From the bottom to the top

I write to you from the exotic locale of flat on my back.

The reality of New Pregnancy, Whole New Realm of Pregnancy Symptoms hit a few weeks ago. It started with some twinges of pain at the back of my leg... Thought it might be muscle spasms or something. Then in the days following, it grew and grew until I could barely stand.

Now I have a diagnosis under my belt and a sincere pain in my... Um.

Let's just say, I am looking for any and all suggestions y'all might have to deal with sciatica. I have a prescription for physical therapy-- which I am going to (begrudgingly) pursue, but tell me whatcha got.

navel gazing of the second part

(I'm not sure what happened, but this entire post was hijacked by EXTREME CAPS LOCK USAGE, and I'm just going to apologize for it here.  Carry on.)



As something of a long-time blog reader (I stalked people LONG BEFORE I ever had the guts to introduce myself or put this little old Creamery out on the internets), I consider myself a pretty decent source of truth when I say the following:

BLOGGING CONTENT OF SECOND OR THIRD OR FOURTH (you get the idea) PREGNANCIES IS BORING.


I don't mean any disrespect to any of y'all who are busy blogging about the belly when it's not the first time around - but I know what I know.  When it's your first time, there's all this awesome discovery of the heinous and weird and completely unbelievable crap that your body goes through.  It's funny.  And horrifying.  And also strangely touching, in the best way possible. 

But those second babies---- well, there isn't a lot said about them.  The strange discoveries are done and gone, and while it's still awesome, the being pregnant stuff--- there is clock-watching that just doesn't make for a good blog entry.

Be that as it may, I promise I won't be totally silent over here (if ever - ha!).  And I feel bad that I haven't said much more about little Polly.  But I get it, I get it in a visceral way that I didn't before: I don't have the same sense of intense focus on this belly that I did with Bean.  How could I?  Bean herself is doing so much to keep my attention focused outside of myself --- I'm doing a preschool co-op with some friends that starts next week (more on this later), and until very recently I felt like every day that I actually spent upright was a TOTAL WIN, which meant that my personal expectations were down to LET'S CELEBRATE THAT WHIMSY GOT DRESSED TODAY and LET'S TOAST WHIMSY THAT SHE MANAGED TO CLEAN THE BATHROOM.  It didn't leave a lot of room for writing navel-gazing missives about my hopes and fears for Baby Whimsy #2.

And now that I'm here, on the other side of First Trimester Sickfest, the intense view of WHAT HAVE I DONE fades into smoke and I'm feeling...  optimistic.  And even... excited.

Which means that I can say, as if I'm discovering it for the first time:
HOW CAN A SINGLE PERSON PEE THIS MUCH? 

through several lenses

Hello.  I am officially reporting from the other side of Operation Paci Removal.  It's a surreal view so far, and a little too soon for me to say much about it except that we all survived.

Including the fish (at least so far).

Each of us has some opinions about the fish.

A few of those opinions are shared:

1. The pineapple house is fantastic.

2. The tank needs some greenery (which, after these photos were taken, we went out and bought a small plastic plant that's just perfect).

3. Having fish is strangely entertaining.

4. Their food is smelly.

5. It's really hard to take a good picture of fish.

The rest of our opinions are best represented this way:

According to Alice:

According to Whimsy:

According to Chip:

According to the Fish:

on transitions and change: the view from the pacifier bowl

It is late Wednesday evening as I write this.  I am listening to Alice over the room monitor.  Her first night without a pacifier.

So far we have gone in there for trips to the bathroom (notice the plural), to find specific buddies (little Elmo, Grover), to answer questions, to take clothes off a buddie (it is unacceptable that Elmo go to bed in corduroy pants and flannel shirt), and to deliver a tiny book about cats that Alice is convinced she cannot sleep without.

During the last Alice pit stop, Chip decided to stay.  He is now hunkered down on her bedroom floor, hoping that his presence will soothe her into dreamland.

I don't think that Alice is the only one who really misses that paci.


- - -


We've been working toward this for months.  She hasn't been allowed to use one for more than actual sleep in a year.  And in the last six months, we've tapered off her even holding more than one at a time.  Meanwhile, I have been thinking hard about what motivates this girl, and after some serious deep thinking, I came up with FISH.  Which sounds weird, I know.  But she wants a pet, has wanted a pet to call her own for a long while.  And she's allergic to anything with hair.  So we have fish.  And you know, with enough build up and visits to the pet store: fish are EXCITING.

It turns out, according to Alice's parents, fish are also EXPENSIVE.  So expensive, in fact, that they can't be bought with money.  The pet store will only take paci's as payment.

Two days ago we bought a small fish tank and several fish tank accoutrements to Alice's liking.

And today, we walked into Petsmart, picked out three little colorful fish, and Alice paid for them with a bag full of pacifiers.


- - -


She named them Spoonjab (phonetic spelling), Annie, and Miss Hannigan.


- - -


After getting the trio set up in their new digs, we had a family picnic in Alice's room because she couldn't bear to be away from her new fish.


- - -


The reality of Life Without Paci hit dear Bean as soon as I was done reading her bedtime story.  When she asked for a paci, and I reminded her that they'd been left at the store, she sort of just looked.  Blinked.  And then said, "But I need something for my mouth!"


- - -


I usually resist writing anything when I'm still in the middle of it --- it's like trying to describe the ocean while swimming neck-deep in it.  The view obscured to a straight blue line, small bobbing things far off in the distance.

And it's just as true in this instance as in any: I can't tell you what it's like on the other side, only tell you that her pain and frustration and worry is real. 

Here's hoping for better nights to come.




How have you handled transitions at your house?  How long does it take you or your kids to get used to the change?  Have you ever gone back to an old way of doing things because the transition was too hard?

the summer of alice

In the way of a three-year-old, every day has been a possibility of wonder.  While others of us have been preoccupied with questions of future employment and a healthy baby and finances and what in Heaven's name we'll be eating for dinner when the cook feels like she's been peeled off the bottom of a shoe--- sweet Alice has been thinking about play, amassing more treasures for her treasure box (already full-to-the-brim), how many  hats she can jam on her head, the sandbox, and new ways to convince her mother that ice cream is an important food group.

I don't ever want to romanticize my life here in this space - there's plenty of that out there on the internets without me joining in, but it's hard not to dip the Alice stories in dreamy gauze.

 

The other day I was feeling so sick, and so tired--- which of course helped me to take the small step into Complete Self Loathing quite easily.  As I lay hopeless on the sofa, a thought struck me that not only was I a horrible housekeeper, a useless wife, and a terrible friend - I had FAILED in my motherly duty of Historian and hadn't taken any pictures of Alice all summer.  I tried to think of any single event or funny thing I'd caught on film and my mind went blank. 

Imagine my surprise when I checked the camera last night to find several snaps of Alice in Summer Glory.

Sometime in my mid-elementary school years, Winston was laid off.  I remember it being early summer, or nearly so.  And we had just started to remodel our house.  Suddenly Dad was home all the time, and wearing his grubby clothes, carrying a hammer and spending his days building a second story on our house.  It's strange what sticks in the memory, I think: how arbitrary our brain is when it chooses to keep one faded image over another.  But the truth is, I don't remember being scared or worried or the least bit fazed over dad's unemployment.  That summer, the summer of drill bits and two-by-fours - the sawdust in our hair and the smell of fresh-cut wood - was one of the best summers of my life.

I can't imagine that this summer will quite compare for Alice, in scope or depth - to that far-off clutch of months in my childhood, but I can hope that this was at least a sweet one for her.