Update On Life

S is getting better at playing pretend. She likes to hold "food" in the palm of her hand and use the other one to pinch some of it and hand it to me to eat. Her newest fascination is with chewing gum. When she sees DH or me with it, she opens her mouth and wiggles her tongue indicating she wants to see what we have in there. The other night before bed she was smacking her lips and clicking her tongue. I asked her what she was doing. "Chewing gum. Mama chew gum. Dada chew gum. Me chew gum." Then this morning she asked if she could have some gum, so I pretended to give her some, and she pretended to put it in her mouth and chew. She said she wanted more so I asked her what happened to what I'd given her, and she said it was all gone. I told her we don't swallow the gum; if we are done with it, we spit it out and put in the trash. I gave her some more to "chew" a few more times. Then I told her she should be careful not to get too much because it gets hard to chew it, and I pretended like I was chewing a huge wad which made her laugh.

The house is starting to come together. I'm trying to get some decorating done before the housewarming party in two weeks. I got the letters for S's name put up on her bedroom wall yesterday. They turned out pretty well, but it looks a little plain. I need to finish the rest of the decor in there and see if they will need anything else. I got some ideas for our bathroom, and picked up a few things at Michael's today. I'm looking forward to getting a lot of stuff done over the long weekend! (Hopefully.)

Only 9 weeks left til baby R's debut. I made an appointment with a hematologist, so next week I see the OB, the week after that the hematologist, and the week after that the dentist. I need to make an appointment to get S's hair cut (and mine). October is starting to look busy - DH is catering a couple of things, we have a bridal shower to go to, my great-aunt will be in town, DH is having a party for the softball team, and I'm hosting the Party of the Month I have with my high school girls.

Work is picking up a bit, and I'm trying to make notes for people for while I'm on maternity leave. One of the women here found out yesterday that she probably has H1N1 (Swine Flu). Praying I don't get it, athough to a certain extent, I don't believe the hype. If I wasn't pregnant and had a toddler, I'd completely ignore it, but that's just one of the ways being a mom changes you! Of course, DH thinks it's a good excuse to avoid having to smooch and snuggle me. :) One of his aunts has a friend who is in the hospital with West Nile Virus, too. Crazy. A guy at work made a comment about all the bad diseases appearing when I'm pregnant. When I was expecting S, his son got the mumps which is highly contagious and dangerous for pregnant women to be exposed to. Just hoping to get through the winter without anything major happening to the kiddos.

To Tattoo or Not To Tattoo?

For me this was a question with an easy answer – heck no. I have a major fear of needles and a low pain tolerance. It has never once sounded like a good idea to me to get a tattoo. I think they can be pretty, and I understand why some people would want one, but my fears have prevented me from ever seriously considering it.

I do, however, have several friends who have them. I have gone with a couple of them to get their ink done. Which has prompted me to ponder what I would get and where I would get it if I were ever to resolve my issues. Here I stumble upon more roadblocks. First, what? Tattoos are forever. (At least without incurring a lot of cost and even more pain to have them lasered off.) What symbol could I get that I would still want as part of my saggy 80-year-old body? My loves in life have changed a lot over the years. What if I’d gotten a Superman symbol when I was obsessed with Jon Bon Jovi? Or a pointe shoe for dance? Or my first boyfriend’s name (who I just knew I was going to marry)? Or even the more permanent figures in my life, my husband’s or our daughters’ initials? So the image itself isn’t even something I can decide on, at least at this point in my life.

As for where, yikes, that’s an even scarier question. Even when I was younger and skinny, I knew to avoid my midsection since I wanted to have children. I’m pretty modest, so I wouldn’t want it near any of my privates, either. And they say it hurts the most close to the bone, so my back didn’t seem like a good option. Plus you couldn’t see it. And what’s the point of getting one you can’t see? Ok, so the torso is out. Head? No way to hide it when I want to be discreet. Back of the neck? Same problems as the back. Hands and feet? Too bony and too hard to conceal when need be. What about arms? Again with needing a discreet option, I would need it to be able to be covered by a shirt – not just long sleeves, either, because in the summer, that would be really obvious, not to mention hot. So upper arms/shoulders. A reasonable possibility! Although it seems a little too manly to have one on my bicep. What about the legs? Back to the same issue of needing to be able to be covered, the thighs would have to be the choice. Let me just say that if I had chosen to get a tattoo on either my upper arm or my thigh, it would now be stretched out. I would never have anticipated the weight fluctuations I experienced in the last decade when I was younger and in the mindset of considering a tattoo. In retrospect, it’s a good thing I have those fears to keep me from making what could have been a huge mistake.

So why is this even a topic of discussion for me when I clearly have decided opinions about it? Because the other day, my boss’s daughter got a tattoo, and it reminded me that someday, I’ll have to have this discussion with our daughters. My boss’s daughter is a senior in high school, and because she’s technically old enough to get the tattoo without his permission, there’s not really anything he could have done to stop her. However, they have a good relationship and had dialogued about it for several months before she got it. On one hand, I think, that’s so cool! On the other, I think, no WAY would I allow one of our daughters to get a tattoo! Of course, the key is that she talked to him about it. She could have just run off and done it secretly. I’d like to think that when our girls are big enough to contemplate these kinds of things, we will have taught them to make good decisions and provided a safe haven of open communication so they know they can (and should) come to us about these kinds of things. That’s not to say I wouldn’t advise against it. But at the very least, I could recommend the thigh/upper arm locale!

Test Results

Yesterday I got my test results and it turns out, no gestational diabetes - yea! Unfortunately, my platelet count is low, so they want me to see a hematologist. I initially had an emotional hormonal reaction (Platelets affect clotting! I'm going to hemhorrage during my C-section and die!). Then I settled down and decided it probably wasn't too big of a deal since the nurse didn't seem overly concerned about it when she called. I was going to Google it, but I was afraid that might freak me out more.

So I pulled the list of dr's covered by my insurance and started going through them. I asked my friends in the medical field for recommendations one of them said she's heard of low platelets being something that can happen during pregnancy. So I was a little less concerned and decided to (selectively) Google it:

Low platelet count (below 150,000), means that the blood possesses too few thrombocytes or specialized blood cells called platelets that help to aid in blood clotting. This condition is also called thrombocytopenia, and it can be mild to highly serious, depending on the platelet count and on the underlying cause. Treatment of low platelet count usually depends on these two factors: cause and severity. There are several treatments possible including “watch and wait,” medications, blood transfusions or platelet transfusions, and surgery.

Very common conditions may result in low platelet count, like pregnancy. The reduction in platelet amounts is usually not huge, and doctors tend to opt not to treat this condition, though they may take a wait and watch approach. Most women do recover from thrombocytopenia caused by pregnancy after the pregnancy ends. Another time this approach could be favored is when people have just had a virus, especially kids, and have mild thrombocytopenia. Children are particularly good at recovering from low counts because their bone marrow tends to produce platelets rapidly.


Haven't gotten ahold of a dr. yet, but it sounds like it's probably not a big deal. Whew!

More Sweetness

Wednesday I picked S up from my parents' house. I always ask her if she's had a good day, but before I could, she said, "Mama have good day?" Then this morning I shivered while we were sitting at breakfast, and I said, "Oh, Mama got a chill!" She jumped down from her chair, ran in the living room and grabbed a blanket. "Got blankie for Mama. Mama's COLD!" Just melts my heart.

Terrible Two's and Tantrums - Nature Vs. Nurture

Oh, the joys of this stage! For us, the “terrible two's” actually really got going at about 18 months, although our precious baby girl's first tantrum was when she was 4 months old (seriously???).

For me, the most difficult part about the “terrible two's” is how to handle those tantrums. I've read all the advice, and I know I should ignore it or put her in time out or just wait it out. I know it's best to try to head them off by making sure she's feeling like we're spending enough time together, she's getting enough rest, making sure she's had enough to eat, etc. but I still struggle with it. Unfortunately, it feels like nothing works, but it does make it a little easier to know I'm not the only one with a kid I adore but who I secretly want to briefly disown at these times. Certainly not a thought I expected to have when I envisioned motherhood!

In that respect, having a child has been more than I expected - more exasperating, more fun, more frustrating, more joyful, more heart-wrenching, more fulfilling. It has also given me more empathy and knocked me off of my When-I-Have-A-Kid-She'll-Never pedestal. I think the biggest surprise has been that it has opened up my mind in so many ways. As we grow and age, we learn things and file them away in categories in our brains to make life simpler, but narrower. Watching a child start learning from the beginning, all those things we once knew and decided weren't important, or we had made a decision about, and forgot the other options, are back on the table. One of issues (I thought) I had pretty well ironed out for myself was the old nature vs. nurture debate.

When I was in high school and college, I took Intro to Psychology, I read my Freud. I actually have a friend who's an identical twin who was adopted by a family separately from her sister, and they've had studies done on them. Through all this I determined that while there are certainly good arguments for both sides, the environment plays a slightly larger role in the personality department, including temperament. I've done a complete 180 since we had our daughter. When she had that first tantrum, though I was sleep-deprived and had spent a bit of time crying with her when she was colicky, I had not raised my voice or been angry in front of her yet. This was clearly not something she had learned from us. Well, then maybe it wasn't really a tantrum, I mean, what baby has a tantrum at that age? At first I was taken aback by the thought, too - surely she was just colicky. But no, after a minute or two, it was very clear - our little redhead was definitely having a tantrum.

Knowing my own (also redheaded) temperament, and that of the rest of my family, her surprise tantrum started to explain things a bit. My dad and I are both hotheaded. I remember as a kid having screaming matches with him ending in doors slamming as we went our separate ways to cool off. But when we had calmed down and rejoined the living room, we would apologize when needed and move on. My mom and my sister are more stewers who, when upset, are quiet and short with their answers, but take much longer to really stop being angry. I think because growing up I was more of a Daddy's girl and my sister was closer to my mom, I thought a lot of that was learned. And I'm sure a fair amount of it was - if I had been adopted by two mellow parents, I probably would have managed to control my temper earlier in life. But seeing our baby girl enraged at such a young age, I realized that more of it is innate than I had thought. Maybe the idea that redheads have tempers isn't so much because they are redheaded, but because they are genetically predisposed to have short tempers in equal proportion to the odds of their hair color being red?

Regardless of the genetics behind it, the tantrums are a trial for us, as for any parents. But witnessing her tantrums, and struggling to stay calm and not overreact to them, brings those faded memories of my own angry times to the surface. And that combined with my newly revised opinion about nature's role in her temperament has helped me to have a more understanding perspective. It's also testing my own anger management and providing a learning opportunity for me - as most parenting issues do! At this point, when she's having a tantrum, I just try to give her space and time to get it out of her system. And I'm working on teaching her words for her feelings and how to handle them appropriately. It's very difficult, and I don't feel like we're making any progress. But I also realize that I need to give it time for her to start understanding these concepts. I know it was many years before I was (better) able to control my temper. That's a depressing thought in some ways (dreading the inevitable teen years!), but encouraging in the sense that I know that through the counterpoint of nurturing, it's not an permanent character flaw; we will be able to help her corral it and use it as a strength. And for me, I just try to hold on to the small signs of progress, like how I've been telling her for 6 months not to throw things in mid-tantrum, and now sometimes she won't. Other than that, I just pray for patience and remind myself that this, too, shall pass...

Iowa State Fair

S and I hit the road Friday night to go to Des Moines to visit my friend from my old job. DH had Fantasy Football Draft Friday night AND Saturday night, so I didn't feel too guilty ditching him. I waited to leave til 7pm thinking she'd sleep most of the way there, but the little stinker stayed awake until 9:30! But she slept well that night, and late the next morning - til 8:30 - so she was ready for the big day at the fair.

My friend's husband had played in a church band performance and gotten a parking pass, so we decided to try our luck at using it even though it wasn't officially valid Saturday. I'm not normally in favor of cheating, but I feel like paying for parking is a complete ripoff. Particularly when the "lot" is a grass field, and I'm under a tree. And the cost to park was the same as the cost to get in! Ridiculous. Anyway, we made it through four parking attendants without a problem - woo hoo! We got in the gates and stopped to see the bunny rabbits first. I think S was a little overwhelmed by the rows of cages and sheer quantity of them. There were white ones, black ones, brown ones, spotted ones, big ones, little ones. It was bunny heaven! She also got to see geese, baby chicks and ducks, and pet horses and cows and a baby goat. There was a race car there that she was able to sit in. Unfortunately, we didn't realize there was water in the seat, so she had to spend about half the day in just her diaper. A plus to her not being potty trained yet! She rode her first midway ride - a little merry-go-round type thing where she sat in a car. The woman working it clearly does not have small children. She took about 15 minutes to load them. By then, S was done with the car she was in and was trying to get out. Luckily, she just wanted to move to the bus instead. Got her moved, and they got going. When she got off, I asked her if it was fun, and she smiled and said, "It spinned!" Then we grabbed a corn dog and some cheesy fries for lunch. I had thought we would need to head back for her to nap, but she actually fell asleep there. We walked around for awhile and then checked out a talent show. The clapping woke S up, but at least she'd slept for an hour. On our way to see the butter carving in the Ag hall, we passed a one-man band - The Bandaloni. He was amazing! S was enthralled with him. We got to the Ag Hall, and I couldn't believe the line. Having S with us, we didn't want to wait in line, so I took pictures but from several rows back, so they didn't turn out too well. The last thing we did was go through a Helping Hands Learning Center. The kids wore an apron and carried a basket. They got a coin type thing for a "seed" that they planted in the ground, then they "harvested" the crop they had planted farther along the line. They got wool from a sheep, milk from a goat, etc., then turned everything in at the "farmer's market" at the end. Then they got paid a fake dollar that they could spend in the store. S decided she wanted raisins. It was a very cute set up. She was ready to go by then so we headed to the car. Or at least, where we had left the car.

As I had mentioned, we were parked in a field under a tree. I'm not very good with directions when I'm in an unfamiliar area, but I would guess we were facing south. Admittedly, I'm sometimes a bit flaky about remembering where I park. However, because we were under the tree, we had remarked that was fortunate because it would keep the car shaded and cooler. So on our walk back to the car, I was telling my friend thanks for such a fun time, and we were talking about how much we had enjoyed the day. Suddenly we realized, my car was not parked where we had thought it was. We doubled checked that we were in the right "lot"; we double checked the tree. My friend's first thought was we'd been towed for parking there with an invalid pass. That never occurred to me. S pointed farther down the line and said, "Mama's car right there!" I said, "No, sweetie, that does look like Mommy's a bit, doesn't it, but that's not it. There are a bunch of silver cars, like that one," and I turned and pointed to one by a fence facing east, "and that one." Then I paused because it had a window shade on the rear passenger window and something pink in the back - just like my car. My friend and I were talking about how it couldn't be my car, but I thought it didn't hurt to check. I walked a little closer and saw that it had Kansas tags - with my plate number - it was my car! At first I was panicked. How did it get there? Did someone break in and move it to play a prank and they were watching and laughing? (An odd thought for me - I'm not usually paranoid.) My friend said maybe they needed to move it to get to someone else's car - we realized that we had been parked two deep there and there wasn't really a way for the person in front of me to get out. I thought, yeah, but how did they move it? The doors were locked, nothing was missing. I was feeling very disconcerted. As we left, my friend suggested we stop and ask the parking attendant about it. We got to her and I rolled down the window and said, "Excuse me, but my car wasn't in the same place I parked it when we came out? Do you know anything about that?" She said, "Oh, are you the one from Kansas? Yes, they had to move you to get someone else out." I asked her how they had moved it and she said they had towed it. Question answered, felt better, but still a little uneasy about the whole thing. What if we had stayed til dark, and I hadn't been able to find it, and a different attendant was working? So we headed out of the fairgrounds and when we passed the last gate, the attendant motioned for me to stop. She said, "That parking pass isn't valid for today. I'm going to have to charge you." Are you kidding me? Who charges people on their way out? If I had been thinking, I should have said, "Well, since my car wasn't where I left it, I'm not sure I should have to pay." But my guilty conscience at knowing I had just tried to get away with something got the better of me. What a bummer of an ending to an otherwise wonderful day! But it certainly made it interesting.

That night we had Jimmy John's for dinner, S went to bed pretty easily and on time, and my friend and her husband and I watched some tv and chatted. It was really nice. Sunday morning, we got up and tried to get on the road early. S slept the full night again! DH and I had tickets to the 1pm T-Bones game. S did fantastic in the car - she stayed awake the whole time, watched a couple of videos, played, chatted with me, and we sang along to her CDs. She only fussed about five minutes. I was so proud of her! There was a bridge out on the north side of KC, so traffic was stopped. It took forever to get through, so I ended up having to take her straight to my in-laws' house as they had agreed to watch her while we were at the game. I felt terrible about it - she wanted to go home first. But when I picked her up later, my MIL said she was fine, didn't protest her nap too much, and slept for two hours. Yea!! I was encouraged that after two good nights of sleeping and two decent naps, she'd be set for Sunday night at home. Uh, no. It was 10pm before she went down!! So Iowa was fun, but we are definitely back to reality...

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News

Yesterday I got a call from my OB's office with the results from my glucose tolerance test - failed again. :( I would rather just skip the three hour test next week and have them say, yes, you have gestational diabetes. Not that I want to have it, of course. Although, I feel like I may this time. I have been eating terribly with this pregnancy, due in large part to the moving issues we've had, combined with my insatiable need for all things chocolate. And I can tell this week that I'm not feeling as well as I should. And I've been eating better since we're finally settled in. We'll see what happens.

Yesterday afternoon was S's 2 year checkup. She woke up with a cold, poor thing! And I had to get her up early from her nap to get her there on time. But she was really good for the appointment. She had to do a finger prick test and get two shots which she wasn't thrilled about, but she was pretty easily pacified by a sucker once we got the Band-Aids off. I know the day will come when she wants a Band-Aid for everything, but at this point, she can't stand them. Having them on was more upsetting than the shots, it seemed.

She's still on the same growth curve - 90th percentile for height, 50th for weight and 25th for head size. She's 35 3/4" tall, weighs 26 lbs (Coulda fooled me! She sure feels heavier than that.), and has a head circumference of 18.5". Everything looked good; thank you God for blessing us with a healthy child!