Oh, NOOO. . . Twooo.

Okay, so you wouldn't mean by this that you are as amazed as your Mama that it has been two whole years since I popped you out at 5:20 pm and my whole life changed. When you say, "Oh, No, Two!" it is an exclamation of surprise at seeing another of something; another airplane or truck or car or tree. It is especially humorous when you see another tree, and there are hundreds of them around. I love that you take the time to look at trees individually, that when we go out the front door to get to the car, you walk around to the side your carseat is on, but walk right past and go straight to the tree next to the garage. You say, "tree" as you walk up to it and touch its trunk and then i have to say about fifty times, "Rollie, let's get in the car. We gotta go."

I am amazed every day at how much you have changed from the little alien blob that we brought home from the hospital on that muggy, rainbow-showered day. Just this week, you have started sleeping in a big boy bed, complete with very big boy cowboy sheets. We made a huge production out of the sheets, studying every different object on them. You haven't learned the words for all of the objects yet (you keep calling the Conestoga wagon a "choo choo"), but i know you will. I spent many months of this year worrying about your speech development - you haven't started talking as quickly or as much as a lot of the other kids your age, but I know it is not that you aren't paying attention to everything going on around you, and suddenly, just in the last month, your speech has snowballed. Your favorite words are "choo choo," "nilk [milk]," "cheese," "peas" (for both please and peas), "meow" for cat, and "boof" [woof] for dog. You must constantly name everything now, the things that you know and the things that you don't know; for those, you look questioningly at me or your Daddy, waiting for us to name things. Sometimes it is like I am hearing words for the first time again, as I imagine how they sound to you or wonder what you think when I correct you for calling a plate a bowl, or for calling plants and shrubs "trees." It is like you see all the similarities in things that are functionally for somewhat the same purpose, but you also take the time to look at every separate object you come across. It sounds cliched, but I really do see the world anew through your eyes, something new every day.

In the past year, you learned to walk, you teethed most of your first 12 teeth, and you learned to crawl up and down steps. This is the year that you started regularly calling me "mama." This is the year that we found out that you would be a big brother, the year that you will become a big brother, and the year that I have spent wondering how I can ever love another child as much as I adore you. You are my everything and with the experience of two year's motherhood under my belt, I can say that each year is only going to get better and make me more and more proud of you. Happy Second Birthday, Little Man.

Billy Idol is Sneering at ME. . . .

I may be acutely sensitive to the ironies of motherhood right now; I just finished reading Tom Perotta's Little Children, and am now working on Having It, and Eating It (average ChickLit a la Bridget Jones' Diary, but in what i think of as a more well-defined sub-genre of "Suburban Motherhood Tales of Woe"). But, it really doesn't get much more ironic than cleaning the shit out of your house the day before your son's second birthday party, fat as a cow at 8+ months pregnant, thinking to yourself how cliched you must look as you push the vacuum back and forth, and then frustratedly jerking the corner of your Pottery Barn seagrass rug out of the vacuum to find your old Billy Idol Rebel Yell record (yep, vinyl, circa 1983) swept under the rug.

Mama, Eeeeeeeeze

There is no more heartbreaking sound than that of your child, wailing his heart out for you to come save him from having to go to bed alone. I am sitting here at the computer, as it is Todd's turn to put Rollie down. I am guessing that Todd is sitting outside Rollie's room, in the hallway, where Rollie can see him, but not paying Rollie any attention, a la The SuperNanny, but there is no way for me to know, since that would require calling up the stairs (obviously not an option), or actually climbing up there and peeking around the staircase corner. This would not work because there is the fear of being seen, and boy, then the jig would be up.

The crying started at 8:24 pm. It starts out not too distressed, but the plaintive, tear-stained yells of "Mamamamamamamamamamamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.. . mamamamamaaaaaaaaaaaa" soon begin to wax into a more panic-stricken, "Mama, eeeeze ["please," in Rollie's language], eeze, eeeeeeeeze, Mama, eeeze." There is a point where it is as if his sadness turns to disbelief and despair, the "Mama eezes" morphing into an irate "No, no, no, NO mama, NO, noooooooooo," and then they drift back to the more sorrowful, "Mamammmammamamammamamamaaaaa. . . . ," which starts to trail off into sobbing and then quiet, more and more regularly, and all the while, I can hear the snot running out of his nose, and I know the tear-stained face he is wearing. It is the tear-stained face I am wearing.

It is 8:57 pm, and the crying has subsided into silence, the tears are drying on my face and my own snot has been wiped on the hem of my nightgown, but that little voice has come down and ripped out my heart. Night Night, Angel.

I better go eat some Godiva.

Is There Anything More Annoying Than The Nanny?

YES.

The fucking Nanny guest-starring on Sesame Street. Does PBS know no mercy?

Sleep Deprivation Training

Where, oh where, has my excellent sleeper gone?

Rollie has gotten to the point where he fights us at bedtime now. This is very frustrating as we have been spoiled by his excellent sleep patterns up until now. For a year and a half, we could put him down slightly sleepy, and he would smile, say nightnight, and roll over and go to sleep. no crying.

Now, he fights naptime. He fights bedtime. He seems happy to participate in the same old bedtime rituals bath, naked time, pjs, reading, same old sleepy cd, saying goodnight to everything in the room a la Good night Moon. Same old stuff we've done since 6 mos or so. Gives us the goodnight hug and kiss, and doesn't look unhappy about it. But the minute we set him down in the crib, he stands immediately back up and starts wailing! If we pick him up, he puts his head on our shoulder, and gets quiet, but putting him back in the crib and he starts back up.

We have never given in to his crying at night before - we would make sure he had the necessities covered (not sick, wet, etc), and then he was on his own. This was never a problem before.

And now, it's like he has forgotten he ever knew how to sleep well. He wakes and it is like he is scared to be alone. WTF?

And this doesn't even take into consideration the fact that we want to get him into a bed, rather than the crib. My gut is telling me to just get the crib out of there and start letting him try to fall asleep in the twin bed. Todd thinks if we can't get him to sleep in the crib, why bother yet with the twin? My thoughts are that if we are going to be fighting to get him to sleep somewhere, and the twin is the ultimate destination, why not go ahead and try it now, rather than letting him get used to the crib again, then switching things up on him yet again to get him into the twin, all right before we bring a newborn into the house, which should really throw off all semblance of balance.

I just wish I could pinpoint a root problem - is it separation anxiety? Is it teething? I think he is maybe getting his eyeteeth. Do those hurt more than the others? He has four molars, so he could be getting more of those, but he is not showing his usual teething signs (lowgrade fever, loose stools, etc.)

I am just at a loss.

34 Weeks and Counting

I hit the 34 week mark yesterday. My midwife appointments are now every two weeks and I had one today. It was fairly uneventful - blood pressure normal, weight gain of 1 lb in the last week, for a total of 18 pounds for the pregnancy so far. I doubt i will gain too much more, because I am losing my appetite. Or, I should say, my appetite is fine, but my capacity is dwindling.

My midwife was totally backed up this morning, with two women in labor, plus they are shorthanded until the new addition to the team is trained, so the practice asked if I would see another provider. It was either that or wait for about two hours; Um, I'll see the receptionist if it will get me out of here faster! I saw a Nurse Practitioner who usually does only gyne appointments, so she was actually great - very careful to take a lot of time, ask me tons of questions, get to know some of my history, etc. I told her that i wasn't experiencing any unusual or painful symptoms, but I did give her my litany of complaints:

• nasal congestion
• breathlessness
• fatigue
• acid reflux
• trouble taking deep breaths when laying down
• trouble sleeping in general
• lower back ache
• groin and thigh muscle soreness
• itchy tummy
• tired, aching feet
• pelvic discomfort
• lots of vaginal discharge
• constipation (they just get sexier and sexier, don't they?)
• pee pee pee pee pee
• HOTHOTHOT

Anyway, it was a quick and easy appointment. I go back in two more weeks. This is going by so quickly. I think hitting 34 weeks has suddenly made me realize I need tie up all my loose ends (finish the nursery, work with Rollie on the big boy bed, get out the carseat and install it, arrange for people to take care of Rollie when we go to the hospital, and pack for the hospital). It is funny how I had all of this done by the end of the 2nd trimester last time!

I am starting to really kind of get excited about getting the show on the road. This time around, the element of the unknown isn't there as much, so I feel like I am enjoying the thought of meeting my daughter more than I did last time, when there were so many unknown variables in play. But I would be lying if I wasn't worrying about two things: Induction and breastfeeding.

Countdown: Anywhere from three to eight weeks left! Boy. That narrows it down - didn't I say something about the unknown variables I wasn't worrying about?

The Bender

One thing no one tells you about parenthood: Day in and day out, life with a toddler can most accurately be described as similar to living with a belligerent, but lovable, drunk.

Balance

Excerpts from an ongoing dialogue my friend Nessie and I are having concerning Niger in particular, and famine, starvation, and AIDs in general.

Nessie: Please forgive the soapbox but I've been especially touched and saddened by the current situation in Niger. As I'm sure you've all been seeing or reading about this in the news (famine, starvation, AIDS), I won't go on, but here's a link to today's coverage in the New York Times. To see these babies at 15 months that are smaller than my baby is heartbreaking...not to mention their mothers' faces. One story said that 15 million dollars would break the cycle (obviously, more complicated than that) - but that's nothing to the U.S. We spend tons more than that to research bark patterns of the New England fir tree - with tax dollars! CARE here in Atlanta is helping if anyone is interested. PSA is over - back to your regularly scheduled program.

Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/africa/05niger.html?th&emc=th

DG: Funny that you posted this. i just sent a donation this morning after reading the article. Very upsetting. Although I also feel that it is upsetting that people whose children are starving continue to have so many kids. I mean, they might not be well-educated, but most people understand how babies are made. Why bring one into that kind of poverty?

Nessie: I don't know. That's a situation where I'd love to go to Niger and really understand not only what's going on, but what their lives and perspectives are really like. I mean, it's as if they are at a different point of evolutionary culture and at this moment and time, the forces of science and nature are bearing down on them. I can't understand it, but I would really like to know more. Sometimes I wish I was a young college student who could just take off to the Peace Corps or something. Do you ever wish you could do that? I have no global perspective and I want [my child] to have something of that. Sigh.

DG: You have more global perspective than the average person. I think your baby will be fine, too, with you and ned [husband] steering her. I think what's going on is that they have kids they can't feed, don't use modern agricultural tools and methods, and live in an area where it is not always easy to grow things, due to drought and flood. I also sometimes think that it is nature's way of evening things out (survival of the fittest), and that this is the way civilizations and tribes have risen and fallen for all eternity,but that we are more in tune to it because of our media access the world over. But it is easy to think that way on a big scale, not so easy when faced with a particular mother or family's story. It is very sad.

Nessie: A thought. What if it is an evolutionary process, but not to "modify" these poor African populations? What if the rooting out is meant for us? If we (as a culture, nation, whatever) can't find the reasons to help other people in our global community, what if we are the evolutionary "liability"? I don't buy the evolutionary/weeding out argument because before European colonization of Africa, they were one of the most advanced societies in the world. Perhaps imperialism, which we (democracies - all of us - not just the U.S) still exact every day (i.e. diamond mines), will get us in the end. If these more "primitive cultures" go by the wayside and we just ignore it, we not only lose our humanity, we may lose important cultural contributions that we don't even fully appreciate yet. Survival of the fittest just may include the quality of compassion which is also a human strength - IMO.

DG: I agree that compassion is an important quality. That is obvious. Compassion is one of the qualities that differentiates us from other species. To blame all of their problems on Imperialism, though, is kind of a narrow view of things. There are patterns of weather and disease that we do not even have record of. . . these things have happened for thousands of years. I am not saying we shouldn't show compassion, when we have so much, but just that there is a possibility that, in nature, we are not supposed to be able to fix every crisis, possibly including this one. I do agree though, that it might be Western culture that is decimated at some point. All of the greatest "Empires" have fallen in written history - look at the Roman empire. (Now, ever-expanding Roman Catholicism is an interesting one.) I'm not so arrogant as to think we are immune to it. I just think there is an ebbing and waning of life always going on in nature, and we are possibly just too small to see the big picture or to understand it sometimes. It is how nature works to keep a balance, in the same way that it created the tsunami last year. I am not saying we shouldn't feel compassion, just that maybe there is a point where we cannot control something that is bigger than we are.

Nessie: True. I did want to clarify that I wasn't suggesting imperialism was the cause of their problems, just that they haven't always been considered so "primitive" as in prior to their colonization. Obviously, the weather (and local politcs) has had a huge impact on their circumstances. I'm just not sure that its part of the evolutionary process you suggested. One could say Hitler was part of the evolutionary process for European cultures and if we hadn't intervened, they would be a far different society today. O.K., not a great example but that's all I got this morning. ; )

DG: I don't think it matters whether or not their practices are deemed primitive or advanced, only whether or not they are successful in supporting the civilization. I guess my point is that civilizations, including governments and agricultural practices, are possibly part of the evolutionary process of man. (You seem to disagree.) I am not saying we should not try to help them, only that there are always going to be "weaker" and "stronger" peoples, and that this may be something that we can't intervene and fix completely. Maybe we can lessen some of the pain and suffering of the people, or teach them to use more modern irrigation methods, or whatever, but i don't think we have enough "band-aids" to fix the whole continent. Hitler example: We didn't crush Hitler easily - it was a complete battle of wills and the stronger people were victorious. It could have gone either way, though, right? It's not like we won simply because we were in the right, but because we were STRONGER and a superior fighting machine. We killed better and died less. Hitler was part of the evolutionary process of man, but so was his fall. Again, just an ebbing and waning of "superior" societies. Survival of the fittest. Or was it a victory of Good over Evil, and if so, why isn't Good victorious more often?

There was a lot more of the discussion, but that was the beginning. . . Thoughts, oh Reader?

Major Fucking Spoiler of the Day

In case the newspapers haven't realized it, there are people out there who rent whole seasons of certain shows (Six Feet Under, for example) on DVD. This puts us a season or two behind the regular viewer. So, when you write a review of the latest airing of the show on HBO, it would be really nice if you bastards would not mention the deaths of major characters in the FUCKING HEADLINES sent out in an email to me every day.

Back in the Old Neighborhood

In my dream, I am leaving the area around the back of my old subdivision. I am walking home and it is early morning, just about dawn. I see each house and yard just as they looked back in the '80s of my childhood. I can even remember the names of the people who live there.

As I round the corner of a house in a cul-de-sac about halfway between my starting point and my parents' house, I realize that the woman who lives there is the Asian-American woman who lives down the street from me in the present day. She is the one that has a little boy about a year older than Rollie, the one whose house in my current neighborhood is up for sale because she and her husband are divorcing. (Straight couples do not do well in our neighborhood - They are all divorcing.)

The woman has her head stuck in the open door of her little Dekalb County-standard Subaru wagon, messing with a carseat, and I run through her yard on tiptoes, hoping she won't look up and see me, and that I won't have to talk to her. As i hit the edge of the yard and move out across the street, i pick up speed and pass the delinquent Mike Southard's house (how am I remembering these names???) and just as I do, a 3 or 4 year-old blonde girl trips me up. I fall to the pavement, twisting as I go down, so as to catch the little girl and clutch her to my chest, protecting her head, if not mine, from the fall.

As I lay on the ground, I look at the house to my left, the one on the corner caddywampus from my house that always had loud get-togethers on the weekends, which we never really understood, because it was our understanding that the motorcycle-riding priest owned the house. The house was different somehow, and I realized it was because of the children's toys piled haphazardly on the screened porch.

I took a breath, then helped the little girl up, took her hand in mine, and started walking to take her back home.

It Won't Hurt My Feelings If You Prefer Wednesday to Monday

If we narrow it down to two possible days that work for both of us, and then I ask, "Which one works better for you?," please do not reply with "Well, either is fine."

I already knew that.

Hold My Calls!

Nothing says professional like a toddler answering the phone when the boss calls.