The Aftermath

OK, so Halloween is over, but we never actually got any trick-or-treaters at our house, and Luke collected about 20 pounds of candy, so we practically have candy spilling out of the windows. We're using candy for bookends. Candy has replaced doorstops. We have candy as paperweights in the office. What's for breakfast? Candy. No wonder candy doesn't work as a kiddie incentive anymore. We might as well treat it as a punishment: Be quiet and eat your Tootsie Roll. If you talk back one more time, you're going to have to finish off all of the Now-and-Laters!

Yes, it's going to be the fourth or fifth (I've lost count) blog entry devoted to Halloween. Part of me can't resist posting additional pictures of Luke as a policeman or Zach as a snail because they were just so hilariously cute. Here's a shot of our whole motley trick-or-treating crew, with Bruce as Linguini and Eitan and Daniel as two clowns.

Trick-or-treating on the walk streets is quite a scene. It's completely mobbed, for one thing, and a total party scene (including a roving party wagon with drinks for grownups). But Luke and Eitan were extremely excited by the whole affair and were super-proud to march up to each house by themselves while we waited with the other parents on the walkways. When one guy handed candy to Luke, he said, "Are you LAPD?" and Luke said, "No, I'm a policeman."


There was a surprising amount of pirate pageantry: One house was completely decked out as a pirate ship, complete with masts and sails rising up three stories and a guy shooting off a "cannon" in the front. And just as we thought we were in somewhat of a normal frame of mind, a massive pirate ship just happened to drive by us (see pic). I still don't know how it was powered.


Then there's Zach. Good old Zach. I always feel like I need to put a footnote at the end to mark his separate activities. Zach slept in Dave's arms through most of the trick-or-treating (just wait until next year) so there isn't much more to say in the Zach/Halloween category. But at home, he's more active than ever, sitting entirely on his own and babbling up a storm. Here he is in his super-cute new bear shirt from Grandma Joan.

Another currently great thing about Zach is his belly laugh. I mean, if you have a belly like his, you must have a pretty decent laugh coming out of there, right? Yesterday when I took Luke and Zach to the big kids' school I was showing Luke how to do hopscotch and this somewhat unexpectedly caused Zach to crack up (me hopping on one foot, that is). And when Dave and Luke were playing catch with a little ball inside the house, Zach thought it was the funniest thing in the world to watch them throw the ball back and forth. His laugh has evolved too - In the beginning, it was just "Huh-whah! Huh-whah!" but now it's a real giggly chuckle. Anyone need their spirits lifted? Feel free to come over to our house to hop on one foot or throw a ball around - you'll feel like the most entertaining person in the world. Oh, and we'll give you some candy too.

Toilet Pumpkin; Carrot Facial

Anyone want to come West next Halloween? Because we have the best new Halloween event ever - the pumpkin race. The deal is you decorate a pumpkin and put a set of wheels on it, and then let 'er rip down the big hill toward the pier. The whole event was both meticulously organized and relentlessly silly. Here you can see a few pumpkins in the staging area waiting for the semifinal heats; yes, the white pumpkin in the foreground is decked out like a toilet, complete with flush handle and a roll of t.p. flying off the back. The referees made a big show of "core checks" to make sure that there were no imposters, and at one point did a very public smashing of a watermelon that had snuck into the race with some orange paint.

This was all in the context of the downtown trick-or-treating, so practically the whole town was out there; and fortunately for Luke, that meant lots of police presence (truth be told, the police were mainly out to do a mock "arrest" of the pumpkin cheater, and to race their own police pumpkin).



At one point during the race the emcee said, "Just think of all of those poor people back East freezing through Halloween, and here we are in 70 degree weather, rolling pumpkins into a magnificent sunset at the beach." So I did think about that, and I managed to get a little bit of the tail end of the sunset in the picture with the policeman.

Funny little side note: The actor Kevin Nealon lives nearby, and I have seen him around town many times, at the farmers' market, etc. Yesterday he was loping around in that Kevin Nealon-y kind of way (but presumably not wanting to be recognized) in a massive hot dog costume with his face painted. I didn't want to be so tacky as to take his picture, but darned if it wasn't so darned funny.

Another thing that I find tacky is pictures of infants with food smeared all over their faces. But I guess there's an exception to every rule. Zach just seemed so darned happy yesterday while giving himself this carrot facial that I just had to take a picture.



Was Luke neater, or was it just that I never took pictures of him making a mess? Well, either way, we're fully in the realm of baby food these days, much to the delight of both Zach and Luke. How can you not want to join in the fun?

Seven Years of Bad Meatballs

Let me start out by saying Joe, I'm sorry for poaching your title. But you gotta admit that 1) it's a great title for just about anything; and 2) I actually have accompanying pictures of meatballs, so it's not entirely out of left field. The title comes from some Mad Libs that the kids did this summer; the concept is one that we all seem to be able to identify with.

So, these meatballs are part of the dinner I made for our Thursday night class (Special Halloween Edition); the recipe is Spaghetti with Eyeballs from the "Secret Life of Food" cookbook. Speaking of Joe, I should say this as well: When I make something like this, it generally looks like a well-intentioned craft project, whereas when Joe makes something like this it looks like something you'd actually pay money for. I guess that's why he makes the big bucks.

But I should give this project a little bit of context. Was it made with my full concentration in a spotless, stainless steel professional kitchen? Neee-o, as Luke would say. Here's how it unfolded:

11 am: Shop for groceries, unpack them; stop to nurse the baby. 1 pm: Prepare the salad and the fruit dishes, assemble and pack the paper goods and utensils, eat lunch; stop to nurse the baby. 3 pm: Pick up Luke from school. Supervise Luke and maintain ongoing distractions for Zach while simultaneously preparing three pounds of olive-eyed meatballs and four pounds of spaghetti. Endure whining, fussing, complaining, gnawing of baby who is ready to eat again. 5:15 pm: Finally: Three large pots of water are boiling; three large pans of meatballs are cooking in the oven; but the panic is setting in. We are at T-minus-45 minutes until we are expected on the other side of town with dinner in hand, and Dave is still not home. He has been traveling for two days and his plane was supposed to land more than an hour ago. 5:20 pm: Prop up Zach on the floor while helping Luke get into his policeman costume. 5:25 pm: Dave bursts in, sees us sitting on the floor with the Halloween costumes, and says, "Nice to see you all so relaxed!"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

5:50 pm: Dave and I shift into crisis mode when the dinner is all laid out and I decide that we really need another pound of spaghetti. So Dave supervises the spaghetti while I feed Zach, wandering in and out of the room and barking out orders with a baby dangling from my arms, and Luke flops around in his police-man costume whining "When are we going?" 6:25 pm: We finally stumble into class, sweating profusely, with less-than-photogenic meatballs in hand. But you know what? We had a lot of fun, and everyone seemed to appreciate the dinner.

At bedtime, Luke and I always play My Favorite Part of the Day: He tells me his favorite and I tell him mine. When I thought about it tonight, I had to say my favorite part was when we were sticking the olives into the meatballs and getting that giddy little thrill watching them change from lumps of meat into little creatures with personality and character.

And the good thing is that now Dave is home too. No one likes when Dave is away - and this time was especially unfair because he was up in Berkeley breathing cool, clean air while we were all stifling in the heat and hacking and coughing the thick grey air while soot fell on our heads. But here's the thing: When Dave is gone, and Luke and Zach wake up in the morning, we don't have to tiptoe around Dave - we just have the whole bed to roll around and snuggle up in. I love those moments. Next time, however, he is totally taking us with him, especially if we have to contend with natural disasters or googly-eyed meatballs.

The Policeman and the Snail

Had our first of several Halloween outings today; this party was at the hospital for graduates of the NICU. We saw some of our old NICU pals and marveled at the collection of happy, healthy kids who all at one time or another spent time in the hospital as teeny tiny babies. Then we meandered over to say hi to our good friends at Labor and Delivery, who were more than happy to see Luke and a bloomingly healthy Zach. It's weird - I like the idea of going to the hospital but I still get a little icky feeling in the pit of my stomach when I'm there, just remembering... Luke, however, seems to like it so much that when he had to fill out a "getting to know you" interview form at school, when asked "Favorite thing to do," he said, "Going to visit the hospital." Hmmm. Possibly spent a little too much time there this year already.


So Officer Luke strutted around in his policeman costume, while Zach acted appropriately goo-de-ly (Luke's term) and smiled and mugged until he finally passed out, and then woke up and smiled and cooed some more. Just like Luke, he's a great showman in public. Getting home was another story - we all basically melted down with crankiness.

We also took the plunge and bought another stroller today... bringing us to a total of five strollers for two kids. Now before I get a lecture on excess, we're about to sell one of our strollers, and possibly two. This new one will replace my regular single stroller that literally wore into the ground with Luke. One of the first times I took Zach out in it, a little screw fell out and it collapsed onto itself.

Since I use a stroller so often, going to the beach and the park and whatnot, I had a very specific list of things I wanted - basically, I wanted every feature of a high-end stroller but I didn't want to spend more than $100 - and it seemed somewhat unlikely that I'd find all that for so little. But I kept scanning Craigslist, and low and behold, there was exactly the kind of stroller I'd been looking for, a Bumbleride, barely used, for just over $100 (compared to $340 retail). We bought it, natch, and now I can't wait to just get out there and walk up and down the beach. Just the kind of thing that I pictured doing, day after day, from my hospital bed.

Boo!

While taking out some trash the other night, I was surprised to see my friend Julie (Hatcher's mom) pulling up outside our house. "You're not really supposed to know I'm here," she said sheepishly. "Have you been Boo'd yet?"
"Nope. Not this year."
"Cool."
With that, she handed over a Halloween bucket filled with super-cool treats for Luke: Halloween cookie cutters, glow sticks, flashlight, glitter cup, candy, a little pumpkin; some Halloween baby socks for Zach; and of course the requisite "Boo" sign for the door.

That in a nutshell shows why it is so much fun to have kids in a small town: You just kind of get wrapped up in these cool little things that keep you connected with everyone else. In this case, it's the Boo epidemic. Sometime around the beginning or middle of October, these Boo signs start appearing in people's front windows. The idea is, someone leaves you a treat bag and a Boo sign, along with the Boo instructions, at your doorstep (you may or may not know who Boo'd you). Then you have to leave treat bags and Boo signs for three of your friends ("or else your house will be haunted")...and you put the Boo sign on your house so that everyone knows you've been Boo'd. Soon the thing is spiraling out of control and the Boo signs are everywhere. I think it probably ends up like some sort of pyramid scheme/musical chairs situation where you might be the last person with no one else left to Boo. Glad we got in on the ground level this year...

(Oh, and Luke has been carrying his Halloween basket with him all around the house, from room to room, and repeatedly asking us to pretend that he is trick-or-treating at the door. Go figure.)

Another small-town thing we can't wait for: The Great Pumpkin Race. A few years back some neighborhood kids who lived at the top of a hill put wheels on their pumpkins and had a pumpkin race at Halloween. It became an annual tradition that grew and grew, culminating in a huge scene where 850 people (no joke) showed up at this house last year for the pumpkin race. This year they decided to make it a city-wide event down by the beach, on the day that the downtown merchants hold their trick-or-treat open house.

So, we don't have the fall colors or the changing leaves - or even the crisp fall weather, come to think of it - but we are really feelin' the Halloween love this year in our happy little town. Hey - it's good clean fun. At least I didn't Boo anyone by mail, right?

Science Pudding

Some big news on the Zach front - See his blog for details.

From the random file: I asked Luke if he knew what hummus was. "Yeah," he said. "I like to call it 'science pudding.'"

I have no idea what that means but I think it makes me like it a little bit less...

Filling in the gaps

When it's a long time since I last blogged, it means I'm not getting much sleep, because instead of blogging in my off-time, I'm trying to get some extra shut-eye. I guess I should say that life is good; it's just that I'm awake for too darned much of it.


Zach is now basically sitting up by himself, though he's generally in tri-pod (hands out in front of him) position and he's pretty tippy. He's also happy and talkative and laugh-y (especially at 5:30 in the morning, go figure) and he seems like he's ready to swim the 500 freestyle: If you put him on his tummy, he arches his back and his arms and legs start flailing like one of those wind-up bath toys.

What else? He's practically a menace at the dinner table because all he wants to do is grab things and see what it looks like when they fall on the floor. That's not too pretty, as you can imagine. Oh, and now that his head control is so much better, he's really gotten a lot less jowl-y. So all in all, a few steps forward (unless you were very attached to the jowl look, which I kinda was, but it sure was hard to keep clean).

Last time I wrote about how I thought Luke was a natural politician. Now I'm thinking...film director. He has all of these elaborate stories/fantasies, and he spends an inordinate amount of time placing people in different positions and dictating what they should say. Example: Last week after we went to the aquarium, he had this thing going on at dinnertime where he was a shark with three rows of teeth and Dave and I were the divers who were feeding him ("Man diver, now you say to the lady diver, 'I think the shark wants another bite of his shark-turkey'") and it went on and on like this for so long that he was still dictating us our lines long after dinner was over and we were outside on our after-dinner walk. (Luke: "Now can the lady diver say to the man diver, 'Don't put your hands too close to the shark when he opens his mouth'" Dave: "Time for the shark to take a rest!") I know Luke is one of the oldest ones in his class at school and he seems to have a reputation as kind of a ringleader. I can only imagine what kinds of scenarios he's having people act out at school when he has their full undivided attention for the day.

In the "just how smart is he" category: Yesterday Dave was sitting outside with the sun shining on half his face. Luke said to him, "Daddy, you're just like Earth. Half of you is in the sun, and it's day time; and half of you is dark like it's night time." OK, so he can't count past 12 and can't write the letter "L" - but hey, he understands the solar system! He's an astrophysics genius! (As long as they don't require him to do any of that counting stuff...)

Talk about burying the lead: I guess the biggest headline is that this week I formally quit my job (as in, signed the papers and everything). I'll still be a "special contractor" but I'll essentially be the boss of my own time. I guess I just haven't thought about it that much - I'm so confident that it's the right thing that I haven't dwelled too much on the scary "not getting any more paychecks" part of it.

In a strange poetic twist, the week that I quit my job to stay home with the kids also happens to be the week that we found our dream nanny. Juana was my friend Lisa's nanny, before Lisa quit her job, and now she's filling in her time with odd hours here and there while she looks for a new family. As soon as Juana stepped into the house, we knew that she was our personal Mary Poppins. Within the first hour she had taught me things that I never knew about how to play with/engage Zach, and she had him laughing and moving around like a wiggleworm. On Friday she showed up at our door lugging two pop-up tents and a pop-up tunnel for Luke to play in. Side note: She doesn't drive, so she has to take three buses and a train to get to our house to babysit. How messed-up are the economics of that situation? Anyway, Luke and Zach both adore her and I'm thinking that we should just offer her our spare room downstairs for a while. And if she got up with them at night, so much the better.


Parting shot: Luke talks with a policeman about how to use a radar gun. Insert joke here.

Meet the Mayor

When Zach and I are home alone three days a week, we do quite a few retail excursions. Zach doesn't mind shopping as long as it is done at a quick clip with no loitering in front of displays. That works out OK for groceries but not so much for clothes. Exhibit A: buying a pair of jeans. In the past, for me, this would have involved several trips to several different stores, with plenty of time for mulling options. Boot cut or straight leg? Low-rise or mid-rise? Stone-washed? Premium denim? European sizing?

But today I just plain needed a pair of jeans, and I had no choice but to bring Zach along for the ride. As I pushed the stroller into Old Navy I could tell he was in no mood for mulling. So slowly, subtly, like a hawk gliding in to capture its prey, I guided the stroller in smaller and smaller circles closer to the displays, until I could read the sizes as I passed by each pair.

"Can I help you?" asked a sales clerk.
"Yes, I just need an 8-short."
"Which cut? Diva boot-leg?"
Still circling slowly, I surveyed the entire wall of jeans. "Doesn't matter - I'll take the first 8-short you see."

So she spotted some jeans and tossed them over to me, and -- as if in a small-scale, extremely boring version of the movie "Speed" ("This stroller cannot go slower than two miles per hour!") -- I dashed over to the dressing room - shorts off, jeans on, fits OK, shorts back on - and then off to the cash registers without ever stopping. Funny thing is, the jeans look just fine. Maybe I should try that at other stores too. I'll just wheel back and forth in front of, say, a shoe store, and call out, "I need a nice black pump in a 6 1/2!" and they'll toss a box out the door to me, without even breaking my stride.

Luke seems to have broken free of a lot of the crankiness/adjustment issues he had over the summer and now he's just back to being good old Luke, only more so. I really think he might be preparing to run for office of some kind. Like on Sunday, when he delivered an impassioned speech about dogs to a small crowd of people waiting for tables at our local coffee shop. (There might have been something in there about health care too, but I lost track after a few of the big applause lines.) Or yesterday, at school, when I learned that he had invited all of the teachers and the maintenance man over for dinner ("Mackerel and sculpin and ham sandwiches").

In the late afternoons, we've started going over to our little elementary school because it's kind of a neighborhood kid-gathering place. Yesterday, Luke took off when we got there and I was amused to find him hanging out and chewing the fat with some much-bigger kindergartners, first-graders, and second-graders. By the time I got in on the conversation, he had already invited them over to our house to play. "I'll come!" said one kindergartner/future campaign volunteer. "OK," said Luke, "but I want that one to come too," - pointing to the biggest kid in the group, a second-grader three heads taller than Luke. One of our neighbors was laughing as he watched Luke work his way through the playground making sure that he knew everyone's name. "He's like the mayor of Morningside Drive," said Scott. That's kinda true. But when he starts asking for campaign contributions, we're in trouble.

Laugh it up

In the past few days Zach has really started to morph from a baby lump to a real personality. For starters, he's smiling and yukking it up almost all the time. Diaper change? Big smiles. Time for pajamas? Grins from ear to ear. Wiping spit-up off his face? Laugh-o-rama. And I have never heard a laugh quite as contagious as Zach's - probably because it's a belly laugh that comes from deep down inside the yummiest, squishiest baby belly you've ever seen. When Zach was just a little bud inside of me, I watched an ultrasound where he tried to put his thumb in his mouth and kept missing, and then he turned his face toward the screen and moved his jaw up and down as if to laugh and laugh. At the time, I thought we had a little comedian on our hands. Now who knows whether he will be a real jokester or not, but at the very least I can tell that he seems to enjoy life.

He's also zooming through a bunch of milestones: sitting upright in the tripod (hands down in front of him) position; sleeping as much as 9 hours at night (though if he does this, Luke will wake up just to make sure that I don't get a full night's sleep); grabbing things and putting them in his mouth. But mostly it's the cheery disposition that has us completely charmed. Even Luke, who one might think would be jealous of Zach, is beside himself with excitement every time Zach does something new. It'll be fun when things really start happening quickly in the next few months.


And what about Luke, my 3-going-on-60-year-old? He surprised us all the other day when he went "swimming" across the pool by swinging his arms in a wild windmill motion. Who knew he even wanted to get his face wet?

Luke and I also started our new science class, which for the moment we have all to ourselves because no one else signed up for it. So in our private science tutorial on Monday, Luke learned all about sound waves and how the inside of your ear works, and we did a little experiment building an "ear drum." I think he is just hungry to learn and his head is filled with so many exciting things each day it's hard for him to process it all and take it all in. "My head hurts," he told me the other day. "I have too many words in there." I think Zach is going to have to teach him how to relax and let it all out...

Friday I'm In Love

Dave is gone for many nights this week so I'm looking for new and adventurous things to do with both boys. Our garage is now chock-full of various transportation options. Some of you may recognize this jeep double stroller; Zach is big enough to go in the front-facing way now, which is exciting for everyone (at a time when the littlest thing can excite us). We also have a new Sit N' Stand stroller, which allows the older kid to either sit facing backward or stand up and "drive" it forward on a little standing board. It cracks me up that Luke can't seem to remember the name of the stroller; he'll tell people, "This is our new stroller. It's called a sit...a stand...a stroll...what is it called again, Mommy?"

Luke has had a little toddler rebellion thing going on for the past few weeks, which has been trying to say the least. The day after the dead-fish-on-the-pier meltdown, he must have remembered me saying something about me being the boss, because he announced, "Mommy, I'm the voss. You say you're the voss but I'm the voss." I figured I was supposed to be mad at that, but the only way I could keep from laughing was to agree with him. "OK, you're the voss. It's just that I am the boss. So you need to remember that."

This week, however, Luke has sailed into the sweetest of all moods: he's happy to help around the house and he is quick to apologize the moment I seem less than thrilled with his behavior. What was it that turned the tide? I don't know but I'm just going to try to keep everything exactly the same for as long as possible to keep this little alien visitor with us. Last night I pulled out Dave's and my wedding album, which Luke and I hadn't seen in ages, and Luke and I curled up on the couch to read it together. He was particularly taken by the picture of all of the male members of the wedding party - all of the uncles, grandpas, and friends we love. "Those are all of my favorite men!" he declared. "Yes - it was a great party. You would have loved it," I told him.

Oh, and Zach has really become a laugher. How sweet is that? The two people who can consistently get him to laugh the most are Dave and Suzi. Dave has to say something very specific, along the lines of "Goodley-goo!" to get him to crack up, but when he does, it's magic.

Not entirely related, but somewhat related: When Luke and Dave listen to music together in Dave's car, the playlist is carefully edited for musical authenticity, lyrical appropriateness, and cultural diversity. But when Luke is in the car with me, he gets pretty much whatever happens to be on the radio (Luke put some spare change inside my CD player more than a year ago, and we haven't gotten around to fixing it, but that's another story). Last week we heard "Friday I'm in Love" by the Cure, and out of the blue, Luke declared, "That's my favorite song." So Dave had to download it and put it on the Ipod, and we've been watching the video on YouTube, and listening to it over and over again in every possible venue, but the funny thing is, it's really one of my favorite songs too, and at this point I don't think I can get tired of hearing it. Doesn't it just make the day seem all dreamy?

Rat Pack

If it seems like I'm acting a little more rakish or debonair than usual, it's because we spent the weekend living it up in true Rat Pack style, at the former Palm Springs estate of Dinah Shore. There's just something about that desert lifestyle... the lush palms, the glamorous parties, the free-flowing liquor...oh wait -- my mistake -- that was milk and apple juice.


Yes, we did the trip with two other families and a total of six kids under age four, and not only did we live to tell, we managed to remain friends AND have a great time. The mercury topped out at 105 but we had a blast between bowling, a tram ride and hikes up the mountain, dinner and a band downtown, and lots and lots of swimming. We even wore the kids out enough to have some actual adult conversation time in the evenings, after we convinced everyone under four feet tall to go to sleep.

Luke was of course in seventh heaven with his two best friends Hatcher and Eitan, and plenty of moms and dads around to do book-reading duty. He had a few blowouts over candy-related issues (go figure) but for the most part he was just happy to be there.

And Zach - good little Goo that he is - actually seemed to be amused by his first-ever dip in the pool. I'm searching for words to describe what it's like to watch him swim but the best I can come up with is "surprisingly buoyant." Even when you try to push his legs and bottom down so that he is standing upright in the water, he still keeps popping back up. We were saying that we could probably just set him off on his back and he'd just float around all day.

One of the things that made me happiest was how well all of the kids got along. Even Zach and Daniel (the two littlest ones) seemed to have a good time just looking at each other for 20 minutes or more, and that's how all great friendships begin, right?

We volunteered to drive Hatcher home from Palm Springs yesterday (because Julie had two kids to herself) and it gave us an interesting view of what it would be like to have three kids. Luke and Hatcher had a great time together in the back seat and cracked each other up for the first 90 minutes. But then it was amazing how quickly it degenerated from funny word games into "Stop touching me!" "He's on my side!" etc. It all came to a less-than-perfect ending when Hatcher, who was closest to the door, cracked open the car door when we were on the freeway, leading to a slightly hair-raising ride to the nearest exit, where we pulled over at a small industrial park. At that point we handed Hatcher back over to his mom (who had been trailing behind), and we set the childproof locks in the back seat not a moment too soon.

The best compliment about the whole weekend came from Julie, who said, "I'm already planning our next vacation." Where else do you think the Rat Pack would want to go?

Super/bad

Luke is currently bapping me with his "bad" hand and preparing to have his "good" hand, aka the "police" hand, step in and mediate the situation. Lucky for him he has an alternate identity to manage/blame for almost every situation: There's Pontrow, the genial visitor, Rico Ratchet, the mischievous troublemaker, Baby Cat, who likes to snuggle and get food spoon-fed to him, and of course the bad hand/good hand duo. The other morning, after Luke had woken up in the middle of the night, I asked him why he got me up.
"Oh, it wasn't me," he said.
"Well then who woke me up? Pontrow? Rico Ratchet?"
He pondered this a moment, then said, "No, it was just some air." Ah. OK. Remind me no to be disturbed by any bad air tonight.

It was a great birthday weekend, really. Nice massage on Saturday, amazing restaurant dinner on Saturday night with both kids in tow (!!) (Luke was on his best behavior and Zach slept through the whole thing), fantastic lunch "date" with just Dave on Sunday...But then how prophetic was the Zachary Enzo blog that I just wrote about not taking anything for granted? After our "date" lunch Dave and I were in the theater, just 15 minutes into "Superbad" when we got the phone call every parent dreads from babysitters Suzi and Boom-boom: "Don't want to alarm you, but you really need to come home right now..."

Turns out Luke decided that a very tiny Lego part would be much better suited inside his nostril than on the racecar he was building. Next thing you know, it got stuck, and we had to come home, and Dave had to take him to the ER, and there was a very long fine surgical tweezer involved, and blah blah blah. Fortunately there were no tears shed and no lasting damage, but the irony of it being six months to the day from when I went to the hospital was not lost on me. Now I wonder, was it Rico Ratchet who put it up there? Or did it just go up there because of the "air"?

Zach and Luke both crashed early tonight after a long day at the beach. (That's me in the background, holding a very contented Zach as he watches the waves.) In Luke's case, he wore himself out running around and arguing with his buddies; Zach must have simply worn himself out with his non-stop babbling and cooing. He's getting a little frustrated because he obviously wants to roll himself over but he just can't seem to move his big hulking body around too well. I wonder if that is how talking is for an infant - he must have so much to say but he just can't get the words out. Whatever he has to say, I hope he says it soon - I'm looking forward to bringing a new personality into the mix.

23 minutes

Lying on the bed, nursing a sore back here. Turns out Zach, aka "Frank the Tank," weighs in at a whopping 18 pounds, 13 ounces at four months, so I'm not just complaining about nuthin'.

I survived Dave's three-night absence last week in relatively good form; the boys were easy on me. When Dave was gone on Monday night, Luke and I hit a little bit of a rough patch, but we held it together. Then today it all fell apart in very public fashion, with Luke having a call-social-services-type meltdown on the pier when I wouldn't let him take two large dead fish home. Poor Zach was just plain bothered about his shots from the doctor today so he contributed to the screaming. It got to the point where total strangers (think: a group of pre-teen surfers) were asking "Ma'am, can I help you with anything?"

But when Dave came home, things got all good again, like they always do when Dave is around, and Luke and I bobbed around in the hot tub and looked at the sky and tried to forget about the day.

Curious point: If I'm home alone with both boys, it is possible to get them both to nap at the same time, but their sleep schedules only ever overlap for 23 minutes exactly (and yes, I'm looking at the clock). Has the universe just established this number as an acceptable window of time for Mom to get a break?

On Monday night when Dave was gone, Luke kept popping up out of bed, and it was 10:00 by the last time I tucked him in. Then I could feel my own eyelids falling and I had a little internal debate: Do I try to keep myself awake until Dave's 10:30 pm phone call? Or do I just succumb? Last thing I remember was propping one eye open to look at the clock: 10:23 on the dot. My "personal" time was up; I was out.

Confidential to Bill-O: Thanks for the Zach pics. And happy anniversary to you and Suzi.

Confidential to Joe and Sara: Today IS your anniversary. Seriously, do I need to be the one keeping track of this? Hope it's a good one.

Put on a happy face

Dave is currently upstairs trying to convince Luke to go to bed; I'm downstairs dreading doing it for the next three nights on my own. There is some crying involved, which is not good for Zach's sleep future. Let's hope Luke cooperates. As Dave was trying to get Luke to go to bed the other night, he told him, "Mommy is trying to get to sleep. She needs her rest. She worked hard all day being a mommy." Luke said, "I know. I'm still teaching her."



One little-known fact about Luke is that he is positively obsessed with Christmas desserts. He carries around this one little Betty Crocker Christmas cookbook, which we "read" all the time, and he has it practically memorized. When Beatriz and Felipe came the other day, Felipe was amused to have Luke sit down and read him the recipes, page for page ("These are Chocolate Mint Brownies. This is Raspberry-Chocolate Torte. This is called Bundt Cake." etc). Sometimes when he wants to be lulled to sleep he asks me to describe for him all of the desserts we are are going to make for Christmas.

The reason this is relevant is that on Friday he just couldn't wait any longer to make Christmas cookies, so we made the recipe for Santa-face cookies and just turned them into happy face cookies. Look for more quasi-Christmas desserts in the months to come...

So we had a wild, exhaustive day at the beach yesterday with friends. Luke's highlight, or lowlight as the case may be, was when a giant seagull came down and swooped up the baggie containing his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This resulted in Luke screaming uncontrollably, various dads scrambling to chase down the seagull, and various moms rummaging to find new food offerings to appease Luke. After Luke pulled it together he led all of the other kids around using their shovels as "metal detectors" to find his sandwich. He later identified one bird as the "police bird" who was going to track down the perpetrator and "put him in jail." Then, throughout the evening I had to answer endless variations on, "What do you think a bird might say if he takes my sandwich?" By bedtime it was obviously still on his mind because he had decided he didn't want to go to the beach any more if there were birds there. I had to promise that we'd keep all of the food in the cooler from now on.




Poor Zach...The second child. Nowhere near as many stories about him. But I can say this - he sure loves any play that involves sitting up. He always has a comically surprised look when he's upright, as if he's discovering a whole new world that is vertical. Whoa.

Yesterday Dave pulled out the exer-saucer for Zach to try. Predictably, Zach looked quite surprised. Not as predictably, Luke was more excited than anyone. "Look at him! Look at him!" Luke crowed with delight. "He's in a baby manhole!"

A handful

Did someone mention that being home alone with an infant and a preschooler is hard, hard work? If you didn't mention it, why didn't you think to do so before yesterday?

We had a great morning with friends coming over to swim, and Zach conveniently slept through the entire thing, so I was able to hang with Luke and serve lemonade and fruit to the kids. But once they left, things deteriorated quickly. Zach kept crying inexplicably; Luke didn't want me to hold Zach, didn't want to take a nap, and didn't want to stop bapping me on the foot. By 3 pm I thought I was going to lose it so I packed the kids in the car and just drove around for 30 minutes (they both went right to sleep) until I could clear my head a little bit. It's TOUGH to entertain two kids who have such very different needs. I don't want to turn into TV mom, but just about the only thing that consistently makes both of them happy is to let Luke watch a movie while Zach and I walk and bounce around the room and into the backyard.

This sorta comes at a bad time, because Dave is planning to be gone for three nights in a row next week. Um. Can we just same some time and call for the Code Grey now?

But I should mention a few positive things...Zach rolled from his tummy to his back on Monday. He hasn't repeated it since then, but it's a start. Luke has been walking everywhere without asking to be carried - AND he's started peeing standing up (but we don't discuss potty issues in this forum so I will say no more). Dave is having great success in all manners of his work life. And hey - I have a massage on Saturday. It was a birthday present from last year that I had yet to cash in. Question: If I refuse to get up from the table, does that mean that they have to keep massaging me?

Fish for lunch

Here's what happens when Mom takes a break for a few hours (to write a speech for work) and leaves Dad with the two kids at the beach:

Ninety minutes later, the three-year-old shows up at the front door, dead bloody fish in hand, saying, "Mommy, I caught this fish and now we need to eat it for lunch!"
Try explaining why that's not going to happen and his eyes fill with genuine, jumbo-sized tears. "But it's from the OCEAN! We eat fish from the ocean!"

And so Dad finally troops up the stairs, with a sigh of resignation, and turns on the grill. When the "lunch" is finally "cooked" no actual ocean fish is consumed, as predicted. Said boy is given some teriyaki chicken, which he asks if it is ocean fish, and when given an affirmative, takes a tentative bite, then moves on to the next project.

But I should say this: His baby brother is all smiles, all the time. Well, OK, not in the car on the ENTIRE 30-minute drive from Dave's office to our house (think non-stop, this-can't-be-humanly-possible screaming, the whole way). But bring him to, say, a crowded doctors' office and he is all smiles the whole time and will sit patiently for an hour at a time while you get your eyes measured or whatever it is you might need to do. Whatta baby.

Rain, rocks, dreams

Every day, without fail, when we're walking in the door, some version of this scene is re-enacted at our house:

Luke asks to wait outside while I go in and close the door. Then he rings the doorbell and I open the door.

"Hi. What's your name?"
"My name is Pontrow. I'm just visiting."
"Well, Pontrow, come on inside. We're just about to have some breakfast/lunch/dinner."

He then proceeds to examine the house and admire everything with great enthusiasm.
"This is a wonderful house!"
"Why, thank you!"
"These are very nice big chairs. And this is such a nice play area for your baby!" Etc.

Yesterday he moved on to our bedroom: "This is a wonderful bed. And such a nice crib." Then he tugged on the co-sleeper/basinette to see how securely it was attached to the bed. "Nice and tight. Very good."

The enthusiasm continues at mealtime. "These are wonderful crackers!" "Did you make this spaghetti? It's delicious!"

Some who know Luke probably remember that he is notoriously finicky (Example: He stopped eating syrup on his waffles and pancakes because he does not like anything to be sticky). So it's actually a nice little change of pace to have his super-gung-ho alter ego come to our house every day. But has Pontrow expanded Luke's eating habits at all? Um. No. Still, it's enormously entertaining to watch such a big imagination at work.

On Tuesday at the farmers' market, Luke befriended a charming woman named Edith, a retired food writer, with whom he chatted on and and on about crabs, oysters, halibut, clams, sculpin, and barnacles. "This is a a kid who gets a LOT of interaction with his parents," she said to us. That left me and Dave beaming for the rest of the night, for as Dave put it, this is our luxury -- to have a life made richer every day by two amazing kids.

From the random file: I asked Luke what they talked about in school that day. "Weather," he said. "Oh, what's weather?" I asked.

"Weather - you know, like rain, rocks, dreams..." came the response. I guess the weather is just dreamy today.

Mem...ries...lightthecornersofmymind

Still basking in a post-Seattle glow out here ... Yes, it was tiring. Yes, it was chaotic. But even still, I can't wait for next year. (If pressed, I might even admit to having bookmarked several potential Bethany Beach homes already. )

Being so far away from everyone, this vacation has become a really important time for me. It's also increasingly an important time for Luke, and surely, Zach as well. Seeing Antonia, with her beautiful art projects, Sam, with his amazing speed and fearlessness, Helena, with her sweet helpfulness, and Lily, with her startlingly articulate conversation has made us all wish, as Luke did, to have his "brothers and sisters" with him all the time. And don't even get me started on how much I miss the grownups.

Oh, and hey - this vacation is the whole reason I started blogging two years ago (as a way of recording our trip to Cape May).

So I'm just going to enjoy it for what it is for now, until soccer practices, or summer theater, or swim teams, or whatever else get in the way. Then the kids can fly on their own to visit their cousins (like the two skateboard-toting preteens behind us on the plane, who displayed an endearing combination of confident swagger and vulnerable "I-love-you-Mom" on the cell phone.)

Will they ever be that big? Could they be halfway there already?

Here are some more pictures to hold everyone until we finally get The Disc from our faithful photographer.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for making it happen!

Band-Aid Beach

Is Seattle just the best place in the entire world or what? Can you tell I just got back from a yummy Greek dinner and a (gasp) glass of wine?

At the very least it's a great time for Luke to be in Seattle because of his current fish obsession. Could he have thought that buying fish at the Pike Place market was as good as it got? Not after we spent half a day at Constellation Beach where the purple starfish are as big as dinner plates, the snails are bigger than grapefruit, and the crabs practically crawl up to you and ask to be cooked for dinner. At low tide, there's a long rocky stretch where you can walk out and see all of these creatures as close as you like, and/or slip on the rocks as appropriate...to the point where we had four out of five walking kids with bleeding injuries that required bandages. Joe renamed it "Band-Aid Beach." "It's like freakin' Normandy out here," he declared, surveying the casualties.

And where else but Seattle could it be not just bearable but actually pleasant to go out to dinner with eight adults and six small children? This Greek restaurant is the second place we've been where they have a special play area carved out for kids. By the end of our two-and-a-half-hour orgy of food, we had some kids busy in the play area and we had attracted some kids who weren't even our own to our table.

I'm just putting a few pictures out here to get the ball rolling. More to come as our adventures continue...

Ocean creatures

I think I've mentioned before that Luke is fish-obsessed. Evidence includes:

1) He will only eat if the food he is eating is described as some sort of seafood; i.e. spaghetti is jellyfish, tamales and sausages are lobster, rolls are clams, red peppers are redfish, etc.

2) He got a birthday card that folds out into a long chain with pictures of all different kinds of fish, and he keeps the card next to his guitar at all times. He uses it as "sheet music" to help him think up new lyrics to his ever-evolving composition, "Robot Ocean Clouds."

3) His favorite question is, "What kind of fish are we going to eat in Seattle?" Preferred answer: Salmon, king crab, Venus clams, lobster, monkfish, sculpin. Recurring follow-up question: "What do you think the fish might say?" Preferred answer: Please put me back in the ocean!

4) I asked him what they served at snack yesterday in school and he said, "Watermelon...and salt cod."



On an unrelated note, here's a pic not of ocean creatures, but of real-live air-breathing members of the family. Looks like Zach and I are the least cooperative of the bunch...

The party continues

What a week, with cousin Samson in town, big work party, lots of family events. I'm still trying to catch up but I thought I'd share another pic from Luke and Hatcher's party, courtesy of Super Photographer Bill-o (a.k.a. Boom-Boom). This is my "tropical" vegetable platter, during one of the rare moments when the palm trees weren't falling over. Little did I know the palm trees would become valued currency by the end of the party, with the kids fighting over who would get to keep them.

Not included here is what I like to refer to as "The Frosting Series" a group of about 8 pictures of Luke licking every possible microgram of frosting from his fork after he was finished with his cake.

More family pix to come soon...

Party pooped

Too tired to say too much tonight ... The party was great, but Luke ("I can subsist on cake alone") is currently melting down in the background so that's not much fun.

We had not four, not six, but nine ukulele players come and entertain us. They led the kids in hula dancing, then co-opted the adults to do a round. Amazingly, Dave and Stu were both willing participants - and this is after we got them both to wear sumo-suits at last year's block party (Dave: "I think I prefer the fat suit.")

Luke helped me make the cakes too...The only amazing thing about them, really, is that I got them done at all with a three-year-old leaning on my arm and saying, "I want to write the words!"

The big squiggle in the middle of the string on Hatcher's cake is when Luke pulled my arm to say, "I LOVE you, Mommy!" How can I argue with that?

Telling it like it is

Signs from today that maybe we have some more things we need to teach Luke before we can let him outside again:

In the restaurant this morning, as a lady with an exceptionally large posterior walks by:
Luke: "That's a big, big, big, big, big-"
Dave (cutting in with the first thing that comes to mind): "Luke! Will you close that door please? It's a little drafty in here."

After Luke struggles with it for a minute, Dave, who knows full well the door is solidly propped open, says, "That's OK, never mind." The great save is made, and the moment passes with the large so-and-so forgotten.

We think we're safe until tonight, eating dinner at the pizza restaurant when a Rasta-man with long dreadlocks walks in.

Luke: "Hey! There's a Muppet!"

Party time

Luke and his "brother from another mother" Hatcher are having their third annual half-birthday party. This year's theme: Luau. This year's invitation object: A pineapple, hand-delivered to each of their buddies' houses with the following tag:

Come to our luau - we'll play and laugh
As Hatcher and Luke turn three and a half
Jump in a bouncy house, eat tropical fare
While ukulele music drifts through the air!

My favorite response so far was when I asked one mom, "Did you get the invitation?" and she replied, "We already ate the invitation!"

Whole wheat flour

OK, do I need to explain how I somehow wound up with 15 pounds of wheat flour in my cupboard? No, I'll leave that one alone. But what's important is it led me to discover this recipe, from Betty Crocker, for whole wheat chocolate chip cookies that are so good I don't think I'll ever make the "regular" kind again:

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 cups Gold Medal® whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

1. Heat oven to 375ºF.
2. Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in chocolate chips. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

Picky, picky

I continue to be confounded by Luke's picky and completely unpredictable eating habits. If what my mom says is true, I ate everything, all the time, preferably at the same time. Luke has a very limited repertoire of food that he will eat and he won't try anything beyond that (in other words, he's no Antonia or Helena eating crispy whole fish). We're lucky we started him early on tamales; otherwise there's no chance he'd eat them now.

Luke also has a fussy/meticulous side that I will attribute to Dave, because I am the world's biggest slob (true confession time) who will even avoid using utensils and will eat out of the container whenever possible. Contrast that with Dave, who, for instance, won't eat foods at the same time if they're going to run into each other, and who is famous for, when he cooks, somehow using every single plate and utensil in the kitchen. That's why I was amused but not surprised the other day when I gave Luke a cookie after dinner and he protested about eating it on the same plate as his dinner ("That's where the meatball was!") I mean, it's a cookie, for crying out loud.

As a mom, I've been trying to be more creative about sneaking new foods into his diet. I made a zucchini bread the other day and told him it was sugar-and-spice bread, and I only nonchalantly let it slip, once he had eaten the last piece, that there was zucchini in there too. The next day we made a zucchini chocolate cake together, and he knew that there was zucchini in it but he seemed excited about it anyway (though it turned out he was mostly interested in the frosting). Finally, the next morning, he turned to me wearily and said, "Mom, I just don't want any more cakes or breads with zucchini in them, OK?"

So now, given all that, explain to me how his interest in crabs came to pass. We have books about crabs, and he thinks they are cool, and he knows people sometimes eat them with a hammer, but we never really eat crab so I don't know where it came from. But on Sunday, Dave called me from the supermarket with Luke in tow: "I just want you to know that there's going to be a meltdown unless I buy Luke some crab."

Me: "Crap? Why is that news?"
Dave: "No, crab. He wants me to buy crab, and the smallest package I can find has a lot of crab in it."
Me: "Krab? I love that stuff. Sure - go ahead - I'll make a seafood salad."

Thirty minutes later or so they came back with crab, as in actual crab, as in slightly crabby-smelling disembodied legs packaged in supermarket styrofoam and plastic. Gross. But Luke insisted on having crab for lunch, so I held my nose and picked out the crab meat, heated it a little bit (it was precooked) and put it out for him on a plate.

He stared at it. "No mommy, I wanted to eat the crunchy part."
"Like the shell? You can't eat the shell."
"Well I don't eat this part, I only eat the crunchy part."

So there goes $11.99 down the drain. Next time he'll have to experiment with something a little cheaper, like beans. Anyone want some slightly used crab legs?

Random conversations

Luke: "Mommy, I don't like school."
Me: "Why not?"
Luke: "Because it's too windy."
(Luke was later heard to proclaim, "I love going to school!")

Me: "Luke, what's your favorite vegetable?"
Luke: "I don't like any vegetables."
Me: "Oh, that's too bad. Why don't we just eat these green peppers then?"
Luke: "Yeah!"
(We proceed to chow down on green pepper strips.)

Me (while Luke is eating french fries): "Luke, can I have a french fry?"
Luke: "Sure!"
(Luke grabs a french fry, climbs down from his chair, starts to walk over to me, but stops to sneeze...right on the fry. He hands it to me. I eat it anyway. I feel like a true mom.)

Luke (hugging me): "Mommy, I like to hug you. You smell like odorant."

Booger

So Papa and Luke are talking and playing, when Luke starts rubbing one small spot on Papa's face. Finally Papa asks, "Luke, what are you doing?" and Luke replies nonchalantly, "I'm putting a booger on your face."

"Back!"

Couldn't resist...Luke loves to play baseball, and when he swings and misses, he does a very energetic thumbs-backward sign (as if to say "You're out!" and shouts, "Back!"

I don't know why he does it or how he interpreted that as the thing to say, but it is darned funny...

hiatus

Beachbucket will be taking a little break for a while. For regular updates, see Zachary Enzo's blog. I'll probably combine them later...

check out

Mental check: When's the last time I went 8 weeks without wearing shoes? Infancy? When's the last time I went 8 weeks without wearing a shirt? During my own fetal development?

Zachary Enzo is here and he is as beautiful as anyone could have imagined. Tonight I'm getting my shoes on and doing what might seem like the unthinkable - going home and leaving him here. They've told me to prepare for a breakdown at some point. But here's what I know is true: He's in good hands, and I belong at home, not here. Let's hope it's not too long before Zach too gets to go home. There's a whole world outside waiting to meet him.

you don't say

Things Luke has been saying recently that crack us up:

To the nurses:
Nurse: "Are you in kindergarten?"
Luke: "No, I live in California."

To the baby:
Luke, with his hand on my tummy: "How do I make the baby kick?"
Me: "Why don't you try to talk to the baby?"
Luke, pressing his face against my belly button: "Hey, BABY!!!"
(The baby responds by giving him a swift kick in the face...)

To himself:
Luke, before going over to Garrett's for breakfast: "Daddy, will Garrett be wearing his pajamas?"
Dave: "I don't know - maybe. "
Luke, quietly to himself: "Will Garrett be wearing his pajamas? Yes, yes he will. "
Then to Dave: "Yes Daddy, he will be wearing his pajamas."

home stretch

Finally getting on Blogger after so many failed attempts...now I've figured ou how to get on thru the BlackBerry so let's hope my thumbs hold out. So...many...blog entries...backed up in my brain. But here I am in the home stretch ready to sum up rather than comment on any one individual day. Probably for the best.

I didn't feel like this before, but now that I only have a few days left I have a very calm peace about being here. I'm soaking up every last moment of peace and quiet. Now that I'm off the bedpan and can take regular showers I am sleeping better and feeling more refreshed. It's almost a nice feeling to wake up in the morning to total peace and quiet, knowing that someone will be coming in shortly to deliver breakfast. Fat chance of that happening anytime in the next 18 years (or some would say longer).

The nurses are mock-arguing amongst themselves about who gets to deliver this baby. It's funny that the normal experience is to just kind of check in and out, delivering your baby with a bunch of relative strangers. But I'll be with the same group of people that have taken care of me and gotten to know me round the clock for the last seven weeks. Some nurses are more personable than others, some are more cautious than others...I'm glad I've kept an open mind because there is one nurse whom I was all set to lodge a complaint about, but then she corrected herself and has gone on to become one of my strongest advocates.

I've also figured out all of the ins and outs - which meals to avoid, which special orders to request, which nurses ar most responsive, which nurses are most willing to gab. Too bad there's not really a way to pass on all of my accumulated knowledge.

Last Friday on a rare day when Dave and Luke couldn't come to visit I completely lost it and started bawling on the phone to Dave. They more than made up for it the next day by staying for 6 hours - but the point is, I would never have made it this far if I hadn't been able to count on nightly visits from them. I still don't know how Dave manages it all.

Luke has positively flourished here. One of the nurses told me yesterday, "We see lots of kids here, but with Luke it's an absolute burst of sunshine. He usually comes at the end of the shift when we're all dragging a little and he gets everyone so excited and happy. "

Having me venture out in the wheelchair seems to make him even that much more excited. The other night he was practically skipping down the hall, saying "I have a mommy and a daddy and we are all together!"

Luke seems to be relatively ready for a new baby too. The other morning he announced to Dave, "I'm going to teach the baby how to walk!" Besides, he's already told half his friends, "I have a new baby brother named Junior. "

I don't know what life with this baby is going to be like. Of course I'm still a little scared. How long will it be before I can walk around like a normal person and pick up one or even two kids?
How long before I sleep again? Will Dave have to declare a "code gray" at some point and have them drag me off to the insane asylum? Or might it be all sunshine and roses and long days at the beach?

And what will the baby look like? Will it have lots of black hair, like most of us, blonde hair like Helena, or even red hair? Will it have Dave's nose, as one of the ultrasounds seemed to suggest?

One thing that has been great all along is that even from the early, super-scary days, the baby has always looked healthy. Thank God for that. As for the rest, stay tuned....

I got nothin'

Hey - Anyone notice that I haven't been on in a while? I'm still looking for new and sneaky ways to circumvent this tightwad, non-blog-friendly wireless portal. So, let's run through the list...is there any minute detail of my stay (leg-shaving, anyone?) that I haven't recounted numerous times on the phone? Do I have any big-picture summaries that could somehow encapsulate the day-to-day tedium of being in the same bed every moment of every day? Um....no.

One of the nurses made me a calendar on Sunday: "Jeanne's Baby Countdown." It's funny, a calendar like that would have completely overwhelmed me at the beginning of March but now it is kind of cool. The perinatologist tells me that he personally wouldn't want to keep me past 34 weeks -- and even though my regular doc has the ultimate say, 34 weeks looks well within striking distance on my calendar.

Dave and Luke are truckin' along as a little team...going to the beach, doing projects, finding new and eclectic musical selections to enjoy during their long stretches spent in the car together (think Fugazi followed by Burl Ives). Dave has even been called upon to do such previously Jeanne-driven things as shop for clothes and new shoes. For the record, he scored on the shoe front, and Luke is happy, so I'm starting to believe that we really will pull through this relatively unscathed.

Luke is so thoroughly "in" with allof the nurses that the one night he didn't come in, I had to answer questions about why he wasn't there. He announced to the gathered crowd last week that we were going to throw a big, big party at our house and invite all the nurses, so I guess we'll have to figure out how to hold up that particular bargain.

Young Baby Squirt appears to be in good spirits, although it definitely has a mind of its own: burying its head and hiding its face during ultrasounds, squirming away once the nurse has finally found its heartbeat on the fetal monitor, growing big enough that I look like a watermelon pasted onto some stick-legs and arms, that kind of thing. I hope this little one realizes at some point that it is really, really wanted.

Oh, and hey - I started accepting visitors, which it turns out is a good thing. Why didn't someonne tell me sooner that it would really make time fly?

A few resolutions:

No feeling sorry for myself - lots of people are nowhere near as lucky
No more movies that involve someone slowly going crazy all alone in a room (ahem, Aviator)
No more iceberg lettuce
No more fretting about Sudoku - if it's not fun, don't do it
No more fanatical googling of preemie outcomes. We're going to have our own story and it will be a good one.

racer

So my two stunningly handsome men took 1st place in the stroller division of our neighborhood 5K this morning. The prize? Some guy saying "Hey, you were the first stroller!"

Trying to distract myself this morning because apparently I was having contractions....Hmmm..How bout a Luke vocab update, hospital edition?

Hop-sidal=Hospital
Mometer=Thermometer
Odorant=Deodorant
Elevator bed=Hospital bed
Listening radio=Console that controls the TV and calls the nurses
Medicine stand=IV drip hanger
That button= The big blue button located so temptingly within reach that sets off a hospital Code Blue, whatever that means. Just DON'T TOUCH IT, OK?!?!?!?

bed riddance

Unk told us last week, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." So He must have been splitting his sides when we talked about doing things in March and April and then having a baby in May. Heck, as of two weeks ago I was making plans to go shopping for bigger maternity clothes.
Now that the rug has been pulled out from under me, the new reality of these hospital room walls is starting to sink in. For the moment I have no choice but to do all the thing I am worst at: thinking only positive thoughts, staying in the present, not moving around, and being away from Luke and Dave. But I have to admit being obsessed with things like preemie complications and Luke's sadness and confusion. Plus - and this is terrible to say - but there are times when I think maybe a preemie would be OK if it jst meant I could go home. And no one wants that.
That's why I'm thinking that maybe I just want to keep this Luke-focused for the moment so I don't lose these past few weeks worth of funny stuff.

Luke at bedtime to Dave: "Daddy, look at my face. I don't like meatballs with sauce. I only like plain meatballs."

Luke to me: "I have twins in my tummy. Their names are Hickey and Mickey. "

Luke to the nurses in the nursery: "Where did this baby come from?"
Nurse: "It is resting here because it just came out of its mommy's tummy."
Luke: "I call it an oven."

That's all I've got for now. Let's hope we have lots more good stories ahead of us.