Haiku Friday #16: Babies!

Lately I have had
A lot of weird dreams in which
I'm pregnant again

Ev'ry time I see
A newborn baby, I get
All warm and fuzzy.

Sure, I remember
The nausea, the contractions,
The emergency

C-section... But I
Also got a beautiful
Baby boy to hold.

Yes, there were
Sleepless nights and zombie days,
Spit-up and sore boobs.

But now look what I
Have to show for it all: my
Son, my very own.

I've had some serious baby fever lately. Every time I look at a baby, all I want to do is hold it. We absolutely do not need another baby right now -- we're doing all we can to support our family of three as it is. And while some families manage really well with two children under the age of two, I'm not sure my husband and I are cut out for it.

Still, I can't help but want a new baby again. I'm not ready for two kids yet -- I still haven't accepted the changes my body has gone through seen my first pregnancy (not to mention the surgery, breastfeeding, and weaning). But I miss that feeling of waiting expectantly for something small and wonderful to make its entrance, the bonding between mommy and belly.


For more haiku, or to play along, visit Christina at A Mommy Story.

New York, New York

Last weekend (February 6-8, not Valentine's Day) we had our seconnd-ever family vacation. Well, sort of.

Our first-ever family vacation was more of a long weekend. We were still living in Boston, my son was about 6 weeks old, and my aunt-in-law Krystie, who lives in New York, wanted to see the baby us before we moved back to Ohio. She bought us Amtrak tickets there and back, and we took the very pleasant 4-hour train ride to Manhattan.

Adam slept much of the time while on the train and while in the city. We went to an art gallery and saw a glass blower, had dinner in a few very nice restaurants (between my husband's 22-dollar lobster platter -- which included an entire lobster, several mussels, shrimp, scallops, and clams over pasta -- and his uncle's cooking, we ate very well). Krystie took me shopping, and Brandon and I had our first post-baby date at a Mexican restaurant where they made the guacamole right there in front of you.

This time was another long weekend, and it wasn't exactly a vacation for my husband. Our friend writes for MovieWeb, and they wanted him to attend the New York Comic Convention. He needed someone to film the interviews, so my husband obliged. It worked out for all of us: Brandon got to go to the convention, Aaron got free lodging with us at Krystie's (and half the price of gas), and Adam and I got a vacation.

We drove up on Thursday with the help of the TomTom. Apparently there's a difference between 17th Street and East 17th Street, and we ended up lost in Brooklyn at 1:30 AM. Overall, though, we made pretty good time and the baby slept most of the way there.

Friday the guys went to the convention. Krystie was working, and Dan (her fiance -- the "uncle" I mentioned before) was running errands, so it was just Adam and me all day Friday. And he decided to take a four-hour nap -- he was exhausted from the trip. So I got Friday afternoon all to myself, to watch a movie, take a nap . . . and paint. My. NAILS!!! I haven't done that in about 2 years. Every time I find myself with free time at home, I use it to clean or read other blogs. With no such distractions in NY, I spent four hours pampering myself.

Saturday we took the baby to the library, where they had a children's play area. A five-year-old boy played hide-and-seek with him, and brought him blocks to stack. Then we went for a walk, saw a film crew, and Krystie and I had lunch while Adam fell asleep in his stroller.

That night my husband came back from the convention around 9 o'clock, so Krystie took me out to meet her coworkers at a birthday party. We went to a really nice bar, where I had the best chocolate martini of my life and a great time chatting, dancing, and playing terrible pool.

Sunday we drove home, and Aaron gave Adam a stuffed Venom doll he had bought at the convention. He giggled and immediately started chewing on it. It's the cutest little scary thing you've ever seen.

Really, though -- one of these times, we're going to have to go to New York when it's not winter (although it was actually quite pleasant last weekend) and actually stay for a week or so, and, oh, I don't know, maybe even do a little sightseeing.

Where did you go on your last family vacation? Ever been to New York? Feel free to comment.

Music Therapy

As previously mentioned, I am somewhat of a musician. I used to be more than that: in high school -- my busiest and most productive musical years, I was still taking piano lessons (which I ended up taking for a total of 13 years), I was in marching/concert band, pep band, and choir, and in my free time, I was teaching myself to play acoustic guitar, singing in the shower, and writing music of the sappy love song variety. A career in music was once the only kind of career I considered. More than anything, I wanted to be famous someday.

But then I went off to college and things changed. I sang in women's chorus (this picture was taken after our Christmas concert -- that's me, my grandmother, and my sister Sara), wrote one song, even played guitar in front of my theatre class for our stage fright project. But I never really immersed myself in it the way I had since I was too young to know better, and for the same reason I eventually left school, I left that part of my life -- maybe for good.

I have suffered from depression since I was 17. Back then I was able to combat it, or at least distract myself from it, with my hobby. When I graduated, I had no more busy schedule, no more routine, no more order. I fell apart.

I still battle with it, but sometimes I'm still able to forget about it for the time being. The smallest thing, like singing along to the radio in the car, can help lift my spirits for almost the whole day. And I'm not the only one who benefits: my son loves music of any kind, especially singing. My dad sometimes plays the guitar for him, and Adam just sits there, entranced.

When he gets a little older, we'll use music as a tool, for therapy, for memory, for entertainment. At now 10 months old, I'm still mostly singing to him just for fun. Working at a preschool helps me keep fresh songs in my head, like "Bringin' Home a Baby Bumblebee" and "Fudgie the Whale"*. And anytime Adam won't eat, I sing Raffi's "Apples and Bananas", which always makes him laugh; I just stick the spoon in his open mouth. :)

What songs do you like to sing to your kids, your partner, or to yourself?

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as an entry for a contest sponsored by Bush’s Beans.

*Here are the lyrics to "Fudgie the Whale" in case you're interested. I tried to find a link where you could actually hear the song, but the only one I found was a drunk Youtube video. Meh.

Oh, I'm a real big mammal,
I'm a great big whale.
I've got a chocolate head
And a chocolate tail.
I bought my car today
Because it was on sale.
And when they call for me,
They call me "Fudgie the Whale".
Fudgie... Fudgie... Fudgie the Whale!
Bop bop ba ba bop ba bop ba ba, yeah!

Labor Day

Here's a fun little holiday-themed meme I found over at The Musings of a Mom. For the instructions and full list of participants (I'm #224!), head on over to Rocks in My Dryer -- she's the one who started it!

How long were your labors?
Just one so far for me (well, apart from the labor at 30 weeks that was successfully delayed), I was kind of in and out of labor for about 6 or 7 hours, then actually in for about 6 or 7 hours until I was put on terbutaline to delay the labor until they could attempt the external cephalic version (my son was breech).

How did you know you were in labor?
I was scheduled to get the version and told not to eat or drink anything after midnight, and then late the night before (or rather, early morning, as in 1 AM), I started having contractions. I went in (they had told me to come in for contractions occuring every 10, rather than 5, minutes because of the breech thing). I went in around 2, they monitored me, told me I was not in labor, my husband went home to get our place ready for the baby (he was not expected for another two and a half weeks). Several hours later, they started up again, but I was like the pregnant woman who cried wolf and was not listened to. My husband came back and I filled him in. He insisted that they at least check again, and in fact, I was in labor.

Where did you deliver?
St. Elizabeth's hospital in Boston.

Drugs?
Terbutaline to delay the labor so they could try to do the version. During which the only thing that kept my mind off of the excruciating pain (of the version, not the contractions) was the cute anesthesiologist asking me questions. All the while, the crazy nurse was touching my feet (this is a mortal sin in my family) to try to comfort me. And then anesthesia: see below.

C-section?
Yep. Endured the pain of the contractions, the jitters of the terbutaline, and then the agony of the version for nothing (Note: For those who don't know what a version is, it is when your OB and a really old guy that must be the premier obstetrical expert in the hospital, push down on your uterus with all of their combined weight to try to get the stubborn little bugger to come out your vagina instead of swimming toward your throat). Version failed, got my anesthesia, baby came out all pissed and breathed/swallowed a WHOLE bunch of mucus on the way out. Apparently being born that day was not his idea, but rather that of my womb.

Who delivered?
Dr. Katherine Marshall, my Boston OB. She was really good, although a little forgetful (like she would forget how much weight I gained, what prescriptions she had written, etc.).

So yeah, that's my birthing story. Not what I expected or planned, but how many births really are? I'm just glad my uterus evicted him at nearly 38 weeks instead of 30.

Together at last: our first meeting outside the OR.

Why Kroger rocks

On Tuesday, the day of no nap, Christina and I went to the Kroger out by her to pick up some dinner on the way back from the pool. They were giving away free pinwheels. I picked one up, figuring that if Adam wasn't entertained, I would be.

Adam was thrilled. I didn't take it out for him to play with until Wednesday, since he was having sleep issues, but as soon as I did, he was riveted. I blew on it to make it spin, and his eyes lit up. When I held it out to him, he batted at it to make it spin some more. It's just so cool how something that simple can elicit such a profound reaction.

At my mom's house, having a blast with that pinwheel!

Now I'm off to do something productive!

Nap time

Monday was great! Or so I thought....

It was a normal day, at first. I woke up, got ready for the day, Adam woke up, and a few hours later was about ready for a nap. Now, he is a short napper. I count myself lucky if he sleeps for an hour or more. Typically, he naps for 30 to 45 minutes, but sometimes he wakes up after 20 minutes with that "Hi, Mom! I'm awake now" smile and I know I'm screwed.

But lately I've been trying to encourage longer naptimes. I usually wait until I hear him crying (or talking to himself) to go in, to make sure he's not just "sleep whimpering," and instead of picking him up and assuming he's done sleeping, I offer to nurse him a little. If he still needs to finish his nap, he'll go back to sleep within five or ten minutes. That usually ensures a total nap time of an hour or two.

So I put him down as usual, and half an hour later, he started to fuss. I put him back to sleep, and he continued to nap for another two and a half hours! I was ecstatic! Too bad I didn't take advantage of it and get some laundry done. Instead, I sat on my tush and read blogs. Bad mommy. I did go in to check on him, just to make sure he was still breathing -- just look what I found!

I figured he wouldn't need another nap that day and maybe even go to bed early. He didn't need a second nap, but he went to bed around an hour later than usual. But that wasn't the worst part. He woke up five hours after he went to bed, and didn't go back to sleep at all until a nap late Tuesday afternoon. We went to the pool with some friends, and he usually gets tired with the sun and the heat, and he didn't even fall asleep in his stroller this week.

I felt better after talking to Kendra, my aunt-in-law. Apparently her daughter Zoe (almost 18 months) was a terror the other day after not getting the nap she needed until 3 or 4 hours later. They had to get pictures taken for passports because they're taking a trip to Canada (am I the only person who thinks the need for a passport to get into Canada is ridiculous?).

He had a two and a half hour nap today. Hopefully he won't wake up super-de-duper early again tomorrow. I have a job interview in the morning and need those precious last two hours or so of sleep. Of course, if I'm tired in the morning, it will be my fault, because I'm sitting here typing instead of having gone to bed an hour ago (or more).

Eh. I think I'll remedy that.