Saturday, January 16, 2010

Last-Minute Projects

The hardest thing about occupying my mind in this two-days-til-due-date limbo is that I have no idea how much longer I have before it's time to drop everything and give birth.

I have been in false or pre-labor for a day now, dilated to a centimer. Contractions have come and gone and other less savory signs of labor have made their appearance, but the whole process hasn't been kick-started. It was absolutely impossible for me to avoid the expectation that this labor would go just like Will's. Or, if it differed in any way, that I would go earlier. Well, here I am at 39 weeks, 5 days, and the last time I was that pregnant, I...wasn't. Will was born the morning of that day.

Yeah, yeah, "labor has its own clock" and all that. But what do I do while labor takes its sweet time in getting here?

1. Order "This book belongs to the Noon Family Library" stickers.
(They just got here today, and I'm intent on sticking them on every single one of Will's books after he wakes up from his nap.)

2. Drink raspberry leaf tea by the bucket.
(I guess it's supposed to strengthen your uterine muscles? Whatever, I just add honey and knock it back.)

3. Wash cloth diapers every day instead of every other--just in case!
(Maybe there is such a thing as being overprepared? A washed diaper never boils?)

4. Write and address birthday cards for the next few months so I don't have to worry about it while adjusting to two kids.
(So if your card comes signed by Joanna, Dave, Will and "Baby Noon," now you know why--it was written before he was born--and won't take it personally.)

5. Take baths. Relaxing sometimes brings on labor!

6. Go on long, uphill walks. Exercising sometimes brings on labor!

(Do you see how irritating these contradictions can be?)

7. Warn parents that, should labor be delayed another two/five/thirty-eight days, they will be required to assist you with all daily tasks because YOU JUST DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN TAKE IT ANYMORE.

8. Scavenge for more shows to DVR during late-night nursing sessions.

9. Flip through kids' clothing catalogues and sigh whenever you get to the baby girl outfits with ruffled bloomers and monogrammed collars.

10. Shred Dave's old documents from the '90s. Like his Sprint phone bills, which alerted me to the fact that Dave once owned a Sprint phone, something I didn't know because he switched to Verizon before we met, and yet he still has four years' worth of cell phone bills...taking up precious space in our office.

**I just realized that Dave and I would be the best Wife Swap ever, except we wouldn't swap with anyone--the show would just follow us arguing about hoarding old handwritten track meet results from high school (Dave's), then watch while I compulsively collect the mail and immediately sort it into Recycle, Shred and File piles. OK, that show might not actually be very interesting, but maybe the audience could write in and convince Dave that he doesn't need all those meet results? Or a Dining In receipt from 2002? Because that would be worth it.**

Merry Belated Christmas 2009!

Phone!


ELMO PHONE!


Trucks!


TRUCKS!


FAMILY!


KISSES!


(DADA)


EXHAUSTION.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Monsters, Inc.

There were clues.

The ability to swipe things off the dining room table--and the edge of the kitchen counter.

The nearly flat seatback that enables us to keep his carseat rear-facing without folding his legs on top of each other.



"He's going to be a MONSTER!" our pediatrician announced today, eyes wide, after weighing and measuring Will. (He was measured standing up for the first time ever. That's when you know your BABY is a TODDLER.)

To be honest, it gave me more than a little satisfaction to hear his size marveled at--only because in those moments when I find him to be curiously large for his age, I don't know if it's for good reason or if it's because he's my first, and he's mine, and he's themostspecialboyinthewholeworld, of course he's off the charts, why should the charts apply to him, he's Superbaby, blah blah, doting momisms ad nauseum...

So Will is threatening to leap off the charts, is the point of this rambling story. He keeps climbing higher and higher beyond the 95th percentile in height and weight--"well-proportioned--not chubby, just solid," the doctor clarified before asking, "What sport did his dad play? He was a football player?"

("He ran track," I offered in response, although in another lifetime I suppose Dave would have been the quintessential lanky high school quarterback.)

Will's currently pushing thirty pounds and thirty-four inches. Tangentially (but not to us, given the way it affected his sleep for TWO WEEKS STRAIGHT in December), he also has three newly popped molars, each in a different corner of his mouth. Also, you should see his penguin dance. It's out of this world.

(I always thought monsters were underrated anyway.)

**The photos at the top of this post were not the result of parental contrivance; Will just ambled into the living room one day wearing an empty spool of wrapping paper on his hand, and we started calling him "Edward Cardboardhands." At least we think we're funny.**

Monday, January 4, 2010

There Can Only Be One


He discovered snow, as in, started to really "get it," when a storm blew in last weekend.

"No-man, no-man, no-man," he said whenever a snowman--or something like it--passed into his line of vision.


I find myself breathing him in and soaking him up these days, while he wraps his arms around my neck and surrenders to sleep; while he dangles his cup from the edge of his tray, threatening mischief with two ominous syllables ("Ba...boom!"); while he pushes my head toward Dave's to encourage us to kiss. (When he gets to the "my parents are gross" phase, that one will come back to haunt him.)

*************************************************************************

Will walked around my parents' living room today with a non-functioning phone.

"Hey-ooooo?" he said, the handset tucked in the crook of his neck.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Dada," he replied dismissively. He ALWAYS says "Dada," even if Dada is right there, in the flesh.

*********************************************************************

I'm 38 weeks pregnant today. I spent much of the day preoccupied with the logistics of fitting in that seven-mile walk, the one I'm counting on to induce labor the way it did with Will.

Please can this next contraction be a little less Braxton-Hicks and a little more UH-OH, WHERE ARE THE NEWBORN MITTENS?

And then I dressed my 15-month-old in a new pair of striped pajamas, and they were size 3T, and THEY FIT. (Because he is just improbably long, this kid--miles and miles of torso.)

I get to spend every day with HIM.

The seven-mile walk can wait.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Waiting for the Next Big Thing

I knew a few things had to happen before Baby 2 arrived:
  • Christmas would come and go
  • Aimee and TJ would have their baby boy
  • 2010 would show up on the calendar
Guess what? Christmas came, delivered much joy to a paper-ripping Will, and went. Aimee and TJ were blessed with a beautiful son (with an equally beautiful head of lush dark hair)--more on that later. A few days later, January 1 popped up and now I'm 38 weeks pregnant and...let's have this baby already, mmkay?

To (distract myself from being extravagantly pregnant and) entertain you in the meantime, here are some photos of Will's first haircut. It was clear that the mullet had to go.

The look on his face in the photo above? That's the imperious expression this kid wears whenever he's in his father's arms. It's like he's taunting me--"Who's taller now, Mama? Who?"

Bedhead caused a temporary cowlick on this particular day--that, we left alone.