It's been so long without an update!

And this isn't even a real update. It's basically some bullet points.

Today, Gabe said three of the greatest things he's ever said, and I'm mostly writing this update just to document them. Here they are:

1. Gabe's current favorite activity is jumping on the bed (so much that he has actually broken our 1. bed, for real). This afternoon we were all sitting on the couch together, and Gabe said, "I want to go on the bed!" Matt said, "Hey dude, why don't you jump on the couch instead?" Gabe turned to him, a look of total incredulity on his face, and said, "No! That's too safe!" Then he stormed from the room, presumably in the direction of the bed.
2. Later today, we were discussing mommies and daddies. Specifically, Matt and I were explaining how his grandparents were our parents. He seemed to struggle with this, and said, "Grammy is my mommy?" When I explained that no, Grammy is actually my mommy, and Grandbob is my daddy, he grinned and said, "Oh! That's FAB-YOU-LESS!"
3. This evening I bathed Tessa, dressed her in her jammies, and brought her over to say good night to her brother and her dad. They were in the bathroom brushing Gabe's hair after his bath. I held Tessa up for a kiss, and Gabe, totally unprompted, leaned in, stroked her head, and whispered, "I love you, Tessa." Then he looked at himself in the mirror and grinned, clearly pleased and admiring himself. "What a politician," commented Matt. This from the man who was nicknamed "The Senator" by his law school class.

In Tessa news, I am sort of surprised to announce that Tessa is a wonderful eater. Whereas Gabe used to cry and gag and wrench his head away from the spoon, she opens her mouth as wide as she can and smiles and slurps. She finished an entire two-ounce serving of pureed apples tonight. It's amazing. It's much more in line with how I always imagined feeding a baby should be. Solids have been great fun so far, and enjoyed by all. And she has the delicious baby thighs to show for it.

I would write more but we sold the condo (THANK YOU REAL ESTATE GODS) and so I must go pack a box, then stress out for a while about how I haven't packed enough, then maybe have some wine, and go to sleep so I can have some moving stress dreams.

Two

Gabe Is Two! from Erin Matzkin on Vimeo.

Sleeping Beauty Update

Nap time this afternoon: five minutes of whining before falling asleep. Not even real crying, just some fussing and complaining and whatnot.

Bedtime this evening: five minutes, thirty seconds of whining before falling asleep. (That last thirty seconds almost broke me, if I'm being honest. Just as I was walking in to get her I realized she'd gone silent.)

To sum up: total freak show easy-going-to-bed-style baby. Let's just see if it lasts.

Oh, oh, and I totally forgot to mention, she rolled over for the first time ever today! I clapped for her, I was so excited! (I am lame.)

In other news, Gabe turns two tomorrow. I will probably cry because my little baby boy is not a baby anymore! He's officially a big guy now! And I will blame the crying on postpartum hormones. So there.

Status Update

Tessa statistics, three-month check-up:
Height: 23 inches (40th percentile)
Weight: 11 pounds, 6.5 ounces (25th percentile)
Head: 15 centimeters (5th percentile, pea head)
Favorite saying: "Ahh-goo!"
Best new trick: Big, big grins and a noise that might be laughter.
Other notes: Residual cough/congestion from RSV is continuing to abate, thank goodness.



Gabe statistics (no check-up until next month):
Height: Unknown, but growing out of current pants size. Longer pants needed.
Weight: 25 pounds exactly, according to my bathroom scale.
Head: Unknown, but probably pea head.
Favorite saying: This one is a tie between "I want my want." and "I want no jacket, Mommy." (Stated decisively, on his way out the front door on a cold day.)
Best new trick: Singing all of "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed," complete with hand gestures.
Other notes: Refused to eat a vanilla sprinkle cupcake from Susie Cakes the other day. Had I not been there when he came into this world, I would not believe he is actually my genetic child.



To sum up, all is well this week.

I have about four seconds to write before the baby wakes up.

True story from this morning:

Tessa is eating, and making her typical little baby grunts and smacks while she eats (very ladylike, my daughter!). Gabe comes and sits beside us on the couch.
"Who's oinking?" he asks in his best sing-song voice. "Who's like a piggy? Baby sister Tessa is like a piggy!"

I would have disagreed with him but the fact is that Tessa gained almost a pound last week. A pound in a week! I didn't even know such a thing was possible for a tiny baby!

What a delicious little piggy. She is sweet like a scone. A scone with a lopsided smile, that is.


This smiling business is a wonderful, fabulous change from a few weeks ago. I still feel a mad rush of panic and fear every time we are out in public and someone coughs, or sneezes, or gets too close when admiring the baby ("Don't breathe on her," I want to hiss). She's looking and sounding better and stronger every single day, and I have high hopes that we will never see the inside of a PICU again, ever, ever, ever. She is such a lovely baby.

In other news, we are in the middle of remodeling the kitchen and one bathroom, and our condo is sort of a disaster at the moment. I hope to be able to blog on a more regular basis when the destruction and rebuilding are complete. We'll see.

In which I am exhausted

Newsflash: having a newborn baby come and live at your house means you will be very, very tired. Bonus newsflash: if you have a toddler who already lives at your house, and then you add a newborn baby to the mix, it means you will be so tired you can hardly see straight. Literally. As in, last night my eyes wouldn't really focus and I ran into a door frame so hard that I am sporting a sizable bruise on my hip. I swear, that doorframe jumped up at me out of nowhere.

In lieu of an actual blog entry, please accept this very long video of Gabe singing most of the ABCs, followed by his rousing and enthusiastic rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.



Oh wait, I do have one thing to add. The Canadian ice dancing team won the Olympic gold medal last night. The woman ice dancer's name is Tessa Virtue (for real). We tried to pick something not terribly common for our kid's name, and now I am convinced that every other baby girl born in Canada in the next few months will be named Tessa, because those Canadians are pretty fired up about the ice dancing gold. Awesome.

Lazy Morning

By some miracle, Tessa is napping in a location other than my arms! I should undoubtedly be using this precious, precious free time to be folding the laundry in the dryer, or writing a myriad of overdue thank you notes, or perhaps sleeping myself.

But I just can't resist squandering the time by posting this picture:


We have a somewhat similar picture of Gabe and Magnum taken when he was just about this age. But in that shot, Magnum looks much more dubious. Here, see for yourself:


See the suspicious look in his lazy, lazy cat eyes?

By now Magnum is kind of over the whole baby thing. He'll probably get interested in Tessa when she's old enough to eat real people food and drop bites on the floor for him. That's about when he decided Gabe was OK and we could keep him.

Teeny Tiny Tessa

Tessa Paige
Born January 25, 2010
9:42 p.m.
7 pounds, 11 ounces
19 1/2 inches
Beautiful.

Much to my surprise, I had the baby a week before my scheduled c-section. I totally brought this upon myself, because on the morning of January 25th my good friend J called to check in on me, and I told her something to the effect of, "I am the greatest baby incubator ever. This kid will never come out on her own; she will have to be forcibly removed." Approximately five hours later, I was in full-blown labor.

That's right, around 3:00 in the afternoon I started having contractions. Bad ones. Painful ones. Contractions so sharp I could not speak until they passed. And they were close together, too, varying from about eight minutes to about four minutes apart. After about a half-hour of watching me moan, my mother, who was spending the day with me, started giving me the side-eye and suggested I call my doctor, to which I responded, "I'm not in labor. These are just more Braxton Hicks, and they'll go away." Then I doubled over as another one hit.

The whole thing was made almost comical because of the two twenty-something-year-old workmen who were in my house installing a massive wall unit (a combo desk/TV stand/storage cabinet). Let me tell you, nothing instills fear in the heart of a twenty-three year-old guy like a woman in labor. These poor people could not get the wall unit finished fast enough, and spent most of the afternoon looking at me in poorly disguised panic and screwing pieces together as quickly as their hands could possibly manage.

After an hour of contractions coming five minutes apart, I broke down and called Dr. M. "I think you should come into Labor and Delivery to be monitored," he said .

"I don't want to," I replied, as my mother glared at me with disapproval. "This baby is supposed to stay in there another week."

"OK..." said Dr. M, sounding surprised and possibly a bit annoyed. "Well, in that case, drink a lot of water and put your feet up, and if they don't go away in another hour call me back. You'll have to come in then."

So I did as he said, and while they didn't go away, they did seem to slow down and ease up a bit. "See," I told my mom smugly around 4:30 p.m. "I told you it was false labor." Then I doubled over as another contraction hit.

By 6:30 p.m. the contractions were coming every five minutes apart or sooner, and they were more powerful. I broke down and agreed with my mom that perhaps I should be checked. "After all," she said, "would you rather be checked now, or at 3:00 a.m. if they don't go away?" She had a good point. So I called the doctor's office, called my husband and told him to start heading home just in case, grabbed a book and a sweater, and my mom and I headed over to the hospital.

I felt sort of embarrassed heading into the L&D wing, and I apologized to the nurse right away. "I'm so sorry to cause trouble," I told her as she strapped a fetal heart monitor and contraction monitor around my belly. "I really think it's just false labor, and you'll be sending me home in a couple of hours."

She smiled and switched on the contraction monitor, which immediately displayed a contraction registering about an eight on a scale from one to ten. I stared at it in shock. Then the three of us, the nurse, myself, and my mom, watched as about two minutes later another contraction showed on the monitor, also about an eight. "I don't think I'll be sending you home tonight," said the nurse.

Sure enough, about thirty minutes later another nurse, named Sarah (and possibly one of the ten greatest people I have ever met in my life), confirmed that although I was only about one centimeter dilated, I was in labor for real and Dr. M and Dr. D were on their way to the hospital. "You're going to have the baby tonight," said Sarah. "You're scheduled for next week anyway, and the baby is full term and healthy, so there's no reason not to deliver you now."

At this point, I remember feeling:
1. Scared.
2. Cold.
3. Really sad that I hadn't had a chance to kiss Gabe goodbye since I'd now be admitted to the hospital for four to five days.
4. Sort of relieved that I wouldn't have to spend the next week obsessing about the upcoming surgery.
5. Vaguely alarmed that Matt was stuck in traffic on the 101 freeway.

That's right, Matt came thisclose to missing the birth because he and Gabe were stuck in rush hour traffic. Only the amazing Sarah prevented this from happening by telling the doctor we had to wait for the father because he had my suitcase with the cord blood kit. (Yes, we left my house in such a rush, and I was so convinced that I was not in labor, that I left the house carrying only my purse and a book, and left my halfway-packed hospital bag at home.)

But thank goodness the doctors agreed to wait and push back the surgery half an hour, and Matt arrived at about 8:50 just as they were preparing to wheel me down the hall for the 9:00 start time. I don't know if I've ever felt such relief in my whole life as I felt when he walked through the hospital room door.

The surgery itself is a bit of a blur, for which I am thankful. I remember that the lovely anesthesiologist had trouble getting my spinal in, which hurt, and that immediately upon it taking effect I freaked out and briefly fainted, and that I threw up quite a bit because I hadn't fasted for the requisite twelve hours pre-surgery. But mostly what I remember is that they didn't bring the baby over to us immediately like they did when Gabe was born.

Tessa was born at 9:22 (although someone wrote down 9:42 on her hospital records, so there will forever be confusion regarding her real time of birth), and she took a big lungful of amniotic fluid before she came out into the world. After she was born Dr. M briefly held her up so we could see her, then whisked her off to the team of doctors in the corner, who began to work to clear the fluid out of her lungs. They had to put tubes down her throat and down her nose, and they worked on her for over two hours. During the rest of my surgery I could periodically hear her cough and cry, but it wasn't the big, lusty, angry cries that Gabe had made when he was born.

Matt was a champion and walked back and forth between Tessa and the doctors and me to give me updates on her condition. The doctors repeatedly assured us that nothing was seriously wrong and this was not unusual, and that she would be just fine, but I've seen the pictures Matt took while they worked on her and they are awful. I remember lying on the operating table and vacillating between focusing on not passing out and not throwing up, and then focusing on how utterly terrified I was that something was seriously wrong with my baby.

Thank heavens, it appears that nothing was seriously wrong. I was eventually moved to recovery and Tess was wheeled to the nursery for more monitoring. Matt went with the baby, and my parents and Matt's parents came in to see me while we all waited for updates. Sarah continued to tell me that all was well, and she was proven right sometime around midnight when they finally declared Tessa to be breathing nicely on her own, and allowed her to be sent to me in the hospital room.

My beautiful, beautiful daughter.

She has been sleeping and eating like a champ and is gaining weight nicely. I love her. I love her so very much.

And to end this post on a high note, here is a list of amusing things that have happened since her birth:

1. On my third day in the hospital, Gabe woke up in his crib and asked for me when my mom came in to get him. She explained to him that I still wasn't home. His face fell, and he said, "My heart is broken." Lest you think his heart was permanently broken, I can report that three minutes later he asked to dance to the Chipmunks movie soundtrack.

2. When we got home and gave him his new ukulele, he looked at it and cried, "Oh me goodness! Holy cow!"

3. He has only said "All done baby sister" about a dozen times so far, which is better than I expected.

In short, all is well. Life is full of wonder and we are so blessed.

It must be this crazy weather.

We had a bit of a rough evening here. Gabe did that awesome toddler thing where he would intentionally create a small disaster, and then while I was cleaning it up, he would relocate and create another small disaster. For example, he refused his dinner in a definitive manner (he threw part of it on the floor), then while I was cleaning up dinner, he got into the pantry and managed to create a small shower of Rice Krispies in one corner of the kitchen. Then, while I was cleaning that up, he got a mostly-empty Diet Coke can out of the recycling bin, some orange peels out of the trash can, and combined the two decidedly icky items to make a very sticky art project in the opposite corner of the kitchen floor.

Wheeee.

Just when I was feeling super exhausted and approaching the end of my rope (and huge to boot - I look like a cartoon character with my ginormous belly), it was bedtime. We did our normal bedtime routine of milk and stories and rocking, and then I dimmed the light. We cuddled in the rocking chair for a few minutes when Gabe suddenly hugged me very, very tightly and said, in his sleepy voice, "I got you. Doan worry. I got you."

Much to my surprise I felt tears in my eyes. (Damn pregnancy hormones.) I hugged him just as tightly and said, "I got you too, baby." Then, after a moment or two, I settled back in the chair to rock more easily.

He was not having that. He grabbed my wrist and placed my hand on his back, where it had been during the hugging a minute before. "More hand, Mommy. More hand."

"Of course, baby," I replied, tears blurring my vision now. "Of course." He nuzzled his chin into my chest, curled his body around my belly as best he could, and thirty seconds later he was fast asleep.

Orange peels, Diet Coke, chicken, Rice Krispies all on the floor...all forgotten. It sometimes astonishes me how very much I love that little person.

Books, etc.

I keep seeing all these blog posts where people have committed to reading 50 books in 2010, or even 75 books in 2010. I could get that done no problem, assuming "Meet the Gabba Gang" with Yo Gabba Gabba counts towards my total. If you count "Professor Wormbog and the Search for the Zipparump-a-Zoo" then I am well on my way to 100 books and it's only January.

(Off-topic note: I went on Amazon.com today to try and buy a copy of Professor Wormbog for a friend's child, only to discover it is out of print and worth $125.00. One hundred twenty five dollars, people. Clearly I should not let Gabe be touching our copy with his grimy applesauce hands, ever ever ever.)

So I rule at reading books. I kind of fail at blogging though. I kind of fail at a lot of things related to motherhood these days, including:

• Uploading/organizing Christmas and Hanukkah pictures. I have not done any of this. I haven't even looked at them to delete the bad ones. Instead, the approximately 658 pictures we took throughout the holidays are merely cluttering up every single one of our memory cards, thus ensuring that if Baby #2 decides to make an early arrival there will be absolutely no way to document the momentous event. MEMORY CARD FULL, you know. That's what we will tell her.
  
• Organizing Baby #2's room. This one is not strictly my fault, as we are waiting on some minor construction on the condo to be finished. It's scheduled to wrap up January 25th, which gives me five full days to assemble the baby's room. Don't say I don't plan ahead. Because clearly, I timed this one with excellent precision.
  
• Convincing Gabe to brush his teeth in any sort of effective manner. I live in constant terror that he's going to be the only two-year-old ever with cavities. The toothbrush spends approximately twelve seconds in his mouth, and then twelve minutes "cweaning walls. I cweaning." It's gross.
  

In better news, here are some things I am good at:

• Having heartburn.
  
• Growing a really gigantic baby. Seriously, at my 35 week appointment last Monday the ultrasound technician told me the baby was estimated to weigh in around 7 pounds, 3 ounces. Dr. M predicts a nine-pounder if I continue at this rate. (!!!) Then he laughed heartily about how her head was measuring huge and I was lucky I was scheduled for a repeat c-section. Ha ha.
  
• Throwing up. (Sorry. Pregnancy is not pretty, kids.)
• Frantically trying to wrap up projects at work since this Friday is my last day before maternity leave, several of which I am behind on because I have spent too much time at work staring out the window and daydreaming about/mooning over upcoming baby. (Not doing anything practical like ordering newborn sized diapers or onesies, mind you. Just mooning.)
  
• Laughing until I cry when Gabe says "Peace out, friends" and flashes a peace sign at his teachers and classmates as we leave daycare. (I have some stellar video of this action, but putting it into this post would of course involve me actually, you know, uploading some video, and clearly that's not going to happen tonight.)

OK. Must go to sleep now. Will try to do better. I probably won't, because of the newborn coming to live at my still-under-construction house, but I promise to try. Peace out, friends.

Thankful

I am thankful for so many things this year. The health of my friends and family, my amazing husband, my relatively easy and low-risk pregnancy, my joyful, wonderful son.

My son. My son is thankful for Kanye West.

Gabe is at that stage of toddlerhood where he craves repetition: he wants the same book read over and over, the same food for dinner every night, the same song on the car ride home played on repeat. For the past couple of weeks, the song he wants is Kanye's "Gold Digger".

He sits in his carseat, usually clutching a cracker in one hand, and demands, in increasingly insistent tones, "Gol DIGGA! Gol DIGGA! GOL DIGGA!" And then when I play it for him (as I inevitably do) he cackles with laughter. He especially likes the part where Kanye cries, "We want prenup!" He usually claps at that part.

I have only myself to blame for this, as I was the one who played it for him once on my iPod and pointed out the drums at the beginning of the song. (Gabe likes drums.) I did not realize what I was starting. But as I listened to the song five times in a row on the way home this evening, I didn't feel even a little bit annoyed, at myself or at Gabe, or even at Kanye. I just felt grateful.

I mean, the child could have picked up his dad's propensity for Radiohead. That would have been way worse.

Houston, We Have a Problem

It turns out Gabe has a jealous streak. A serious jealous streak. When I arrived at school on Friday afternoon to pick him up, he was cheerfully playing with a drum and could barely be bothered to look up and say hi to me. So I sat down on the grass beside him and watched the drumming, amused at my musical son. After I had been sitting for about, oh, eighteen seconds, three other children from his class came and sat down on my lap. One sat right in the middle, and the other two perched on each of my knees. It was absolutely charming and I loved it. Of course, I have known these children since they were only a few months old, and it amuses me to no end that they are now walking, talking little people.

After a minute or two Gabe looked up from his drum-playing to see his friends sitting on my lap, and he was not amused. Not one little bit. He stood up, threw the drum to the ground, and ran the whole distance between us (approximately five feet) in just a few seconds, shouting, "No! Mine! Move!" and then trying to push his tiny friends off of my lap. "No! Mine! Move!" he cried, getting more and more frustrated.

I scooped him up in my arms rather awkwardly, not wanting to dislodge his friends (who showed absolutely no signs of moving and looked utterly unperturbed by his protests), and managed to hold him sort of against the side of my body as I explained that yes, I was indeed his mommy but there was room for everyone to sit and it's nice to share and we don't push our friends ever no we do not push.

I would write this off as an isolated incident, but it wasn't and it's not. He doesn't like me to hold other babies or toddlers or kids. Ever ever ever. In the past week he has been angry about my holding: (i) his cousin P; (ii) our friends' two-month-old son; (iii) our friends' one-year-old daughter; and (iv) Gabe's friend L who is three and who we regularly see for playdates. His protests are always some version of the aforementioned "No! Mine! Move!" (He will sometimes mix it up by locking eyes with me, pointing towards the offending child in my arms, and declaring "All done! All done!")

I think poor Gabe is in for a very rude awakening come February 1. And I have no idea what to do about it. And as much as I am thrilled and excited for baby number two, I feel so terribly guilty about how it is going to affect Gabe. I hope he can learn to love his sibling. People do this all the time, right? Someone please reassure me that I am not actually ruining his life by giving him a sibling.

OK, enough of that whining. Please feast your eyes on Gabey the Pooh! (Halloween was excellent. Gabe tasted his first bite of chocolate and ate an entire roll of Smarties candy. It may have been the greatest day of his life.)

Popularity

Gabe has become quite the ladies' man these days, at least as far as the preschool set is concerned. When I picked him up from school one day a couple of weeks ago, his teacher met me at the door. "I have a story for you," she said with a big smile on her face.

She told me about how she was playing outside with Gabe and some of the other children in his class when three of the preschool-aged girls from the Tigers class came by to say hello (as Gabe's teacher is their former teacher, and the big kids all seem to enjoy checking in on the little kids and their old classrooms). One of the preschool girls glanced at Gabe, then clasped her hands and declared, "Oh...he's mine." Then she gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Can I take him home?" she inquired politely.

"Oh, I don't know about that," replied the teacher. "I think we'll have to ask his mommy."

The little girl frowned. "I don't want to ask him mommy. I just want to take him home. He's mine now."

This went on for a while, with the teacher explaining she couldn't just take him, and the little girl insisting that she wanted to, and apparently the whole incident ended with all three of the little girls kissing Gabe goodbye and telling him they'd see him later.

And see him later they did. After coming by to check on him several more times in the following weeks, the ringleader brought her mommy by to meet Gabe last week. "Can we take him home?" she asked her mommy. "Please?"

I am told that when she was told no, Gabe had to go home with his own mommy and daddy who loved him very much, the little girl was quite put out. But she still frequently stops by to tell him hi and give him hugs and kisses.

Gabe, as you might imagine, eats this up. He will cheerfully sit in a circle of older women (well, four year olds, at least) and be petted and hugged and told how cute he is for twenty solid minutes, which is a long time when you're one and a half.

In fact, I have recently realized that he is happy to be admired (whether by family members, preschool girls, or complete strangers) no matter what the circumstances. This weekend we took him to a pumpkin patch to buy a pumpkin and test drive his Halloween costume, and he was very, very pleased by all the of the strangers who stopped to tell him how adorable he looked (and he really did look adorable in his dinosaur costume, make no mistake about that). He basically preened.

I have no witty conclusion to this story, other than to say he may be in for a rude awakening when the new baby arrives and he is forced to occasionally share the spotlight. Poor Gabe!

And on that note, I have to mention that the new baby had hiccups yesterday. It's the first time I've felt that odd, rhythmic movement during this pregnancy, and made me tear up a little bit. They were tears of joy and sudden remembrance. Until that moment I don't think I'd remembered just how miraculous those baby hiccups feel. And how could I have forgotten, when I was pregnant with Gabe so recently? What else have I forgotten, and what else might I forget? This most incredible time in my life is whizzing by much, much too quickly. So I sat in my desk chair with one hand on my tummy and thought to myself, "Remember this. Remember this. Remember this."

Oh, I hope I do. Maybe writing this will help freeze that feeling in my mind. I hope it does.

In which I am sick...

I have The Black Plague, I think. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what's wrong with me. Gabe continues to be remarkable and funny and probably a genius, and Version 2.0 kicks and kicks and kicks (and she is STILL a girl, according to the ultrasound I had last Friday, woo hoo!), so that is all good news even if I am suffering from The Black Plague.

Please distract yourselves with this recent concert video while I go moan and cough and generally feel sorry for myself. (I would post some of the ultrasound photos as an additional distraction and also to give equal love to both children, but the only shots we got last Friday are of the baby's terrifying skull face, and I will spare you those scary images.)

Halfway There!

20 weeks! 20 weeks! Oh my goodness, the time is flying by!

But before I get to that, I must tell you that Gabe is so awesome. This evening he was splashing around happily in his bathtub with a toy fish when he suddenly stood up and looked me straight in the eyes. (And that kid knows the rule that we only sit down on our bottom in the bathtub because it is dangerous to stand! Dangerous!) "You need to sit down, baby," I said.

"Hug!" he replied. "Hug!" And then he held out his arms and gave me a big, giant, wet bathtub hug. And then he cheerfully sat down and resumed playing with the toy fish. My heart practically cracked open with mushy toddler love.

About a half hour later it was bedtime, and as I laid him down in the corner of his crib where he likes it the best, he looked up at me and said, "Eye-of you," which of course means "I love you."

"I love you too, baby," I said, heart bursting all over again. "Good night."

"Night night," he replied, already half asleep.

Does it get any better than a toddler at sixteen months old? Don't even try to tell me that it does, because I don't believe you.

But back to our original subject...20 weeks! 20 weeks! I read that second pregnancies tend to go much more quickly, perhaps because most second-time mommies are too preoccupied with chasing around their already-born children to spend a whole lot of time stroking their pregnant bellies and contemplating the miracle of life within, etc.

But 20 weeks! Halfway! (And actually, I'm more than halfway if Dr. M wins our ongoing argument and convinces me to schedule the c-section for 39 weeks.) How did this happen? It seems like I just got that positive pregnancy test about five minutes ago, and yet somehow I am at the point where I feel the baby move every day. Plus they're starting to feel like real kicks rather than just tiny little taps and flutters. It's so great. (Although you know what's not great? Puking. Time to go away, morning sickness. No one wants you here, and you have seriously overstayed your welcome.)

I have my structural ultrasound with the perinatologist next Friday, and I am really looking forward to getting a peek at the little lamb chop. Although I still suspect she's really a boy. I'm actually glad we're getting a second opinion from this doctor, because as much as I love Susan, I still cannot bring myself to believe that we're having a girl. It's just too much, too exciting. Too much joy.

XX

The new baby is a girl.

A girl!

A GIRL!

I could not have been more surprised if the ultrasound technician had told me I was having a unicorn.

As Matt and I headed into my appointment on Friday morning I was overcome with a sudden feeling of doubt and worry. "I don't want to go," I said to him.

"We don't have to," he replied.

I shrugged my shoulders, and in we went.

Our favorite technician, whose name is Susan, smiled to welcome us and tell us she was going to do the ultrasound, which immediately made me feel better. "How far along are you?" she asked as we walked into the exam room.

"A little over sixteen weeks," I replied.

"Big day! Are you ready to find out what you're having?"

A boy, I thought to myself. As if there's any doubt. For months now I have dreamed of myself as a mother to three boys. But I simply said, "Yes, we're ready," and hopped up onto the table.

She laughed and joked with us a bit during the beginning, as she rolled the transducer over my belly. She showed us the brains, the kidneys, the stomach with fluid in it (which she said was a good thing), and the four chambers of the heart. She turned on the volume and let us listen to the heartbeat, which I love so so much.

Then she laughed and said, "The baby's sleeping, and the legs are crossed. But don't worry, I don't give up easy." And she didn't. She spent the next several minutes poking the baby (and me) with the transducer and coaxing the baby to roll over and examining the little butt and legs from every angle she could manage. After a few minutes of silence she said, "I know what it is, but I want to look around a little more to be sure."

During this entire time I craned my neck and examined the swooshing images on the screen to look for the (I thought inevitable) penis. I kept thinking I could see glimpses of it, but Susan never managed a perfectly clear shot. Finally at one point I was sure I saw it. With a jolt of combined elation and the most minute bit of disappointment (I know, I know, I am a terrible person and should be thanking the Heavens for my good fortune at being pregnant with a second child, not selfishly wishing for a girl), I exhaled and said, "Oh, there it is! I know! It's a boy, right? I see the penis!"

Susan, flicked her eyes away from the screen for a brief second and said to me, "No, you don't." Matt started to laugh. "It's a girl," she declared. "You're having a girl."

That is when I started to cry, tears of happiness and utter disbelief streaming down my cheeks.

A girl. A little girl!!! I laughed and cried, Matt hugged and kissed me, Susan congratulated us both and continued to smile and joke while she took measurements of our gorgeous little baby girl. Who looks perfectly healthy, which is of course the most important thing of all. She is growing right on schedule and appears to have long legs and eventually she woke up long enough to move around a bit and show us her breathtakingly beautiful profile. (Well, beautiful for an ultrasound image, that is.) She weighs approximately six ounces and is the size of an avocado.

At the end of the exam I asked Susan, "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," she replied. "I know my girls," and then she typed "FETUS IS FEMALE" on the report for my doctor. "There," she said, "it's official."

I am shocked and thrilled and almost overcome with joy and gratitude. Gabe will be a big brother to his little sister. I cannot think of any way to say this that doesn't sound trite: we are so lucky and blessed.

Sometimes it's hard to love the cat.

This evening as Gabe and I were going through our cozy bedtime ritual, I walked him over to his crib to take out the decorative stuffed animals (as placed there by the decorators who staged our home which STILL HAS NOT SOLD ahhhhh am losing my mind from the noise of the vacuum and the fumes from the kitchen cleaners which I use EVERY DAMN DAY), I noticed something highly unpleasant.

Our cat, who has been acting up a bit ever since Gabe started walking in earnest, had peed in the crib.

CAT PEE IN THE CRIB.

The bad, bad, bad cat also managed to pee all over Gabe's lovey lion blanket (a very soft, sweet, small blanket with a lion's head sewn on one corner). I was horrified. I am still horrified, several hours later.

So rather than rock Gabe in the glider chair and lay him down gently to sleep as had been my plan thirty seconds earlier, I was forced to strip the crib and and put on a clean mattress pad and sheets. Thank goodness for the waterproof mattress pads that I bought in bulk when Gabe was a newborn. That purchase represents a rare moment of lucidity in the midst of several highly sleep-deprived weeks.

Also, thank goodness we have a backup lovey blanket.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

Gabe has slept with his lovey lion blanket since he was a very little guy. It's organic and made from breathable fabric and it's quite small, so even though I was absolutely terrified of SIDS (and undoubtedly will be again for Version 2.0), the lovey lion blanket never worried me much. Shortly after Gabe began sleeping with the lovey lion, we received a nearly identical blanket as a gift. It's exactly the same, except it has (you guessed it smart readers!) a bear's head on the corner.

I've offered Gabe the bear blanket on a few occasions in the past, usually when the lion was in the wash, and he accepted it without protest.

Not tonight.

Tonight I got him all snuggled down in his crib and handed him the lovey bear. He took it happily, then frowned and sat up to get a better look at it. He examined the blanket, looked at me with raised eyebrows, looked back at the blanket, then smelled the blanket. He turned to me with a very serious expression on his face, extended his arm to show me the blanket, and said, "Uh oh!"

Clearly, not fooled. Not for a minute.

After some serious negotiations he accepted his Elmo doll and DaDoh the gingham stuffed lion as substitutes, and seriously, I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't taken them. I had a few moments of something close to panic as I tried to imagine how I would get him to sleep without the cat-pee-soaked lovey lion. We have an allegedly high efficiency washing machine and dryer, and those damn things take an hour each to run a full cycle, so tossing the lovey lion in for a quick wash was not a good option.

Lucky for me, I have the greatest baby in the whole entire world, and he cheerfully settled down with Elmo tucked under one arm and DaDoh tucked under the other, and was out cold in mere minutes.

Lovey lion is in the wash now, and should be good as new in a couple of hours.

But what am I going to do about the cat?

Self-Aware

Yesterday afternoon I was speaking with a co-worker in the hallway outside my office. At one point during our conversation I leaned against the wall and oh-so-casually put my hands in the back pockets of my pants. Then I grimaced a little bit. It turns out that at some point yesterday morning Gabe handed me his graham cracker, which I absentmindedly put in one of the back pockets. I then proceeded to, you know, sit down in my car and in my desk chair for most of the day, reducing the graham cracker remnants to graham cracker dust. Let me just tell you, it is hard to carry on a serious hallway conversation about patent indemnity with graham cracker crumbs under your fingernails. But I must say, finding that cracker in my pocket made me feel like a real mom. Only real moms take partially-chewed food and put it in their pockets like it's no big deal.

Just as I am now aware of my status as a real mom, Gabe is now aware that he is "Gabe." Or as he pronounces it, "GEEB!" I find this to be a truly thrilling development. Matt and I spent a gleeful ten minutes this morning having him say his name over and over.

I have a beautiful silver charm bracelet from Planet Jill that I received as a Christmas gift from my parents last year. On it are two circular charms that contain tiny photographs of Gabe: one taken when he was a newborn, still in the hospital, and one taken when he was six months old. (This reminds me that I really should get another charm with a current photograph.) Anyhow, tonight while he was eating dinner, Gabe noticed the charm bracelet for the first time ever, and suddenly sat straight up in his booster chair to declare, "GEEB! GEEB! GEEB!" while pointing at the six-month photo of himself. He even got his grubbly little hands on the charm, which again, made me feel like a real mom. Only real moms have macaroni and cheese residue on their jewelry.

Now, unrealted to any of the above, please enjoy some pictures of GEEB! eating many, many strawberries at the farmers' market last weekend. He tried to eat them husks and all, in case you were curious. (More proof that I am a real mom. Real moms very coolly and calmly pry strawberry husks out of their toddlers' mouths in public.)

Mmmmm, delicious strawberry husks.

They are so delicious that I will do a little dance!

I know what you're thinking, and yes, I agree that I do look quite handsome in this hat.

Night Night

We have the nicest little bedtime routine, Gabe and I. When it's getting late enough, Gabe gets a clean diaper and a clean pair of PJs, and we lower the blinds in his bedroom to make the room feel nice and cozy. Then we settle into the big soft glider chair in his room with a bottle (the only bottle he gets nowadays, which he drinks with unbridled enthusiasm) and a stack of picture books. Then we read and read and read until he begins to rub his eyes. Next is the best part: we turn the lights down very low and cuddle in the glider and rock and rock and rock until he is nice and sleepy. Then it's kisses and hugs and time to go to sleep in the crib.

Tonight while we were rocking, when I suspected Gabe was beginning to drift off to sleep, he nuzzled his head a little deeper into the crook of my arm and said, "Mommy." Then he looked up at me, straight into my eyes, and said, "Happy." Then he nuzzled back down and let out the most contented sigh I have ever heard.

This ranks in the top ten moments of my life, for sure.

I love our routine so much, and I really, truly hope I can figure out some way to continue it after baby #2 is born early next year.

That's right, I'm pregnant again. Like, really pregnant. Fourteen weeks. That's officially second trimester and everything.

I've been trying to muster up the enthusiasm to write a "Hooray I'm Knocked Up Again Hooray Hooray!" post for literally weeks now, because Matt and I are over-the-moon excited, but quite obviously this post has not happened. I blame: (1) my full-time job, which seems to be more full-time than ever, if such a thing is possible; (2) my toddler, who only walks now (no crawling!) and is trying to figure out how to run; (3) the killer fatigue of early pregnancy, which I somehow managed to block out from last time around (although I really should have remembered the multiple times I flat-out fell asleep at my desk at work during my pregnancy with Gabe, including once with a little drool on the desk); and, most critically (4) the evil, evil "morning" sickness.

I experienced very little morning sickness during my pregnancy with Gabe, and really, I should have thanked my lucky stars for that fact. I did not appreciate it enough at the time. Not nearly enough. Because this time I am sick. SICK. Since the six-week mark, I have been somewhere on the sliding scale of nausea - dry heaves - puking every single day. Usually towards the puking end of the scale, and not just once a day puking either. One of my pregnancy books refers to morning sickness as "progesterone poisoning," and really, that is such a better and more accurate description.

It's bad enough that I whined to my OB about it, hoping he would have some good advice or maybe some nice anti-nausea drugs or something. His respone? "Well, you got off easy last time. This should make you appreciate what an easy pregnancy you had last time around!" He said this with remarkable cheerfulness and a big smile. I kind of wanted to hit him.

So as I mentioned, I am now about fourteen weeks along. I am hoping (praying!) that the progesterone poisoning tapers off pretty soon so that I can attempt to enjoy this pregnancy. Because honestly, we are so damn lucky. Tonight as I sat in the glider chair in Gabe's quiet bedroom, I had a growing baby in my belly and a happy baby in my arms. That, my friends, is just about as good as life ever gets.

Running Down a Dream

I am so far behind that I can't even attempt to catch up. Suffice it to say that since my last post, we've had many social outings (including Baby Loves Disco with my fab friend J and her husband S and their delightful son B) plus we celebrated an excellent Father's Day. Gabe bought his dad a customized Sigg water bottle reading "Peace, Love & Gabe" and matching shirts for himself and his daddy. They both look very handsome in the shirts, in case you were wondering.

But now onto the big news: Gabe took his first real steps yesterday!!! (At least I think they were his first real steps. Sometimes I think daycare lies to me and says they've never seen him do things like waive "hi" and say "doggie" and take steps because they don't want me to think I'm missing out on milestones. And this is fine with me, by the way. Ignorance is bliss and all.)

Anyhow the steps were highly amusing. Here's how it worked: I sat on the floor and helped Gabe get into a nice solid standing position about arms' length away from me. He pushed my hands away to prove how good he was at standing all by himself. The he grinned madly, hesitated, and lurched forward for two whole steps before crashing into my arms and screaming excitedly. We repeated this sequence several times.

AWESOME.

I know everyone says you shouldn't encourage your kid to walk because it unleashes a new level of chaos into everyday life, and I totally believe this is true, but I still think it's super exciting that he's trying to figure out how to walk. I can't help myself - I have to encourage him. He just looks so proud and he gets so excited! (And he's getting sort of heavy, so it's nice to think that one day I won't have to carry him absolutely everywhere and give myself arm cramps. Because I am LAZY.)

I have to go find myself some dinner now because I am SO HUNGRY and because feeding myself is clearly more important than documenting my baby's life and milestones and precious moments in detail. (LAZY and SELFISH, people.) But I promise to not wait weeks and weeks before posting again. Maybe I'll even throw in some pictures next time. Mwah.