Davis Family Chronicles

World, meet Clair Elise Davis!

2012-02-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my sweetie's thoughtfulness, you all know by now that I am now the proud mother of one utterly adorable and completely unpredictable Clair Elise Davis!

We're home from the hospital now and I am exhausted and sore (good GRIEF this C-section incision hurts!) and hormonal and oh-so-happy!

I have so much to say about this labor/delivery/hospital stay/little baby girl -- but Lester covered the gist of it (wasn't that such a cute post? I didn't even know he was going to do that! Awww!) so I'll instead do two things.

First: Thanks and shout-outs and love-grams forever to Beth for coming all the way out to Baltimore with FOOD!!! for the freshly-home-from-the-hospital Davis family and also -- just because she is JUST that awesome -- gifts for Clair, as well as for Cary and Dean!!! Seriously, she wins the blogfriend of the year award with that wonderful move. And honestly, I think it's way past time I stopped calling her a blogfriend, don't you? I'd like to think that she and I are just plain ol' friend-friends now. And I'm so happy and blessed to count her among the many amazing women I hold dear to my heart in that category.
Thanks so much, Beth! My entire family thanks you!

Second: PHOTOS!!

Clair Elise, born 2/16/12 at 11:21 a.m. -- 7 lbs., 14. oz of pure loveliness.

Hmmm. Shall I give Mommy a break and nurse today? Or ever? No. I don't think that I will.

Headed home from the hospital. My first car ride. My adorable hat. My enormous pacifier!

Curve Ball -- curved into a ball. (I love this photo.)

It is not an exaggeration to say that this man has lost his ever-lovin'-mind over this little girl. Lost his mind, do you hear me? Hello, Daddy? Meet Clair's little finger. Then twist yourself right on around it. It's a wrap for you, sir.

Cary and Dean meet their little sister for the first time, two days after she's born. The jury's still out as to what they think about her. I won't get into it here, about how differently they reacted to her -- and me -- on this day. I'm sure there will be many posts about this topic in the future.

Cary, coming in for a closer look.

Contemplative Clair.

Silly Clair.

She's got a lot of personality already, folks. Hold on to your hats! This is gonna be one fun ride!

Hubby Guest Blog - The Curve Ball Cometh

2012-02-16T19:34:00.000-08:00

Tanika and I should have known that our carefully scripted birth plan would not stand a chance against baby No. 3.

There's a reason we nicknamed this child Curveball.

Just a few days ago, the doctors told us to plan for Tanika to be induced on Monday. So, we mapped out a plan that had us arriving at the hospital at 6:30 a.m., with Curveball making her debut sometime thereafter, possibly at dinnertime.

There was nothing in the plan, however, that called for Tanika to start painful cramping (which we later realized were full-on contractions) at 6 a.m. TODAY, a full five days before we were ready to officially welcome our new bundle. Clearly, God was working from a different script.

Since Tanika was scheduled today for a regular appointment, we figured she would get to the doctor’s office and they would send her home with a diagnosis of pre-labor, and tell her to put her feet up and rest until her induction on Monday.

Meanwhile, the “cramping” intensified.

I knew it was time for me to shut the hell up when Tanika shot me a look as I told her to get ready for the mother of all contractions because the squiggly line on the contraction monitoring machine was forming the Mount Everest of peaks.

So, with a closed mouth, I decided the best thing for me to do was to rub my sweetie’s back and be sympathetic. A few minutes later a nice nurse named Jennifer came in to tell us that she was sending Tanika to the Labor and Delivery unit.

We were in labor and delivery less than 30 minutes when a doctor examined Tanika and said “she’s 8 centimeters.”

I wanted to raise my hand and say “but it’s not Monday and we’re not ready just yet for Curveball. I still have to hang the cute wooden letters in her bedroom.” I remembered the earlier look from Tanika and thought better.

We knew our wonderful plan was out the window when the doctor said “I hope that’s not what I think it is.”

Uh, say what doc?

We soon found out that our baby girl, who had been resting for weeks in a perfect-for-delivery, head down position, was now in the nightmarish double footling breech position.

The doctors said that because Tanika was almost fully dilated they did not think they had enough time to see if the baby would flip into the correct position. This meant that a c-section, which Tanika did not want to have, would be her new course.

I was tossed a pair of scrubs and Tanika was wheeled into the operating room. A nurse came to get me once Tanika was prepped for surgery.

The surgery happened so quickly. I felt like I had been in the room only minutes when they pulled our 7lbs, 14 oz Curveball from Tanika. We waited a few seconds before hearing the most beautiful cry in the world. We then both thanked God for a healthy baby and healthy mom before laughing at how upset Clair Elise Davis sounded.

There’s something incredibly beautiful about a baby’s first cry. They sound so sweet, pitiful and pissed off all at the same time.

Welcome to the world, my beautiful baby girl.

Big Day in the Davis household!

2012-02-14T06:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a big day for the Davises.

After my appointments, the doctor called in the afternoon and said they have scheduled me for an induction on Monday, Feb. 20th!! So there it is -- Curve Ball's birthday already penciled in!

I can't believe it's less than a week away, but somehow it still seems like an eternity. Mostly because I am not sleeping hardly at all anymore, thanks to discomfort and last-weeks-of-pregnancy insomnia. So I'm exhausted all day long, no exaggeration. And consequently, I have no patience for my three guys when I'm at home. They probably think I am the world's grumpiest person.
I also keep going back and forth between feelings of excitement that my baby daughter will be here next week, relief that I will no longer be pregnant, and anxiety about all things induction-and-labor-and-delivery-related, newborn-related, and adding a third child to a family-related, too. My brain is constantly going, going, going, with so many disparate and heavy thoughts.

And of course, I'm still thinking about all the tedious leftover things I have to do. Last night, I had the beginnings of a sugar low, so I got up at 1:30 a.m. to eat a snack, and while eating, I made ever more lists of stuff to do, including things I need to finish at work, and personal things like get Thank You cards written, addressed and mailed, figure out how to put the Bundle Me on the infant car seat, and send out paper invitations to my sister's baby shower. All before Monday.
So, yes, my brain is going non-stop!

Add to the mix the fact that we also got word yesterday that Cary and Dean got accepted into the pre-school we wanted them to go to! HOORAY!! Sooooo exciting! Pre-school!

We have options, too, about how often we want to send them, which makes my brain hurt even more.
We had been considering the 5-days-a-week half-day plan, which would have them in school from quarter to 8 until 11:30., giving them an introduction to school, a steady weekly routine, and giving Michelle a very small break, since she'll also have Curve Ball now to care for.
But because there are plenty of openings, we were told we can also send them three days a week, half-day; or three- or five-days a week full-day (which would end their day at 2:30).
Three days a week, half-day would be cheaper, saving us a little money (which is always welcome, especially during the Year of Austerity).
But to make Michelle's life easier, we're now leaning toward the three days a week, full day.
This way, she'd have three days a week where she is mostly home with only one little baby. And two days a week where she has all three munchkins.

Those of you who have been through the pre-school thing before, what do you think?

Is 7:45 to 2:30 too long of a day for 2-and-a-half-year-olds? (They'd be starting in the fall).
Is it better for kids their age to be in school 5 days a week for continuity's sake? Or is it sorta nice for them to transition into school slowly, and still have two days at home with their beloved babysitter? (This is my line of thinking, btw.)
If you were a sitter of three kids, who was woefully underpaid, which school scenario sounds more appealing to you?

Either way, we are quite excited about our boys going to school in September, carrying little backpacks and leaving their baby sister at home, like the BIG boys that they are!

Big boys in school! New baby girl at home! Life is pretty exciting around this house these days.

I just hope Curve Ball doesn't decide to add any more excitement by arriving earlier than Monday! Please Curve Ball, in this case, don't live up to your name! :-)

1 week or less...

2012-02-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

I'm officially working from home this week, thanks to the kindness of my boss, who was probably tired of watching me hobble around the office, looking like death warmed over.

I had monitoring and a doctor's appointment, though, on my first day working from home, then I came home and ate lunch, so now I really do have to work.

But here's the update:

Curve Ball is acing monitoring, so no worries there.

At the OB's I got a cervix check. I'm up to 1 cm. dilated, which means my cervix is "favorable."
That means induction it is!

The docs want to schedule for the day I turn 39 weeks, which is next Tuesday, but I asked if they could do it on next Monday -- one day shy of 39 weeks -- instead. That's because it's President's Day -- and Lester is off, but Michelle will be here working.
So my work-crazy hubby won't have to take a day off and we'll have babysitting covered, at least most of the day. So it just works out. It'd be fine on Tuesday, too, but I just thought I'd ask.

The doc has to check to see if she can schedule me for one day shy of 39 weeks, because there are rules apparently about that. So we'll know later on this afternoon or tomorrow morning if we will be going in for an induction on the 20th or the 21st.

So the countdown is on! Tick tock, tick tock....

(And that's all if she doesn't decide to come on her own before-hand, just to show everyone who is boss!)

How sweet it is to be loved by Cary and Dean

2012-02-10T06:21:00.000-08:00

I know I always make my children sound like whirling dervishes, and that's true a lot of the time.
But they are also really, really sweet.

Yesterday, when I got home from work, I was POOPED! (You're saying, 'What else is new?' but honestly, I had a lot of unexpected energy the night before, so this level of pooped-ness was more noticeable.) I actually took a nap on the couch while Lester fed the boys dinner; that's how pooped I was.

After their dinner, we were all on the couch, hanging out. I was on one side of the sectional, wrapped in a blanket, and the boys were jumping all over Lester on the other side of the sectional.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Dean staring at me. Then, he climbed down off the couch, grabbed a smaller blanket that was lying on the floor, climbed back up on the couch and ambled his way over couch pillows, books, toys and Lester to come plop himself down right next to me. He then pulled his little blanket up over his chest, up to his neck -- just the way I had mine. And he turned his head, looked up at me and smiled. "Ma-ma, blanket," he said. "Dean, blanket."
It was soooo cute.
It's like he thought I was lonely over on my side of the sectional.
And until he came over and put his little warm body next to mine, I hadn't realized that I was!

Then, a little bit later on, Cary and Dean were exhausting themselves playing with a scarf of mine, throwing it over each other's heads and faces and walking around like a camel with no head. Much falling over and giggling hysterically ensued, until Dean took a tumble and Cary fell on top of him, BAM, on the hardwood floor.
Dean is a little hardier than Cary when it comes to spills like that, so he didn't cry so much as whine. But still, I felt sorry for him.
Before I could comfort him, however, Cary stood up and hugged Dean from behind, squeezing his chest. "Brudder!" he said. Then he leaned his head into the back of Dean's neck and whined (sympathetically). "Brudder!" he said again.

I swear, I almost cried.

These boys melt my hearts -- whirling dervishes that they are.

(Me and all THREE of my children, on a different night of couch-playing. I love it when I can coax them both into a hug!)

One quick thing about each of my children

2012-02-09T08:17:00.000-08:00

Quick report on the Davis children:

CARY:Yesterday, Cary pulled up his pajama shirt, pointed to his mid-section and said, "Baby!"

It was adorable! He was so proud!
Despite his enthusiasm, I explained that, no, Mommy is the one with the baby, and lifted my shirt to show him. He rubbed my belly, leaned in a little closer, and then yelled, "OUT!"

My sentiments exactly, buddy. My sentiments exactly.

He said it again -- "OUT!" -- so I had to tell him that the baby wasn't ready to come out yet. To which, he replied, "Toon?" (soon)....

Not soon enough, buddy. Not soon enough. :-)

DEAN: Lester had to stay home with the boys today because our sitter has jury duty (darn civic-minded woman!) and I skipped work Monday because of all our jillion dr's appointments, so I had to drag myself to the office today. While hanging out this morning with them, Lester sent me this photo of Dean, who had just eaten an entire apple, all by himself, without anyone cutting it up for him.
Here's Lester's words about this: I just finished reading a book to Cary when I noticed that the apple was gone. I asked Dean what happened to the apple and he said "eed it." I asked him where the apple went and he stuck his finger in his mouth. He ate everything except for the stem.

My child is such a gifted snacker. LOL. (But seriously, what a milestone. No more chopping every darn thing into tiny little pieces! Hooray!)

That's Cary's pajamed-butt in the shot, FYI.

And you might note that you rarely see photos of Dean these days without Cookie Monster near. Yes, Cookie has become the daytime "lovey." But never fear, Dean is still a complete and total nut for Puppy at night. This reminds me of an old, old song by Mary Wells: "Two Lovers."
In it she sings, "Well, I've got two lovers and I ain't ashamed. Two lovers and I love 'em both the same!"
That's totally Dean. Such a playa!

CURVE BALL: During monitoring this morning, I finally decided to bite the bullet and ask the tech about something that had been bothering me for many, many weeks. Since the gender scan at 19 weeks, not one person in the perinatologist's office -- not even the perinatologists -- will call my baby a girl. They never say "she" or "her" or anything. I know they try hard not to disclose the sex of a baby because so many people don't want to find out these days. But I already know! And they know I know, because they ask me at the start of every sono: "Do you know what you're having?" "Why yes, it's a girl." And even still -- they always call her "baby" or "it" or (my least favorite, because of how grammatically incorrect it is) "they" or "their." As in, "Baby's got their head in the right position!" "Baby's practicing their breathing!" Ugh!

I want to scream every time -- She's a GIRL! And she's JUST ONE GIRL, so how could she possibly be a "their?" UGH!!

It was starting to make me slightly paranoid. I thought: What if she's NOT a girl? What if they just thought she was a girl way back when things were not as clearly formed, but they know now that she's a he, and they don't want to tell me?? What will I do with the girly room? All the girl's clothes? We don't have a name for a boy!!! (I know this makes no sense...)

Anyway, today, I just finally asked, rather sheepishly: Can I take a peek at her girly parts again? I just want to make sure she's still a girl.

The tech quickly zeroed in on her bottom section, and sure enough, girly parts, plain as day!

I have a photo, which gives me great joy (the room can stay covered in flowers and hearts, Yay!), but Lester made me promise not to post "pornographic pictures" of his daughter's private parts. (His words, not mine.)

So you'll just have to take my word for it.

She's a she. Yay!

37 weeks daydreams

2012-02-07T08:46:00.001-08:00

I'm 37 weeks today. And I can sorta see the light at the end of the tunnel but it is faint, folks. Like, that tiny little pinlight that the eye doctor shines on a wall a million miles away and asks if you can see it.

I just told a friend this morning in an email that the biggest thing is that I am SOOO, SOO, SOOO, SOOO tired. I'm too uncomfortable to sleep at night, and then when I do drift off, I have to pee 10 seconds later. And I'm starting to get emotional because I'm so tired. This morning I wanted to cry because I couldn't find the small containers to go with the matching Tupperware tops. And Lester said, totally benignly, "Maybe you left them at work?" which -- for some reason -- made tears well up in my eyes. Like, "Don't ACCUSE me of losing the Tupperware! I am doing the best I can here!"
Isn't that crazy? Seriously, I am a tired, uncomfortable, cranky, tired, tired, tired mess.

I frequently have daydreams about sleeping. Last night, I had an actual dream about sleeping.

And yes, I know that sleeping is going to be a mere memory once Curve Ball is actually here. But let's cross that bridge when we come to it.

Other than sleeping, here's what else I daydream about:

Walking up the stairs without feeling like I'm climbing a mountain
Getting out of the bed without rocking or rolling or needing assistance
Warm brownies with vanilla ice cream
Being able to wear my regular clothes
Being able to sit my boys on my lap again
Pillsbury slice 'n bake cookies, hot out of the oven
Putting my shoes on in less than 5 minutes (and without grunting and groaning)
Seeing less of my bathroom
Not being mad at my co-workers when they go to our single office bathroom without asking me if I have to go first, because, HELLLO! Of course I have to go.
Friday night Chinese take-out
Salt 'n vinegar potato chips
S-E-X (well, OK, not really. But I do daydream about the day when I will daydream about that again.)
Middle of the day napping with my peacefully sleeping baby
Seeing her face for the very first time

But mostly, if I am honest, I daydream about sleep. And I can't wait until that dream becomes a reality again.

(A year from now. LOL.)

Post-consult update

2012-02-06T17:21:00.001-08:00

Lester and I spent the morning in consultations with the perinatologist and the OB.

Here's the deal:

Curve Ball is doing great! She's doing amazing during the monitoring sessions; her weight is good and my pressure is good. There's plenty of fluid; she's moving around. The docs aren't worried so much about her size -- the computer has her at about 6 lbs. 12 oz. (give or take 20-percent).
Everything looks wonderful.

Which means that the doctors are no longer as worried about her as they once were -- and also that it was a really good thing I stopped being a wimp about the insulin and just did what needed to be done. I'm so happy I don't have to worry (as much) about her as I did before. I really do feel lighter after hearing that news. My baby's OK! Yay!!

But all this over-achieving that my child is doing makes the delivery situation a little more complicated. When the docs were thinking she might be the size of a baby hippo at birth, they were pretty sure by this point, they'd be talking C-section or induction pronto.

But now, both doctors agree that I can continue to gestate for two more weeks -- at which point I'll be 39 weeks. If I haven't gone into labor naturally by then, they both independently suggested induction.

Two things to note about what I just wrote. 1) The docs are thinking I can deliver vaginally! This was pretty much out of the question a couple months ago! And I may still have a chance of going into labor on my own! This is great news to me. 2) TWO weeks is all I have left. TWO weeks!

Curve Ball is due on Feb. 28, but 39 weeks will be Feb. 21 -- the day after President's Day. Lester is leaning toward delivery on President's Day because, ever the practical one, he's thinking about the fact that we'll both be off work, but Michelle will still be working. I suppose that is a pretty good idea, actually. Curve Ball?? Listen to your Daddy!!

Two weeks, people!! The countdown is on!

So much to do!!!!!!!!!! Gotta pack my bag; gotta figure out the child-care situation. Gotta wrap stuff up at work. Gotta wash her clothes, fold them and put them away. Gotta make some dinners and freeze them! Gotta find a stupid baby store that sells baby hats!! (Babies 'R Us says they're sorry, but they're getting ready for spring, so no hats for your infant's daughter poor exposed head. Target doesn't have any either. My child is going to freeze to DEATH!! Ugh!)

One more time for the record: TWO WEEKS!

Showered with love!

2012-02-05T18:35:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, my Mom and two of my good friends threw me (and Curve Ball) a little baby shower.

I had hoped to post some of the great pictures I took at the shower (using my actual camera, and not my phone, for once) but of course, I left my camera at my Mom's and who knows when I'll see it again. Sigh.

So this is the only picture I have, sent to me by my sister from her iPhone:

She's 6 weeks behind me, but you could never tell that by looking at us. She's huge!! (And I mean that in a good way!) I have the feeling her son and my daughter are going to be best of friends. They're probably in there in this picture, talking to one another, plotting to take over the world (and our hearts).

It was soooo nice to be around good friends and family and to open up the most adorable little dresses and sleepers for my soon-to-be-here daughter. I had SUCH a good time, I can't even tell you. And I truly, truly am blessed because you have no idea how many lovely things Curve Ball got. I was expecting a "sprinkle" and got a full-fledged shower!!

Everything was just beautiful, but a couple things just really touched my heart:

My friend Kelly bought me this book, which she said always makes her cry when she reads it to her daughter -- a sweetiepie who is exactly a month younger than Cary and Dean.

I read it today, when I had time to really sort through her things, and got all choked up. I mean, with lines like this, how could I not?

Words can be worrisome,
people complex,
motives and manner unclear,
grant her the wisdom to choose her path right,
free from unkindness and fear.

UGH!! Talk about tear-jerker verses. I love it.

Then, my friend Stacey gave me four soft-as-can-be onesies that she personally embroidered, with sayings like, "Sweet" and "Darling." Look at this oh-so-sweet gray one, which says "Love"! Oh, yes, more tears ensued when I opened these.

And THEN, my sister hand-painted wooden letters to spell out my lovebug's name! The letters are adorably whimsical and made-with-love and are absolutely perfect. This is the last letter in Curve Ball's name -- R -- and on it, Tahira (my sister) wrote her a little personal note. Isn't that the sweetest???

I'm going to put the letters up on the wall in Curve Ball's room, in the empty space you see here, between the crib and the changing table-dresser-thingy. I'm thinking vertical. Anyone have thoughts on that?

And here are a couple other photos of Curve Ball's room, which is, finally, basically done. Yay!
It's hard to get a good angle of the whole room, because it's small and configured in a way that is not photo-friendly. But you get the gist.

Here's the reading/rocking nook. The frame on the wall holds two of her sonogram photos, and has space for three of her newborn photos, when we eventually get those done.

I'm going to order a dust ruffle for the crib and obviously we're going to put sheets on the crib mattress, and a Boppy cover, and put the hot pink changing pad cover back on, after they're all washed. But other than that, this is pretty much it. I'm pretty happy with it. I hope she will be too. :-)

P.S. Speaking of washing, this is just ONE of the baskets of Curve Ball-related stuff I have to wash, fold and put away before she gets here. I think I need to take a week off from work!

OK -- gotta go. The Super Bowl is over and my husband is demanding the laptop. And I need a snack!

G'night!

Embrace the crazy

2012-02-03T07:02:00.000-08:00

I think I am coming to the end of my crazy-at-work-days, or at least, I'm getting close. There still may be one or two days next week that are hectic. But I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Meanwhile, my boys have stepped up the crazy!

Yesterday they woke up at 5:30 a.m. (Ugggggh!)We put them in our bed and told them to lie there quietly (yeah, right) so we could snooze until the alarm went off. Genius that I am, I placed my trusty body pillow between them, to prevent them from kicking each other, stealing each other's loveys and just generally being pests to one another.

Did this stop them? Pllllbbbt! What was I thinking? They kept popping their little heads up over the body pillow, peeking at one another and giggling hysterically. They reminded me so much of a live version of Whack-a-mole, I couldn't help but laugh. And then I was wide awake, and not grumpy at all.
You two are craaazy, I thought! But so, so cute!

Then this morning, while I was in the shower, the boys pulled the clothes out of their hamper and crawled into it. They do this a lot, actually, and we don't stop them because they find it so fun, calling the "amper" a "nunnel" (tunnel) and laughing. But today, apparently, they were laughing and frolicking a little too hard, and so rolled the hamper -- while inside of it -- out of their bedroom, into the hallway and down the STAIRS!!
Thank GOD we have a landing just two steps down, so they rolled only as far as the landing. But it scared them to no end, especially poor Dean, who took a spill out of the hamper and bumped his little (big) head. It also scared Lester who I heard go barreling into the hallway, screaming, "Noooooo!"
(I won't make any sweeping judgmental comments here about certain people who NEVER did install the baby gate at the top of the stairs...Ahem.)

Like I said, thank God for the landing and thank God no one was hurt. But still ... those two are craaaazy, no? How much mischief can they manage to get into before 7:30 a.m.? Sheesh.

Lately, they have found more and more ways to be crazy. They push their blocks and small toys into the slats of our living room radiator. They drink so much bath water, they choke themselves just about every night. They have learned to take their clothes off, and so, as often as not, are shirtless in the house, speeding around, yelling "running! running!"

(Lester sent me this picture this morning, showing me that Cary didn't last 5 minutes downstairs before discarding his pajama top. What they were doing lying side-by-side on the floor is anyone's guess.)

They make us laugh so much with their antics and the things they say: like waking up this morning immediately asking to go "ow-sye" to "pway" with our next-door-neighbor's son, "Baby Greg." And then reciting the names of Michelle's dogs, whom they've only met through pictures on her phone: "Petto, pees! Zoe!!" And then demanding we turn the "noose on!" And then asking us to give their loveys a "tiss." Over and over.

All this before Lester and I can muster the energy to even get out of bed.

Their boundless energy and happiness is a total pick-me-up, and I'm so glad -- even at 6:10 a.m. -- to have their little toes kneading my thighs, and their smiling faces leaned over my head, waaaay too close for that time of the morning, demanding I get up and get this party started!!

I love, love, love their utter craziness. And I'm crazy in love with them.

Canceled!

2012-02-02T09:42:00.000-08:00

I feel so rejected.

My car insurance company just divorced me. By certified letter.

Remember the bread truck incident?

Well, I guess that was too much for them to handle. So they opted to break up. De-friend me.
I'm kicked to the curb y'all. Canceled.

Sigh.

I really do feel rejected -- and mad!

Who divorces a pregnant woman??? Sheesh.

Mean ole car insurance company! I want to call them up and say, "Listen -- I am a good person and a good driver! Both accidents I've had recently have been when I was pregnant. And I'm not going to be pregnant anymore after this. So give me another chance!"

But then, that makes me feel like a beggar. And I start to resort to my old single-gal dating mantras:
Why would I want to be with anyone who doesn't want me?
I'll find someone better than you!
One monkey don't stop no show.
Good riddance, meanie!!

Seriously. I had a minor, minor accident when I was pregnant with the boys and then the much more serious (and expensive) bread truck crash while carrying Curve Ball. Before that, nothing for years! No tickets or anything! It's clear that pregnancy affects my driving somehow.

Waaaaaah!

Friends, be honest, shouldn't it be a form of discrimination to cancel a woman while she's 9 months pregnant!?

Ugh! Off to find a new company. Add that to the ever-growing list of things to do.

Uh-oh...sibling rivalry already?

2012-02-01T09:01:00.001-08:00

I don't usually post twice in one day, but I just remembered that I needed to get this down before I forgot.

Two nights ago, I'm sitting on the sofa, while Cary and Dean are crawling all over me and the pillows, being busy as usual.

I had my shirt pulled up and the elastic maternity-waistband thingy on my pants pulled down, giving my poor, itchy skin a breather. So my belly was on full display.

Cary spied this, came speed-crawling over, and yanked my shirt down.

"Close!" he said.

"You don't want to see Mommy's tummy?" I asked, thinking maybe this distorted, stretch-marked monstrosity grosses them out (because Dean does the SAME thing, whenever my stomach is exposed.)

"Noooo!" he said. "No baby! Noooooo, BABY!"

So...apparently, it's not the gross tummy he's opposed to. It's the baby inside he's got a problem with.

Uh-oh. And I thought Dean was gonna be the problem.

On talking, reading, singing and talking some more

2012-02-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

Last night I had an appointment after work, so on my way there, I called home to talk to Lester and the boys, who were playing a little before getting ready for dinner.

Lester put me on speaker-phone so I could talk to the boys. Cary just wanted to push the buttons and giggle, but Dean had something to say:

Dean: Hi, Muh-muh.

Me: Hi, Deanie!!

Dean: Mo racka? (Lester had given them crackers to tide them over before dinner, and Dean wanted more. Lester had already said "no" a thousand times. So now he's asking me.)

Me: You want more crackers?

Dean: Pre-pees. (For some reason, he always says "pretty please," even though no one seems to recall teaching him that.)

Me: No, sweetie. Daddy said the crackers are all gone. It's almost time for dinner.

Dean: Dinner. Ah-mose.

Me. That's right. It's almost time for dinner. Do you want some good dinner? Daddy's gonna give you dinner soon.

Dean: Nooooooo! No dinner!

(Lester, in the background: "Cary, do you want some dinner?" Cary: "Noooooooooooo!! Nooooooo! Pway! [play]")

Me: Ummm, OK, babe. Talk to you later. (I felt meltdowns coming on any second and, to be frank, the radio was rockin' in the car, and I much preferred some sweet tunes to the cacophony of screaming toddlers.)

I recount this little scene to point out that I had a fairly intelligible phone conversation with my not-yet 21-month old baby, the one who is actually the least talkative of the two.

This just goes to show you Moms of infant twins or twin-Moms-to-be (you know who you are, DCAngel and Wiley) that all the books that tell you that twins will likely be speech delayed, and that boys will likely be speech delayed, and that preemies will likely be speech delayed -- all those books don't know diddly.

Now, I'm not saying don't read the books. I read them and I continue to read them. I just ordered the next in the series of Ames books to help me understand year 2 for the boys. The books ARE helpful. But they are not the end-all, be-all.

YOU know your kid(s) better than anyone. And you can defy the odds (barring any actual developmental issues that need outside intervention) just by doing what comes naturally to you: loving your babies, reading constantly to them, talking to them not at them, repeating things 800 million times, etc. etc.

It fueled me every time I read that twins were likely to get HALF the attention that a single baby would get. It drove me to say, That's what you think, baby books! My boys are going to get DOUBLE the attention. Ha! Take that!

And so I made it my mission. I made my sister read to them in the NICU when she came to see them. My Nana laughed at us that we read to them at one week old. "Will you look at this?!" she cackled. "Reading books to them already!" We never designated a "storytime." Anytime was a good time to read. We play music (kids' songs) everyday, regardless of how sick we get of hearing them. We sing to them ALL the time. They see TV in the mornings, when we're getting ready for work ("Noose!" they demand, if we don't have the Today Show turned on fast enough) and during football games (Lester insists). But other than that, no TV. We are with them, doing things and talking about what we're doing, explaining and expounding and then explaining some more. It's exhausting, if I'm being honest. But it's important.

(Two months old, already dreaming about books:)

And I'm not patting myself on the back here -- there are a million things I could and should do better as a parent. (Oh, yes, sooo many things!) I'm just saying that we were determined to make their early years language-rich, and so we try really hard not to let ourselves lapse in that area.

It goes to show you that determination can pay off!

Now...enter Curve Ball in a few weeks.

Will we have the energy to do it all over again?? Seriously, when I say that all that talking/reading/repeating/explaining/singing is exhausting, I mean it. How will we ever muster the energy to do this all again??

"Yes, CurveBall. That's a spoon. A spoon. Do you see the spoon? You have a blue spoon. We eat with a spoon. Mmmm. Eat! Do you want your spoon? Cary has a spoon. Dean has a spoon, too. Let's hold your spoon. Do you want to read the fun book we read yesterday about the dish running away with the spoon? Let's get the book and read it. Book. Mommy will go get the book. Mommy LOVES to read books. Do you like books?"

Lordhavemercy. I'm tired just thinking about it.

I pray I have the energy, the strength, the wherewithal to do for my ONE child what I did (and continue to do) for the two first-borns.

Which is why I ordered ... two books about that! :-)

36 weeks ...and the clock is ticking

2012-01-31T09:06:00.000-08:00

I am officially 9 months pregnant, as of today!

This is mind-boggling to me, since I only made it to 8 months with Cary and Dean, and I thought I was going to die from exhaustion and discomfort then.

I'm prayerful that she will stay in as long as necessary to be healthy and ready to be in the outside world. And of course I am fretting about how having a newborn will upset the entirety of my life -- and that of everyone in my house, too.

But it sure feels good to know that I won't have to be pregnant too much longer. I'm at the point where getting out of bed -- especially with a full bladder (which is a given) -- takes real effort. Grunting, groaning, rolling, physical effort. Bending is out of the question. Stairs are like mountains.

Curve Ball is a huge solid mass, taking up almost all the space in my core. There's so little room that when I have to pinch some fat to give myself an insulin injection, it really has gotten incredibly difficult, and I end up injecting wherever I can. She's head down, and has been for a couple weeks. She's low, low, low, and is creating incredible pressure on my groin area. Sometimes, it's hard to walk because of all the pressure. I'm tired and somewhat grouchy and I want to EAT A BROWNIE, fer crying out loud!!

But I am also fascinated and enamored with the evidence of her little heel, scraping across my ribcage. She often pokes her little foot up and I can't believe that that is my daughter's little foot -- right there, announcing itself so severely and sweetly at the same time.

I keep peeking in her room (which I hope will be done soon so I can post photos) and I can't help but smile. She has a room! She has tiny little clothes! She has a teddy bear!

My mom is throwing a little baby shower for me this weekend -- so small we're calling it a "sprinkle" -- and I am excited to see some friends and family, and open up little boxes of sweet girl clothes. Once I get all that stuff, I'll wash everything I've gotten -- both new and handed-down -- and put her things away in her drawers.

(Two things she's already gotten from her very giddy father, who, by the way, did not buy his sons one item of clothing when I was carrying them! Not one. But his little daughter?? Well, she must have a little bathtime bunting with ducks on it, and a pink sleeper bearing a cupcake! She just must!)

And then, at some point, we really do have to figure out what's happening with the car seat situation. But other than those last few things, we are ready for our lovebug.

Our house is ready. My body is more than ready.

And my heart ...well, I think my heart has been ready before I ever knew she existed.

Argh! And aaaaaaaah! And waaaaaaah!

2012-01-26T11:20:00.000-08:00

I am so super tired, with so much to do at work, and so OVER all of the monitoring sessions and appointments that take up my entire mornings (leaving me with even MORE work to do at work), I don't know what to do.

Seriously, I feel like I want to scream!

And then sleep for 12 hours. Or 24. Good grief, I'm tired.

I had things I wanted to say about the boys, and how funny and cute they are -- especially when I say things about the baby coming and their response is "No, please!" -- and I was going to post about how Curve Ball refused to practice breathing at today's monitoring session, making the docs stretch the appointment out for an additional hour, and I was going to talk about how I am a crazy person and am trying to help plan my sister's baby shower before I pop this baby out, which would have led into a list of all the many friends I have who are pregnant (it's really quite remarkable, at my age, especially)...and on and on.

But I am so pooped, and my mind so scattered, and seriously, WHY am I on this blog when I have SO much to do at work (have I said that already?)....

So...in light of all that pooped-ness and scatterbrain-ness and work, work, work, work, work -- I will just end this stream-of-consciousness here and get back to blogging at some later date.

Later, y'all.

35 weeks and counting

2012-01-24T06:51:00.000-08:00

Today I am 35 weeks.

Exciting! I remember being 34 weeks pregnant with the boys and hoping to make it to 36 weeks. Didn't happen, but the boys turned out fine. That makes me feel better, as I am hoping to keep little Miss Missy tucked in until at least 37-38 weeks. But if it doesn't happen, I have every confidence that she'll be fine. (Check out optimistic me!)

Yesterday in the doctor's office, I met a woman who was waiting for her 6-week post-delivery appointment. She had her little baby with her, and when I say "little" baby, boy do I mean it. Apparently, she was born a month early, and 6 weeks later is just now fitting into newborn clothes! She weighed 3 lbs. 11 oz. when she was born. Can you imagine? Talk about a doll baby!

This makes me understand why people are always like "Wow, you did so well!" when I tell them that Cary was 4 lbs. 4 oz. and Dean was 4 lbs. 10 oz. -- even at 5 weeks early. I'm pretty sure it was all the fattening up I did of them during the early part of my pregnancy, when I was stuffing my face with any and everything. I wonder how big they would have been if I had actually made it to 36 weeks!

Curve Ball, of course, also will not be too shabby in the weight department (for an entirely different reason) but I'm less worried now, for some reason, that she'll be a sumo wrestler. Somehow, I've calmed down a little bit about it, and I just think she'll be bigger than she might have been without the diabetes, but not so big as to be a major, major issue. This is just my gut telling me this. (I hope I can depend on my gut.) I also hope she won't have low blood sugar upon delivery and have to go to the NICU. My gut is silent on that issue right now. But I'm so hoping for a normal post-delivery experience, where I get to keep my baby with me in my room and snuggle and practice nursing (at least until I need to get some sleep, when I will promptly send her chunky self to the nursery for a few hours. Don't judge me! Ain't no shame in that, folks!)

Anyway - we do another growth scan next Thursday, and then the following Monday, we'll have the conversation with both the perinatologist and the OB about delivery. So we are really getting close.

In fact, we're getting so close that I have started to think about how -- if in any way -- we should be preparing Cary and Dean for the complete obliteration of life as they know it. I have not really given this much thought at all up until now, but I guess I should be doing something, right? Should I buy a children's book?

Does anyone have good thoughts about how to help older siblings (who are still very much babies) be OK with getting a new baby sister? All ideas considered.

34 weeks, 5 days

2012-01-22T19:48:00.000-08:00

Today I hit the 34 week, 5 day mark in my pregnancy. This day is significant because on this day two years ago, I had just given birth to two tiny little baby boys. They were outside of me, in the great, big world, breathing on their own, alive and well and healthy. But no longer solely mine.

So, assuming I make it through the next hour and 10 minutes, I will have crossed over into new territory; I will have been pregnant longer than I ever have before.

So now that I've made it, I can make a prediction about her birth.

My due date is Feb. 28th. But I'm predicting she'll come (either on her own or medically induced) between Feb. 16th and 20th. Anyone else have a good guess?

Meanwhile, my friend Stacey came over this weekend and gave me a lot of adorable baby things she doesn't need anymore, like a baby swing, which we didn't have for the boys, because there was no room in this little house for two swings. The swing looks so sweet; I can't wait to see my little honeypie in it!

Stacey also knows that I am a total NUT about the fact that Curve Ball is being born in one of the coldest months of the year. I have serious, undeniable craziness when it comes to babies being cold -- or merely thinking that babies just might be cold. One day I'll tell you about how I wrapped my children in swaddling blankets and footie pajamas and socks and onesies because of the air conditioning in the house -- in the middle of May!

Anyway, to prepare for this winter baby, my friend Stacey gave me these adorable little boots that once belonged to her own little baby:

So at least I can feel comfortable knowing that her little toes will be warm and toasty.
Thanks, Stacey!

Countdown to 34 weeks, 6 days....

Curveball photos (as promised)

2012-01-18T07:55:00.000-08:00

Sooo much going on at work the next couple weeks, I am seriously dizzy from trying to keep it all straight.

I'm in between conference calls right now, so I thought I'd just post these two photos really quickly, since I promised to do it yesterday.

First, Curveball at 33 weeks, 6 days:

I think she looks like Dean, but Michelle (our babysitter) thinks she looks a lot like Cary. Go figure.
Lester said, "Why does she look angry? Is she going to be an angry baby?"
Lord, I hope not. I am praying for "quiet, sweet, compliant, happy and loves-to-sleep" baby. Is that too much to ask?

And here is the centerpiece of the design of Curveball's room. This took me about 90 minutes to do, and I didn't even put up all the pieces. There are other decals that I will eventually put strategically around the room, in bare spots -- along with some framed photos, etc. -- but I don't want it to look too junked-up with stuff, so I'll have to think carefully about where everything goes.

Once the valance is up, and I have her bedding, and the other decals are in place, I'll take shots of the full room, so you can see the whole thing.
But for now -- the Tree of Happy Babyness!

I realize now that I probably could have put it up a little higher, as there are leaves and flowery-things that get hidden by her crib. But I have mentioned here before that I am short, so this was as good as it was gonna get, without a ladder. And I was in no mood for ladders on Monday when I did this, especially not with a head cold and a baby on my bladder.

Anyway, despite it being too low on the wall, I think it turned out pretty cute, eh?
I can't wait until the whole thing is done!

OK...that's all I have time for today, except to say again how much I enjoyed my brunch and conversation with Beth on Sunday. I hope 2012 brings more meetings with more blogfriends! If you all are as awesome as Beth, I am in for a TREAT!

Weekend re-cap

2012-01-17T06:38:00.000-08:00

I left my cell phone at home and Lester gave me his cold over the weekend, so I'm discombobulated and out of sorts and that means this blog post will be super short.

Weekend re-cap:

Saturday, my sugars were out of control and I felt wiped out the entire day, so I stayed on the couch most of the time and found creative ways to entertain the boys from there.

Sunday, I met up with Beth!!!!! We had brunch and dished about marriage and babies and life, and it was so much fun. She's sooo great. I'm so glad I started this blog so I could meet people like her! Did we take any pictures, you ask? Ummm...of course we did not. We were too busy stuffing our faces and laughing.

Sunday, late evening, I started feeling like I was getting sick. I tried to ignore it. Then, as I'm lying in bed watching Fair Game (a movie about the Valerie Plame story), I started having back-to-back Braxton Hicks. By the time I started counting them, I got up to NINE in an hour.
So I called the on-call doctor, who said to drink a ton of water and watch it for two more hours, and if there were six or more into the third hour, to come to Labor and Delivery. The next hour there were six. And the next hour, I have no idea, because it was way past my bedtime and I fell asleep. I don't think there were that many, though, but I did have to get up and pee 8,000 times because of all the water I drank. 15 contractions in two hours? Weird, right? I have no idea what that was all about.

I was glad that I had monitoring the next day, so I could get a cervix check.

Monday, I was full-blown sick. I went to my monitoring session at the perinatal center feeling headachey and sore-throaty and generally sore. I slept so hard through monitoring, I actually snored. (Embarrassing!) But at least my cervix looks good (nice and closed) and the baby seems fine. I even got a new picture of her where I think she looks like Dean.

Did I bring the picture to scan here? No, of course I did not. Sigh.

Being sick was annoying because I had big plans for Monday, including finally taking down Christmas decorations and putting up some of the decorations in Curve Ball's room. But I slept most of the day (this is the benefit of having an awesome husband) and when I woke up, I was feeling sluggish and unmotivated.

But... Lester took the boys to the grocery store and I just couldn't waste that alone time, no matter how poorly I felt. So I rushed, rushed, rushed and took down just about all the Christmas decorations (don't ask if they're packed very well) and managed to straighten up the toys and miscellaneous stuff around the house while they were gone.

And then, when the boys went to sleep, I did manage to put up what will be the main centerpiece of decor in Curve Ball's room. It took more than 90 minutes to do, and there was a lot of reaching and bending and standing, so I gave up around 9:45 and came to bed.

I watched the last half of the Republican debate with Lester and afterwards was out like a light. And there's my weekend.

Did I take any pictures of Curve Ball's room? No, of course I didn't. But I'll post again tomorrow and I'll have a photo then. I promise.

So...tomorrow, a picture of Curve Ball and a picture of the progress I'm making in her room. But no picture of me and Beth. You'll just have to take my word for it that we both looked FABULOUS!

Office Baby Shower!

2012-01-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

I really love my job. I've said it before -- how much I like having a job (even if it makes motherhood that much more challenging), and, more importantly, having THIS job. I truly enjoy the work that I do, and I have really, really great bosses and co-workers.

Case in point: They threw me a baby shower/luncheon today! At one of my favorite Indian restaurants!!!

I got a ton of stuff off my registry, including the lamp, wall art and changing pad cover that matches Curve Ball's bedding; an espresso-colored wicker basket set that includes a hamper and a wastebasket (to tone down all the cutesy-ness); a tummy time mat; sheets and a mattress pad cover for her bed; baby lotions and washes; and cute books!

They even bought Curve Ball her first Teddy Bear!

Awwww!

I am so touched and grateful! My co-workers are the best! (And the food was YUMMMMY!)

Plus, it was really sweet of them to invite Lester!

Now I am totally amped to go home and start decorating Curve Ball's room!!! One of my bosses said, "Weekend project?" Clearly she has no idea who she's dealing with. Ummm...all night long TONIGHT project!! Holla!

(I think I might have had a little too much chai...)

Maybe they aren't moving so fast after all!

2012-01-12T10:57:00.001-08:00

Despite my pleas with everyone NOT to buy Cary and Dean anything that "sings, lights up, plays music, or requires batteries," for Christmas, my Dad insisted on giving them motorized cars!

Motorized cars that you sit in. And drive. Really fast.

I was flabbergasted. They're too little! I said. They aren't ready for that kind of thing! Maybe when they're 3?? Maybe? I begged my parents to hold on to the cars until their 2nd birthday, when they'll be a little bit bigger, slightly more mature, and the weather will be warmer so they can actually use them. Secretly, I don't want those darn cars even then, but I was trying to compromise.

Unfortunately, my Dad never won any awards for his compromising skills. Bless his heart.

So Cary and Dean got big, loud, really fast, motorized cars for Christmas.

My Dad was so excited. He couldn't wait to put the boys on the cars and whoooosh them around the kitchen on Christmas Day.

Needless to say, my two little, not-yet-2-year-olds were terrified of them. Absolutely terrified.

Even today, when Cary sees them at my parents' house he says, "Car. Dranddad. Push! Noooooo!" and runs away.

Meanwhile, my mom found two little schoolbuses at the local CVS and gave them to the boys last weekend when I was there, and Cary and Dean barely let those things out of their sight. Guess what I told Mom and Dad to buy the boys for Christmas? A fire truck. And a school bus.

I'm not one to say 'I told you so,' but....(clears throat) (clears throat again)...

At first my Dad was a little bit hurt, I think. He really was so excited about those contraptions.

But then, this past weekend, he found something lying around in his garage that is a little more Cary and Dean's speed:

Scooters! They love 'em! And look how slow they go! Yay! This is more Mommy's speed, too.

Bonus -- Scooters don't make noise. And...these ones stay at my parents'! Whooo-hooo!

Note: You get to see some of my crazy (and wonderful) nieces and nephews in this shot, including my 6-year-old niece Aminah, who is so desperate to be in the shot that she waves her hands in front of the phone, and then, when that doesn't work, does a cartwheel! Such a 6-year-old move! Gotta love the aplomb on that girl.

Moving out of the way -- a little too fast

2012-01-11T07:49:00.000-08:00

There's a saying among my aunties and Grandmas and their friends about babies and walking.

When a child starts walking, they usually say, in a knowing voice, "Mmmm-hmmm. Getting out of the way for the next one."

Meaning, somehow the child intrinsically knows that Mommy is going to need to free up her arms for a new baby -- either one who is already cooking, or who is soon to be created. So the child starts walking, making carrying him or her around less and less necessary.

This certainly turned out to be true in my case. I found out I was pregnant at the end of June, and Cary and Dean started walking 4th of July weekend. You should have heard the clucking among all my female relatives. Their truism had been proven right again: Cary and Dean were "getting out of the way for the next one."

Since then, they have been making strides toward independence steadily and impressively. They can go up and down stairs on their own, and have even started -- unprompted -- trying to navigate stairs on two feet, instead of on all fours. They are doing much better about using a fork at dinner. They have started saying "poop," and pointing to their diapers, after pooping. (Yes, I know that is closing the barn door after the horses are out, but it shows they are aware of their bodily functions and have a name for them -- one step closer to potty-training.) They understand more and more, and their language skills constantly blow my mind! Cary and Dean both use time-related words like "after" and "almost," which is really advanced (in my opinion), and Cary has started saying things like, "Mommy, too" when he wants me to join in a fun game of twirl around the room until you're so dizzy you fall down, or some such. And Dean said, "Wuv you," to me two nights ago on his way up the stairs for his bath -- without me saying it first or asking him to say it. He just said it. On his own. As Cary blew me kisses. Ummm, color me wrapped around their little chubby fingers! I absolutely swooned. They are amazing.

They've even started doing things that are developmentally appropriate, but scary! Trying to walk down the stairs, instead of crawl, as I mentioned, is one thing. Be still my heart!
But the worst is the running. Oh, the running.

Here's a story for you:

This weekend, I took the boys by myself to my parents' house so Lester could paint Curve Ball's room (the green turned out really pretty and not Mountain Dewy at all!! Yay!) On Sunday, I decided to stop off at my Granddad's house in DC to visit him, since I hardly ever get to see him and he's 96 and lives alone, and loves, loves, loves to see the boys. I pulled up in front of the house, and got the boys out of the car one-by-one. I took their hands to walk them up Granddad's front steps, and they BOTH refused. "Nooooo!" they yelled. "No. No. No!"
No amount of pleading, cajoling or bribing could get them up the porch steps.
So I decided to walk up the steps myself to put all my bags down and I just sucked it up: I was going to have to carry them (as hard as it is for me right now to do that) one-by-one up the steps.
As I turned to come down the steps, both boys took. off. running. I hobbled down the stairs as fast as I could, but not nearly fast enough to prevent both toddlers from running INTO THE STREET!
Granddad lives in the city, not on some suburban cul-de-sac. And they ran, not into the narrow street that Granddad lives on, but into the cross street, a hugely-busy, wide main thoroughfare, that is normally teeming with speeding cars.
My heart literally was pounding out of my chest. I SCREAMED at them to stop, but this - of course - just made them laugh, as they ran down the middle of the street at top speeds, one straight down the middle, the other veering off at an angle.
I honestly thought I was going to lose it.
Me and my big pregnant belly, tired and sluggish and unable to move quickly -- running after these two boys who had somehow gotten super-quick, seemingly overnight! It was horrible.
I finally caught up to them, and had to basically drag them back up the street. They were both fighting me and pulling away; Cary even sat down in the middle of the street at one point. I had to use real force to get them out of the street and onto the sidewalk.
And then, I eventually had to muster the strength to pick them BOTH up at one time, one tucked under my right arm, the other under my left. They kicked and cried and fought against me! It was a real struggle, and one I've honestly never experienced before with them. By the grace of God, I was able to heave and pant and plod my way into my Granddad's house, where I literally dropped them both -- crying and angry -- on the floor.
And then I burst into tears.

Praise God (seriously) that there were NO cars coming down the street in either direction (this is really unheard of). And Praise God neither the boys nor I fell during this scary scene.

Later that night, Lester and I made a joint decision that I can no longer go out by myself with them while a million months pregnant. And I'm fine with that. I don't need a scare like that again anytime soon. Lord knows I don't. Ugh! (Thinking about it now still makes my heart race.)

As I look back on that day, and their ability to RUN away from me, I see that they really are getting bigger, stronger, faster, and more willful and independent. In other words, getting out of the way for the next baby.

I know I'm going to need to focus on Curve Ball when she gets here, and that I'll need them to be big boys who help Mommy, not hinder me, while I'm trying to take care of a wriggly, screaming, needy newborn.

But I have to say: I liked it so much better when Cary and Dean wanted nothing more than to stand right by my side, holding my hand, happily following Mommy's lead.

I know this is natural. And necessary.

But I already miss them. Their little hands in mine. Their baby-ness. Their needing me.

It may be true that they may have to move out of the way for their little sister.

But I wish they didn't have to move so fast -- and so far.

Save me from car seat h-e-double-hockey-sticks!

2012-01-10T07:29:00.000-08:00

So, our babysitter Michelle has a Volkswagen Jetta. It's a very cute little car, but it is proving to be very inconvenient for us, as we prepare to welcome Baby No. 3 into our family. Darn tiny German cars!!

Here's the issue:

When Curve Ball gets here, we will need to fit three car seats in her car, for the times when she has to take all three kids somewhere (probably not often), and especially for when the boys start preschool in the fall and she has to pack up Curve Ball to go pick them up. (It's a half-day program).

Right now, she has the boys still in their infant seats -- rear-facing. But they'll obviously need to move to convertible seats ASAP. We already bought two for our own car. We have been holding off on purchasing two more for her car, until we could figure out how we would possibly get three car seats in the back of her car. But it's getting down to the wire. We have to make a decision and start ordering soon.

Michelle's backseat is only about 46 or 47 inches across.

Even with our slightly wider CRV, we still had to buy a whole new vehicle to be able to accommodate three car seats. As great as she is to us, I don't think Michelle is buying a minivan anytime soon.

So I've been researching "narrow car seats" on the Internets. My head is spinning from all the research! So far, what I've found is that parents and reviewers alike all say the Sunshine Kids Radian seats are the narrowest on the market, and still very safe. Many parents even say you can fit three of them across in the back of a mid-sized car. I was so excited to read that (all my problems solved!), until I realized that:

1) We need to fit two convertible car seats and one infant seat/carrier in the back. Looking at the dimensions of all three, the math will never, ever work. Even when I do my version of math, which is fuzzy to say the least.
2) The least expensive Radian is more than $200. The one everyone seems to say is the narrowest is $300!!! And we have to buy two of 'em!! Maybe three of 'em!! (See point number 3).
3) To make this work, we may have to put Curve Ball in a convertible seat from birth, so we can fit three across. Is this even safe? I am so used to seeing my babies all snug in their plush infant carrier seats, I cringe at the thought of a tiny baby in a big ole tall, industrial-looking convertible seat.
4) Also, we were not planning on buying a stroller for a while; instead we intend to just use the Snap 'n Go. That means we need to have an infant carrier to snap in it! You cannot snap a convertible car seat in a Snap 'n Go, people! So if we do end up having to buy Curve Ball a convertible seat, that also means having to buy a darn stroller! Mo money, mo money, MO MONEY!
5) Even with all this rumination, I still am not 100-percent positive that any of these scenarios will work to fit three seats in her specific car, because you really have to physically try them out to make sure. Which means ordering a bunch of million-dollar seats to test them. And then what happens if they don't work? Can you send them back? URGH!
6) All this needs to be figured out really really soon, as we will need the infant car seat currently in Michelle's car to bring Curve Ball home from the hospital, leaving her with only one car seat for the boys. And as previous posts have discussed, CB's arrival could be sooner rather than later. We just don't know.

As I said: me = head spinning!!!

I am going to post all the pertinent dimensions here for any blogfriends who are scientifically (ahem, LauraC!) or mathematically (ahem E. Wiley!) inclined, to see if any of you have ideas. Or anyone else for that matter. I'll take any and all solutions. I am starting to have nightmares about car seats!

Here goes:

Michelle's backseat = 47 inches across total
Each bucket-y type seat is 18 inches wide. The mid section is 11 inches.

Both the Sunshine Kids Radian 80SL (less expensive, but still not cheap) and the Sunshine Kids XTSL (mega-expensive) appear to have these dimensions: 16 x 17 x 28.5
(We're front-facing them now, even though they're not quite 2.)

Our Graco 35 infant car seat has dimensions of: 15.6 x 18.7 x 30.7 (Keep in mind this is rear-facing, FYI.)
The base of the Graco 35 has dimensions of : 17.13 x 9.45 x 23.46

I'm imagining putting the two convertible seats on either side of the Graco, with the Graco in the middle, as the middle is the safest part, no? But I'm not opposed to positioning them some other way, if that way works better.

Any advice???

Thanks.

Signed,

Considering strapping one kid to the roof if I have to
Baltimore, Md.

32 week check-up for Curve Ball

2012-01-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

I had a marathon morning.

First stop, a growth scan (ultrasound) at the perinatologist. Then, fetal monitoring, also at the perinatal center. Then, an OB appointment.

I'm sleepy from all that doctoring!

Here's the long and short of my visits:

Curve Ball is still big -- plenty big. She's looking on the ultrasound to be about 4 lbs. 13 oz., which is insane. At this point, most babies are somewhere around 3 lbs. 8 oz., which is about what she was last visit. Four weeks ago.

(And that is already bigger than either Cary or Dean were at birth!)

I keep getting visions in my head of the Stay Puft marshmallow man growing in my uterus. Oy.

The good news is, somehow, the doctors said that her rate of growth appears to have slowed a tad, and her abdomen (although still large) isn't AS large as it was, proportionately speaking.

So, the insulin is working! Now I just have to keep it up, so that her growth slows even more. Let's hope I'm able to pull that off.

Fetal monitoring was uneventful. I started a new book and dozed a little bit while it was going on.

And the OB and I had a good discussion about possible scenarios around delivery of this baby, since she is a chubster.

Although the doctor used words like "avoiding an obstetric catastrophe," which still are bouncing around in my head, actually she didn't stress me out or make me worried. I think that's the sign of a good doctor.

The bottom bottom line is that we'll know more about how Curve Ball is likely to be delivered around 36 weeks. But it's pretty unlikely they'll let me go into labor naturally. It's looking like either an induction, or a C-section. And possibly between 37 and 39 weeks.

How curious is it that I delivered TWO babies vaginally, but will probably have to deliver this ONE baby by C-section?

This is yet another thing to file under the "You Just Never Know What Life Has in Store for You" file.

That file in my house, by the way, is overflowing.

Benefits of a big boy room

2012-01-04T07:42:00.000-08:00

I had a hard time sleeping last night (I think because I watched "Inside Job" before going to bed and was internally seething the whole night through), so I was in a total coma this morning when the boys woke up at 6:20. I didn't hear them at all!

I did hear Lester get out of the bed and leave the room, I assumed to head to the bathroom, but when he came back in, he got back in the bed, but left the light on in the boys' room.

"Hey. Why's the light on in the boys' room?" I asked, assuming it was 3 a.m. and he had just lost his mind.

"Because they're awake. It's 6:20," he said.

I was totally confused. How is it possibly 6:20? I JUST fell asleep. Also, how are the boys awake? It's completely quiet in their room. Where is the screaming?

"What are they doing?" I asked. "You just left them in their cribs?"

"No," Lester said, pulling the covers up over his head. "They're playing on the floor."

Whuh? My two high-maintenance boys? Playing? In their room? Without me? Without screaming?

This, I had to see.

So I dragged myself out of bed and peeked in their room.

This is what I found:

Adorable babies, in footie pajamas, with their Loveys on their heads (I told you they do that all the time and I have no idea why), playing BY THEMSELVES, in their new big boy room, with their trucks and cute wooden trains my friend Stacey gave them for Christmas!

Let me reiterate:

6:20 a.m.

Boys playing (not screaming).

BY THEMSELVES.

IN THEIR OWN ROOM (NOT OURS!)

Lester, back in the bed!

Me. Amazed.

So far, the big boy room is a hit. And not just with Cary and Dean. With Mommy and Daddy, too!

Back in the saddle, but my horse is moving slowwwwwly

2012-01-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!

I'm back at work with a ton to do, of course, but I wanted to get back in the saddle with a lot of things, including testing my sugars more regularly and blogging!

So this'll be short-ish.

I had two weeks off from work, with my family, and it was AWESOME. I spent a lot of time with the babies, and I swear I witnessed them developing right before my eyes. Their language skills are exploding; sometimes they string together three or four related words, helping Lester and me to know much better what they're thinking or wanting. This is lovely, let me tell you.

They're still amazingly whiny and tantrum-y, but at least there are way more moments where I can say, "Oh, you want to hear 'Hot Cross Buns?' OK. Let me play that for you!" or something along those lines. And everyone is happy when communication is clear!

The boys got wooden musical instruments from my sister for Christmas, and it only took Dean two days to figure out how to work the harmonica (which, parents of babies will know is a big thing, because they don't usually get "blowing" until later on, I'm told).

Here he is, making a little tune (and tapping his feet, which you can't see). He was so proud of himself!

My little musical prodigy!

Lester and I began our talks about what to expect in 2012 with a third child/newborn in the house, which is good. But we haven't had our talk about our more general 2012 goals and dreams (other than financial), so we are planning to do that this week.

I'll let you know how that goes.

Meanwhile, we made a plan to go to a birthday party this coming Saturday for a friend's 2-year-old, and then I'll take the boys afterward and go to my Mom's for an overnight visit, giving Lester time to paint Curve Ball's room! Yay! Progress!

I picked a color for her room called "Aloe Vera," which is less minty than I had imagined in my mind at first, with a bit more yellow in it. And now I'm nervous that this will look puke-y or Mountain Dew-ish on the walls. Which is NOT what I was going for. So keep your fingers crossed for me that it is a pretty shade, and perfect for my little sweetie.

Speaking of my sweetie, I am 32 weeks today and I go back on Thursday for another ultrasound to see if she's slowed up her growth at all, thanks to the insulin. I really hope so, but it's unfortunate this insulin business came about smack dab in the middle of sweet potato pie season! (Yes, Mommy splurged a little...) I honestly think she's growing like a weed, if her powerful punches are any indication. Good grief, this girl is strong. And wild! Ugh!

I also start fetal monitoring twice a week, beginning on Thursday. How I will get all my work done at work while running back and forth to the perinatal center, I don't know. But I can't worry about that.

It's 2012 -- the Year of Curve Ball. I'm worrying about her (and the other Davises) and honestly, not much else.

Curve Ball, has a name by the way, but I won't be sharing until she's born. Some of my family members know, and there have been ...how shall I say?....mixed reactions. Which is why I don't usually share in the first place. So I've decided to stop sharing until her name is what her name is, and it's plain rude to criticize then.

Besides, there have to be some surprises in this world, no? With a blog where I share just about everything, this is one thing that I can keep you all guessing about!

(Hey, I gotta find my fun where I can, folks.)

Big day for the Davis boys!

2011-12-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

Today, we officially switched the boys from the small room (the nursery) to the bigger room (formerly the guest room).

You can't see from this picture their little bookcase and toybox, and just how roomy it is in there. But take my word for it, it is totally cute and really looks like a little boys' room, even with two cribs and a changing table in it.

Cary and Dean absolutely lurv their big boy room, especially all the newfound floor space to play with their blocks and cars -- but we shall see how they take to it in terms of actually sleeping in it tonight at bedtime.

Naptime for Cary was a total bust. I had to hold him, sniffling on my chest in our bedroom until he conked out and then transfer him to his crib -- which hasn't happened since early, early infancy. (Full disclosure: It was kinda nice, but don't tell him that.)

And then, more big things!!

After dinnertime, as Cary was walking around with his hair all over his head, looking like Kramer from Seinfeld, Lester decided enough was enough -- and cut my baby's hair!! For the first time EVER!

Cary before -- with a volcano of curls on his head:

Cary during -- and not even whimpering about the clippers!! Shocking!!

And just like that, my baby is a big boy, in a big boy room, and with no more baby curls!!

This has all been a bit much for me. I think I'll go to bed early.
Sigh.

Next big thing: Tackling Curve Ball's room! Sometime in January, perhaps?

Merry post-Christmas post!

2011-12-27T17:05:00.000-08:00

Merry couple days after Christmas all!

I wanted to post this picture of the boys on Christmas Eve, but Lester and I stayed up late trying to figure out how to put songs on a (cheap and annoying) mp3 player I bought my 11-year-old nephew. It took us until almost 1:30 to get it all done, so by then I was too pooped to do anything but conk out.

So -- a few days late -- here are my cuties in their Sesame Street Christmas PJs and Santa hats, on their way to nestle all snug in their beds. All together now: "Awwwwww!"

On Christmas, the boys enjoyed opening the few presents we bought them, and especially loved the Elmo and Cookie Monster toys my Nana sent them from Boston. (Cary was a little afraid of Cookie's gruff voice, at first, but he's over it now.) The biggest hit of all the presents was "My Big Truck Book," which Cary would marry if he could. Well, and Elmo. Elmo can do no wrong in our house, apparently.

(Dean dancing to Elmo!)

We went to my Mom's in the afternoon, and stayed the night. The boys opened more presents, played with their cousins, ate a lot of sweet stuff (and I didn't fuss at anyone about it!) and stayed up way late. We left my parents' late Monday, so that made two nights in a row that the boys had really, really late nights.

So...the best Christmas present for Mommy and Daddy? Cary and Dean slept until 8:45 this morning and then took a THREE-hour nap in the afternoon. That's how wiped they were from all the Christmas revelry. It was great!

Speaking of great Christmas presents, Lester and I had agreed not to spend a lot of money on ourselves this year, because we don't need anything and it's the Year of Austerity (even though he snuck and bought me a beautiful bracelet and earrings! Cheater!), so we decided to spend the money we would have spent on gifts on "Hotel Get-Away Day."

What is Hotel Get-Away Day, you ask? Just the best thing ever!!

A few days before Christmas, when Michelle was still watching the boys, we left the house when she arrived, went and had a delicious, leisurely brunch and then checked into a Marriott, where we promptly took our own THREE-hour nap!! Then we ordered room service, watched some mindless television and just lazed around until it was time to go home and get our boys.

It was so unbelievably restorative and wonderful, I highly recommend it to all parents, especially those who have demanding, small children. I mean seriously, the king-sized bed with the fluffy pillows? The quiet? The people bringing you food and then taking the dirty dishes away? The snuggling? The NAP? It was the best Christmas present ever. We're talking now about doing it on a semi-regular basis. Merry Christmas in April? Why not?!

:-)

Bonus: Just because I have been sooo awful about taking pregnancy pics of myself this time around, I had Lester take a quick iPhone photo of my belly (and me) in the lobby of the hotel, next to this cool display of gingerbread houses made by some local school-children.

I look a make-up-less mess, yes, but remember, this is after sleeping for three blissful hours!! So who cares?

(There's Curve Ball in there! And today we're 31 weeks! Not too much longer now!)

Quick vacation update

2011-12-20T13:18:00.000-08:00

I have officially been on vacation since Friday, so I'm not sitting at a computer long enough to post updates, but I wanted to take a few seconds to post two photos.

First...remember all my consternation about the Christmas tree? How I agonized about the hassle of keeping two active (read: hardheaded) little grabby-hand babies away from it, the ornaments and the lights? And how I eventually gave in and put up a small one, because I couldn't stand the thought of not having any tree for Christmas -- and because everyone said I should do it and it would be fine?

I present to you, Exhibit A:

Yes, 8 million time-outs later, the tiny tree terrorists finally won.
Sigh.
We did put the tree back up, and salvaged the ornaments we could, and since then (knock on wood) they've been fairly disinterested in it. So maybe they accomplished what they set out to do and now we can move on? Maybe? Let's hope so!

Also, remember my post about not having the Christmas spirit? And about how I needed to get the boys some Santa hats, perhaps?

TOTALLY helped!!

Santa's elves do it every time!!

(I don't know how much I'll be on the computer for the next two weeks, so...Merry Christmas to all, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and many, many blessings!)

Outrage day

2011-12-16T07:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was outrage day for me. Which contributed to (or maybe was helped along by) my lack of Christmas spirit.

First, a friend who is in my Unbalanced Mommies group sent out this article to the bunch of us, with the e-mail subject line: "an article to make u feel guilty about 'cry it out'."

I should have stopped at the headline, but nooo, I read the stupid article. And it was a bunch of bull****. There's one line, for instance, that says that a child who was forced to endure CIO "may spend a lifetime trying to fill the inner emptiness." Inner emptiness? Really??
Which, under normal circumstances would have been merely irritating, but likely forgettable. But this came from someone in my mommy-support-group!! WTF? Why would she send that out to us?
First of all, most of us are hitting the year-and-a-half, 2-year-mark with our kids. Why on Earth would we need to feel guilty about parenting practices from early infancy? Moreover, why on Earth should we feel guilty about ANYTHING we did or didn't do, or do or don't do, as parents? We're all trying our best here, winging it half the time, attempting to raise little people the best way we know how. There is NO room for guilt imposed on us by outsiders. None. We saddle ourselves with enough guilt and anxiety as it is!

Also, up until her e-mail, our support group has been just that: a support group. We encourage one another. We help one another. We do advise one another from time to time, but always with the caveat that none of us really knows what the hell we're doing. But we're all doing a good job! In our own ways. Some stay home, some work part-time, some full-time. Some do daycare; some have in-home sitters; some have relatives to help with the babies. Some of us breastfed, some of us did not. You get the picture. Regardless of our parenting choices, so far, I'd say all our kids are pretty damn awesome. And isn't that the true barometer?

Anyway, most importantly, in our Mommy group, the one thing we never, ever do is judge. Ever.
There's enough judgment in this world, especially where women are concerned. I choose to surround myself with people who would rather lift me up than tear me down. So I was HOT about that e-mail. HOT, do you hear me?

One Mommy-group friend told me she just ignored it. And another -- the woman who invited the rogue e-mailer into our group -- said she was also offended but was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she meant to send the article sarcastically? Like, "check out this bull****?" Perhaps. Who knows. So she said she would find out. And that meant I could not send the e-mailer a flaming response. So I just raged on the inside. Grrrrrrrrrr!

Then, later on in the afternoon, my sister dragged me into this "If I Were a Poor, Black Kid" madness -- which I had been trying to avoid.
I won't even go into the details of it; it's just such a rabbit hole of arrogance and racism and bad grammar.
But suffice it to say that the original commentary by Gene Marks and the online brouhaha that ensued made me think a lot about the fact that people like Marks are representative of the "ruling class" in this country (as evidenced by the fact that his commentary ran in Forbes, not some random blog). And so that means that these are the people who are setting policy in this country. These are the people who will be evaluating and legislating my own three Black kids (two of them Black males, just to add to the pile) some day.
My heart is sick thinking of the prejudice and ignorance and condescension and judgment they will face.
And how, in many cases, I will be powerless to protect them from it.

And so my outrage turned to sadness and worry. (Of course).

I went to bed last night without washing the dinner dishes or cleaning the kitchen or straightening the bedroom which had been torn to pieces by Cary and Dean earlier that morning. That's how wiped I was.

Then, this morning, Cary looked at Dean's pajamas and pointed to the fire truck. He said, "fraratruck!" and then, "Dean!"
I said, "Yes, Dean has a fire truck on his pajamas, baby! That's right!"
Then...he pointed to his own pajamas (he was wearing the same ones) and said, "Fraratruck. Dary!"

He knows he's CARY! He said it!

Then they both commenced to running around upstairs destroying things, all the while making fire truck sounds, "Woo-woo-woo!" and singing made-up, gibberish songs with their loveys on their heads. Dean pointed to a wedding picture of ours and sang, "Ma-Ma, Dah-dee! Ma-Ma, Dah-dee!," and did a little dance. He kissed me good-bye at the front door without me asking!
They both waved to me, happily, and said "Bye-bye, Ma-Ma!"

Inner emptiness my a**!

(I'm over it, really I am! I just had to get that last jab in.)

Paging my Christmas spirit. Christmas spirit to the register, please.

2011-12-15T07:02:00.000-08:00

I am fresh out of original things to talk about, as the days have been mostly: Work, come home, marvel at the children and their awesomeness, fume at the children and their craziness, eat, check my blood sugars (still outta control), go to bed. Oh, also -- put children in time-out for removing all the ornaments they can reach off the Christmas tree and for insisting on sneakily dropping dinner on the floor (Dean). Oh, and clean up all the papers and miscellaneous items they throw around in our bedroom in the mornings while we're trying to get ready for work. Oh, and fret about whether we will ever get all the things done that need to get done in the two bedrooms upstairs to prepare for Curve Ball's arrival.

That's my life. And even though I put up decorations, went to my office holiday party, ordered gifts for my nieces and nephews and finished my end-of-the-year giving, I still don't feel especially Christmas-y. And when I look at all my blogfriends' blogs, I REALLY feel like I was in the bathroom or something when someone was handing out the Christmas spirit. (That's entirely possible, as much as I'm in the bathroom these days).

I'm sure it will come (I think). But to help it along, I thought I'd post a couple pictures of Christmases past, when my cup runneth over with Christmas spirit!

Me and Lester's very first Christmas together as a married couple. Picking out our first tree (Dec. 2007)!

The boys at our church Christmas pageant, Dec. 2010, enjoying the angels and wise men and singing townspeople. I remember thinking, "One day, these two little angels will be in the church Christmas pageant!!" And getting all teary-eyed.

Christmas Eve, 2010 -- such a warm, memory-filled night. Look how cute and small they were!

Perhaps I need to get the boys something Christmas-y to wear and take some cute photos of them this year. They don't have Christmas pajamas, or sweaters or Santa hats (darn K-Mart excursion gone wrong!) Maybe that's what's missing.

I'll try to work on that this weekend. Ho-ho-ho!

Rosemary's baby?

2011-12-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

Apparently, I am carrying a demon child, because my body keeps trying to kill it.

First there was the bread truck incident.

Then, last night, I went to put a protesting Dean over the baby gate from the dining room into the living room, and leaned too hard -- I guess -- into the gate. The gate gave way; I dropped Dean on his head. The gate fell on top of him and then I fell HARD on my face, belly and knee.

Did I mention I have hardwood floors? Ugh. This is why ancient man invented carpet, I'm sure of it.

I have a sore-to-the-touch knot on my head and a tiny little bruise. I had a headache all night, and my nose is still sore.

Dean was fine, after getting over the fright of the fall and of having the mesh gate on top of him like a fishnet.

Curve Ball seems fine, too, despite my worrying all night about whether or not she was moving enough.

So, all's well that ends well, I guess. But seriously, what the heck?

My friend Rashod Ollison asked me if someone had "put roots on me."

I am inclined to believe it's either that or I am carrying Rosemary's baby, and my body is trying to save me the humiliation later on in life of having given birth to the spawn of Satan.

Or..maybe I'm just tired and off-balance and distracted, with fluctuating blood sugars that make me feel all loopy. And so, if that's the case, I should prepare myself for more clumsiness and haphazardness for at least the next 11 weeks.

I think I'll buy myself a helmet.

The amazing, incredible Davis boys

2011-12-12T11:20:00.000-08:00

Over the last few days, my boys did such amazing things, I am certain they are destined for Fulbrights some day -- or to be mad geniuses who blow up the world. Whichever.

Dean:

1. I have to check my blood sugar four times a day. The boys love the beeping sound the meter makes when I insert a test strip. They always say, "BEEP!" when they see the meter. They think it's Mommy's cool beeping toy.
But this weekend, Dean found a collar stay that Lester uses for his business shirts. It is plastic and thin and, apparently, looks a little like a test strip. Because Dean took it, said, "Beep!" pushed it up against his little fat finger and said, "Stick!" and then --wait for it -- sucked his finger, the same way I do when I'm finished testing, to get rid of the tiny droplet of blood.
Isn't that amazing. Beep, stick, suck! Just like Mommy does! He is such a little observer. I think he has a future as a scientist/researcher/doctor-type. Or a Peeping Tom. Whichever.
Either way, what a reminder that 19-month-old babies are watching everything.

2. Dean also learned this weekend how to unlock the front door. And he learned how to turn the doorknobs on all our inside doors, so he can get out of rooms now. (Joy!) For some reason, he can't turn the front door knob, I think because of the shape of it. So that's a blessing; otherwise, he'd be unlocking the front door, turning the knob and running down the street. For now, he just opens the bedroom door or the bathroom door and scurries out of rooms, his face all bright with excitement. Little fugitive! How did he learn how to turn doorknobs? I guess by watching us do it.
Yet another reminder that 19-month-old babies are watching everything!!!

3. Dean really knows -- and uses -- Cary's name now. He calls him when he can't find him: "Deary? Deary?" And he tells on him when Cary's doing something wrong.
"Uh-oh," he said to me this morning! "UH-Ohhhh! Deary! Steps!"
Sure enough, Cary was climbing back up the stairs. Good to have another set of eyes around! Thanks, Dean!

Cary:

1. Cary said his first full sentence this weekend. I was eating soup in a mug, and he came up to me and said, "Mommy eat soup."
Mommy. Eat. Soup. A subject, a verb and an object. Hello -- not only a sentence, but technically, according to grammar rules, a complex one! I think my child will be poet laureate one day. Or just extremely chatty and a pain in the neck because he won't stop talking. Whichever.

2. While reading "Duck and Goose: How Are You Feeling?" Cary identified each feeling on each page (except for "Frustrated," which is a hard word and concept to explain to a baby) all by himself, without prompting!
He'd turn the page to "Patient" and say some word that vaguely sounds like "patient." Then he'd point to the plant and say, "plant." Then he'd say, "Grow!" Because in the picture, Duck and Goose are patiently waiting for a little plant to grow.
Then he'd turn to the "Selfish" page and say something that sounds very much like "selfish." And he'd point to the duck holding all the flowers and not sharing with his friends, and go "UNH!" as if he were angry at the duck.
At the "Sad" page, he pretends to cry. At the "Afraid" page, he whimpers. At the angry page, he growls and goes "UNH!" At the happy page, he says, "HAPPY!" and smiles. He says, "Proud!" at the "proud" page. And at the "Loving" page, he gives me a a hug. (OK, sometimes, the hug requires prompting.)
It is toooo cute. I love that he enjoys "reading" so much; but I especially love how dramatic this kid is. Seriously, why is he mad that the duck won't share his flowers? LOL. You tell 'em, Deary. Sharing is caring!
Lester asked me, "How does he know how to do that?" And I said, "I guess just from us reading it over and over and over and over."
Which just goes to show you that -- again -- 19-month-old babies are watching everything.

3. This morning, on my way out the door, I said my usual good-byes and grabbed my millions of bags (I'm such a bag lady, like my mother). Dean was in his highchair, waiting for breakfast, and Cary was evading capture as usual. So he saw me leaving and said, "Keesh!" (Which is "kiss," awwww! ) I said, "Oh, you want Mommy to give you a kiss?" And I was truly checking to make sure, because this is not the most affectionate kid we're talking about here. And he said, "Prr-pees." (Which is "pretty please.") So I leaned in to kiss him good-bye, and he puckered! And kissed me! And then went on his merry way.
I swear, I almost cried!

Aren't they amazing? Seriously. My two little crazies are crazy awesome.

Meanwhile, these " crazy awesome" boys spent half the weekend in time-out (not kidding) because they are unable to resist the siren call of the Christmas tree. Which I DID put up (a small one, anyway) along with a few decorations.

Everyone tells me that this is just something they will have to learn, and that eventually -- with consistency -- they'll get it that the Christmas tree (and other decorations) are off limits. But we are a ways away from that day, people. A LONG ways away.

.

iPhone wouldn't let me upload the entire video, so you don't see Dean putting Mr. Snowman back in his spot near the kitchen door and then saying, "Bye-bye noman." And then Cary blowing Mr. Snowman a kiss! But you get the picture. Don't touch the Christmas decorations gets translated into "decapitate the snowman."

LOL!

There's always a silver lining

2011-12-09T11:16:00.001-08:00

So the bad news is, today, I ran into a bread truck on my way to work.

I have no idea how it happened. Seriously. I was driving along in my lane, not on my phone, not listening to the radio, with my glasses on. It was sunny and clear. I was in city traffic, so not driving fast at all. Somehow, I just ran smack into the back step-gate of the truck. And the step-gate ripped through the car like it was made of soft butter.

The minivan is pretty much crushed to pieces in the front. It even blew the tire, and crushed the passenger side door, somehow.

So for most of the morning, we've been dealing with surly city police, our accusatory insurance company, damage appraisers and rental companies. Joy.

I have a feeling this is going to drag out for quite awhile -- and be quite expensive, even with our insurance. Sigh.

The good news is, I'm OK. And baby's OK. Lester came over to the accident site and handled the whole thing and didn't make me feel bad for driving into a bread truck, not even once. Praise God for him, for reals.

And if you're looking for the silver lining, here it is: The (very nice) bread truck driver felt so sorry for me and my big, pregnant self, he gave us two loaves of Nature's Own Double Fiber Wheat bread from the back of the truck. Which is the kind we actually buy in our house.

So -- our fiber needs are taken care of for the next two weeks.

Next time, I'll try to run into a money truck. :-)

28 week check-up

2011-12-08T10:35:00.000-08:00

I went today for my 28-week check-up at the perinatologist (and a follow-up at the OB, too).

Here are the highlights (or the lowlights, as it were):

Curve Ball is showing signs of being in a "diabetic environment."
This is new. At my last check-up at 19 weeks, she was not.

What does that mean, exactly?

Well, for one thing, her little abdomen is measuring in the 97th percentile. That is pretty darn big.
By contrast, at 19 weeks, it was measuring in the 50th.

The big belly indicates that she is storing sugars and fats in her tummy, which is exactly what she is not supposed to be doing.

Also, she is 3. lbs. 6 oz. -- almost a full pound heavier than she should be (no wonder she packs such a wallop!)

This means that -- if she puts on half a pound a week, as babies can do during the third trimester -- I could be in danger of having a nearly-10-lb.-baby. Holy macaroni.

The doctors have stressed that there are many reasons why having a huge baby like that is not good for me.
1. I am 5 ft. tall, and a size 2. OK, a size 4.
2. Shoulder dystosia is a real concern at that size.
3. Therefore, dreams of an uneventful, vaginal birth (which I had with the boys) might be blown to smithereens.
4. Babies who are big because of being grown in a sugar-rich environment are not just cute and chubby normal babies. They are big in different ways: in the bellies, for one thing, and especially in the neck and cheeks and jawline. This can mean Curve Ball might get stuck trying to come down the birth canal and out of my body into the world. Very dangerous.
5. Again, vaginal birth = bye-bye.

In addition, Curve Ball is now at risk of having low-blood-sugar at birth (when they cut her from the placenta) and she is also officially at risk of developing diabetes as an adult.

To say that I am bummed would be severely under-selling all the sadness and anxiety I feel right now.

The good news is, I have been monitored since early on and will continue being monitored (now, even moreso) until she's born. My doctors assure me that all this monitoring means she should be just fine, in the end.

On the way back from my appointments, I put in the prescription for insulin, which I'm to take three times a day. I've already been taking it at bedtime (did I forget to mention that?) so I've got the needle-part down. But now I'll have to mix two kinds together (a fast-acting and a long-acting), so I do have a bit of adjusting to do to this new regimen.

But I'm totally prepared and willing to do it. I really do not care anymore about what I have to do. I will do whatever it takes, for however long I have to do it. Anything to help shrink Curve Ball's little Buddha belly, and get her to not be the size of a small turkey at birth.

I also have to go back to the OB every 2 weeks now instead of four, and at 32 weeks, I go back to the perinatologist for another growth scan and to start twice-weekly fetal monitoring. My boss is going to LOVE this!

On the bright side, everything else about her looked great today -- and the sonographer even broke the rules and gave me 3D photos of Curve Ball. I'm not a huge, huge fan of the strange-looking 3D photos, but we got them -- without asking -- for Cary and Dean. We put the pics in a frame, and those photos crack us up now because of how you can really see Cary in there and Dean in there, all smushed and water-logged, but still very much themselves.

So we begged the sonographer to give us pics of Curve Ball, even though they've changed the rules in that office about doing them, ever since too many crazy parents (not us, this time!) called in panics after getting their 3D pics home, thinking surely something must be wrong with this alien-skeletor-hole-in-head baby I'm carrying.

Truth be told, Curve Ball does look a little Twilight-zone-music-esque in the pics. And they're not as clear as C & D's were, because of the way she was lying.

But ... here she is, her first glamour-shot:

I have no idea who she looks like.

And, the last bit of bright-side news is: Regardless of whatever is going on in my sugar-soaked womb, little Curve Ball seems happy about it.

The sonographer and I both cracked up at this picture of her, which shows my little sweet treat looking just like she is in there just laughing her head off:

Awww. My sweet, happy little baby girl.

Now who wouldn't do anything in the world they had to do to make sure she stays that way? Certainly not me. I'm in hook, line, and sinker! Insulin -- here I come!!!

Baffling toddler questions - a quiz

2011-12-07T06:54:00.000-08:00

1. Why is it that the boys repeatedly do all sorts of things Lester and I tell them (multiple times daily) not to do (like push buttons on the Blu-Ray player, play with our iPod and iPhones, pull out plugs, open drawers and cabinets, etc.) -- but when I put them in time-out and say "Now, you must sit still until Mommy says you can get up," they sit there and don't move until Mommy says they can?? If they know to sit still in time-out, they know to listen, right?

2. Why is it that the boys almost never fight over books, trucks or puzzles, but will try to kill each other over toothbrushes, the little cardboard hanger-cover-things that come on dry-cleaner's hangers, plastic baggie clips and other random, inexplicable things?

3. Why is it that Dean has started refusing food, especially at dinnertime -- even some of his favorite dishes -- but if I offer him cottage cheese and fruit, or yogurt, he will devour it and then say, "more pees!" while frantically making the sign for "more" as if he was STARVING?

4. Why is it that the boys and I had a perfectly lovely day on Sunday, hanging out and eating at restaurants and enjoying the day, but when Lester tried to do the same yesterday (he had a day off), he reported back that there were tears, tantrums and general craziness the entire time; and the day was a "disaster? Are toddlers bi-polar?

5. Why do they act like getting their diapers changed is an unnatural crime against humanity?

6. Why is Dean still missing his back teeth? ALL of them? How does he eat orange peels without back teeth? WHY does he eat orange peels?

7. Why do the boys pretend to talk on the phone to my sisters, but when they're actually with my sisters, they refuse to go to them?

8. When will Cary learn to turn books right-side-up? When will Cary learn -- for certain -- that he is, in fact, Cary?

9. When does the screaming and crying about everything end? When? When?! WHEN?!

10. How can the boys listen to "The Ants Go Marching" on repeat 100,000 times in a row and not want to throw themselves off the top of a tall building into burning lava?

Bonus: How is it possible that toddlers are the most inscrutable creatures on the face of the Earth -- and also the most adorable, hysterical and lovable?

Tuesday fun facts

2011-12-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

-- Today Curve Ball is 28 weeks!
(How do you like that I started this post with her instead of her brothers?!)

Technically, she is only 26 weeks, but I am 28 weeks along carrying her. This is the official start of the third trimester, according to the pregnancy books. That means this is the final stretch. She should be here in 12 weeks or fewer. (Hopefully not too much fewer). I'm still freaked out, but also getting excited. A new little baby, with new baby toes and new baby smell! Awwww.

The books also say that Curve Ball could weigh as much as 2.5 lbs by now. I can believe it, as this little thing packs a powerful punch when she is moving around -- which is pretty much all the time. She is a party animal! I sometimes call her "Wild Thing," and like Max in the famous book, then I command her to "Be still!" But I must not have Max's special magic tricks, as she never complies.

Full disclosure, I have not gotten very far on the list of things to do to prepare for her room. I have ordered a few things for the boys' new room (bookcase, storage unit, toybox) which will help us move their stuff out of her room, so I can start decorating for her. I also have a bassinet for Curve Ball - which I got from a yard sale - but no crib yet.

Lester and I both have a little time off coming up this month, so hopefully, we will knock this out then. I really don't want it to be February -- and I"m 9 months pregnant, still trying to get two kids' rooms together.

P.S. Curve Ball still has no name, but we have a strong contender! I'll keep you posted.

-- Dean has started saying Cary's name a bit. Finally! It sounds like "Dairy" or "Deary," actually.
And sometimes Cary will say it too. But I'd say 75 percent of the time, Dean calls Cary "Dean," and 85 percent of the time, Cary calls himself "Dean."
I was very happy yesterday, though, when Cary pointed to Dean in his highchair and said, "Deannn," (He really emphasizes the "n" now) and then pointed to himself and said, quietly, "Deary?"
I think we might be turning a corner!

Dean also is becoming more and more interested in helping to put on and take off his clothes. The same way I often find Cary sitting quietly somewhere with a book is the same way I'll now find Dean sitting quietly somewhere with a pair of pants or pajamas he's pulled out of the hamper, trying to put them on his feet or arms (with no luck). It's very cute. He takes clothes off of "Piggy" - a little stuffed pig with a vest - and then tries so hard to put them back on. (So cute!) He helps pull his pants off when it's bathtime. He thinks he can put his own socks and shoes on and cries when he can't do it. (Awwww.)
Cary has no interest in helping with anything, mind you. He's perfectly happy for Mom and Dad to do everything for him.

Dean is also taking his climbing game to new levels, literally. One day last weekend, I found him on top of the dining room table! Yikes. He climbs all over everything, and he and Cary push furniture around (on our wood floors!) so much, climbing all over everything, that Lester and I had to buy a new baby gate (18 months in to having babies) to stop the C&D Wrecking Crew from destroying the entire house every single day.

-- Cary is stringing more and more words together. Last night, he spied a stray grape that rolled into a corner, and said "Dir-tee brepp." (Dirty grape!) He also says , "No touch tuh-ree-vee!" which means, "Don't touch the TV." And the other day he slipped and bumped his chin on the nightstand in our bedroom, and as I was comforting him, I asked him "What happened, baby?" and he said, through tears, "Mouf. Babel." (Mouth. Table.) (Awwww!) And this morning, on his way down the stairs with Dean and Lester, he called my name, "Muh-muh?! Muh-muh!" until I came to the top of the stairs to see what he wanted. "Yes?" I said. And he waved at me and said, "Buh-bye, Muh-muh." (Double awww!)

This is a kid who has a lot of thoughts; I can tell. He expresses real emotion when he's "reading" books. When Corduroy the Bear falls off the bed, he says, "Ho, nooo!" When the barber is giving the baby a haircut in Dr. Seuss' ABC, Cary whimpers (he hates the clippers Lester uses to give Dean his haircuts). And in "Duck and Goose: How Are You Feeling?" he pretends to cry when we get to the "Sad" page, and he backs away from the book, saying "Dock! (dark)" at the "Scared" page. His favorite page is "Happy!" I love that!

I can't wait until he's able to express himself even more. I imagine having really fun conversations with him.

All in all, everyone is well and happy and our house is full of entertainment! Who needs cable when you've got twin toddlers and a baby on the way!

High-low weekending

2011-12-05T06:35:00.000-08:00

When I was the fashion writer for The Sun (don't ask), I frequently wrote about the trend of high-low dressing. In a really oversimplified way of describing it, high-low dressing involved pairing one really high-end item -- such as a $200 pair of jeans, or a designer handbag or a pair of Manolo Blahniks -- with a cute top from Banana Republic and some costume jewelry from Target. Something like that.

Anyway, it was all the rage then. It made high-fashion more accessible, as you didn't have to be dressed in head-to-toe couture, and as a bonus, even the celebs were doing it!

I say all that to tell you that this weekend was high-low weekend for the Davises.

I took the boys to hear the Baltimore Philharmonia Orchestra, who played a beautiful selection of Christmas music and old favorites, such as songs from My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music.
It was awesome! I left singing "I Could've Danced All Night...." all night long.

The music was really beautiful and I loved that the boys got to see real musicians and real instruments, and hear something other than "The Ants Go Marching" 25,000 times a day.
Cary was a little unnerved by the really loud crescendos, and Dean kept wandering up to little old ladies with white hair and then would run off, shaking his head "No!" when they smiled at him and tried to have conversation. But other than that, it was very nice. And very high-end!
I mean, hello, there were cellos involved.

Afterwards, I figured my two boys had had enough culture for one day, so we decided to go grab an early dinner -- at IHOP! Holla!!
The boys had chicken tenders and fruit and French fries. I had pot roast and mashed potatoes and corn. Then we shared one scoop of vanilla ice cream -- which really means I got maybe two bites, since they devoured it.

The boys behaved marvelously (Praise the Lord!) and I couldn't help but get a twinge of sadness/regret that we are really just getting to the point where I can do things that other Moms of singletons have long been able to do, just as I'm about to blow the whole thing up with a new baby. I don't see how I will be able to have fun dates with my boys, with a newborn in tow, unless Lester is there too. And as much as I love my husband and family togetherness and all that jazz, it was really nice yesterday to go out and about and spend time with Cary and Dean all by myself. Oh well. I'm sure it will all work out eventually.

Anyway, the IHOP was in a shopping plaza that had a K-Mart in it. I hadn't seen the inside of a K-Mart since....sheesh...I don't even know when. But I thought I might be able to find cheap slippers for them to toddle around the house in, and also Santa hats, on the cheap. So after IHOP, we went to K-Mart!

Talk about "low-end." LOL.

I did find slippers -- cute little dinosaur slippers -- for $6 and I thought I found Santa hats, but when we got home, I realized my children's heads are now toddler-sized, not baby-sized, so I have two Santa hats for Curve Ball for next year. But none for her big brothers this year. Back to the drawing board for them I suppose. And in keeping with my low-end-retail-shopping-spree, I will first try to find them at ...The Dollar Store!

Davis Family Year of Austerity is in full effect!!

P.S. Weirdness of the day: TWO people (one at the concert and one at the K-Mart) thought Cary was a girl. A girl!! Please take a look at this picture of my two crazies (taken at IHOP- holla!) and tell me where on Earth Cary Glenn Davis looks like a girl?! In this picture, maybe he looks like a refugee (seriously, what is going on with his hair? It might be time for a haircut, no?) but certainly not a girl! People are seriously baffling.

Is parenting harder today than it was for our parents?

2011-12-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

I was listening to an afternoon call-in radio program about parenting today.

http://www.wypr.org/stationprogram/midday-dan-rodricks

The premise was that there's a new trend in parenting toward complaining about it in public. The show referenced books like "Go the F--- to Sleep," and new TV shows like, "I Hate My Teenaged Daughter." It also talked about all the Mommy blogs where mothers admit to not liking their kids from time to time and to not enjoying all aspects of parenting or to missing parts of their old lives.

"Is parenting today harder than it was in previous generations?" the radio host asked. "Or are today's parents just whiners?"

That made me think a little bit.

This holiday, I snapped at my Mom -- during a particularly cranky stretch of the Cary and Dean show -- that when Curve Ball is born, by golly, people are going to have to come visit US! All this traveling an hour up and an hour back, skipping naps, dragging babies around?? Not fair! If people want to see us, they will need to come see us! Waaaah-waaaah! And WAAAAH!

And my Mom said, without looking up from whatever it was she was doing, "We took you kids everywhere when you were little -- all five of you. And it was no problem."

I'm sure I had a brilliant retort. But now I'm wondering if what Dan Rodricks asked on his show is true? Am I a whiner? Or is my mother having a bit of grandparent-earned revisionist history?

She had to have SOME problems carting five kids around, first in a Toyota hatchback, and then, finally -- when economic times improved -- a big burgundy Ford Aerostar with license plates that read, "4RFAMLY." Right?

I didn't even take my two to the grocery store until just a couple weeks ago! Am I a whiner and a wimp??

She and my Dad also say that me and my siblings NEVER had fall-out-on-the-floor screamfests while out in public. Never. Unh-unh.

"You all KNEW BETTER," Mom says.

Can this possibly be true? Five kids and not ONE public tantrum? Parenting was a piece of cake in the 70s and 80s? But now it's so hard I have to read books and start a blog and whine, whine whine about it???

If I'm honest, when I look back on some of my blog posts, they do seem to have a strong whiny streak. Yes, there's a lot of joy and a lot of pride and a lot of truth-telling (which I'm proud of) but when does truth-telling cross over into Whinyville?

I read an NYT article a while back about a guy making waves by telling people to "have more children." His theory is that raising kids is easier than we make it out to be, if only we were to relax a little bit, have fun with the kids, pick our battles, quit worrying so much about the latest studies and theories, or sugary cereals, or TV watching or pre-school picking. Kids are a big responsibility, he agreed, but they're not supposed to equal so much work and stress. We adults bring that all on ourselves.

"Do you think your grandmother sat on the floor for 5 hours a day playing with your Mom?" he asked, in one of his books (I'm paraphrasing) "No. She had things to do and she did them, and she didn't worry about whether your Mom would be scarred for life or not say 20 words by age 15.2 months or get into the right college or any of those things. And guess what? Your Mom turned out fine."

So why DO we (and by "we," I mean "I") stress out so much about stuff?

Why does it bother me that my kids are cranky and unhappy because they missed their naps? Why can't I just say, "Oh, they're fine. It's just a missed nap, fer crying out loud."
Why do I read so many damn books?
Why don't my kids "know better" than to scream when they want something?
WHY IS THIS SO HARD?
Or is it??

Is all the stressing out taking away somehow from the enjoyment I should be having in child-rearing?

I mean, I enjoy it plenty. I really, really do. (No kidding! I love being Cary and Dean's Mommy.) But could I be enjoying it more if I could zen out some?

This has definitely given me something to think about.

(But...I won't think TOO much because that would be dangerously close to worrying about it, and that would just be getting me nowhere! LOL!)

I'll let you know if I come up with something profound.

Compromising Christmas

2011-11-30T12:05:00.000-08:00

Holiday dilemma:

I grew up in a household that had HUGE Christmases.
-Big, live tree, decorated within an inch of its life.
-Gazillions of presents big and small for all five of us siblings, plus cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, Grands, and friends of the family.
-Lots of decorations all around the house. It was kinda insane.
-Christmas cards sent to a hundred thousand people - and received from twice that many.
-Christmas music blaring in the house and in the car.
-Christmas dinners; Christmas cookies. Christmas fudge. Christmas weight gain.

But Lester grew up in a household where his mother -- a single woman who worked 6 days a week, sometimes 7 -- could afford just one big gift for her only child and one small gift. And that was during good years. There was plenty of warmth in his house because the two of them were best friends, and there was no shortage of love. But glitter and tinsel and fudge and credit card debt and singing Christmas cards? No. Not by a longshot.

I LOVED my Christmases growing up and can still vividly feel the warmth and emotion and excitement the holiday brought. But I can also see how there was way too much of an emphasis on demanding and getting lots of gifts, giving lots of gifts to others, and spending way too much money. And when I see the ritual repeated nowadays with my siblings' kids, I can really see just how ungrateful it makes them. They open one thing, toss it to the side and dive in to the pile for something else. When they run out of things to open, they pout. They count who has "the most" gifts and have temper tantrums if they feel slighted in any way. They trash their toys and leave a mess for the adults to clean up. By the day after Christmas, they're over the entire thing.

Meanwhile, Lester didn't exactly LOVE his super-sparse Christmases, but he definitely feels like he was much more appreciative of what his Mom was able to do each year, and is a more grateful and less materially-needy person now. (Except for shoes. That man loves shoes.) He's witnessed the carnage that occurs on Christmas Day with my siblings' kids and his takeaway is that he didn't miss much growing up, if that's the way it was for us.

So...now that we have our own kids, how do we combine the best parts of both our memories of and lessons-learned from Christmas?

This is a tough one.

Neither one of us wants to raise ungrateful, spoiled-brat, gimme-gimme, little "Me!-Me!-Me!" kids. But we differ on how to make sure we don't do that.

Lester wants us to go the one-big-gift, one-small-gift route. I appreciate the sentiment, but it still seems awfully austere to me. (Yes, I know this is the Davis Family Year of Austerity. But it's Christmas, good grief.)

I have 6 or 7 developmental toys I want to get the boys and some things to decorate and populate their new, bigger room. But I realize that it is silly to buy 18-month-olds a bunch of stuff to open on Christmas. So I don't know what to do. I'm really torn. I WANT them to have those toys and things for their new room. I DON'T want to start a tradition of three kids getting a glut of crap on Christmas.

This year, we're already eschewing the live tree ( a major part of Christmas to me) -- only because we have no confidence that the two rascals who live in our house won't pull all the ornaments off and try to climb up the tree, or splash in the water in the tree base, or yank on the light-strings, or tear open the presents that are there for other family members. In other words, just be general pains-in-the-neck the entire time the tree is up.

We're putting up a smallish, artificial, pre-lighted tree that is usually for decorating the back end of the house. This way, we can put it up on something where they can't reach it and still have at least something of a tree to speak of. But it's an artificial tree. It's small. It's not the same. (Waaaah!)

We're not sending Christmas cards. We're only buying gifts for children this year. I'll try to decorate the house some, but floor decorations are out this year (see our issue with putting up a live tree) so I'm limited there, too.

We certainly aren't going to Christmas Eve services with Cary and Dean anytime soon. At least not until they stop turning into the Grinch Jr. and Ebenezer Scrooge in miniature when they're overly tired.

So even CHURCH is getting left out of this Christmas. Bah humbug.

I'm feeling a little blue about all the minimalism, or maybe just a little underwhelmed.

I'm hoping that this is just a temporary, toned-down way of celebrating Christmas, until our boys are a bit older and we're finished with the Year (or Years) of Austerity. And I know that in some ways, things will pick up when those two things happen, especially when it comes to decorating and baking cookies and going to Tree of Lights festivals and watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" together as a family and all that stuff that is so much a part of the holiday.

But I'm not sure where we'll end up even then when it comes to merging our very different ideas about the gift-giving part of our holiday traditions.

We're usually good about coming to a meeting of the minds about things. Let's pray this issue will be no different.

Big happiness in the little things

2011-11-28T09:01:00.000-08:00

We had five full days off for the Thanksgiving break (including the weekend) and it was great to be able to spend so much time together, hanging in and hanging out. We played games and read books and ate meals together and it was lovely. (Why do we have to work again? Blah.)

So I am very,very, very thankful for honest-to-goodness quality time with my husband and babies. (Thank you, Lord.)

I am also very thankful that my brother Rashad is still alive to celebrate Thanksgiving (and Christmas and many holidays to come) with us. (Yessss, Lord! Thank you!)

Other things I am thankful for:

Cary and Dean's inaugural trip to the grocery store!

Yes, it took us 18-months to get these boys out to experience the magical world of the grocery store. It was always too hard with two infants, and then when they were new, unsure walkers, it wasn't any easier. Now that they're much more confident walkers, eliminating the need for a stroller and a cart, Lester felt like he could handle a trip to the store with them. In his report back he said the trip was..."fine." Not a ringing endorsement, but certainly not a total mess.
He said the babies sat in the car above for all of 10 minutes, and then they were done. They wanted to run around or be in the cart. They screamed because they saw cheese. They screamed because they saw milk. To keep them from totally losing it, Lester had to give them stolen contraband (string cheese -- which he did pay for, eventually.)
Note to Davis parents: Next time feed boys before going to grocery store and/or bring snacks.

I am also grateful for this video (shortened) of my boys, my Dad, my brother and my husband raking the leaves at my parents' house.
Things to note:
1. My brother!! Operating a leaf-blower!!! Alive! Well! Dressed like a homeless person! But here, with us, participating in family events just like old times! Praises and honor and glory to God!!
2. Dean "helping" put leaves in a trash bag.
3. Cary "raking" the leaves with a stick, and totally getting in my Dad's way.
4. Family togetherness that is worth more than anything.

(To keep this blog honest, I was going to add a section about all the things I'm NOT thankful for. Mostly family annoyances and growing pains-type-stuff. But you know what? I think I'll just leave this the way it is.)

Date day!

2011-11-23T17:19:00.001-08:00

Since it is a holiday week, Lester and I took the day off to have date day!

Guess what was the first thing we did on our day off from work and babies?

We got our flu shots!! Yessss! We are so HAWT! lol...

(Seriously, folks, the flu is nothing to play with. If you haven't gotten yours yet, get it soon. There's some nasty stuff going around already this year!)

After getting stuck with needles, we went to a new Thai place that opened recently in midtown Baltimore. Can you say all kinds of AWESOME?

Then we went to a cute coffee shop, ordered holiday drinks and banana bread, and sat in a corner and just talked. It was really nice -- like way back when we were dating, and there was no end to the conversation topics we could come up with, despite the fact that our coffee had long gone cold, and our butts were sore from the wooden chairs.

Thankfully, we looked up from our chat-fest in time to see that we had 10 minutes to get to our movie -- The Descendants -- so we boogied on over and watched a real, full-fledged, grown-up movie (which is pretty good, actually, if you're thinking about seeing it). Just me and my sweetie pie, sharing a buttered popcorn. Heaven.

Delicious lunch. Coffee shop lounging. A cozy matinee. I'd say all in all, we had a truly wonderful, super great date day.

Note: To reprimand us for going out and having fun without them, the boys were NUTS when we got home, crying and whining like professionals, refusing their dinner, and generally acting the fool. I was excited to see them while we were driving home from the movie, but we put those crazies to bed before 7; that's how bad it was.

Lester said no good date goes unpunished.

But I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

What's in a name?

2011-11-22T07:20:00.000-08:00

Lester and I STILL don't have a name for our baby.

I am 26 weeks today, and I know we have plenty of time, but it just seems so weird because by this time in my last pregnancy, we knew who both babies were and called them by name. (In the house that is. We kept their names a secret from the world until they were born).

Cary's name came from Lester's mom-- who died when he was just 19. Carrie (his mom) was the only parent Lester had, and she was his very best friend. They were seriously inseparable; even after he went away to college, they talked on the phone just about every day. She died of a heart attack, alone in her house, on Lester's birthday weekend before he could get home from school to go spend the weekend with her. :-(
I never got to meet his Mom, but I could tell from the stories he told me, and from Lester's amazing character and capacity for love, that she was a truly, wonderful woman. Even before we got married, we said if we ever had a baby boy, we'd name him Cary, after her.

So Cary got to be Cary -- as a result of being Baby A -- and all we had to do was come up with a name for Baby B.

Over the course of a week or so, we tossed out a few options, and vetoed most of them. (Funny: Both of us liked the name Grant for a boy, but you can't name one baby "Cary" and then name his brother "Grant." I mean, come on.)

But pretty much right after the gender scan, when we knew we were having two boys, we settled fairly quickly on Dean. I thought it sounded smart. Lester agreed and said it had the added benefit of sounding strong. So Dean it was. Just like that. (And we were right on the money with that one. Dean is SO Dean...)

Later on, after they were born, many people told us that the names sounded "Old Hollywood" to them, but we honestly hadn't thought of that when we named the boys. But now, when people ask us how to spell their names, we always say, "Cary, like Cary Grant. And Dean, like James Dean (or Dean Martin)."

Anyway, so now here we are with a girl child growing inside me. We did have a list of potential girl names picked out for Baby B when we didn't know what his/her gender was. But for various reasons, none of them work anymore. (We don't want to name this baby a family name, for one thing, because Cary has a family name, but Dean doesn't. No need to perpetuate the "middle child syndrome.")

We have tried to think of elegant-sounding "Old Hollywood" names, since we inadvertently started a theme here with the boys' names. But the only ones I like -- Ava, Grace and Lana -- won't work either. There are too many Avas these days (it's on all the most popular baby names lists, in the top 10, no matter which one you check); Lester doesn't like the name Grace; and my sister's youngest girl is named Alahna, but we just call her Lahna, for the most part.

And we've pretty much settled on short, one- or two-syllable names, so that eliminates hundreds and hundreds of perfectly good names out there.

Sooo...we're stuck.

To be truthful, we have agreed on three names, off and on, throughout this pregnancy. But then I always decide I don't like them anymore -- and I honestly can't tell you why. We'll just start calling her by the name we think we've decided on and then one day, it rings hollow in my ears.
"That's not her name anymore," I'll declare, pulling the covers back to get into bed at night. And Lester will look at me, sigh, and groan.

Yesterday, as I was doing the dishes, looking at her sonogram picture on the refrigerator, I just flat out asked her, "What is your name, child?!?"

And just like a girl, she is being coy. She won't tell me.

I'm hopeful that at some point -- soon -- she will. Until then...Curve Ball it is.

Emerging independence

2011-11-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

In the mornings, the boys hang out upstairs with us while we get ready for work. They usually do a fairly good job of destroying the upstairs, but there's not much we can do, as we have to get ready and the boys are too young to play downstairs by themselves while we get dressed.

Or are they?

This morning, Cary decided that he was going to go downstairs, by himself. I was unaware that he had ventured to the first floor because Dean was still around distracting me by handing me stray bobby pins he found lying around, and pulling on Lester's phone chargers.
Then I heard the melodic sounds of "Old MacDonald" coming from downstairs.
"Where's Cary?" I yelled to Lester, who was in the next room.
"Downstairs," he said, nonchalantly.

My first reaction was to go get him, but then I thought about it. The baby gates are up. We've pretty much made sure the first floor is kid-friendly. What's the harm? He wanted to play with his toys, and we were taking too long getting ready, so he took matters into his own hands.
I decided to let him be.

A few minutes later, I noticed that it was awfully quiet down there. No B-I-N-G-O. No annoying Cookie Monster "C-is-for cookie," toy going off incessantly. Just quiet.

I leaned over the banister and yelled: "CARE-EEE?"

"Hmmm?" he said.

"What are you doing?"

To which, my 18-month-old child actually replied, "Reee!"

I stepped down a few steps, in order to peek between the stairway slats. And sure enough, there he was, sitting on the playmat, books strewn all around, "reading" his "Beep Beep" book.

And when he was finished, he simply crawled back up the steps and began taking things from Dean, causing the normal weekday morning commotion.

As much as people always say, "It's so great you have twins; they can entertain one another!" I have to say that -- surprisingly -- I liked it so much better this morning when at least one of my boys discovered he could entertain himself. By himself.

Skipping meals and popping pills

2011-11-17T12:12:00.000-08:00

It appears the sleep regression in our house is something that will wax and wane.

For about the last week or so, the boys have been blissfully sleeping through the night (cue the angels singing). The only person waking up a million times at night is their baby-resting-on-her-bladder Mommy. (cue the heavy sighing).

I knew a week of STTN meant that we had had too much of a good thing, so I wasn't surprised when Dean woke up last night around 1:30, crying, needing a hug, his Lovey and some more hugs. And then I wasn't surprised when Cary then woke up, too, saying "Ma-ma! Up, pees!"

No, I was not surprised. But as this would not be my life if there weren't some drama involved, of course I had to worry about something.

Two things had happened earlier in the night that have never happened before in our house:

1) Dean refused to eat even one bite of his dinner. Instead, he decided it was better to get remanded to time-out -- twice -- for throwing food on the floor or across the dining room table. Nothing I could do would make this child eat. The pediatrician had just told us a few days earlier that we should not allow Dean to continue with dinnertime if he insists on quarterbacking his meals. "Two times," Dr. Bodnar says. "And then dinner's done." He said if he was hungry, he'd eat and not throw. And the fact is that kids his age eat so much during the day (with snacks and all) that by the time they reach dinner, they're often not all that hungry. And that's OK, he assured me.

But is it? IS IT?

Because when Dean woke up last night, all I could think of was: "This child is starving!! He needs to eat! What should I do? What should I DO??"

2) While Lester was getting Dean undressed for his bath, Cary somehow, somewhere unEarthed an old pill that was hidden God-knows-where in our bedroom. I think, from the size and shape of it, that it is one of the old diabetes-related pills I was taking pre-pregnancy, and that it must've fallen at some point and I forgot about it. Whatever it was, Cary found it and of course, ate it.
Thank God the pill-makers purposefully make pills bitter, because Lester spied Cary's (actually quite-hysterical) screwed-up, sour face and immediately removed the pill from his mouth. So he only sucked it a little bit, as opposed to gulping the thing down whole.
Helpful-Poison-Control-Man assured me over the phone that this particular medicine was fairly benign, even in small children, and besides, 'it sounds like he only sucked off the coating anyway." So, he summed up, no need to worry. Cary should be just fine.

Will he? WILL HE??

Because when Cary woke up last night, all I could think of was, "This child has been poisoned!! He needs his stomach pumped! What should I do? What should I DO??"

I really considered filling Dean's stomach, and emptying Cary's (somehow), but then Lester got up, went in the room with the crying babies, said something I couldn't hear because I was too busy thinking of what I would tell CPS when they came asking me why my one child was sucking on diabetes medicine and why my other child was starving to death, and then came back in the room and said, "Go back to sleep. They're fine."

About 10 more minutes of really half-hearted crying later, they were both knocked out again -- this time until 7:15 this morning.

And they've been fine since.

The moral of this story is....I have no idea. But I am certain I will have more such stories to tell in the future. Stay tuned.

No, no, no!! No blessings!!

2011-11-16T08:10:00.000-08:00

We've entered the early stages of the "No's".

Call me crazy (because I know this will only get worse) but right now, it's kinda cute.

This morning, Dean woke up in a totally contrary mood. He was fine, mood-wise, as long as you didn't try to kiss him, touch him, or ask him to do something.

I said, "Let's change your diaper, baby." He said, "NO!"

He said he wanted milk; when I gave him milk, he shook his head and said, No!"

When Lester came to say good-bye to him on his way to work, Dean refused to allow a kiss or a hug. "NO!" he said, twisting his body in the chair.

When I was leaving, I tried asking him sweetly if he would give Mommy a kiss good-bye. And of course he said, "No."

And then he sneezed - twice. So I said, "God bless you, baby."

And what do you think Dean said?

"No!"

18-month check-up

2011-11-15T07:11:00.000-08:00

Cary and Dean went for their 18-month check-up yesterday, and here are the details:

Cary weighs 22 lbs., 8 oz. and is 32.5 inches tall.
Dean weighs 26 lbs., 2 oz. and is 33.5 inches tall.

It is still very interesting to me how much heavier Dean is than Cary, especially because (Dean's love of snacks notwithstanding) the two of them eat about the same amount of food. Neither is a very picky eater or eats like a bird. So it's clear that the two of them are just composed differently fundamentally, and also, likely, have very different metabolisms.
It'll be interesting to see how that plays out over the years.

Dr. Bodnar was VERY impressed with my boys' language skills. He said, with surprise, "How many words do they have?" And, then, when Dean asked for a tongue depressor by saying "Stick, pees," he asked if they were putting more words together, so I listed some of the phrases I could remember: "All done." "No more." "Bye-bye, truck." "More, please." "Bye-Bye, Da-Da." And Dr. Bodnar said, "They're putting that many words together already?"
I couldn't help but smile.
My boys' talkativeness is gratifying because I was so determined that they would NOT fall into the "preemies, twins, boys" trifecta of late-language-development that I had heard so much about. So we read, and read, and read, and read, and read, and read some more. And we talk, and talk, and talk, and talk! Oh, the talking! Frankly, it's exhausting (just being honest), but it is clearly paying some dividends, so far. So I will gladly talk/read myself hoarse.

Dr. Bodnar was no more help in the sleep-regression department than my blogfriends have been, but he did let me know that we were doing the right thing by continuing to reinforce their self-soothing skills, instead of acquiescing. Even if it means no one is really getting any sleep, for now, anyway, he assures me it's better in the long run, and that the boys will eventually get back to normalcy. (whatever that is)

As far as the nighttime bottle is concerned...well, I decided to come clean and tell our doctor that I had been too wimpy to let it go. I was honest about it -- it's just way too easy right now to get them to fall asleep at night, no crying, no fussing, no whining, no protesting. In fact, they clamor for their bottle and bedtime, and once they get 'em, they are quiet as church mice. It is ONE predictable thing we can depend on, and when you're dealing with crazy twin toddler terrorists, it is hard to give up that one thing. Does anyone feel me on this one?

To his credit, he did not make me feel like the WWM (world's worst mom). And he said that, of course, what we do as parents with the bottle is up to us. In the scheme of things, is it the worst thing we can do? No. But he did leave me with this scary little tidbit: If we try to stop the bottle now, it'll likely take about 10 days or so of bad nights to break the habit. If we wait until they're 2, it'll take twice as long.

20 nights of screaming? Lord have mercy. Nothing about that sounds appealing. Of course, I don't intend to wait until they're 2 to stop it, but then again, Lester and I don't really have an endgame planned. I suppose we need to get one.

One other thing that Dr. Bodnar reassured me about was this:

I have been secretly worried that Dean's tantrums and clinginess and crying and defiance and anger issues meant that he was emotionally marred in some way. I thought to myself, "Cary is so much more affable; what can we do to help Dean be more agreeable?"

Dr. Bodnar spent 45 minutes in the room with the boys before saying that, in his professional opinion, DEAN is the more typically-behaving baby, and CARY is the one who is atypical! Wha-what? Really?

He said for their age, Dean acting like one big raw nerve is pretty much what he's supposed to be doing right now, and Cary just la-la-la-ing through the day (for the most part) is just a lucky boon for us. This made me feel so much better, because I always think everyone else's toddlers seem so compliant and well-behaved and agreeable and cute and normal. I'm so glad to find out that my non-compliant, sometimes-well-behaved, occasionally-agreeable, almost always cute Deaniekins is also normal! Whew! I totally slept better last night.

On the flip side, Dr. Bodnar also jokingly said that it was good that Dean was slightly less talkative than Cary because (pointing to Cary, who was running his mouth a mile a minute) "you couldn't possibly have two of those!"

Imagine the thought!

At the end of the appointment, Dr. Bodnar declared my boys, "quite frankly, amazing," and I have to say, I couldn't agree more!

(Note: I don't have to bring them back to see the doctor for 6 months. SIX months! Wow. But we will see Dr. Bodnar again in February when Curve Ball is born, because he'll come to the hospital to examine her while I'm recovering. Curve Ball will get to meet Dr. Bodnar! Awwwww. Sooo sweet! I hope he'll think she's amazing, too!)

Happy 18-months Cary and Dean!!

2011-11-11T07:37:00.000-08:00

Today, Cary and Dean turn 18 months old!

Hooray!

Halfway to 2; a year-and-a-half on this Earth. I can't believe it.

And they are so incredibly cute and funny and gratifying at this age (in addition to being maddening and frustrating and insane, but I've blogged about that enough -- for now).

This morning, Dean climbed into the laundry basket and sat there, as content as a bug in a rug. It was too cute. Cary, on the other hand, was none-too-pleased with this apparent "misbehavior" and stood over the basket, yelling "OT! OT!" at Dean, which is his way of saying, "Out! Out!"

They walked around the upstairs, pretending coat hangers were lawnmowers (of course). Cary cracked up at Dean "mowing" over a pile of books. Dean hugged Cary for too long, apparently, after hitting him in the head with the hanger, prompting Cary to tell him, "All done!" They somehow found their old bathrobes and begged to put them on -- Dean saying, "Hep, peees. Hep." (Help, please! Help!) Dean tried to put on Lester's flip-flops, and looked so cute with his entire foot hanging off the side of Lester's size 12s. Cary asked me 50 times if there was a "trrruck" "ah-sye." Not until I held him up to the window did he believe me that there was, in fact, NOT a truck outside. Dean showed off his He-Man tendencies by picking up the stainless steel ice bucket we've been using as a toy container and carrying it around, and then picking up the laundry basket -- with laundry in it -- and bringing it into our room. Cary sat on the floor and flipped through books, asking me about the "bay-uh" in Corduroy, and the duck floating in Alexander's bathtub in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day. (He's obsessed with that duck!)

I could barely get ready for work, I was so engrossed in their adorable activity, and in all the little mini-conversations they were having with me, Lester and one another. Seriously, I wish I had a camera in my house running all the time to capture their exceptional intelligence and hilarity! I LOVED it.

When I look back on their first days on this Earth, their tinyness and sleepiness and relative mute-ness, it is amazing -- truly -- just how far they've come in 18 months. They're little people, now, walking and talking, fighting and hugging. They laugh at things the other one does; they hear the ducks "rapping" on the Aflac commercial and come barreling around the corner, nearly falling in the process, to see them. ("Ducks! dee-bee! Ducks!!")

They are wonderful, miraculous, beautiful little beings who bring so much joy and happiness to our lives. And every milestone is a blessing I thank God for.

Happy 18-months Cary and Dean Davis! We love you!!

(P.S. Did I take a picture of these grown-up babies to mark the occasion, you ask? Of course I did not. I will try to do that after work. Let's hope they cooperate.)

The irony of having a light-sleeping baby

2011-11-10T06:47:00.000-08:00

By now, I have griped enough about Cary's inability to sleep past 6:30 in the mornings (6:30 is a good day!) and his newfound love of waking up at night, like a newborn, despite months of sleeping through the night blissfully.

It's irritating, no doubt, but what's interesting is how it starts to become something you get used to.

So this morning, I woke up at 6:17, and immediately strained to see if I heard him in the room, whimpering. I did not. Great, I said to myself, I can sleep a few extra minutes! I dozed off, I think, or at least lapsed into semi-sleep.

At 6:33, I sat up in bed again, straining to see if I heard him. Instead, I heard silence.

Hmm, I wondered. Is he OK?

Then I thought back to a little earlier that morning, around 3:30 a.m., when Dean woke up crying for Puppy. I lumbered into the boys' room, found Puppy, and Dean fell back on his pillow, sighed, and was probably asleep before I left the room. I remember thinking at the time that it was strange that Cary wasn't awake, as he didn't get the nickname Prince Lightsleeper for nothing. I peeked in Cary's crib, but decided at the last second not to touch him, for fear of waking a sleeping bear. (A Cary-bear, but a bear nonetheless.)

So this morning, at 6:33, my mind raced back to 3:30 a.m. When I peeked in on Cary, was he breathing?? Could I even really see him in the dark?? Why didn't he wake up when Dean did? Why didn't I reach in his crib to pull his little blanket up, and feel his body move?

I lay there, as the morning light was starting to pour in through the slats of the blinds in our bedroom, and watched the clock.

6:34. 6:35. 6:36.

What is going on in there?? Why isn't that baby awake?????

My mind began to play tricks on me. I thought awful things that I will not repeat here, because they're just too awful to even think about, much less put out into the blogosphere.

I stared at Lester's peacefully sleeping back. Should I wake him up? Something must be wrong! I gave a quick, silent prayer. I breathed in and out, slowly. I tried to think of other things, like what I was going to wear to work, and if my dentist appointment was at 4 or 4:30 this afternoon.
I shifted in the bed and hugged my baby bump.

Finally, at 6:43, I heard him -- my baby!! -- making a crying noise that is normally hysterical to me, because it is his "fake" crying noise, the one he does when he sees a baby in a book: "Waah, waah," he was saying, without much heart, I might add. "Waah, waah."

I bounded out of bed, ran to his room and scooped him up and kissed him! Little sleepy stinker!

Never have I been so glad to hear his cry, fake or otherwise.

I think it is so funny that I can't sleep when my child is constantly waking up ... and I can't sleep when he doesn't wake up!

Oh, the ironies, the agonies, the pure, unmatched joys of being a Mom.

Tuesday fun facts

2011-11-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

Fun things about Cary:

His 4-year-old cousin Russy came over two weekends ago. Cary and Dean pushed him around on the push-toy they call a "lawnmower" (of course) and Russy chased them around the house. They loved every minute of it. Since then, Cary must ask for Russy 25 times a day.
"Ruh-ee?" he asks, looking quizzical. "Ruh-ee?!"
Sometimes he says, "Ruh-ee. Mah-mow-uh." Which I know is his way of saying, "Hey. It was really cool when Russy came over and we pushed him around on that push-toy we call a lawnmower. Can we do that again soon?"
Today my other sister's eldest son turned 11. We called him this morning to say Happy Birthday. Cary for some reason thought we were talking to Russy.
When we told him it who it really was, Cary got mad, threw his book with a soulful "UNH!" and then yelled, "RUH-EEEEEEE!" He pouted for a full minute after that.
Cracked us up.

Also, when Dean asked for Michelle (Meee-Meee?!) the other night, Cary said to him "Ohm," meaning Michelle's at home. Isn't that great? My kids can talk to each other and answer each other's questions. That is so awesome as this means I will one day not need to repeat myself 100,000 times a day, answering questions they already know the answers to. Yay!

Fun things about Dean:

This kid has decided he wants every frikkin' thing he sees, especially if it's in the kitchen because he assumes that it must be something good to eat.
He stands at the gate, making the "gimme" gesture with his hands and saying something that sounds like, "Goom-BEE!" or some longer multi-syllable variation of Goom-BEE. Over and over and over. In a whiny voice. That escalates. And eventually gets accompanied with tears and screeching.
So when he did this about an onion I was cutting up -- despite me telling him repeatedly that he didn't actually want an onion, Lester said, "Let him try it and see that he doesn't want it." I sorta thought that was cruel, but then again , it would stop the goom-BEEing and screeching.
So I gave him a little piece of onion. And waited for the face.
Do you know Dean Davis ATE that onion?
Is he the Grinch? Good grief. My child really, really, really likes to eat!
(Note: He did not, however, ask for seconds. Thus stopping the goom-BEEing. Hooray!)

Fun thing about Curve Ball:

Curve Ball is 24 weeks as of today. Well, technically I guess she's only 22 weeks. But I am 24 weeks along carrying her.
To mark the occasion, she has given me a lovely case of some kind of gastro-grossness, which had me doubled over in pain, popping Tums like they were going out of style. Also, I spent 25 minutes on the floor of my office conference room yesterday because I was feeling just that crappy (pun not really intended, but since it works...why not).
The nurses at my doctor's office were flummoxed as to what to do to help me as the traditional BRAT diet is bad, bad, bad for a diabetic, and so is avoiding eating for a day or so and just drinking liquids.
Eventually, they told me to just take Maalox and Zantac. It took a while last night, but the combination seemed to work somewhat. I feel better this morning, but I have NO idea what to eat for lunch.
Oh, also, the nurse said recent bloodwork shows I am low on iron.
So I have to take iron now, too.

That means I take 4 Glyburide pills a day, plus one iron pill, plus one (or two) Zantac, plus a multi-vitamin (not to mention Maalox, as needed):

Add my sugar, tummy and iron troubles to the fact that my two boys have hit the terrible 18-months (night-wakings, defiance, general craziness beyond belief) and is it any wonder I took a picture of this picture in my doctor's office and immediately sent it to my husband:

:-)

Using my blog to force myself to be accountable

2011-11-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

Blogging has many perks.
I get to vent. I formulate my thoughts.
I'm recording events/photos/memories for posterity's sake.
I get advice, support and encouragement from friends, new and old.
And now, I'm adding "accountability" to the list of good things about blogging.

Lester and I share Google docs about all kinds of things: our budget, invites to activities, letters we're co-editing, possible names for Curve Ball, etc.
We've had a doc listing the things we need to do to get ready for our daughter's arrival for weeks now, and neither of us has made one attempt to do anything about any item on the list. We're pathetic.
I keep reminding Lester that soon -- and very soon -- I will be too pregnant to be of any help to him whatsoever in this department (save ordering things online, which I can do VERY well), so if he wants my help, we need to get on it. Then I figured maybe if I get on it, he'll follow suit.
Problem is, I never get on it.

So...I decided to post our entire doc here, so that is now in the public domain. My hope is that by putting it out there for all the world to see, I will feel more compelled to act.

Yes, I'm using you blogosphere. No shame in my game.

So here's the list. My goal is to have this all done by early January, since Curve Ball is due Feb. 28! (Yikes!!)

Things to Do Before the New Baby Comes

1. Organize and streamline basement storage area to prepare for guest room stuff coming to live there

2. Move guest room furniture and racks of shoes to basement storage area

3. Paint guest room

4. Move boys’ cribs and furniture into guest room
Little table and chairs possibilities:

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=n%3A165793011%2Ck%3Atoddler%20table%20chair%20sets&page=1

5. Paint boys’ room (now the new baby’s room)

6. Buy furniture/decor for new baby’s room

Possibilities:
http://www.amazon.com/RoomMates-RMK1439SLM-Scroll-Stick-MegaPack/dp/B003NGTNFG/ref=sr_1_1?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1318860787&sr=1-1

http://www.babysupermall.com/main/products/kli/kli5024bed4.html

http://www.nurserydepot.com/cribbedding/productdetails.asp?id=1-10001834-10001836-148224-4-2&id2=602-0-0-0-0&

7. Move furniture into new baby’s room

Baby Stuff We Will Need

1. Single stroller
2. Triple stroller
3. Crib
4. Booster seat
5. Playmat
6. Clothes
7. Diapers
8. Crib mattress pad and sheets, comforter etc. (bedding)

Also will need ONE additional convertible carseat (for one of the boys) -- hopefully donated!

So there it is...the list of things to do before Curve Ball arrives.

And we can add to that list: SETTLE ON A NAME FOR CURVE BALL!!! Gracious, we're pathetic.

Ask Moxie! Ask LauraC!

2011-11-02T09:33:00.001-07:00

Thanks, LauraC! I had completely forgotten about the wonderfulness that is "Ask Moxie."

She has a SPOT-ON post about 18-month sleep regression and general craziness, that is enlightening and reassuring at every turn. But here's the gist of it, in two sentences that literally brought tears to my (stinging, burning, sleep-deprived) eyes:

Your kid may have a serious, mind-blowingly awful sleep regression at around 18 months. It's not your fault, and it will pass.

And suddenly ... I feel better. It's NOT my fault. And it WILL pass! :-)

Thanks, Moxie. Thanks, LauraC!

Worst night with the babies ever!

2011-11-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

I used this blog title once before and predicted I would use it again many times throughout my children's babyhood. So far, although I have had many, many "worst nights ever" I have resisted titling a blog post as such, because I always felt slightly better about the night by the time I got around to sitting in front of a computer to complain about it.

Not so when it comes to last night.

I will not go into all the details, as I would be here all day repeating these key words and phrases:

Screaming, whining, defiance, temper tantrums, resisting, meltdowns, brother-swatting, dinnertime indecisiveness, irrationality, uncontrollable crying, food on the floor, banging sippy cups, confiscated sippy cups, more screaming, whining, bucking, flailing, unhappy bathtime, complete and total craziness, demands to be rocked in the rocking chair before bed, waking at night for missing Lovey, then 2 hours later, waking at night for NO REASON WHATSOEVER, screaming, crying, refusing to go back to sleep, melodramatic moaning for "Ma-Ma!!!!", "Da-Da!!!", throwing Lovey out of the bed and saying "Uh-oh! Uh-oh! UH-OH!" until someone comes in to retrieve Lovey, more screaming (at higher decibels), wife snapping at husband, husband snapping at wife, retreat to basement to get away from screaming toddler(s), eating waffles AND a bowl of cereal (I know. I know!), mindless television, finally, finally hearing the sweet sounds of silence at 4 a.m. Delirious at 6:45 a.m. What am I doing wrong??

Seriously, people. I feel like I am about to lose my mind. If it's just craziness in the evenings, but then we get to rest peacefully at night, I could probably deal. Or if the boys were pleasant and enjoyable in the evenings but were having toddler-troubles with sleeping, I could probably deal. But this all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of craziness they've started lately? I can. not. deal.

"There is nobody in the world more lovable, more unmovable, more implacable, more challenging, more difficult to live with than your 'typical' 15- to 21-month-old child," so says Louise Bates Ames, in "Your One-Year-Old: Fun-Loving and Fussy."

Truer words have never been written.

I just wish I knew what to do to help them through this "phase" (at least I hope it's a phase).

But since I have no clue (really, I have been using ALL of my tricks and none of them are working) I suppose I will just become more and more familiar with the basement -- and maybe not just in the middle of the night. Maybe I'll start taking my meals down there! Maybe I'll start coming in the basement door after work, so they don't even know I'm there!!!

Sigh.

Maybe this will just get better??

Mini-post before bed (or mini-rant, if you like that better)

2011-11-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

I am desperately scouring "Your One-Year-Old: Fun-Loving and Fussy" trying to figure out why my son has turned into one big ferocious and frustrating ball of screaming, crying, wanting, needing, nooooooo! not that! noooooo! ma-ma! waaaaaaaah! da-da!! scream, scream, scream, cry, cry, cry, resist, rebuke, wail, flail, angry outbursts, extended temper tantrums, screaming, crying, whining BRAT!!!!!!!

I know it is bad to call your children names, so I won't publicly name which child I have had it up to here with. He knows who he is!

Ugh! When did this start, I don't even know! More importantly, when does it END?

He has been asleep now since 7:30 and I am STILL mad at him. This is unprecedented. Normally, after a particularly bad whine/scream-fest, once they're both fast asleep, I rapidly decompress and without even trying, forgive them of their toddler transgressions.

But I am tense and frustrated and bitter about this behavior. All the books said if I was an attentive, loving, nurturing mother, my boys would be pleasant and well-adjusted. Not BRATS!!!!!!

Ugh!

Now, back to my book. Must get answers.

(Too bad I can't have a glass of wine. Or even a frikkin' brownie. Ugh!! UGH!!)

A thin line between lovey and hate

2011-11-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

Cary and Dean both have the most adorable loveys.

My friend Sumathi sent them these comfort-toys when they were born and I melted when I saw them. They were soooo cute. A puppy for Dean; a monkey for Cary. I imagined my boys snuggling with their loveys at night, loving them sweetly, and learning about affection all the while.

For a long time, they both ignored their loveys, or found them tolerable but not necessary.
And then, they grew to enjoy their loveys very much.

Lester and I found that it is a wonderful thing to have something soft and cute and harmless to give them when an irrational meltdown has ensued after bathtime.

But lately -- I'd say in the past month or so -- Dean has really become attached to Lovey the Puppy. It has become like a street drug to him. He needs it! He must have it!! GIVE PUPPY TO ME!!! OR ELSE!!

It wasn't always this way. Puppy used to live in his crib, where Dean would happily snuggle him at night. In the mornings, when lifting him out of the crib, we'd tell him "Put Puppy on the pillow. Puppy has to stay in the bed. Night-night, Puppy." And he'd comply, no problemo.

Then, it got to the point where both boys insisted on carrying their loveys around in the morning, while Lester and I got ready for work, or piddled around upstairs on the weekends, before heading down to the kitchen for the boys' morning oatmeal. But even then, when it was time to go downstairs, we would tell both boys, "OK, put Puppy and Monkey back in the bed. It's time for them to go night-night." And they'd comply, no problemo.

Sometime in the last month or so, Dean started resisting putting Puppy back in the bed before heading downstairs in the mornings. He'd cry and protest and throw tantrums. Oh, just give it to him, one of us would say to the other. Who cares? What's the harm?

So Puppy would find his way downstairs, and Dean would carry him off and on, sometimes tossing him aside for something more interesting, but usually finding him again throughout the day.

We managed to get Puppy back in the crib for naps -- where he'd stay until bedtime. That lasted a week or so.

But then, more meltdowns. Bigger, longer-lasting tantrums. Puppy needed to be with him at all times, in the mornings, after naps, while having a diaper change. Dean must. have. Puppy.

Before we knew it, prying Puppy from him at mealtimes became a major fight. Eventually, it became a fight we lost. Puppy stayed in the highchair, and got smeared with spaghetti sauce and cracker crumbs and sticky, fruit-covered handprints.

No amount of distraction or even SNACKS (his favorite thing) worked to keep his mind off his need for Puppy. His eyes darted around, wild and wide. I swear one night the boy got the must-have-Puppy-shakes!

Dean, my abusive-boyfriend-crackhead son. Sigh. Where have we gone wrong?

This weekend, Lester and I hit the Puppy wall.

After dinner, Lester takes the boys for their baths, while I clean up the wreckage in the kitchen and dining room and pick up the toys.

Usually, the soundtrack from upstairs is of laughing, splashing babies. On this night, the house was filled with Dean's piercing, desperate, gut-wrenching wailing.

He wanted Puppy in the tub with him, and no amount of explaining could deter him.
(Yes, we tried to explain to the 17-month-old that Puppy can't get wet. Yes, we know this is ridiculous. But my child is an addict!! I was out of ideas!!)

Lester steeled himself and went on with the washing, trying to sing, play and cajole Dean out of screaming with silly faces and requests (Hey, Dean! Wash Daddy's face!) Still, he cried. He cried continuously throughout the entire bathtime. He cried when Lester took him out of the bath. He cried all the way until Lester put him in his crib, where he found his fix, lying innocently on the pillow. Then, he sniffled and snuggled until lights out.

This, my friends, was the Puppy wall.

We don't know how Dean's Puppy love turned so wrong. But we have decided on an intervention.

No matter how much our little addict cries, Puppy must live in the crib. He can come out in the mornings, for as long as it takes for us to move the party to the first floor. But Puppy is not allowed downstairs, no matter what.

No more highchairs. No more bathtimes-turned-screamfests. Puppy, for the most part, is confined to the crib.

So far, there have been tears-o-plenty. And wailing. My Dean is a VERY determined baby. And when that jones comes down, it is not pretty. But we have stood firm.

And I hope and pray this will get easier.

Night-night, Puppy. Night-night.

Year of Austerity

2011-10-31T06:24:00.000-07:00

So instead of dressing the boys up this year, we decided to dress up ourselves.
Lester and I went to a friend's Halloween party Saturday night. I was a witch (I already had a hat and a blond wig in the basement). And Lester was Herman Cain, the erstwhile Republican presidential candidate, who is a total nut. Lester's entire costume was a pizza box, with $9.99 written on it. (Because of Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan? Get it?)
He wore all his own clothes.
So, aside from having to order a pizza -- which was payment for my sister coming to sit with the babies while we went out -- the costumes were free!

More than anything else, Lester was happy about that. Have I ever mentioned that my husband is cheap...er....frugal?? :-)

Our frugal Halloween is just the beginning of the ultra-frugal lifestyle that's on the way.

Last night, Lester and I sat down and mapped out how we are going to pull off the "Davis Year of Austerity," beginning in December.

From December 2011 to December 2012, we are going to attempt to save as much money as possible, and spend as little money as possible.

Yes, we are going to attempt this right before Christmas and just before having a baby.
We might just be a tad crazy.

Top 5 things we plan to do differently:

1) We're getting rid of cable. YIKES!!! Here's the thing. We don't watch all THAT much television anyway. And most of what we do watch is on regular broadcast stations (The Today Show, Modern Family, 60 Minutes, football). And we have Netflix, so we get movies to watch regularly. Lester is going to miss having the NFL network, and I am going to miss having AMC and TCM. But we know this is a sacrifice for the family, and a sacrifice wouldn't be a sacrifice if it didn't hurt a little.

2) We're disconnecting our alarm system. (Don't tell any burglars.) I got it when I bought the house because Lester was still in Florida and I was a single woman living in Baltimore city. Mostly, I wanted it for when we were home -- sleeping at night, for example. But when Lester and I got married and he moved in, he found the alarm annoying while we were in the house, and only wanted to use it when we were all out. Well, needless to say, with twin babies, we're infrequently ALL out of the house at the same time, and with another one on the way, I imagine we'll be leaving as a group even less. At least for a while. So, no more alarm.

3) We're downgrading our house-phone to one that dials out and receives calls only. Right now, we have Caller ID and call-waiting and all the other bells and whistles (that we never use anyway), and it just doesn't make sense. Now, this item was a big source of disagreement for Lester and me. He wanted to get rid of the home phone altogether, as that seems to be the trend more and more with folks. But I cannot make myself feel comfortable with having small children in the house and no fixed way to reach 911 if something awful were to ever happen. (God forbid.) Yes, we all have cell phones, but Lester and I are gone all day and that means we're depending on Michelle to have her phone charged, handy etc. for the safety of our children. That seems irresponsible to me. What if Michelle leaves her phone at home one day? (Which has happened before.) What if she forgets to pay her bill? Regardless, it's not her job to have a cell phone. But it IS our job to make sure we do everything in our power to keep our kids safe. So, we're keeping the phone, but only minimally.

4) We're looking into downgrading the cell phone package we have. Right now, we've got a gazillion minutes and unlimited text messaging. Is all that necessary? Really? We don't know -- but we're going to call and find out. One thing: If we're getting rid of the free long-distance capability on our home phone, it might not be prudent to have fewer minutes on our cell phones, with the way my family, in particular, likes to gab.

5) We're drastically cutting back on our weekly spending money. This is something we should have revisited a while ago. Back in the day, when disposable income was something we actually had, I treated myself to regular beautifying. Once a week, I got my hair flat-ironed, and once a month, I got my eyebrows and toes done. The hair straightening alone was (I'm ashamed to say) $65 a week! Ack.
I've long since stopped getting my hair done that often (two babies will do that to ya), but we never adjusted the budget to reflect that. Which meant I had the cash in hand every week. And that meant I found reasons to spend it. Mostly on lunches out at work, or impromptu Target purchases. But now, all that beautification money is going back into the savings pot, and we'll find creative ways to get myself beautified when special occasions pop up.
This will also mean bringing lunch more often than eating lunches out, which means more organization and preparation on my part (ugh! Lord, help me). But considering my new blood-sugar-conscious diet, I should probably do that anyway, I guess. At least during the week.

That last item is going to be the toughest part for me, as I really do like to have a little cash in my pocket for small things -- greeting cards for friends, coffee on the run, last-minute Amazon purchases, yard sale finds, etc. And it feels like I'm working for nothing, if I can't spend $10 on a whim if I want to. (Enter pouty face here).

But I'm not working for nothing. I'm working for this family. Which is getting bigger by the moment. (Cue the kicking baby.)

And we're keeping a small amount of household money for occasional treats, like birthday dinners out, or inexpensive things we really, really, really want. So it won't be all austerity and no fun at all. That would suck.

And honestly, when I think about it, God has blessed our family tremendously -- because, right now, without spending another dime, we truly have all the things that we need, and some of the things that we want. What more can we really ask for in life? Being bitter because I can't get my hair straightened, or order Chinese on Fridays (which I don't need to be eating anyway, hellloooooo!) just borders on avarice a little bit.
Especially when so many people all over this world -- in my own city, as a matter of fact -- are hungry, or cold, or have no idea where they'll sleep tonight.

So for a year -- one calendar year -- I can give up these things, and try to put more money away for the good of our family. It'll be difficult, for SURE, but it'll be worth it.

And sacrifice isn't sacrifice unless it hurts a little, right? Not to mention that the best things in life, a wise woman once reminded me, aren't things at all.

(We love you Cary, Dean and Curve Ball. This sacrifice is for you.)

After much consternation, here's what the boys will be for Halloween this year...

2011-10-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

Last year, Cary and Dean were the world's most adorable meerkat and sea otter for Halloween.
I found their costumes at the last minute for $10 each on some Halloween clearance website.

Cary:
Dean:

At the Maryland Zoo, with the other critters:

Post-Boo at the Zoo-ing:

(Pictures of them sleeping always makes me all melty! Look at those peaceful, gorgeous faces!)

This year, Lester and I are trying not to spend money AT ALL for Halloween (except for the candy for the neighborhood trick-or-treaters, of course) so the pressure was on for me to find them something to be that was free.

This was a tremendous amount of pressure, because everyone around me seems to think that because I have twins, I have this wonderful opportunity to be really clever with the Halloween costumes. Think of all the things that come in pairs! they say. Salt and Pepper! Yin and Yang! Peaches and Herb!
My sister told me to have one be an elephant and one be a donkey, and they'd be Democrats and Republicans. But I just couldn't do that to the baby who'd end up in the Republican costume. Sorry.

Anyway, I started getting a headache every time I tried to think of something clever AND free. Something that plays on the fact that Cary and Dean are a pair, but that also cost NO MONEY.

I like to think of myself as a somewhat creative person. Well, OK, not really. I like to think of myself as a person who would like to be creative, if only given enough time and motivation.

But time got away from me, and I think I left my motivation in the back of a taxicab somewhere, or -- more likely -- at the pumpkin farm the day Dean acted the fool and I left the stroller at home.

So, after much consternation, here's what I finally came up with. Here is what Cary and Dean are going to be for Halloween this year:

Isn't that adorable??!! And hysterical?!

What? What's that you say? You don't get it? Really?? Look closely!!

Gosh you people are slow.

Dean is going to be CARY and Cary is going to be DEAN!!!

It's ironic!! See?? It's funny!

You don't see? You're not laughing?

Whatever. Let's just call this Halloween a wash (it's not like they can even have candy yet, anyway) and I'll do better next year.

Happy Halloween, folks! Can't wait to see all your kids' pictures!

How I learned to love baby hiccups (or "Funny how life works...")

2011-10-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

In early June, I posted a blog about something-or-other, and in it, I made a passing remark about how "this is why I know I do NOT want another baby."

That was June 3rd.

According to due date calculators, I got pregnant June 6th or 7th.

Go figure.

As many of you know, I was freaked OUT about this pregnancy. This was NOT in my plans for my family's life. This was NOT supposed to happen! How were we going to make this work? Three kids? Under age 2? Everything in our lives was already stretched -- from patience to space in the house to our (rapidly dwindling) finances. How could we possibly make this work?

For weeks, I was in denial about the pregnancy. And then, after the first sonogram at 8 weeks, I was less in denial, but more bitter. Why did this happen to me? I was happy with things the way they were! What was God trying to tell me?
I didn't tell people for many, many weeks because I wanted to try to get to a better frame of mind first. I had already blurted out my disappointment to one too many people. I knew I'd feel better as time went on and I didn't ever want people to think I didn't -- or wouldn't -- love this baby when he/she arrived.

I got over that disappointment quickly, and warmed up to the pregnancy. I jokingly dubbed this baby "Curve Ball" because that's exactly what she threw at us. I felt better about our situation, with prayer and with lots of reassurance from Lester and close friends and family that truly three kids was doable -- and even desirable, in some senses. I became...accepting.

But in the back of my head, I still worried a bit because I wasn't feeling the thrill of pregnancy that I had with the boys. Something was missing. What was it?!

Fast forward to yesterday, when I got home from work, sat on the floor with the boys on my lap, and read books. Cary or Dean, I can't remember which, got up to get something, and pushed hard against my belly. It didn't hurt, but I was conscious of how that must have felt to the baby. I waited to feel a retaliatory kick.

I waited. And waited. And nothing happened.

It occurred to me that I hadn't felt Curve Ball move since that morning, at a staff meeting. I thought about it: Normally, I feel her all day long. She is a very active baby, with a strong punch and a gymnast's kick. She especially likes it when I eat! Somersaults for at least 15 minutes after that!

So I went on about the night. Feeding the boys. Cleaning up dinner. Helping with bedtime. Talking to a friend on the phone. Reading a magazine. Watching "Modern Family."

No kicks.

Before bed, I pushed on my belly on both sides. I even decided to try a little sugar (despite my perinatologist's face scowling in my sub-conscious). I ate a small (very small) bowl of ice cream.

No kicks.

I woke up this morning, feeling refreshed because the boys (basically) slept through the night, I didn't have to get up to stuff myself with food because of blood sugar lows, and my acrobatic baby hadn't kept me up at night, kicking and rolling.

Wait. My baby hadn't kicked and rolled ALL night.

And just like that...

Just like that...

My feelings on having this baby changed from "accepting" to "wanting." In fact, I'd say "needing."

I don't just want this baby, my little daughter-to-be. I NEED her! I LOVE HER. So much.

My family would not be complete without her. She is already a part of us. I am not whole without her.

Lester and I prayed this morning for health and developmental progress and peace of mind.
We prayed for our family, our marriage, our desire to be better human beings, as God would want us to be. We prayed to be more trusting and faithful. We thanked God for all He has already done for us, and for the things He has yet to do.

We talked to Curve Ball and told her we loved her and needed her to get moving!

Lester laughed, on his way out of the room, that that is probably the last time we will beg a sleeping baby to wake up!

And on my way into work this morning, sitting in a bit of rainy-day traffic, Curve Ball leaned in and clocked me one!

I burst into tears.

Since breakfast -- and as I type -- she is moving like a crazy person! I think she has the hiccups.

It is the loveliest feeling in the world.

Blogfriends are a blessing

2011-10-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

When I decided to start a blog, I had no idea what the outcome would be.

I wasn't sure if it would end up being more of a chore to do, or so boring that I'd have to drag myself to do it. I really wasn't sure if I'd have the sticktuitveness to keep it up, keeping in mind my hectic schedule (and Gemini-personality).

And I didn't share the blog with anyone close to me for quite awhile, because I didn't know how much I wanted folks so closely involved in all of my thoughts and activities; I didn't want to be judged; and I was pretty sure no one would give a good gosh darn about any boring thing I had to say. How many frikkin' Mommy blogs are there out there anyway? Compared to some of the really popular ones, mine is mundane to the nth degree.

Let me just say, many months later, I am SO glad I started this blog!

Many things are gratifying about blogging, including the ability to sort out my own muddled thoughts about things when confronted with a blank screen and a keyboard. And I am extremely excited about having a real record of Dean and Cary's early months on Earth -- for their sake, later on in life.

But one very unexpected treasure about having a blog is the tremendous support and encouragement I have gotten from people I barely know or don't know at all!

Commenters -- mostly from LauraC's fanclub -- have chimed in when I was anxious, unsure, sick-and-tired or just plain tired. Each comment has bouyed me, lifted me up, informed me or, at the very least, made me laugh. (I can't tell you how nice it is to laugh when you've been up all night with two irrational babies who think 2 a.m. is a great time to wake up and scream for two hours).

Yesterday, I was about as down as I've been in a long time. I was scared, depressed, sad, guilt-ridden and bitter.

My newfound blogfriends (and some of my friends IRL) jumped in with practical advice, encouragement galore and real sympathy, all of which I SO needed. I'm so grateful for these ladies who share their wisdom and kindness with me, without even really knowing me. I feel truly blessed.

I still feel many of the things I felt yesterday, but with support, encouragement and love from (near) strangers, I somehow feel more capable of tackling this problem. With grace.

I know not everyone is a Christian, and I don't try to push my religion on others. But I do have to say that I know for a fact that God works and speaks through people. And so, through something as simple as commenting on a worried-woman's blog, I can see and feel God's love.

And no one could have ever told me that starting a blog would have resulted in something as beautiful and phenomenal as that.

Sugar seriousness

2011-10-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

So...

The perinatologist did not put me on insulin yet. She wants to try changing up the medication dosages and times that I take the meds a little first.

That's fine, I suppose. I'm not sure how I actually feel about it.

But then she also gave me a real heart-to-heart, with a stern, serious-business tone, about what I eat, and how non-great I have been about eating right for my condition.

And unlike my meetings with the diabetes educator and the nutritionist yesterday, Dr. Rossiter did not give me a rosy picture of my current state or my future.

To begin with, she said I am "diabetic." Not pre-diabetic; not gestational diabetes. I do not have gestational diabetes, she said, because that is classified as having sugar issues after 28 weeks. I am diabetic, because my issues started so early. I'm just 22 weeks today and this has been going on since my first trimester.

Secondly, she said it is entirely possible that I will continue to be diabetic after the pregnancy. Lord, help me.
Everything I've read and all that the nurses and other folks have told me seemed to indicate that there was a high probability I would not be diabetic post-delivery. Dr. Rossiter agreed that we won't know for sure until after I deliver Curve Ball, but she seemed to be trying to prepare me for what research and science and her expertise indicates about me and my condition thus far.

Thirdly, she said I have GOT to change my diet, in a big way. No excuses. No short-cuts. Tastebuds and hunger pangs be damned! (That last part is my own editorial comment. She didn't actually say that.)

This is depressing for many, many reasons.

1. I don't want to be diabetic. I especially don't want to be diabetic this young. Both my grandmothers had diabetes, but they got the disease much, much, much later in life -- after they were already grandmothers. I have been struggling with my sugars since before I got pregnant with the boys. (And probably much, much longer. Now that I know what it feels like to have severe lows, I know I've been having them since I was a teenager, at least).

2. My pancreas' issues with producing insulin, and my body's ability to process the insulin will only degenerate with age, not get better. So this just means I have more time to get worse, more time to have to think about this, more time to worry about all the complications of diabetes that can come with age. More time to eat rabbit food in order to survive.

3. I want to be around for Cary, Dean and Curve Ball. I hate that I feel like I have an expiration date on my head already - at 38 years old.

4. (And here's where the whining begins): I really, really resent having to think so hard about EVERY SINGLE thing I eat, at every meal and every snack, every day and every night for the rest of my life. I really, really hate that there is so little I can eat that is good for me (sugar-wise) and that won't leave me feeling hungry all day. (Especially while pregnant! When I'm already starving!!)

Every-frikkin'-thing is carby! Breads, pastas, smoothies, oatmeal, juice, soda, fruit, rice, yogurt, frozen yogurt, waffles, French toast, sandwiches, hot dogs, burritos, raisins, Craisins, grits, cream of wheat, cold cereals, corn, peas, crackers, syrup, jellies, jams, chutneys, French fries, sweet potatoes, squash, chips, beans, tomato soup, chicken noodle soup, croutons, stuffing -- and of course, any and all desserts. (And we all know I have a raging sweet tooth!)

Here's what I can eat:

eggs
meat
fresh vegetables
nuts
cheeses
small amounts of Greek yogurt
whole fruits in moderation
milk
water
sugar substitutes in moderation

Here's what you need to know about that list:

Eggs - Since I found out that I was pre-diabetic and that almost everything for breakfast besides eggs was bad for me, I have eaten so many eggs, I really start to gag when I eat them now. I can eat maybe two bites of egg, and then that's it. Stomach churns. Fork down. I am TIRED of eggs.

Meats - I'm not a HUGE meat person. I'm not a vegetarian by any stretch, but unlike my husband, I cannot just eat chicken breasts as a meal. Or even juicy a steak. I need more! I like my old-school meat-starch-veggie mix at meals, and to be honest, I could really do without the veggies, if the meat and starch comes topped with a yummy gravy. I don't eat pork, and until I was pregnant with the boys, I didn't eat red meat. And frankly, I'm a little tired of chicken. P.S. Try going into a quickie-lunch-food-type store with your officemates when they go to buy bagels and muffins for a 3 p.m. snack and asking for a side of chicken. Just try it. I dare you.

Fresh vegetables - How many salads can a person eat? Seriously? How much baby spinach? How many carrots can I nibble on at my desk? Honestly, I LIKE corn and peas. Especially corn. Why is corn a bad food for me? Ugh!
And I prepare meals on the weekends to last all week, because I don't have time to cook on weeknights. It is really, really hard to prepare fresh vegetables on Sunday and have them still good on Thursday. So we eat a lot of frozen veggies, and apparently that's not so great.

Nuts/Cheese - Don't really like nuts, thanks. I'll eat cashews and pistachios most often. Then almonds, if there's nothing else. But I don't love any of them enough to want them every day. They're just OK. Which means I tire easily of having to eat them all the time.

And I really, really dislike most cheeses. I will eat mozzarella cheese and the cheeses that make up pizza, lasagna and only SOME mac-and-cheese dishes. I'll also eat American cheese, melted in eggs and grits. And -- once in a blue moon -- provolone cheese on a hot sandwich. But that is it.
No bleu, no feta, no cottage, no Muenster, no fancy Whole Foods stinky cheeses, no cheddar, no Swiss, no Parmesan.
When I do eat cheese, I like my cheeses melted. This does not bode well for me snacking on cheese all day. I am sitting here now eating a mozzarella stick because I'm starving, and it's kinda gross. Not as bad as if I had to eat a stick of cheddar cheese, but that's a bad comparison because I would never, ever do that.

Greek yogurt - Greek yogurt is OK, and I actually do eat Chobani, or some generic of Chobani. But the total carbs in one serving is more than the 15 grams I'm allowed to have for a snack. So I can only eat half of one if I'm being careful about my sugars. I don't know about you, but when I'm hungry, a half a yogurt just doesn't cut it. Neither does a handful of frikkin' nuts. Or a bowl of baby carrots and cherry tomatoes. I want something substantial. And that means carbs. (Waaaah!)

Fruits - LOVE them. All of them. Could eat them all day long if someone would let me. But again, 15 grams for a snack goes pretty quickly. 17 grapes, for example -and small grapes at that - are 15 grams. If I eat 17 grapes, I can't have any other carbs with that snack. And if I ate fruit all day, my sugars would be through the roof!

Milk - Love milk. But, seriously, I am not a newborn. A glass of milk doesn't fill me up or curb my hunger pangs. And I really, really love milk in oatmeal and Honey Nut Chex or Multi Grain Cheerios -- all which are BAD, BAD, BAD for me. And also, although milk has a good amount of protein, it also has amount an equal amount of carbs. So I have to watch it there, too. Same is true for peanut butter -- good balance of protein and carbs, but still carby.

Water - Water is pretty much all I drink all day, so I have no problems here. But sometimes I'd love a hot and frothy Starbucks drink (too much milk and sugary flavoring, even if I get it with a sugar substitute). Or a fruit smoothie. Or a milkshake or a soda. OR (when I'm not pregnant) a cocktail! Just about every kind of drink in the world besides water is carby. Tea, you say? I was born in Boston. I like my tea New England style: with lots of milk and sugar.

Sugar substitutes -- I have embraced Splenda as my saving grace, and I try desperately to ignore the scary reports that come out every so often saying all sugar substitutes are bad for you. The fact is, real sugar - in all its forms - is killing me as it is. If I want to have a cup of coffee with some Splenda, then please just let me be.

So there's my list of acceptable foods. Oh wait, I can also eat butter. I do love butter, so there's no downside there. Just wish I could put in on a hot roll, or a Belgian waffle, or candied sweet potatoes. Mmmmmm.

Of course, I can have almost all foods every now and then in small, ridiculously-unsatisfying doses. I have to count all carbs meticulously and be sure not to go over a very strict amount. And when I do splurge on say, a waffle, I'm supposed to pair it up with protein. Every carb that comes into my body is supposed to be paired with a protein. The mental gymnastics I have to do when thinking about what to get for any meal I eat (Is a veggie panini too many carbs? Is that artichoke salad enough carbs Or enough protein? How many grits is too many grits?) is really annoying and difficult and a pain in the you-know-what.

So...all that being said, what does this mean for me?

It means I am depressed. I want to be able to eat like everyone else can eat -- and only worry about gaining weight, not about having kidney failure in a few years.

It means I am scared. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle here. No matter how good I am about eating (if I can ever get past this mental block I have about it) my body is not getting any younger or any more efficient at dealing with insulin. I worry that I will have nerve problems, blindness or worse.

It means I feel sorry for myself. Why me, Lord? Why do I have this cross to bear? When eating is such a big part of our society (Let's meet for lunch! The girls are having a dinner! It's my birthday; we're going out to eat! It's the holidays; we're planning a huge meal! I heard you weren't feeling well; I made you a batch of chocolate chip cookies. We're having this important business meeting over lunch. I'm meeting a friend for coffee and muffins. A co-worker is leaving, so we're going out for drinks, etc. etc.) why do I have to feel so shut out of all of it?? Waah, waah, waaaaaah.

And it means I feel guilty. My baby is growing and developing inside of me and deserves the best start in life possible. And so far, I have bathed her in high sugars and worry and bitterness and non-compliance. I suck. I am whining about not being able to eat spaghetti or rice (God knows I love rice) or French toast or ice cream or chicken minis at Chik-Fil-A. And meanwhile, my baby is possibly developing in danger.
Wow...just typing those words makes me feel like crap, crap, crap.
Not to mention my feelings about what it would mean for Cary and Dean (and Lester and Curve Ball, too) if I were to be too sick to be of any real use to them, or if I were to die because I can't get this diet thing right.
When I think about them having to grow up with a Mom who's not her best self -- or no Mom at all -- I feel worse than crappy. I start crying, like I'm doing now. I feel horrible. What kind of mother am I? Why can't I just get with the program?

Needless to say, this doctor's visit has left me in quite a state. And I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about it just yet. I'm kinda tired of talking about it (I've been talking about what I can and can't eat ever since I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes four years ago). I'm tired of thinking about it.

I just want to go home, eat a bowl of cereal or some Chinese food (sigh) and go to sleep.

But instead, I will pray. And pray. And pray. For guidance and help and strength and miraculously-changed-taste-buds.

And then, if Cary and Dean cooperate (which they have NOT been the last few nights -- ugh! Whole different post there...) after I do all that, then I will sleep.

And maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.

Seasons change; lives change

2011-10-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

Fall is slowly turning from that golden warm loveliness that makes the season my favorite, to that chilly, breezy, winter-is-on-its-way blahness.

One thing that struck me this weekend is that after Lester cut the grass on Saturday, he put the mower away and declared that the last cut of the year. Insane! Especially since that means my children -- who are lawnmower obsessed -- will not see their favorite garden tool again until they're 2 or just about! I hope they'll be able to cope.

Thinking about them being 2 fascinates me in so many ways. This weekend was my college Homecoming weekend (H-UUUUUUU!!) and my good friend Neelofer came in town from Atlanta with her son Kadin, who will be 2 next month. Watching him with my two boys left me amazed at how much progress they're likely to make in just 6 short months.

Kadin was talking in sentences: "I want to get down." "I want Mommy." "No, Mommy, don't come!"

Kadin was much more focused and deliberate about activities. His attention span was several minutes long, not several seconds.

And Kadin was tall and thin, with Adidas sneakers! He looked like a little boy (a little, little boy, but still a boy).

I can't believe in just 6 months my boys may be talking in sentences and looking so grown-up!

Also, when the lawnmower makes a reappearance (when Cary and Dean are 2), I will be the mother of THREE children, one of them a 3 month old!

Wow.

All the more reason why the changing seasons has me so contemplative.

I want my daughter to be sweet, but good grief!

2011-10-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

So it's come to this.

Tuesday, I go in to the perinatologist to learn how to inject myself with insulin.

I resisted as long as I could, but my sugars just kept creeping up. And the new meds worked a little too well, making my blood sugar dip horribly low -- particularly in the middle of the night.

The last THREE nights I've had to bound out of bed twice to go down to the kitchen to stuff myself with cereal and sausage or frozen waffles and orange juice -- just to stop the shakes. This usually is around 12 or 1 and then again around 3 or 4. Waking up every three hours to feed?? Ridiculous -- my baby's not even here yet!!

All that up-and-down with my sugars has totally wiped me out. I feel like crap a lot of the time, and it's just no fun at all. I think I could suffer through it (maybe) if it was helping keep the blood sugars in check. But like I said, my sugars just continue getting higher and higher.

So insulin it is.

I'm nervous about it, because I still think in the back of my head that my body will get used to the extra help and then continue needing it even after I've delivered Sweet Miss Curve Ball.
And I also really don't relish the idea of excusing myself from meetings to go stick myself with needles in public bathrooms.

But, I must do what is best for my baby -- and what is best for me. So I will.

So just to make myself feel better, I am having some kind of warm, chocolatey, delicious thing this weekend! Sugars be damned! Heck, I might just splurge all weekend!

(Kelly, if you're reading this: Shut IT!) :-)

Crack, Drive, Amaze!

2011-10-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

My boys turned 17 months last week, and they are very much 17-month-olds!

(Look, we can eat corn-on-the-cob like big boys!)

They seriously CRACK Lester and me up, especially now that they feel the urge to "sing" at random times, and also to dance in their cribs, swaying their hips from side-to-side, or high-stepping and shuffling their little feet, baby River Dance style.

But they also seriously DRIVE Lester and me crazy in so many ways.

1. They are LOUD! Everything they say is said as if we are in a wind tunnel or something. Or perhaps they think we're so old, we're starting to be a little hard of hearing. 'Cause man - do they shriek! Dean screams and cries constantly, but even when he's just talking normally, his voice is loud. And Cary is his equal in that department. Imagine some tiny little person screeching "TRRRUCK! TRRRUCK!" while waving the "Trucks" book at you, demanding a millionth reading.

2. They are willful, obstinate, defiant and just plain mischievous at times. If we say, "Come here," they move in the opposite direction. The words, "We don't throw food on the floor," apparently get translated into Babyese to mean, "Please continue flinging your food onto the floor! This time with fervor! Thanks!" And so on. I'm so confused because all the baby books said, "Your baby loves to see you smile. He only wants to please you!" Hogwash and poppycock! My babies are tiny terrorists with adorable faces and chubby, kissable feet.

3. Dean still needs two naps a day, while Cary is more and more resisting the second nap. But Dean hates going to bed without his brother, and Cary hates being put in his crib in the afternoons. This is a conundrum. Help!

4. Dean's abusive-boyfriend tendencies are getting stronger and more prevalent. He literally pushes me around the house, attempting to get me to do things he wants me to do, or stop doing things he doesn't want me to do. He cries when he sees Cary sitting on my lap reading, and will push Cary off my lap if I don't make room for him fast enough. He shoves Lester away from me if we're in an embrace, or cries if I hug or kiss Lester and he's in his highchair, so can't get to me to shove Lester away. And the other night, I sang to him in his crib while Lester was getting Cary lotioned and pajama-ed for bed. While I sang, he looked lovingly up at me, and stroked Lovey the Puppy contentedly. The minute I finished the song and turned to Cary to sing to him, Dean grunted and growled at me -- growled! -- to express his displeasure. Not quite sure our precious baby really did this, Lester asked me to do it again. So I sang to Dean (loving eyes, more-puppy-stroking) and then turned to sing to Cary. Again with the grunting and growling!
Seriously, people, what is going to happen when baby Curve Ball gets here? (That's her nickname until we can finally settle on a real name for her.) Will I need to take out a protective order against Deanie? This is worrying me!

But more than anything, Cary and Dean seriously AMAZE Lester and me, with their humor, intelligence, affection and development.

Besides the Trucks book, Cary also loves a book called "Beep Beep" which has one page full of colorful cars on a highway. We always count the cars with him, and we constantly catch him sitting on the floor with the book, pointing one chubby finger at the cars and saying, "Twooo, twooo, twooo" as if he's counting!

Dean has learned how to climb up on the couch, throw the couch pillows on the floor, and then dive (sometimes headfirst, but more often feet-first) onto the pillows. Smart kid figured out that it's better to land on pillows than on our hardwood floors!

After tearing through our mail the other day, Cary stomped over to Lester with a health-care-insurance pamphlet, waved it in Lester's face and demanded, "Reeeee!" (read) ... He thought it was a book! Ha.

Cary still thinks his name is "Deeee" but Dean the other day leaned in Cary's direction with Cary's bib in his hand and, I swear, called Cary's name. Well, the last syllable of Cary's name: "Ree!" he said, thrusting the bib at Cary. "Ree!" It was cute.

Dean has learned how to slide on his belly down the steps. He is good at it! (This also makes Lester very nervous as someone -- I won't say who -- still has not put up the baby gate at the top of the stairs).

Both of them will telegraph that they're about to do something wrong by saying, "No, no!" before doing said wrong thing.Occasionally, they say it after they've done said wrong thing, as they're walking away from the evidence. Dean waggles his pointer finger while he's saying it. It's funny. And infuriating. (Kid, if you know you're not supposed to do it, why do ya? Huh? HUH?!)

And every day is full of hugs and kisses and giggles galore -- from both boys.

All in all, they are living up to the Ames' description of them at this age: Fun-loving AND Fussy.

And we are loving every minute of it!

On having a girl...

2011-10-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

On October 5, Lester and I officially found out we are having a girl. But I have known since well before then. How did I know, you ask?

I'll tell you.

1) My skin has been horrendous this pregnancy. When I was pregnant with Cary and Dean, my skin was flawless.

2) My hair has lost its curl and just hangs limp and lifeless. When I was pregnant with the boys, my hair was think and lush and just epic! (How come the stretch marks stayed and the glorious hair went away?)

I present to you Exhibit A:
See? Not a curl in sight. I really hope she gives me my curls back when she vacates my uterus.

3) My sugars are OUT OF CONTROL. I am pre-diabetic, so I am always having to watch my carbs. Everyone told me pregnancy makes it worse. But when I was pregnant with the boys, my sugars were better! (Go figure!) The docs said it had to do with having more blood volume, diluting the sugars, which was great! But with this pregnancy, almost from the moment I found out I was having a baby, my sugars have been all over the place, and not in a good way. I've been switched to new meds that make me feel like crap and the doctors are threatening insulin if things don't get better. My sister says, "Your sugars are high because she's so sweet!" Maybe so, but this blood-sugar issue is a major blower.

Take all those things together and I knew - I just knew - this was a girl child inside me, already giving me fits!

So the ultrasound confirmed what I already knew, and made all the random, fleeting thoughts I'd been having about being the mother of a girl come together in a great crash of excitement and fear and love and ambivalence. Like someone was throwing cans of brightly-colored paints onto a canvas in no pattern whatsoever. That's what my brain felt like.

I think about being the mother of a girl much more deeply than I did about being the mother of boys. You'd think it'd be the other way around, as I am a girl (always and forever, in my heart, no matter how old I get). But instead, mothering sons always seemed that it would be simpler. Perhaps it's because so many people said to me, "Boys are easier," and "Boys just love their mommies!" Or maybe it's because, in some evolutionary throwback, I inherently understand how to care for a boy-child. I've had to learn over the years to be the helpmeet and partner to a man -- so I get it. (Sometimes...)

I'm completely making all this up, and there's no scientific or literary basis for any of this. I'm just guessing.
Either way, I have to admit to being just a little bit freaked out by the idea of having a daughter. And there are a million reasons why. Here are the top 3:

1) Girls are so much more complicated than boys! I know this for a fact. From everything from our clothes to our friendships, we just live our lives on a much deeper level, and emotions play a much more prevalent role in our decision-making and behavior. This is not a criticism. I actually like the fact that I am free to express my emotions and feel things. If I were a man, I'd hate to be constrained by society's stupid idea that showing or feeling emotions is somehow wrong.
But emotions, as Spock from Star Trek will attest, are messy, complicated, irrational things. They're hard enough to navigate when they belong to you. I can only imagine how hard it will be to try to help someone else navigate theirs. But...this will be my job! And I will somehow have to learn to do it. (Lord, help me.)

2) Girls bring the drama! Don't judge me for stereotyping. You know it's true! I'm not saying my boys don't have their moments of lapsing into hysterics. But I think this has more to do with being toddlers. Toddlers are, by definition, insane. Being a girl toddler? Ratchet that up a notch or two. Being a girl teenager??! GOD HELP ME. Lester also can be a drama-king at times. And my Dad, honestly, is more sentimental than my Mom in almost every way. So I know there are exceptions and that people are individuals, not ruled, necessarily by gender. But you know exactly what I'm talking about whether you are the parent of a girl or not. Girls = attitude. Girls = (usually) heightened sensitivity. Girls = drama. (Again, Lord help me!)

3) My friend and co-worker Stacey forced me to read "Cinderella Ate My Daughter," and now, of course, I'm freaked out that I am going to do something to make my innocent little daughter believe that beauty is what matters, and then that finding a man because you're beautiful is the prize. All because I put bows in her hair or paint her room a sweet shade of pink or -- sin of all sins -- buy her a doll or let her watch "The Little Mermaid"!! (Cue the scary music)...
I am all for women's rights and equality for all. But I have never been a RAGING feminist, and by that I mean, I happen to like having my door opened for me, and having Lester carry the suitcases. I also hate taking the trash out and I will not mow the lawn so long as there is a teenager in need of $10 to do it for me. It doesn't grate my nerves when my boss calls me "sweetheart" as long as I keep getting plum assignments and good bonuses at the end of the year.

But I suppose my parents did raise me so that I can carry suitcases and take out the trash or even put together Ikea furniture, if I want to or need to. (In fact, I lived by myself from college until I got married, so I had to do all those things!) I am not some helpless twit. I am smart, ambitious and hard-working. I can (usually) figure things out when I need to. I consider myself to be an attractive person, but that is not what defines me. I am a good friend to people; I am a good Mom and a good wife. I am compassionate and empathetic. I am conscientious, responsible and capable. I am funny. I am kick-ASS at Scrabble! I am a voracious reader. I enjoy a good debate (and not only about the merits of "Teen Mom" or "The Real Housewives." Heck, I just had a good debate with folks about the recent New York magazine article about women over 50 giving birth. THAT was interesting.) I am cooperative, but not a pushover. I enjoy new challenges. I am, when I want to be, an interesting person. I am beautiful because I am a child of God. But I am not what I look like on the outside.

I say all that to say that I turned out pretty OK (I think) and I had Barbies and dresses and hair bows galore. My Dad called me his "Little Princess" even on the day I got married to Lester at 34 years old. But that darn "Cinderella" book -- and Stacey's indignance about the "pinkification" of society's girls -- makes me wonder if I'll be able to do the same for my own daughter.

I want her to be all the good things I am and way, way more! I want her to not be afraid of math (not my strong suit) and not care if people think she's overweight (working on that over here, thanks). I want her to enjoy the company of men, but not NEED their approval. (And not tooooo many men. Ahem.)
I want her to be as comfortable in cleats as she is in strappy sandals. I want her to want to dissect the bugs that I shriek at when I see them in the basement. I want her to fit right in with her rough-and-tumble brothers, but not be too self-conscious to say, "That hurts!" or "No thanks. I'd rather play Barbies."

In short, I feel like I want so much for my daughter that I'm already putting pressure on her.
(Great, I'm tearing up now...Stupid pregnancy hormones!)

Smart and funny, strong and sweet, empathetic and kick-ass, ambitious and family-oriented, pleasant but not "a pleaser," athletic and intellectual, sexually-empowered (when she's 30!), but not sexually-loose or submissive. Capable, responsible, self-sufficient. But not bossy and bitchy and all "I-don't-neeeeed-no-man!" Caring, but not a pushover. Daddy's girl and Mommy's (eventual) best friend.

Am I asking too much? How can one woman (or girl-child) be all these things? And I why do I want all this for her, when I mostly just want my boys to be self-sufficient, smart, responsible, helpful and decent, compassionate human beings. Do I care all that much if they're funny? Not really. Do I care if they're athletic? Not really. (Lester may beg to differ here).

Why are the stakes so much higher for my daughter? This is tough, folks. I am struggling with all these things and she's not even here yet! Geez Louise.

One thing I really want is for us to have an authentic and real relationship. And so I know that I will need to deal with a lot of these ridiculously high expectations for her before she is old enough to have them start messing with her self-esteem and her opinion of me.

I am working on that. I really am.

My mom and I have a good relationship and though she is far from perfect (who among us is?) one thing she never did was make me feel inadequate in any way. If anything, she always made me feel comfortable in my own skin.

Maybe that's what I need to focus on more than anything else. Forget the stupid books and society's demands on girls. Forget my own issues about not being athletic or mathematically-inclined or 100-percent confident in every situation, with all kinds of people, no matter what.

If I can just do what my own Mom (and Dad, for that matter) did -- which is make her feel comfortable being exactly who she is -- I pray to God that she will turn out fine.

Whoever she is in there, stealing all my curls. :-)

I'm a terrible wife!

2011-10-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

In my list of important things that happened in my unforeseen-blogging-hiatus, I forgot to add one very, very important thing:

On Oct. 5, Lester and I celebrated 4 blissful years of marriage!!

To celebrate, we took the day off together (folks with young children have to have their dates during the day!) and went to the Baltimore Museum of Art, where we had lunch at Gertrude's, which was deeeeelish!

Apple/pear tart with homemade ice cream. Yum! Yum! And yummmmm!

We also found out -- earlier that morning -- the sex of our newest baby, and so we spent a lot of time at lunch talking about how much has changed in our lives since we first met, started dating and got married.

Here are just a few things that have changed:

We both left journalism for new, related careers. We're both happy we did.
We live in the same state! We spent a year long-distance dating when Lester worked at a Florida newspaper and I was at The Sun.
We own two houses. And neither of them is worth the money we owe on them. Yipppeee!
Apparently, we like surprises: We went through an emotional year of trying to get pregnant and ended up with twins! Surprise! Then, because we had such a hard time getting pregnant with Cary and Dean, we were shocked in June to find out that we were pregnant again! Surprise!
We have no disposable income.
We attend church hardly ever, which is a real concern, but one I hope gets better when our children don't require mid-morning naps.
We both weigh a little more than we did. Ahem.

And here are a few things that have NOT changed since we started dating, a year and a half before we tied the knot:

We still order Chinese food just about once-a-week.
We still are amazed (and very often amused) at how dysfunctional our families can be.
We still love to watch movies and good TV shows together (whenever we can stay awake that long).
Lester still cracks jokes that only he thinks are funny and then cracks himself up laughing at them, which then makes me laugh, which then makes him think I thought the original non-funny joke was funny. Which, sadly, perpetuates the joke-telling. (I think Dean has inherited this trait.)
Lester still is annoyed by the fact that I can never manage to hang my clothes up after I wear them.
We still have never had a knock-down, drag-out, name-calling, lamp-throwing fight. (I'm very proud of this fact).
We still enjoy each other's company above just about anyone else's.
Despite having 2.5 children and very demanding jobs, we still find time for one another and strive to make the other one feel just as important and cherished as we did when we were childless and carefree!
We still try to remember to put God first in our lives, and to teach our boys to do the same. (Consider: Cary and Dean know to say "Amen!" after we say grace before dinner. And we say goodnight prayers with them every night before bed).
Marrying Lester is still the best decision I made, aside from deciding to follow God.
We are still actually, and truly, in love.
We are even more committed to this marriage and this family than ever before.

And so I say to folks who think that having kids kills the love and romance in a marriage: Psssshaw! Only if you let it.

Happy 4 years, sweetie!

Busy-ness; gratefulness

2011-10-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since the last time I was really able to blog (work and other demands proved way too demanding these last few weeks). I'm not even sure how to cover it all, so I'll try to do it in sections.

1. First things first: Lester and I found out we are having a GIRL!!

This really deserves its own post, so I will come back and revisit all my thoughts on having a girl (and believe me, there are a LOT) some time later, when I can give this the time it deserves.
The short of it, though? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! and also OMG!!!

2. My baby sister got MARRIED!! Tahira is now Mrs. Reggie Holmes! I still can't believe it.

Part of the reason why I was too busy to blog is because I was basically planning her wedding for her. I volunteered to do it, and I enjoyed it, but it was a lot of work and it took up a lot of my evenings. But...I'm so glad I did, because the day turned out so beautifully, and she was so happy! And doesn't she look gorgeous? Congratulations to my little sister, who deserves so much happiness! I love you so much.

And here's the kicker: She's pregnant, too!! Due in March! So we'll be having babies back-to-back. We think she's having a boy. I'll let you know if I'm right.

3. Michelle had a birthday, and "the boys" gave her a coffee mug (she drinks a lot of coffee), and a smock that my friend Renee made for me, using fabric and a pattern I picked out. Michelle loved it! It has pockets all across the bottom so she can throw bottles, toys, stray Cheerios, etc. in them as she's going throughout the day. And it completely covers her front, so she won't ruin her clothes while taking care of 2 (soon to be 3) babies.

Isn't it too cute? She loves teal and cupcakes, so I picked this pattern out just for her. She loves it so much that she says she wants my friend to make her another one that's less cute, so she won't be loathe to get milk and fingerpaints and baby puke all over it. I told her, Michelle, it's a smock. It's supposed to get milk and fingerpaints and baby puke all over it.

4. I took the boys to a pumpkin patch by myself and it was a big mistake. The pumpkin patch itself was a great idea, but the "by myself" part was dumb with a capital STUPID. Also, I forgot the stroller at home, taking dumb-with-a-capital-stupid to the new height of WTF-was-I-thinking??
Dean was in the stinkiest mood I think I have ever seen him and he wanted me to hold him three-quarters of the time we were there, despite all the children, the fun things to do and see, and the general awesomeness of the farm.
(Have I mentioned that I am 5 months pregnant and Dean weighs a zillion pounds? Please remember this when I am complaining about back problems as an old lady).
And I need to point out again for emphasis that I did NOT have a stroller. I'll let you imagine what that meant.

Somehow, I have no idea how, I managed to get a couple of fairly decent pictures.

Cary was ENTRANCED by the tractors which were pulling folks who paid extra for hayrides (We're a little young, I think, for those. Maybe next year). He must've said "truck!" 8,001 times.

Surprisingly, Dean actually enjoyed feeding the goats grass! He was afraid of the goats at the zoo, so it could be that the fence between them at the pumpkin farm made him feel more comfortable. Also, Dean LOVES to eat, so it could be that he thought he and the goats were kindred spirits.

You can't tell from Dean and Cary's non-smiling faces (seriously, why can't I EVER get a picture a my children smiling? Why? Why? WHY?!) but the boys had a ball in the pumpkin patch, picking up little toddler-sized pumpkins and lining them up.

This is my attempt at "setting up" a shot. Sigh.

And here's Dean, who looks less-than-thrilled with his pumpkin choice, but honestly, this and the goats were the only things he would tolerate NOT being in my arms for.

At the farm, I met up with my friend Stacey and her son Hugo, and my friend David and his wife Stephanie and their son Dylan. They were SO much help to me, I can't even tell you. They let me use their strollers while their (much more agreeable children) wandered around smiling and giggling. They held Cary's hand while we walked, to try to prevent him from wandering off to various places. Then, they rounded up Cary from the various places he wandered off to. They offered snacks and love to my screaming, snotting Deanie (to no avail). They didn't make me feel like the world's worst mother for forgetting the stroller at a friggin' gazillion-acre farm, and they didn't seem to be irritated by Dean's rotten attitude.
I must say, I love my friends!

5. In between all these other things:

I went to a girls' dinner at my friend Shreya's house, and stuffed myself silly with her husband's fantastic cooking!
I finished a ton of heavy-hitter projects at work.
I turned in waiting list applications for Cary and Dean at the pre-school around the corner that Lester and I like (pray for us folks. It's a small class and a long waiting list).
I culled my drawers of summer clothes and clothes I will likely never, ever fit again. I bought more maternity clothes (booo!)
I thought Lester and I had decided on a name for our baby girl, but now I'm really not so sure.
I cooked and cleaned and grocery shopped and picked up toys and bathed babies and read 1 million stories and attempted to discipline my maniac children (not going so well, people) and fell asleep at night so exhausted, I can't even tell you.
I completely lost control of my blood sugars, so now I'm on new meds that make me have outrageous sugar lows. One night I woke up and could barely move, I was so weak. Lester had to run and get me orange juice and cereal and then turkey meatballs (for the protein). The doctors are threatening to put me on insulin, but I am really nervous about that. So pray for me some more, folks, that I can get this right.

All in all, it's been an incredibly busy time, but I'm not complaining. I've been very happily busy. And I'm grateful to God that I have friends, family, a good job and people to care for -- all taking up my time.

(But....ummm God, if it's not too much trouble, could you squeeze a nap in for me sometime soon? Thanks!)

No need for an Amber Alert!

2011-10-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

I am still alive!

Work has been inSANE, and in between a zillion projects all coming due at the same time, I was helping to plan my sister's wedding. Which happened yesterday. (Yay! Congrats to the new Mrs. Holmes!)

I don't have time to blog today either, sadly, because I'm taking the boys to the pumpkin farm (excited!!) and then I have a girls' dinner tonight at 6, which I'm really excited about, too, because this friend has her husband do all the cooking and serving for her bunch of GFs, and he is a GREAT cook. He even wears a little chef's hat! So sweet.

So while C & D nap, I need to get everything prepared for the full day. (Boy, how I wish I could sneak in a little nap, too. I am pooped!)

I think things will ease up at work next week considerably, so if I don't have time to blog tomorrow (we have an open house at a pre-school to attend), I'll definitely be back in the saddle on Monday.

From babies to big boys

2011-10-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about my visit to Port Discovery and Beth and her boys, William and Seth.

I couldn't help but marvel while we were there together at how well Seth was speaking, and how tall William is, and how they both had complicated things they thought about and then articulated, and good grief -- they are not babies! They are boys.

Sometimes, it's hard for me to imagine that being Cary and Dean one day, but I know it will happen in the blink of an eye (or so everyone tells me). When I see Beth and her two boys, it seems so wonderful to have two little people to hang out with and enjoy, as opposed to two little babies to supervise and enjoy (in a different way). But then I get a phone call like the one I got yesterday that gives me pause.

Kristie, the physical therapist who has been seeing the boys since Cary was a teeny, tiny thing, called to tell me that my boys are doing so well, they don't need her anymore. In fact, she confessed that they haven't really needed her for quite some time, but that she just liked them so much, she kept coming back. But now, she can no longer justify the visits (this is a free program) especially since for months now, her reports about the boys have been glowing. Someone above her was bound to pull the plug if she didn't. And there are children who really do need her, which I understand, so I (reluctantly) agreed that my boys' time with Kristie was over.

I love hearing that my boys are wonderful -- of course I do. And I love hearing that they no longer need physical therapy. But somehow, this all reminds me that they are growing up and growing out of phases.

They were preemies who needed a little bit of extra help with low-muscle tone (Cary) and a slight bit of high muscle tone (Dean). They are now toddlers who can jump and climb and move my dining room chairs into my living room (over and over and over again).

They were tiny 4 lb. babies who needed me for everything. They've now almost completely outgrown their 18-month pajamas, and balk if I cut up their banana instead of letting them just bite it, like big boys.

It's amazing to watch two people grow. It's literally mind-blowing, and beautiful and bittersweet.

I watch them do things like this:

And I think -- simultaneously -- "Where did these silly, silly babies learn to put their loveys on their heads??" and "One day they'll be big boys who won't toddle around in footie pajamas with loveys on their heads, babbling incoherently!"

And I want to laugh and cry all at the same time.

I wonder if Beth thinks about these things, or LauraC., or my friends Angel and Kelly and Neelofer and Stacey. Does my sister Tahira think them about Russy, who is growing so tall, I can't stand it. Did my Mom ever think them about me?

Am I just overly-introspective? I mean, sheesh, people grow up, right? I'd be miserable if Cary and Dean stayed in diapers their whole lives! And threw their dinner on the floor at 17! Or cried and whined because it was 5:30 p.m., so what else is there to do?!

But I wouldn't be too, too mad -- if I'm being honest -- if they toddled with padded feet just a little longer. And held on to those loveys just a little longer. Whether on their heads, or clasped in their hands while they sweetly sleep, those loveys tell me my babies are still babies.

For just a little while longer.

Boys have a great day at Port Discovery; Mommy meets her first blogfriend!

2011-10-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

We haven't been to Port Discovery since the boys were...hmmm...fairly new crawlers. Wow. That just hit me in a weird way. Time is really passing.

Anyway (before I get all teary) we went back there today and it was even better than the first time. The boys LOVE the Tot Trails room, and spent more than an hour exploring and playing and just generally having a blast.

Here is a shot of them at the sandbox, before things went very, very, very wrong. (Picture Cary's hair covered in sand. And Dean's too).

Here's the "lawnmower," which was a huge hit, as you might imagine. Cary commandeered it half the afternoon, when he wasn't on the mega Lite Brite board. Dean made an adorable motoring noise when he rolled it back and forth.

OK, there were a couple small tussles. This one was over a duckie on a stick.

But mostly there was fun. Here's Cary staring at himself in a mirror, calling himself, "Deee." (Dean.) One day my child will realize that he is Cary and Dean is Dean.

Dean -- banging things with a stick. (A favorite pasttime.)

Cary and his second favorite thing -- the Lite Brite board. He OWNED this thing.

Dean smiling because I have told him 15 times to stop EATING the stick. And somehow this is funny. Little stinker.

BUT...by far the best part of the visit was meeting up with my VERY FIRST BLOGFRIEND!!

Beth brought her super-adorable boys William and Seth to Port Discovery and we met up. It was so great to meet her; she was kind and sweet and funny, very much like her blog (which I have become a huge fan of).

And I am more in awe of her now that I know a little more about her crazy schedule (seriously, I don't know how she does it) and now that I've met her boys in person. They are so stinkin' cute!

And Beth gets kudos for wanting to hang out with a pregnant woman with maniac twin toddlers!

It was so nice to meet you, Beth! I can't wait for the next playdate. And the first grown-up date -- whenever I can have cocktails again!

My day is made!

2011-09-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

Michelle called me just now and while we were talking, Dean said, "Hi Ma-Ma!"

A sentence!

Directed at me!

:-)

And today he sang "Happy Birthday" (sorta) to Lester! My child is a genius! And my day is MADE!

But we stopped buying paper plates and napkins!

2011-09-22T18:06:00.000-07:00

One thing I'd like to teach my boys (of many, many things) is about food sustainability.
I want them to make better choices about eating than I have most of my life.
I want them to understand where real food comes from (not the grocery store or the corner store or the Chick-fil-a).
I want them to know that without farms and farmers there is no food, so we should support local farms and farmers, Farmer's markets and food sustainability efforts of all kinds.
I want them to respect and care for the Earth.
I want them to be producers of some kind, and not just consumers.

To that end, I figured Lester and I ought to start modeling some of that behavior.

Don't get me wrong. We will never, ever be organic, composting-with-worms, vegan backyard farmers. But we can take some baby steps toward being better.

So when the Green School asked if I wanted to be a neighborhood porch farmer, I readily agreed. It seemed easy. All I had to do was water and nurture a pot of small plants on my front porch for the summer. By the fall, I should have had a pot of tomatoes, cucumber, chocolate peppers and some kind of eggplant.

I was psyched!!

Here's what came of my farming:

That's. IT.

(OK, earlier in the summer, we did have three yellow cherry tomatoes, which were incredibly sweet and delicious! Lester fed two of them to Cary and Dean. We ate the final one.)

Take a look at that sad, sad "garden." That scythe looking thing is supposed to be a pepper, people. Not a jalapeno pepper; a fat, roundish, delicious pepper pepper! And it's supposed to be brown. Hence, the chocolate.

And the eggplant was supposed to have at least 5 or 6 brothers and sisters. Sigh.

This urban farming is harder than I thought.

Obsessions

2011-09-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

Cary is obsessed with lawnmowers.

Obsessed!

He can hear one a mile away, and he'll stop what he's doing, go to the front door and search for it, all the while saying "mah-mow-uh" over and over and over and over and over and over and...you get the picture. He wakes up asking us about lawnmowers. He goes to bed saying the word.

But he has taken his love of lawnmowers to a level that I think shows how developmentally ahead of the curve he is. Yesterday, he took his fork at dinner, ran it along his highchair tray, and said "mah-mow-uh," and then made a rumbling noise!

Imaginative play at 16 months old?! Hello! My child is a genius!

(See this article, which includes this line: The transition to imaginative play usually comes during the toddler years, around the age of 3.)

He did the same thing in the tub last night, dragging a foam tub letter through the water, saying "mah-mow-uh" and rumbling. I am very impressed.

Meanwhile, Dean is obsessed with the Wild Things in "Where the Wild Things Are." He LOVES when I enact the part where they roar their terrible roars and gnash their terrible teeth, roll their terrible eyes and show their terrible claws. He loves the roaring part most of all.

(Sidenote: Once, in the car, Dean wanted me to do the roaring, so I did. Cary misinterpreted the roaring as the grumbling of a lawnmower, and of course began to look frantically around for the garden tool, while saying loudly, "MAH-MOW-UH!!!" over and over and over. Sigh.)

Dean loves those Wild Things so much, I have not thought a thing about roaring and gnashing and showing my claws. But last night, my textbook sleeper awoke in the night, as if he were afraid, and refused to go back to sleep. (This is unheard of. The FEW times he's ever awakened in the night, he's always gone right back to sleep after being given his lovey and his blanket).
We ended up bringing him into our bed, as we were afraid he'd wake up Prince Lightsleeper.
This was a disastrous move, as Dean has no idea what to do in our bed (he's never there!) so he tossed and turned, stroked my nose, re-situated Lovey the Puppy a thousand times, hummed, rolled back and forth on the pillows, and just generally kept us awake and uncomfortable for two, two-and-a-half hours.

At 4-ish, Lester put him back in his own bed, and he slept soundly.

But I can't help but think that he had a bad dream about Wild Things gnashing, clawing and roaring at him.

What do you think? Can babies be afraid of things this early? I haven't introduced the Wild Things as something to be afraid of, so where would he get that from?

I would hate to have to lay off the book for awhile. But maybe I should?

We need our sleep, but mostly I just hate the thought of my sweetie lying in the dark afraid of wild beasts saying, "We'll eat you up!" :-(

Cooler weather; better behaviors

2011-09-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

Fall has fallen (sorta) here, and we had to pull out the boys' long-sleeved shirts and hoodies.

The boys are most fascinated with their socks, because they haven't seen them in many months -- possibly before they had a real word for "socks" -- and so they keep touching them and pulling on them and saying, "doc," "doc," over and over. They also want them off as soon as they get home and get their little shoes off. I think they are just not used to having their feet quite so warm.

I do have to say, as cute as my sweeties are in their swim trunks, I love, love, love how adorable they look in sweaters. Case in point:

I could NOT get them to stand in the same frame at the same time, so you can barely see Cary in his cute little V-neck, but take it from me, it was cute, cute, cute! And Dean in this striped number just makes me all melty. So handsome! He looks like a little BOY!

(Ummm, this is a horrible photo of me. Please ignore the scrinchy-face woman in the middle of the adorable boys. Thanks.)

This photo was taken (after many failed attempts to take their picture) at a birthday party we went to for a friend whose son turned 1 during Hurricane Irene. The party was inexplicably from 5 to 8 p.m. and we were concerned that having them out at that time of night would be disastrous. But the boys did great! They loved walking around, moving furniture and playing with the kids in the room. Even Dean!! He was totally cute playing peek-a-boo with a girl about 8 or 9, even though she was nowhere near us! Shocking!

Cary was the star of the show, of course, going around "talking" a mile a minute and being all up in the beeswax.

We left after 7 (yikes!) And there were no tears!

By the time we got home and got them undressed and ready for bed, there was some whiny protesting, just because they were overtired. But it was manageable and not nails-on-a-chalkboard nerve-wracking as it can be when they really get going.

Then, Sunday, I hosted bookclub at my house, complete with cooking four quiches! (Check me out!) Lester took the boys to D.C. to see his aunt so I could have a kid-free house with my lovely bookclub ladies.
And guess what? No craziness! They drove to D.C., hung out with his family, came back in one piece, and Lester said there were no meltdowns! Cary whined a bit in the car on the way home, but we expect that. And we played some when they came home, then fed them dinner, and got them bathed and in bed on time. All the while -- they were totally pleasant! YES!

Dear God of All Things Pleasant Baby Related,

I could use more of these kind of weekends.

Thanks,

Tanika

(And as Cary would say, after someone sneezes, "Amen!")

They are just babies

2011-09-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

My boys had been crazy with a capital K for days on end.
I was ready to throw myself from the roof of my house.
Seriously, I had a couple days where I went to bed thinking, "Did I do something wrong already? Am I a bad mother? Why are my children so ill-behaved? Am I too permissive? Do I not give enough discipline (whatever that is at this age) along with all my love? Why are other people's children so agreeable?"

Finally, I confided in a friend at work. I was worried about talking to anyone about it, for fear people would judge me or my kids or use my worry to pat themselves on the back for the "AWESOME" jobs they're doing with their own angel children. I also really didn't want to hear the pat answers about how they're just babies and blah blah blah.

But the very day I confided in my friend, when I got home that night (a solo Mommy night for me) the boys were just lovely!! I mean textbook wonderful. No screaming incessantly; no unreasonable demands to be held and then put down and then held and then put down and on an on and so forth. They ate their dinner and giggled adorably over and over when I said "beeeeans!" (Who knew beans were so funny?) They played sweetly in the bathtub; they took their bottles and went to bed. They were lovey and laughy and all-around great.

So I guess the thing of it is: They ARE just babies.

Whether I wanted to hear it or not.

Odds and ends

2011-09-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

Gosh, it's getting to be that I am only managing to blog about once a week. That is not good. What is going to happen when baby No. 3 gets here?

I have got to find a dedicated time of day that I blog, or else I can see this dwindling down to the point of irrelevancy, and that is not what I want.

When so much time passes, I find I don't have a clear single thought to share, but rather a hodge-podge. So forgive the stream of consciousness:

This weekend, the boys, Lester and I took a walk to a day care center opening up in an adjoining neighborhood. The center was having an Open House and when we walked in it looked bright and cheerful, but not one adult -- not one -- addressed the boys or even asked us their names, ages or anything. They seemed to be nice folks, but that was enough to turn me off completely.
So we are going to keep looking for other sites, just in case we don't make it into the pre-school we want to send the boys to when they turn 2. The school, which is also in walking distance, requires that you sign up in October for the following school year, and you get put on a waiting list until February when they announce who made it in. It's a lottery system, so despite the fact that I intend to get our applications in the very day they open up registration, it's totally out of my control as to whether they get in or not. It is quite stressful having things out of my control like that. Did I mention I'm a tiny bit Type A?
If we do get in, we'd only send the boys half days, so that Michelle can have a tiny bit of a break during the day, as opposed to having all three kids all day long. As it is, she'll have all three if someone is sick and can't attend school, and she'll have the whole brood in the summers as well, until the boys are old enough to go to summer camp. So if we can make her life a bit easier during the school year, we really want to try. Especially since we can't afford to pay her the millions she's worth.
I tried on maternity clothes this weekend at Forever 21. Why did I do that? Note to self: Never, EVER do that again.
The boys are saying more and more words, or making the syllable sounds for others. It's incredible how many things they say these days. And they can say (or attempt to say) really big words like, "blueberry," "strawberry," "umbrella," "lawnmower," and "watermelon." (Although many times they sound more like "buh-buh-ruh," "rah-reh-ree," "buh-berra" "mah-mow-wah" and "mal-meh-en.")
Dean is signing "more" like a madman, even when it doesn't really apply. It's like he thinks "more" is the magic word that means, "Get me this thing that I want; do this thing that I want you to do. Right now. Make it happen." And Cary talks incessantly. I'm so glad my boys seem verbal, which I hope translates into big vocabularies and a love of words and language. But sheesh -- I could use some quiet time! And can someone please tell Cary how to use his inside voice? All my attempts are failing miserably.
I have found out in the past month that three of my friends are also pregnant! One is two weeks behind me; one is five weeks behind me and one is about eight weeks behind me. I'm so excited to have buddies! But, of course, all of my pregnant friends only have one baby right now, so they'll be going from one to two, whereas Lester and I are going from two to three. What were we thinking????
Our car seats came in. Now we have to figure out how to install those things. And then get them in, and get our car covers in, not necessarily in that order. Then we have to find some donated car seats to keep in Michelle's car. 'Cause we are NOT buying two more seats. No way, Jose.
The boys turned 16 months on Sept. 11 -- ten years after the horrific terrorist attacks that shook our nation and left so many lives forever altered. The day was a bittersweet one, as I spent a lot of time reading and listening to tributes in the paper and on NPR. I was in tears so much of the day, thinking about the people who lost their lives and the families who have had to find a way to get through life day after day for 10 years. But at the same time, I was celebrating my boys, who are getting bigger and smarter and more and more awesome every day.
It was just a reminder that there is so much in the world to lament -- but also so much to be thankful for.

Countdown to Lameville

2011-09-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

This was a great Labor Day weekend for the Davis family.

1. We got out with the boys every day of the weekend! This is a first for our family!

Saturday, we got up and went to breakfast at a little diner not too far from our house. The boys were really good, and only made minimal messes under their highchairs, and didn't cry, scream or throw utensils. After the diner, we stopped at a playground in our neighborhood and let the boys swing for a few minutes. Lester took Dean down a big-boy slide, and Cary watched a group of men play a pick-up basketball game. Then it was time for nap, and both boys went without fuss, and slept for two to two-and-a-half hours. (Bet you can guess who was up first.)

After their nap, I took the boys to a cookout my brother's girlfriend threw in honor of his being alive (Yay!) and getting better every day. The boys were fine on the way down, but I overstayed my welcome at the cookout and paid for it, both toward the latter part of the cookout, and then on the way home. And since we live an hour and some change away from my family, I paid for a looooong time.

Sunday, we decided to go looking at minivans, because Honda was having a great Labor Day weekend offer on interest rates. This adventure did not turn out as well as our earlier trek out to the diner/playground. The boys had a short first nap for some reason, and had not had a second nap, so they were irritable and unpleasant. We went to one dealership and left after only looking at one car. Lesson learned about bringing twin toddlers to a car dealership and expecting to get anything accomplished.

Monday we took the babies to buy new shoes. I thought their shoes we bought a few months back still fit just fine, but my Mom reminded me at the cookout that babies outgrow their shoes rather quickly. Wouldn't you know Mom was right? The boys' shoes were both size 4, but their feet now measure at 5 (Dean) and 5 and a half (Cary). We went to Stride Rite because Kristie the physical therapist suggested a certain kind of shoe to help Dean's little foot, but let me tell you: That is the LAST time we are going to Stride Rite. The service was wonderful and I'm sure the shoes are the best. But we paid $150 for 4 pairs of BABY shoes, and this was during the store's buy-one-get-one-half-off sale! $150!!!
Never again. Seriously folks. That is insane!

After buying shoes, we ate at Nordstrom Cafe (delicious) and then drove home in the driving rain to greet my parents, who came out for a visit. I was so glad they came because they almost always see the babies (Dean, especially) out of their element, and so don't really know how adorable and pleasant my boys can be when they're comfortable, not sleepy or hungry, and on familiar territory. And just as I predicted, both boys were ADORABLE while Mom and Dad were here. So I was really glad of that. I hate that people think my babies are crankypots all the time. They can be crankypots, true. But 75-percent of the time, they are quite lovely. Darnit.

2. We bought a minivan. Yes, we are officially lame.

While Mom and Dad were here hanging out with us, Lester went to a dealer selling a used Honda Odyssey with pretty low miles and just about all the features we wanted (back-up camera, DVD for the boys, lots o' storage space, etc.) for a reasonable price. He worked his magic, got them to meet most of our terms and, a few hours later came home with the car. It was kinda sad, as I didn't even get to say good-bye to my little CR-V, which I liked a lot. And I still am not used to the idea of being a minivan owner. Where has all my swag gone??

Swag or no swag, we really needed a bigger car with the new addition coming. And truth be told, we needed the bigger car even before. Lester's knees were almost touching the dashboard when he drove, because of the boys' car seats forcing him to pull his seat up so far. And there really was not enough room for all the crap you have to schlep when you have more than one kid. But I did like that little car. Waaaaaaah.

3. We ordered new convertible car seats for the boys.

This is a big deal, as I had done a ton of research and queried a bunch of people (in person and on Facebook) and I still was unsure what to get. So I was pretty sure I'd just put off the decision until it was absolutely necessary. But somehow I made a gametime decision and ordered the Britax Roundabout 55, which got good reviews both from parents and from Consumer Reports.
So the boys will now move from those infant carrier seats (which weighed a TON) to bigger-boy seats, which I hope will make them happier in the car, since they'll be able to see out of the window a little better. We'll still keep them rear-facing for a little while longer, but front-facing is on its way. My boys are growing older. Waaaaaaaah, some more.

In fact, this post isn't really about being lame. I guess if I think about it, it's really about growth.

My boys are growing (even their feet grew). Our family is growing. Even my little vegetables in a pot on my front porch are growing (thanks to all this crazy rain we've been having lately!) And I always thought I was too "cool" to ever drive a minivan, but clearly I have grown up considerably since the days of thinking about what is cool and what is not. (Who even cares anyway?)

All this growth is a wonderful, beautiful thing. So why do I feel just the tiniest bit sad?

News flash!

2011-09-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight, Dean said his first two-word sentence!

He said, "Bye-Bye, Da-Da!"

Exciting!!

Headed out for the long weekend

2011-09-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

But I realized I hadn't blogged in a couple days (it's been crazy at work trying to get a website launched for a client), so I thought I'd leave with a quick thought.

My boys were Super-duper-amazingly-awesome yesterday after work! I could not believe it.

They have been so outrageously cranky and unpredictable lately, that I was starting to believe they were just crankypots by nature. But yesterday, there was not a tear or a scream in sight, they both ate their dinner happily (Cary even asked for more!), they were cracking up at the silliest things all night, they took their baths without TOO much fighting over the toothbrushes and they both slept until 7:45 this morning!

On top of all this, they were lovey and sweet at times, and independent and cute at others, which is what we want our children to be ALL THE TIME, right?

Oh well, I'll take it when I can get it.

We have early voting here in Baltimore and Lester has to work the polls all day until about 8, so I'm on baby-duty alone tonight. So who wants to take bets as to whether Cary and Dean will pull a repeat performance of their all-out loveliness tonight?

The zoo and a Hurricane in one weekend

2011-08-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

I have been MIA for no good reason, other than that I have been hiding in my house, huddled in a corner, wondering what to make of the fact that we had an earthquake and a friggin' hurricane in the same week!

Surely this can mean nothing good!

Actually, neither the quake nor Hurricane Irene did much damage in our little corner of the world, so I'm truthfully thanking God for small blessings, like electricity and gutters that work pretty decently. The hurricane has wreaked havoc in other parts of the East Coast, though, so I have to try to remember to pray for those folks who lost homes, memories, electricity (still!) or even loved ones, in some cases. I also would like to pray that we have an event-free rest of the summer and fall, please. Unlike my mother, who lives for disasters, I am not cut out for them.

Anyway, here's what we've been up to since last we met.

I had Friday off because Michelle had doctor's appointments, so I decided to take the boys to the Maryland Zoo. They've been before, but this was my first time taking them by myself. I imagined a beautiful day, strolling through the zoo, leisurely talking about all the animals, and maybe even treating the boys to soft serve for the first time.

And it WAS a beautiful day -- sunny and clear, albeit a little warmer than I'd expected. All the animals were out (the boys really liked the giraffes) and Dean thought soft serve was the best. thing. ever. (Can't argue with that).

But I had forgotten about one thing: the Maryland Zoo is a sprawling campus of hills, hills and more hills. Pushing 50+ pounds of baby up and down dozens of hills in the heat of the summer, while also being 3 months pregnant?? NOT a good look.
I was huffing and puffing; my legs were aching; my back and neck were hurting; and I seriously considered paying some nice young man to push the stroller back to the zoo entrance for me. That's how desperate I was.

But I managed to make it all the way through! And I felt a real sense of accomplishment. I was exhausted and sweaty and sore afterward, but the boys enjoyed themselves. And since we spent the next two days holed up in the house because of the hurricane, I was really glad we ventured out together.

Just me and my boys.

Bonus: Pics of Cary petting a goat at the zoo. (Dean refused to get out of my arms!)

Here's Cary tentatively approaching the goat.

He's gonna touch him! He's gonna do it! He's smiling! This is so much fun!

And then, he was so confident, he moved on to pet yet another goat! This one's name was Frankie.

I was so proud of my little sweetie! Maybe Dean will try again next time.

The rest of the weekend, as I said, was spent on Hurricane watch. I was supposed to be a single mom this weekend, because Lester had a wedding to go to in Ohio, but he skipped the wedding when the news of the impending hurricane kept getting grimmer and grimmer. I told him he could go to the wedding, and we'd be OK, but he said he just couldn't fathom being so far away from home while his pregnant wife and two baby boys were braving it out in a hurricane without him. And that was also something I couldn't argue with. Plus, I was REALLY glad he was there.

Even though we mostly got a LOT of rain and some VERY scary wind gusts, it turned out to be pretty much only that in our neighborhood. Thank God. But it was really bad elsewhere even just a mile or so away -- downed trees and flying fences and cars being washed away. So, it could have been worse, and if it had've been, it would have been quite difficult without him there. And besides, I just really like having my lovebug around. (Especially when it's rainy and ominous and the boys go to bed and we can cuddle up and watch a movie -- which we did).

The boys were a little freaked out and also fascinated by the intensity of the rain, but they slept peacefully through the night, and by Sunday, things had cleared up considerably, and we even went out on the porch to get some sun and some air.

Overall, we had a good weekend. We survived Hurricane Irene; I survived the obstacle course that is the Maryland Zoo; and life is good in the Davis household.

Thank the Lord.

The Day the Earth Shook and the Boys Were Calm

2011-08-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake hit Virginia, and rocked buildings and homes all up and down the East Coast.

There wasn't much damage (thank God!) but City Hall shut down to inspect the foundation, so Lester got sent home early. I left about a half-hour early, too, and when I got home, my house was empty. Using my training from years of reading Encyclopedia Brown books and watching Matlock and Murder She Wrote, I determined that Lester's car was parked outside, but the little red wagon was missing.

"A-HA!" I thought. "They've gone for a walk!"

So I got in the car and found them headed toward the park.

Encyclopedia, Ben and Jessica would be so proud of me!

Here we are, Mommy!!! :-)

We had a really good time at the park, although I think my boys are still just a tad young for all the equipment. They mostly liked sitting just outside the park on a blanket with us, under a huge shade tree, gathering sticks and rocks and trying to keep their balance walking on uneven surfaces. (Getting a little better!!)

They loved watching all the other children play, and the people walking their dogs in the neighborhood. Cary went crazy watching two boys riding their bikes up and down in front of the park. He kept saying "buk! buk!" and waving his hands in the air excitedly.

Then they discovered a little girl's bike near us on the grass. And it was all over.

This is where they stayed for like 15 minutes, happily exploring every single inch of this bike. Cary even tried to eat the pedals (ewwww!) -- that's how much they love bikes.

When the little girl (who was very sweet) came to retrieve her bike, it was time to go home.

Thankfully, the rest of the night was fairly uneventful. The boys ate next to nothing for dinner (oh well), sailed through their baths, got their meds before we said Good Night prayers, and conked out without a peep.

If that's the chain reaction we get from going to the playground before dinner, I say we go every night!