes, I know. I have many weeks and conversations to go.

But that's not the hard part. As my belly is expanding so to is the awareness of my little man. Even though we don't make a big deal about a new baby coming and actually haven't mentioned it in weeks since every time I did it was greeted with a quite definite "I don't WANT to be a big brother", he seems to be almost intuitively picking up on the fact that things are about to change. As such, he seems to be literally wrapped around my body 24 hours a day.

That last bit about the 24 hours is not an exaggeration. Days are filled with him wrestling himself as close to my person as he can get. We don't sit next to each other, he sits on top of me. He clings to my legs when I make dinner. He will try and prevent me from doing things like answer the phone or check the computer- anything that diverts my attention. Nighttime is no different. Sleep has become pretty non-existent in my house. I'd like to blame it on potty training, since I'm woken nightly in the wee hours of the night to the call of MAMA. I've got to PEE, but I don't think it's that easy. It's after all that's been taken care of that is the challenging part. That's when he clings to me, pleading with me to lay with him, crying, wailing, carrying on. I agree, out of exhaustion and he settles in; an arm across my neck, a leg strewn over mine, his head on my shoulder. It's the only way he will relax. He' s showing such an increased need for independence in his daily tasks, but along with it comes this desire to have me closer, always closer.

This pregnancy is going faster than I ever imagined it would and I have to block out thoughts of how this was our last Christmas as a three-person family. His last birthday all to himself. How I won't possibly be able to be all things to him when he comes home from school like I can today. It makes me too sad. But at the same time I'm feeling smothered. Smothered with love, yes, and if one is going to be smothered, I'll take love over black olives any day, but I'm feeling like I can't breathe. I can't drink him in. I'm feeling the urge to pull away. For both of us. Because I'm feeling overwhelmed but also because I don't want this change to be harder on him than I fear it already will.

I remind myself this will likely go the way of the Hot Wheels tee shirt he insisted upon wearing every day for a month. He doesn't commit to many things, but the ones that he does, he holds on so tightly. Then one day they disappear, replaced by a new passion.

I know this time will end, I just hope it does before mine does. 

 

What gives?

I have HAD IT. Pausing to stuff five more kisses with almonds into my mouth.

Yesterday I drove for 40 minutes through the ice and snow, conditions I really shouldn't have been driving in to get my hair cut.  (The salon is only 20 minutes away, but with the weather, it took me forty. I don't drive forty minutes to go anywhere.)

I have been planning and plotting and dreaming and outright reveling in how good this hair appointment would make me feel. I'm pregnant. 21 weeks. I'm getting what I would consider big. My face feels puffy. My hair feels humongus in a very bad eighties sort of way. A little highlight, a stylish cut (nothing too crazy) and an eyebrow wax during an afternoon off? How glorious! How (since we are doing all eighties around here) AWESOME it was going to be. I wore my cute maternity jeans so I could get the full effect. Well, they are maternity, so they aren't that cute, but they are dark denim with silver stiching. Cuter than your standard maternity fare.

Here's the before:

 

   

I came armed. Knowing my hair is stubborn and thick and wavy and doesn't like to do anything except just hang there, I did research. I found exactly what I wanted my hair to look like. I couldn't possibly find myself with a layered mess like I've done, oh too many times before if I brought a photo. Right? RIGHT?

Here it is: The one on the right. I could never ever pull off the one on the left. Not without an Amelie face transplant.

So we talked. About a chin length bob with bangs. Well, not exactly bangs since she was honest and said my hair would never do that. Fine. Give it to me straight. I can take it. We talked about a plan around that. She said she would do some texturizing to 'get the bulk out'.

OK, a savvy hair girl probably would have picked up on that immediately and thrown up a red flag. I didn't. I'm a trusting person dumb ass.

She started in the back. In the back, at the bottom. Where I couldn't see her cutting. I knew it was a little short, but assumed the top layers would graduate down. She was making her way up, finally I could see her and watched in slow-mo as she chopped a big old chunk of hair off the top of my head.

I shot her a look. I thought we were going to do a bob? I said picking up the strand that was now inches from the top of my head. This seems pretty short.

Oh. Is what she said.

Then she tried to bullshit me. Your hair is so thick I've got to layer this a little so it doesn't bell out too much, don't worry, it will blend in with the bottom, it will be fine.

It is not fine.

It is a nice haircut.

For someone else.

I'm not posting a picture. I can't even look at it and not cry. Which I know is kind of sad, what with all the real drama in the world, but this is my blog and really bad hair on my head makes me cry. I cried at work about it today to a coworker. (I don't even cry about work at work, and sometimes work is worth crying about.)

Picture a curly cotton ball on top of your head. Sort of like a helmet. That is totally layered and not at all a bob. Which is not what you wanted or SHOWED SOMEONE A PICTURE OF. No photo will be necessary.

I know I am not alone. I know it's just hair, already, get over it.

I'm trying. But this totally blows. It's too short to have her "fix it". There will be nothing left. I wasted an afternoon and a lot of cash. I needed this. Having a baby at 37 does nothing for your self esteem and while I am not so vain that I value my whole worth on my appearance, it could use a little boost right about now.

I'm thinking maybe that Britney shaving her head wasn't so crazy after all.

No Wonder

Driving home, watching him in my rear view mirror I try and dig for details. Did you go to the gym today? Did you play outside? He mostly grunts at me, the Binky going straight from his backpack to his mouth the minute he hits the car seat. I point out a Mini-Cooper, knowing he can't contain his excitement every time we pass one. It's red! He shouts. A minute passes. I hear some words I half understand. What was that? I ask. I made some bad choices today, he mumbles. You did? What kind? I reach back not wanting to take my eyes off the snowy road and try and touch his knee, pleased that he is volunteering this information, unsolicited. He kicks me away. I don't want to talk to you now, his answer. Oh. When you are ready I'd like to hear about it. Another minute passes. I'll tell you when we get home.

But he doesn't. Home becomes a pit of whining, demands, refusals and wails of mama I want or mama get me every ten seconds. He falls apart at not getting his shoes off fast enough. He clings to me when I try and leave his bedroom after he is read to, tucked in, blankets just so. He wants me to lay with him. I'm trying not to because every time I do I fall asleep before him and the list of things that need to get done each night gets longer and longer. I agree to for one minute. No, ten he decides, holding up all his digits. I compromise at five. There are more questions from me; What was your favorite part of today? What are you going to dream about tonight? Then it comes out. I threw a toy at my friend today. I made a bad choice. He goes on to tell me he wanted to play and his friend wouldn't let him so he threw the toy. He had to go sit down.

I tell him it's okay to make a bad choice, everyone makes bad choices sometimes, the important thing is to try really hard to make a good choice the next time. That instead of throwing he could use his words. I tell him I'm glad he decided to talk with me. I felt like a good mom.

This morning I watched at school as he stood apprehensively, frozen in his tracks as he watched the bigger boys in the room roam the stations in a pack. He didn't know how to approach them and they didn't acknowledge him. I walked him over, coached him, say- hey can I have a truck too? He repeated it after me meekly as he neared the pile. The big boys scrambled to gather them up in their arms so there were no more scoops and dump trucks left. This is mine, I'm playing with this one, I want that one. My little man just stood there. Perplexed, I stood staring at him with the same intensity.  So quick to boss everyone, this new room has rendered him speechless and in turn, I found myself drawing a blank.

Do I interject? Tell him what to do? Do nothing and direct his attention to one of many other activities? Do I give the tallest one the stink eye and take a truck out of his graspy little hands? What would a good mom do? Before I could make up my mind the pack ran away, leaving us both standing among the big blocks, a dump truck in my hand. How about you wave good bye to me, I suggested, not knowing what else to do, steering him to the big platform he climbs every day to look out the window and wave. In the hallway I signed him in and peeked my head back in the door.

The pack was roaming, he was standing alone.

    

109 Days

One of the reasons, aside from my general penchant for worrying incessantly, that I wanted to find out the sex of this baby was so that I could be prepared. With all the stuff.

Because I was in such a hurry to leave babyhood and the mania it caused me behind, I tended to whisk away things I was no longer needing. Somewhat carelessly. Then I moved. I have some idea where baby clothes are, but the hand me down crib, while still functioning, was a bit rickety and is now in pieces and I'm not sure I have all the brackets in one place. The Pack N Play, also donated, got somewhat messed up in a mad dash to put away up in the attic before we showed the house on a moments notice. I was never able to fold it up again and it made it's way to the trash. I'm starting to regret my short-sightedness now. Back then I found one baby so overwhelming I didn't think I'd ever want to have another. But I didn't think about what if I did.

So here I am, gripped with that same quasi panic that I had approaching this the first time, wondering what I actually need and how I am going to manage to get it all. At last tally I need a Pack N Play, a double stroller and maybe a new crib. Big ticket items. Even thought I have boy clothes, I have winter newborn baby clothes. Not exactly appropriate for August.

We tried official-stop-with-the-diaper-put-on-those-Diego-underpants potty training on Saturday. It went So. So. Badly. I should have anticipated this. He was so consumed with the change from the diaper to the underwear that I could do nothing while he tore them off shrieking again and again. I KNOW this child. I should have started this in baby steps three months ago so he could get used the sensation of something new on his body. But I didn't. Way to go mom. The full on, flip the switch just isn't going to work for us.

Which OK, it's not the end of the world but I was counting on this going smoothly so I could then tackle the Binky problem. Which now isn't going to happen anytime soon.

So I did what any right minded pregnant woman does on a Saturday afternoon. Sobbed in my car outside the grocery store for a solid twenty minute crying jag. Which helped some, but not that much. Until a good friend reminded me that it was just one day. One day out of at least 112 days until this baby gets  here.

Well, 109 as of today.

I heart snow days

I don't know why people call it a snow storm. A storm conjures up images of twisted trees, blustery winds and thunder and lightening that make you quake in your boots. We are having a bonifide snow storm here today AGAIN and I can't bring myself to call it that because even while it's snowing like a mofo sideways and you can't see the sidewalk and everything is closed, its so quiet. And pretty. Very non-storm like.

Time for some snow day awards:

The award to best snack goes to: Triple dipped malted milk balls. I bought a pound yesterday in anticipation of today's big event. While others were scrambling to fill the pantry with bread or staples, I bought chocolate and LOTS OF IT. You have to keep your wits about you in an emergency.

The award for best snow day activity: Naps! Plural! Even if your toddler wakes up every 17 minutes demanding another Pingu. Keep the remote handy, hit replay and roll over. Golden.

The award for best snow day garment (or clothing if you aren't hip to project runway and how they call every piece of crap a garment): Maternity stretch pants pulled up under your nightshirt and layered with a gigantic blue fleece robe. I came up with this creation myself I'll have you know. I clearly have a future in fashion.

The award for best snow day accessory: Slippers. They should have plastic on the bottom so as to keep the pesky snow away from your socks that your husband tracks in, after shoveling a path for you to get to your car to retrieve your cell phone. Also, see above.

And last but certainly not least...

The award for best distraction while you sit in your jammies eating too much because the only other option is cleaning out that beast of a hall closet, and we all know you aren't about to do that: Blogs. I heart blogs.

Brothers

Officially outnumbered.

Surrounded by testosterone.

Couldn't be happier.

It's a boy.

A healthy boy, from what the ultrasound told us. Definitely a boy as well, no ambivalence, we saw the goods.   

My quad screen came back with flying colors and the perinatologist saw no need for further testing. (Although he offered the amnio as an optional choice due to my ahem-advanced maternal age-cough, we passed.)

We had a very interesting and lengthy discussion with this doctor (my hospital has a perinatologist on staff who only does these types of screenings and tests.) He walked us through chromosomes and DNA and risk factors and did you know that while most women are told the risk for downs babies goes up significantly after age 35 he said that was a myth. The risk does go up, but not significantly until 40. Good to know.   

I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little twinge on the ride home. This is our last trip down baby road, there will be no more. I've spent many hours leading up to today imagining a daughter and what that would mean to me, to our family. The thought that I, that we, will never have a daughter is something that will take a little longer to get used to than I thought it might, now that I know it to be fact.

But that doesn't change how I feel about my son.

My sons. Plural. I like the sound of that.