Belly and Boobs

Almost nine years ago, I became pregnant for the first time, with Annalise. Since then, I have had four other pregnancies, including two very early miscarriages before I got pregnant with Juliette. And I have nursed for 22 months (Annalise), 25 months (Zachary) and 20 months (Juliette). Let's do the math here and realize that, minus a few months, I have spent almost all of the past nine years either pregnant or nursing. That's a long time to dedicate my body, share my body with another person. Since we plan on Juliette being our last baby (I know -- be careful what you say), now that I am done nursing her, my body is MINE for the rest of my life!! This is a crazy concept to me.

For nine years, every time I took a sip of wine or coffee, was around second hand smoke, stayed out late (and by late, I mean past a feeding time), took a Tylenol or ate a Halloween candy bar past four in the afternoon, I worried about the repercussions -- not for myself, but for the barnacle. Now, if I want to, I can drink lots of wine! I can drink a whole pot of coffee! I can take the kind of cold medicine that knocks you out so you can actually sleep and perhaps recover from said cold. Maybe I'll take up smoking! (All right, well we all know that's not going to happen, but I had to try it out to see how it sounded!)

I'm not going to become a lush. And we all know I can't handle more that a half a cup of coffee without the music getting faster or my head spinning off into outer space. But I am going to go out with my husband for a date every now and then and not worry about the babysitter putting ALL THREE kids to bed! I'll go out with my girlfriends and come home late! I'll have weekends away! I might have something that resembles a life beyond my kids. This probably sounds ridiculously far-fetched to those who haven't left the world of pregnancy and nursing and so I'll keep you posted on the progress of this whole "having a life" thing.

The truth is, part of me is in mourning over having my body all to myself again. Now that I know that my extreme uncomfortableness (yes, I'm using that as a word) with Juliette's pregnancy was caused not by the pregnancy, would my body put up with another pregnancy? Am I not too old? Could we afford another baby? (Well, the answer to that one is easy. No; we can't even afford the three we already have.) Would I have time for four children? These are all good, valid questions. But a different part of me is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We just bought Juliette her own potty. She is speaking in complete sentences, and therefore we usually don't have to just guess what it is she is trying to tell us. We will someday soon be able to travel without diapers and a stroller. Someday in the far, far future, without carseats. We'll be able to go for a whole day without worrying about putting someone down for a nap. Jason and I might be able to go on a little vacation just for ourselves!

I am mourning the end of the baby phase. But I am celebrating this new phase of increased independence as well.

And my babies/big kids still need me. They still like to be picked up, kissed and cuddled. Nobody soothes a hurt tummy, a fall from a scooter or bike, having a toy taken back by a big brother or sister, an asthma attack, hurt feelings or a soccer ball to the nuts like Mommy. They need me to help with homework, learn how to ride a two-wheeler and to throw Friday night dance parties. Someday they'll need me to help with broken hearts and college applications.

If I've learned anything, it's that these phases go by too quickly. I can't spend too much time reflecting on what's been and what's yet to be. I need to enjoy the little moments that happen every day. Today was a beautiful fall day spent at the park with Grandma, Juliette and Zachy. Zachary can pump on his own, but still giggled with delight when I gave him one under-dog after another. Juliette just giggled with delight and narrated the whole afternoon. When Annalise came home from school, I was greeted with, "Mommy!" and a great big hug. Life is good.

So as my boobs shrink back to their pre-nursing, pre-pregnancy size (sigh. Good bye 32G, hello 32B), I must remember how much my life has grown in the past nine years. I have the stretch marks, the differently shaped belly button, the lengthened torso (What's THAT all about???) and the widened hips to remind me of the past nine years. And I'll move forward to the next phase of independence. I'll shed a tear today, but I'll rejoice tomorrow when Annalise figures out how to pull up "Word World" on the Tivo, giving me five more minutes in the shower. Today I'll mourn that there is no longer a baby in the house. But tomorrow I'll celebrate my big kids.

Goodbye belly. Goodbye boobs. You've been good to me.

Smelling the Roses

I have been generally ignoring all of my responsibilities lately, including writing in my blog. I had surgery a few weeks ago and the recovery from that has largely taken over my life. It was supposed to be a pretty simple surgery, but of course not for me! I ended up losing a lot of blood, having really low blood pressure and extremely low hemoglobin levels, a bad reaction to the anesthesia and two blood transfusions to try to remedy it all! It was more than I signed up for, and certainly it worried quite a few people. (But not me -- I was still kind of high from the anesthesia and Vicatin.) This week I am feeling so much better and was even able to walk Annalise to school today. That alone felt like a major accomplishment!

The whole ordeal has been very eye-opening and humbling for me. For the first time in my life, I really, really needed to depend on other people. And not just Jason and my mom, but really the whole village. My mom, of course, was a saint, and kept the kids for the whole time I was in the hospital and then the kids and me the following week when Jason had to go out of town. And she whipped that baby (who was still nursing the day before the surgery!!) into shape! She now sleeps on her own, in her crib, with little or no crying or drama. It's still unreal for us! (We keep waiting for the other shoe to drop!) Jason was exhausted going back and forth between the kids and me and taking care of all the odds and ends that are normally my responsibility. And then there were all the friends and neighbors who pitched in. Different people brought the kids home from school, kept them for playdates, took them to practices. People sent flowers, brought us meals, brought down our garbage cans, etc. etc. My brother came down from San Francisco for a surprise visit. Yesterday my friend Sarah and my mom paid to have our house cleaned top to bottom and inside out! If you've been here before you seriously wouldn't recognize the place! It's like a whole other family lives here! People have been amazing. And I've learned that people want to help and it's OK to accept help. It's been a good lesson for me.

At the same time, the mother of one of Annalise's good friends just got diagnosed with leukemia. It's been really devastating news, though she and her family have been incredibly strong and resilient. But that, too, has reminded me how much I have to be grateful for. Our lives are short and fragile. Our family and friendships are so important. We should appreciate it all! I will be stopping to smell the roses!

Smart Boy

I just have to write this down so that I will remember this. My good friend Jenn came down to spend some time just with us last week. She particularly wanted to spend time with Zachary, her godson. She took him to the park and then they went to get some frozen yogurt. Here is approximately their conversation:
Jenn: "You're so lucky you have two places in town to get frozen yogurt. We just got our first frozen yogurt place. I was so excited to go because I'd wanted one in our town for so long. But then I went there and it wasn't very good."
Zachary: "I know what that's like because my sister and I wanted to see Toy Story 3 for so long and then we went and we didn't like it at all."
That's pretty good, huh! He not only empathized with her, but he used an analogy to do it! That's my sweet, sensitive, smart little guy!

Annalise at the Ballet

Yesterday, my mom and I took Annalise to her first ballet, "Sleeping Beauty." It was quite a treat for her and for the both of us. My mom even said, "I liked that so much more than I thought I would!" It was probably only the second ballet for each of us, we think. Neither of us can actually really remember. As she did when we took her to see "Annie" (her first play) the first time at age three, Annalise sat at the edge of her seat, mesmerized the whole time. She really took it all in, from the dancing to the music to the costumes and the story. We read her the synopsis ahead of time, but it took her a while to understand that the story is really secondary to the dancing. She had somewhat of a running commentary through the whole thing, which was actually pretty funny, but showed how much she really was paying attention to all the little details:
"There's not really a baby in there. I looked! There isn't!"
"Here's where the bad fairy comes in! No, that's not her."
"Here she comes! No, not yet!"
"Is this still his visualizing?"
"The king and queen don't really dance much."
"I'd like to be one of the fairies or the other dancers, but not the lilac fairy or the princess. That's too much work."
"There are 20 dancers in the group."
"Now it's time for the wedding scene!"
And my personal favorite:
"It looks like you can see his butt crack."
We had a lot of fun and I hope we can do it again sometime soon. Because Annalise is a dancer, I think it was great for her to see kind of the end result -- what she is working towards. But I think it is also important for me to expose my kids more to the arts. It's funny, because we are really a family who love art in all forms, but we have never even taken our kids to an art museum. And the only kind of concert Zachary has ever been to involves classic rock. I need to make a promise to myself to do this kind of thing more often.

California Girl

This week is HOT! We have been so spoiled this summer, in that it really has been very cool and delightful. And I mean really delightful. We've hardly had to use our air conditioner at all. But the past couple days things have really gotten miserable. It's even a little muggy out. Ew. Our air conditioner is going most of the day and part of the night. And I am saying little prayers to the gods of heating and cooling that it continues to work. It's bad out there.

This morning we took Juliette to her gym class and then to run a couple of errands. I know the kids have had a big week... They've been swimming and going to friends' houses and having friends here. Annalise has had camp all afternoon and they're tired. But my goodness, I couldn't get those kids to motivate to do anything today! I asked them if they'd like to go to the library. "It's really cool there!" "No." Even Juliette... "Do you want to go to the library?" "No." "Do you want to get some books?" "NO!" with the emphatic head shake even. So we came home. The kids played and fought for a while. Juliette is napping and now I have two blobs on the couch watching a movie. Frankly, I don't blame them. With this weather all I want to do is be a blob also. I'm not sure my brain is even working well enough to read, much less write. (Forgive me if this makes no sense! It's the heat!) The heat just zaps the energy and motivation right out of us.

We really are spoiled here in Southern California with our weather. I would say probably 350 days of the year we can play outside -- maybe even more. There really are just a handful of days where it is really too hot or too rainy to play. And when I think of it that way, I really am grateful. Jason's parents and cousins live in Arizona and I always wonder how they survive the summers. Perhaps they hibernate. I think that's probably what I would do if I lived there. Just go into sleep mode and wake up in October. Maybe that's why the plastic surgery rates are so high there... If the hibernation thing didn't work out, then maybe we'd just be naked in our house all the time. My kids would be totally OK with that, but the UPS guy or my next door neighbor might appreciate it if I have a little work done. I have nursed three kids. I'm not as, well let's say, fit as I once was. And at the other end of the spectrum are my cousins who live back east. Whenever we visit Boston, I say I could live there. It really is such a great city. But my cousin says I wouldn't last a month! And she's probably right. It gets COLD there! Even if I could survive there myself, without kids, I'm pretty sure that, with kids, something would bring me down. It might be the constant wrestling with the winter clothing; getting them on to walk out to the car only to have to take them right back off to get into their carseats. Oh God! And what if they have to go to the bathroom? I think I'd just keep them all in diapers. Nobody uses a toilet until we're all home. And then there's that whole having to play inside all day thing. I'm pretty sure I would go stir crazy after just a couple of days. I think if I were to live in either place, I'd have to have a basement the size of a football field in order to survive. That might be kind of nice, actually. They'd be totally contained. No cars to dodge. No dirt for Juliette to eat. Hmmm, she might not like that. We'd have to get her a flower pot so she can get her iron. There's a reason it costs a couple arms and three or four legs to live in Southern California. It's the weather. That's it. We're paying for weather. Seems kind of ridiculous, especially on days like today. But for the 350 beautiful days of the year, it's worth every penny.

Cold Feet (Literally)

Last night was not such a good night for sleeping in this house. Jason and I have an arrangement for waking up. If Juliette wakes up in the middle of the night (which is pretty often), it's all me. I'm the one up with her. But if Zachary or Annalise wake up, Jason's on duty. This system works out great, except when Jason is out of town, like he was last night. It was not a great night. First, Juliette didn't even go down until after 10:30. What's up with that? And then she was up a whole bunch of times during the night. But Zachary also was up. He has this problem in the middle of the night where he says his feet are cold. We put socks on him every night (even when it is HOT outside, like last night) and sometimes he will wear two, three, even four pairs. Sometimes we pile blankets on top of his feet. It is the strangest thing. Jason and I are totally stumped. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it seems like it is really painful. Last night, his left foot woke him up three times. One time he was up for almost an hour, cuddling with me on the couch, in front of the TV, trying to distract him and get him to stop shaking and crying. It's starting to really upset me. It's been happening now for over a year. Our doctor has had no explanation so far, but I think we're going to have to talk about it again. Maybe his foot is falling asleep and it just won't wake up. Maybe he is dreaming. Maybe he has a circulation problem. I don't know. But I'm hoping to find out soon. Triple socks in the middle of summer in Southern California is just not practical.

Dirty Camp

This week Annalise is participating in our local Girl Scout day camp. It is a camp I attended when I was a Brownie, and I am so excited that she is following in my footsteps. The camp takes place in the afternoon. The girls aren't picked up until 7:30, which means right to showers and bed. Annalise is exhausted and oh so dirty when she comes home. The camp takes place at a park in town, which I am convinced is the dirtiest, dustiest place on earth. It is full of hiking and horse trails, a frisbee golf course and dirt. And sticks. And dust. And a few weeds. Beautiful old oak trees. And dirt. I'm still not sure what all they do there all day. The answers are always a little vague. Yesterday they went on a hike. Today they learned how to make lanyards. They sing those same old songs that have been around since the beginning of time -- songs about bubblegum and worms and boom-chicka-booms. Yesterday she learned a song about being terrific but nobody knows it yet (except people do know... I think she's pretty great.). They do some cooking and then some more singing. Tomorrow they are going to hike to the cave to see the "one-eyed monster." Both Annalise and her friend Cora were pretty sure they didn't want to have anything to do with that at the beginning of the week. But today they both are considering going inside. We'll have to see. This camp is the highlight of their summer. And it's one of my highlights, too. My girl grows before my eyes when she goes to day camp. She leaves the house a little girl each afternoon, but she comes back a little taller, a little wiser, a little braver and a whole lot dirtier.