Lunacy

I am now a little over 30 weeks pregnant. We're inducing at week 39 (and praying and praying that the kid decides to make an even earlier entrance, even if it means having kids with birthdays extremely close to one another) because I had a mutant 9 lb 8 oz child nat-ur-al-ly and even the doctors are all 'um, you know, you really don't need to do that again' and when the doctors are about getting the bun out of the oven early, you listen to them, because mostly they want you to KEEP IT IN. KEEPING IT IN is the big goal of doctors because it's a natural process, and they don't want to mess too much with it.

But then they realize that, hey, that kinda sucks for the woman, and what I mean here, to be slightly less discreet, is that it SCREWS UP THE LADY PARTS. So they offered me the 39 week plan, which means we have less than nine weeks of incubation to go.

Speaking of lady parts, I volunteered at a recent gathering that I did indeed go looking on the internet to get a glimpse of Britney's hoo-ha, and when others asked what it looked like, a friend volunteered that it looked 'tired'. I mean, obviously it's tired, it's attached to Britney, but I don't think that I am anywhere near qualified to judge whether it LOOKED tired, not having seen many in my day. So I've been wondering about that, what it looked like BEFORE. So remind me to thank my friend for THAT thought process.

Pregnancy has been hitting me hard the last few days, though. Sleeping is getting more difficult, with back pains and side pains and where-the-hell-do-I-put-the-boobs pains (I hate them) (A lot). I followed Esposo through the store this morning, he in 'commuter walking mode' (AKA, fast) and I had to remind him to slow down as I waddled after. I attempted to clean or work on Luke's closet organizer and I kept having to take breaks. And people keep telling me that I'm PREGNANT, which is why it's okay to gain so much weight (about 28 pounds now) and not do much. But it doesn't make you feel like less of a lazy slob, especially when crazy nesting hormones kick in.

Bye Bye Nap

Over the Christmas holidays - which lasted three days around here - Luke napped well. Of course, we were with people and visiting for three solid days, and he was up until 10 PM each night, and then we would drive somewhere.

Naptime has been a horrible fight for us lately, ruining the entire afternoon for both of us. We couldn't go anywhere, the process made us both crabby, and I was doing things like driving around the neighborhood to get him to fall asleep. Then, at night going to bed was taking an hour and a half of reading, laying in bed with him, etc etc.

So we dropped the nap. At 22 months. I have friends whose four year olds nap, so I'm a little crabby about that. And yet, after two days, things have improved tremendously around here.

With no big fight over sleep, the afternoons have been better, he's less crabby and seems to play by himself more willingly. And bedtime took twenty minutes of reading and singing, then lights out and he was out. Since Esposo has been dealing with the endless bedtime routine mostly, he gets some time back... hopefully he'll have time to work on the basement then...

And so far, (after only 1.5 nights, though) Luke's sleeping through without crying in the night. Which is also a plus for Esposo and I. Though, of course, I'm up at 3 AM courtesy pregnancy and general insomnia.

And now...

A more accurate representation of their relationship...

My Beautiful Boy

And the dog.

Depress Yourself to a Merry Christmas

Last night, Luke wanted to lay in bed with me as he fell asleep, and Esposo and I let him. As we snuggled, I thought of people who don't have enough to take care of their children - enough food, enough heat, enough shelter. It's the usual take-stock-of-what-you-have-and-be-thankful thought process.

Except I don't ever end there. I thought of The Donner Party, James Kim, and the African AIDS epidemic. I thought of trying to find or hold together your family in the wake of a tsunami. Obviously, these light hearted thoughts made for poor sleeping conditions.

Today I read about people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, and then this little boy, who has been delivered a death sentence.

All this happiness ad joy can make things hard to bear, which is why I try not to see or read news, because I take it all a bit too personally, knowing that there are people suffering intensely right this very minute. I try to respond by enjoying moments with my child WITHOUT thinking (because it may all be yanked from under your feet tomorrow! Or in an hour!). And that makes me panic and hold him and try to SAVOR THE MOMENT! REMEMBER THIS ALWAYS! And then he hits me in the head with a truck, or his head, or slaps me, or generally behaves like the ungrateful toddler he is.

And when we are out in public and older people smile benevolently at Luke (when he's behaving like a human rather than a feces-flinging-Rhesus-monkey) and tell me 'It goes by so fast... It seems like just yesterday...' I'm reduced to the same desperate memory making attempts, because OMIGOD, he's ALMOST TWO, and WHERE DID THE TIME GO!

So, if we could not make those 'Be thankful for what you have' and 'Enjoy your child while he's small' comments, that would be helpful, because Dear Lord I already know and I've got enough pressure trying to SMELL HIS HEAD EVERY DANG DAY.

Quick Anecdotes...

Last night Esposo showed Luke that cars can disappear and be pulled from Luke's ear! And so Luke has been spending time trying to get cars back IN his ear. It's hysterical to us.

Nerds raise nerds - my son knows what a hexagon is.

I was wearing a cleavage shirt (which is hard not to do with the damn mutant pregnancy boobies) and Luke pointed and my cleavage and said decisively 'Mommy yuck'. Thanks for the criticism. Later I was checking out my 28.5 week pregnancy belly in the mirror and he came over and pulled my shirt down. Really, let me know if anything bothers you, kid.

Tonight Esposo pretended to suck toy cars up his nose. Guess who's trying to ram a hot wheel up a nostril?

Shopping...

I'm very excited about my holiday present this year! It's the first ever time I get to dispute a charge on my credit card bill! WHOO! I suppose, considering I got my first credit card four seconds after turning 18 - and was extended a $500 credit line - that it's pretty amazing that I've never had to do this before. Even better, I have the tendancy to misplace my credit cards in various pants, switch purses, my glove compartment - I've put it somewhere stupid innumerable times, been unable to find it, and had a new one issued.

What pisses me off about this is that I recognized as I was being checked out that the total was wrong, confronted the cashier - who laughed and told me to sign anyway because 'haha', it was so much more expensive than I thought, isn't shopping funny? No, twit, you're really $40 over what my bill should be. She called over a manager who SUPPOSEDLY voided the transaction - which I never signed for - and rerung me up. Of course, I got charged both times.

I also ordered someting online last week and had it delivered in just a few days! And then they delivered it again! So now I have two of this item, but they only cahrged me once. Unfortunately it's less than what I was charged by the other non-related error, and it's not something I want two of. So I can't just call it even shopping-karma-wise.

Luke's nightlight went out last night, and he woke at 2:30 in the morning SCREAMING in fear. We'd never heard him scream like that before, an Esposo shot up straight in bed looking ready for a fight. I have new understanding of people who have to deal with night terrors - it's not easy to get back to sleep when you wake up with your heart in your throat.

Toddler Torture

Luke has been sleeping really well for the past few days (furiously knocking on wood here) and has even been going down for his naps reasonably well. Of course, I've resorted to a mild form of torture to get this to happen. Basically, we put Luke in bed. He gets up. We explain to him that if he gets up again, he'll go in the crib. He gets up again. We put him in the crib.

Commence crying. "*sob* Car bed!! *hic* *sob*"

Allow 5-15 minutes to pass. Release toddler from crib, reiterating the point that if he gets out of the car bed, he goes back to the crib. Apparently this is effective punishment to keep him in bed and he falls asleep.

Why

People get their panties in a wad over really stupid things. I was just over reading Dooce and people are sending her hatemail about Organic Free Range Chicken Broth, which she found hysterical a few days ago. It reminds me of the few thousand things I have found hysterical for no particular reason except that AT THAT MOMENT it was the funniest damn thing in the world. The oddest of these (that I remember) would be 'Dammit, Jesus!'.

For some reason, I uttered the phrases 'Dammit!' and 'Jesus!' immediately following each other. And I thought of Jesus as a kid, Mary cursing him out. 'Dammit, Jesus, I told you to wash the dishes!' Jesus as a toddler refusing to put his sandals on. 'Dammit, Jesus, put the damn sandals on! Don't make me tell your father!' Jesus smoking with other boys. Jesus sullenly attending a family gathering. Jesus smarting off to his parents.

It's the whole 'Image of Jesus' in these situations that made me laugh. I mean, JESUS! SON OF GOD! But he was born and made man and all that, and therefore had to go through development as we all do. What were Jesus' awkward years like? Given the herd mentality - and experimental nastiness - of the 11-15 age set, it's pretty hard to picture that JESUS would be tremendously popular among his peers.

I can see how devout Christians would find this offensive, my imagining Jesus in ridiculous situations, day to day situations, acting the way my son and cousins and peers did in childhood. A lot of people found Dooce offensive because she imagined chicken broth free range. If you don't have random thoughts that crack your shit up because of their lunacy? Damn, your life sucks.

Great Day!

Having a lousy midnight whine fest seems to have worked wonders for me today! First of all, Luke has not watched ANY TV today. During the lack-of-sleep-fest that was Tuesday and Wednesday this week, he watched a helluva a lot of Dora and Sesame Street and whatever other crap he watches (I think Thomas and singing round out his shows...) while I whimpered in a corner (or more accurately, on the internet).

Today I did all the laundry, took Luke to a children's museum where he played like a madman for two hours and subsequently passed out on the car ride home, made cookies, and am in the process of making sweet potato biscuits - from scratch - for a side dish for dinner. Three days like this a week and I'd be super mom...

Winter of my Discontent

The transition to winter has always been a rough time for me. I start eating more, going out less, and generally doing less. I neve like the cycle and I can never seem to break it. This winter seems to be starting of even worse than usual with Luke's sleeping issues and my pregnancy tiredness at the forefront. Any semblance of a schedule I try to establish is quickly shot to hell by Tuesday. Here I am now at 12:30, tired, but awake. Dammit.

I'm frustrated because Luke and I haven't gone anywhere this week to develop his active little mind, and yet, the laundry's not done, the house isn't clean, I've only cooked one meal, and I haven't even worked out for ten minutes. I certainly haven't put any real effort into home projects either. What the hell am I doing staying home and not working if I'm not accomplishing any of the goals that I had when I left work?

And yet, the idea of heading to a job I hated every morning at 6:30 is simply an awful thought and I know I'd be in the midst of a crying jag at this time of night about how much it sucked sucked sucked rather than just awake and peevish.

Voice of Doom (Shut Up)

A couple times over the past few years, someone has mentioned that someone in their family has a certain type of cancer or tumor, and while I express sympathy, I think of my experience with that type of cancer of tumor and think - crap, the person died in my case. Of course I don't say anything about this, because that's not anywhere on the list of what people want to hear. Actually, the only thing on the list of what people want to hear is "Hey, look, I found this pill and it says it cures EXACTLY the disease you're dealing with!"

In some instances I really want to express that yes, I know what it's like to watch someone slip downward towards death, but I can't do that, because what if they're not thinking about death? And there's still hoped for their loved one? I feel tongue tied and end up unable to really provide the support I want to.

Death by Insomniac Child

Okay, so things are kind of narrowly focused here topic wise, but then, the child woke up at 4:30 AM. Esposo got up with him until 5:30 and then I took over for awhile. It wouldn't be so bad without the pregnancy insomnia/exhaustion combo that the third trimester has kicked in. There's no getting comfortable at night, and then I just can't fall asleep.

I write all kinds of posts when I'm laying in bed awake, but too tired to get out and type them up, the glare of the computer screen in the middle of the night being too much and all. Of course, by this point with the lack of sleep and the galre of the daytime - which isn't so much a glare at 7:20 AM in the winter as a 30 watt lightbulb, but then, it's all perspective anyway. My perspective is glare.

How to mess with Mommy

So Luke hadn't napped. Hadn't napped. It's 3:15 PM. I'm exhausted and dozing on the couch through Sesame Street while he watches on and off, occasionally chucking something at my head 'Mommy play! Mommy do it!' I begged him, I offered to lay down with him to take a nap, I gave him his cold medicine hoping for drowsiness.

'No! No nap!'

I gave up, made some coffee to wake myself up, went upstairs to hop on the computer and returned five minutes later.

To find him passed out on the couch.

Sleeping

We've been having a lot of issues with Luke sleeping lately, and I'm really seeing how this whole cosleeping thing starts. We put him to bed, and he gets up. Over and over again, for an hour to an hour and a half each night. Unlike on Nanny 911 when they do this, it doesn't get better each night, we're still just putting him back in bed. We'd been doing this for about half an hour last night (this is after a good half hour of reading, too) when I just decided I'd lay down with him for awhile.

Fifteen minutes later he was asleep without having gotten out of bed once while I laid there with him.

What we'd really like to do is train the dog to lay in bed with him, but she's actually part of his sleeping problem since she likes to chase the cats in the middle of the night, and she runs like a 150 pound great dane.

To say that I'm worried about my sleep come March would be an understatement.