Everybody together now: oooooo, a BABY!!

Little I, snuggling his Mama. I’ve been told all he does is eat and sleep, and he occasionally has to be woken up for a feeding. This was not my new mother experience.

See, sleeping. I is a very good, if a bit jaundiced, baby.

Stay tuned for a more meaningful post about how I got to actually vote in a primary that counted for something. It was awesome.

PS Do I need to add a new “I’m an aunt” category?

I’ll take abnormal

R is not a normal child. Normal children hug stuffed animals as they drift off to sleep. They have a favorite doll they bring to bed with them each night. While she does have an attachment to a particular blanket, and occasionally asks for her “Baby” to sleep with her, she has quite a different requirement for bedtime  comfort.

Every night, she chooses a book – or three – that must accompany her to bed. They must be placed just so, propped up around her head so she can see the covers. Sometimes, when Dave and I check on her before our own bed time, we’ll find she’s plucked one or more of the books from their arrangement and is either clutching it tightly or sleeping on it awkwardly.

The child loves books. And I think it’s awesome.

We started reading to R the very first night she came home from the hospital, mostly because we wanted to establish a “bed time routine” so she would “sleep through the night” sooner. But it has obviously had other benefits.

Some of my best childhood memories were spent at the library. I remember the pride I felt at getting my first library card – it was orange paper with a metal strip for imprinting on the checkout cards. You couldn’t get one until you could write your name, and I remember practicing and practicing until I could write all those letters (15 total!) at the then-precocious age of 4.

I remember the story lady at the library – she wasn’t very nice and vaguely resembled the Wicked Witch of the West. I remember checking out dozens of Nancy Drew Case Files and even Sweet Valley High books in middle school (blue card) until I graduated to an adult card (yellow) and discovered historical biographies and the Bronte sisters. I remember watching my mother check out the maximum number of books allowed (at the time it was 6) and reading all of them before they were due back.

I want to share all this with R, make her love reading and look forward to library trips like we were going to an amusement park. And I think I might start tomorrow, with her first-ever trip to the library.

Side note: Because some people are asking about the baby, he was born Friday at 5:56 p.m., 6 pounds, 10 ounces of adorableness that I HAVE YET TO SEE. After we were all packed and ready to leave yesterday for Pittsburgh, R came down with a cough and a fever and general malaise (which she has since transmitted to her mother). Not wanting to expose an infant not even out of the womb for a week to those toddler germy germs, I cancelled my trip. We have tentatively rescheduled for the first week in June, when Dave can go with and we can take a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo like we are grownups with children and families of our own or something. Seriously. How did that happen?

giving assvice

There are so many things I want to tell my sister right now. There’s the obvious statement that her life is never going to be the same.

But how is it different? How are we changed by parenthood?

There are big things, like having another person to keep alive. But there are also a lot of little things. Like how from now on, if she ever passes a mirror or a window with her son, she won’t look at her own reflection anymore, she’ll look at him.

She will never sleep the sound sleep of the childless ever again, even a year from now when he’s sleeping through the night.

Her life’s choices will be motivated by worry – and sometimes fear – a lot more than ever before. She will never think of herself first again.

She will talk about poop and pee and vomit in normal conversation and never think twice about it. She will also clean up all of the above with equally as little thought.

Her heart will hurt more and rejoice more, and she will feel it more acutely than ever before.

She will be amazed at how proud she can feel over little things like a perfect latch or a tiny gurgle that sounds almost a little bit like “mama.”

She will find herself tearing up at unusual times – family events, preschool programs, kite-flying excursions, Sesame Street Live. I don’t think the pregnancy hormones ever really go away…

Every day will be an adventure. Sometimes it will be challenging, like growing up with a sister just 17 months apart in age. Sometimes it will be wonderful, like growing up with a sister just 17 months apart in age.

If she’s like me, she might sometimes find herself lost, find her mommyhood taking over her life and crowding out her sense of self. But I think sometimes that’s okay. I think giving up parts of our selves temporarily for our children is normal. But I would also tell her to not lose herself completely. Because her son will benefit most from having a happy, whole mom. And she is going to be a wonderful mom.

OMG OMG OMG

Dear Internetz:

My baby sister is in labor RIGHT NOW. I am going to be an aunt for like, real. Not just because I married some guy whose sister already had kids. Though they are pretty cool too.

This will be my REAL BLOOD NEPHEW. And I don’t have any of those (nephews, I mean, blood or otherwise). She says she doesn’t think he’ll come until tomorrow. But I say you never can tell with these things. So I’m pricing flights to Pittsburgh, PA.

And BTW, she voted yesterday through some painful contractions. Way to do her civic duty!

Also, she’s the one on the right above. And if you didn’t know that already, I need to go on a diet.

Hugs and kisses,

Michelle

Color me speechless

So we’ve had an interesting development over at casa di Ledemeon. And I say interesting but I mean startling. And of course, this will only be startling to me, because no one was aware how firmly entrenched my husband was in his “no, no more kids” position just a few short months ago.

That stance softened around Christmastime or so to “no more kids RIGHT NOW.”

Who would have thought that all it took was a low-cut blouse, a slab of steak and half a bottle of Valpolicella to have him saying things like “Go off the pill whenever you want.”? While I know he didn’t MEAN that, it was most likely the wine and the microbrews talking, it is very encouraging.

But it also puts me in a bit of a pickle. Because now I have to decide for REAL when is a good time to get pregnant again. I know that sounds ridiculous, particularly to people who have difficulty conceiving. And who knows, I’m not in my twenties anymore. Maybe I will not get pregnant when Dave looks at me from across the room like I did last time. But since we had absolutely no trouble conceiving R, that’s all I have to go on.

And now I will most likely be one of those women who plans getting pregnant around her vacation. When our parents announced last month that they would be taking all of their children, children-in-law and grandchildren on a most-expenses-paid cruise in January 2009, I think my pregnant sister breathed a sigh of relief that her son will be seven months old then (kids have to be six months old to cruise on this line).

The same cruise line doesn’t allow pregnant women at 24 weeks or more to cruise. Also, I’ve never been on a cruise, but my morning sickness was very severe up until 24 weeks, and the thought of sea sickness AND morning sickness makes me want to wretch just thinking about it. Ha.

So, I guess Dave and I will just have to continue our trend of conceiving our children outside the United States. We did pretty well with the first one. Now comes the trick of making that baby whilst sharing a stateroom with a toddler. Luckily, we will be traveling with plenty of babysitters.

Hippie flashdance

I’m going to guess this was 1979, which would make me about the same age R is now. Among the interesting things about this photograph is how remarkably similar my sister (the one on the left) and I look in it. The similarities continued throughout high school, even into college a little bit. Once, when we were trying on clothes at the mall, the salesgirl kept bringing us each others’ items. She thought we were twins. But now, sometimes people don’t even believe that we are sisters.

Second, R looks a lot like me at that age, though it looks like my mom tried to flat iron and then feather my hair. The 70s rocked the house.

Third, I love the blouses. The mother-daughter-matching-vibe doesn’t really jazz me up, but I wish I had that little top for R. She would look adorable, especially with the addition of a cute kerchief for her head. My hippie husband would LOVE it.

Fourth, my knees are all scraped up in this JC Penney special. Why? I don’t know. My mom can’t remember.

Fifth - my mom had highlights? What?

Finally - We are taking R to get her first (and long overdue) haircut tomorrow. Will she allow the stylist near her head? Will she require a parent to hold her? Will she be enchanted and enthralled by the snacks/juice/toys/movies they will offer? Will Mommy cry at the loss of the baby curls and sweet, soft blonde locks? Tune in next week…

religion and politics

Jodi wrote last week, in response to what I thought was a bit of a snarky comment, about her hopes for her son.

A liberal vegetarian Jew, Jodi has strong opinions and isn’t afraid to share them in a usually humorous and fun-to-read way. Her post got me thinking about what I want for R (and how do I parent her to get my desired outcome?).

I am a mostly liberal Christian, though I identify more with the “mostly liberal” part than the Christian part. I was raised very Catholic by a very Catholic mother who later divorced my Lutheran father and remarried and has thus been excommunicated. We went to church every Sunday and holy day (All Saint’s Day anyone?), attended Sunday School through our confirmation as juniors in high school and observed most Catholic rituals religiously. Ha-ha.

I attended church sporadically as an adult. When I met Dave, raised Lutheran, we would occasionally attend services, his or mine, together. We were married by a Methodist minister who was a friend of Dave’s family. When I got pregnant, it was important to both of us to give our child some kind of faith base. Because my church would not allow Dave to fully participate, we chose to be Lutheran. How’s that for choosing a religion?

When it comes time for R to find her spiritual path, I do not plan to force her into anything. She can choose on her own. I will provide her with some sense of Christianity, but if she chooses to go a different direction, I will support that too.

Additionally, I was raised in a household that was apolitical. Voting was a private thing my parents kept to themselves the entire time we were growing up. I suspect they are both Republican. They have never expressed disappointment or sadness at having raised three liberal Democrats. We all found our own way. I like that model very much, though I don’t think it worked out well for my parents (from their point of view).

And maybe it will backfire on me too. But I want R to be her own person, have her own faith and values and politics. Even if that means her beliefs are diametrically opposed to mine.Though I would really prefer they weren’t. But I’d love her anyway.

One more thing…

Oh yeah, everybody! My sister is pregnant. I was sworn to secrecy for so many months that when I was finally able to spill the beans, I forgot. She’s due in early May, and it’s a little boy. R will be so glad to have a little boy cousin to play with!

My sister is closer to me than most other people in the world, Dave and R excluded. She is the reason I want R to have a sibling. Lisa and I share a common past, a history. We are 17 months apart and neither of us has a memory without the other. I think that is so important for people to have, and I want R to share in the challenges and joys of having a sibling.

Lisa never thought she’d be a mom, but when she took a job working with kids, she grew to realize she did have that nurturing instinct. Despite her tough-girl exterior, she was amazing with those kids, so patient and so involved. And she will be an amazing mother.

just a quick note

Just wanted to say something about what happened at Northern Illinois yesterday. As the daughter and sister of NIU graduates, and someone who has attended many, many events on a campus just a short drive from where I grew up, I just feel so sad today.

When Virginia Tech happened, I was stunned, but it was so far away and I was so far removed from it. This hits way closer to home, figuratively and literally. I have such admiration for so many people involved in this situation. When I was in Nashville earlier this year, I attended an educational session on communicating in a crisis. Officials from Virginia Tech and Bluffton University both spoke on their experiences in the wake of their tragedies. I was so impressed and moved by the stories. And now I’m just saddened that it’s happening all over again, just 25 miles from the house my mother lives in today.

This scares me as a parent, as someone who works in higher education, as a former Illinoisan, as an American.

I love the ivory tower. I loved the college experience. I love visiting campuses now, seeing the students, all fresh-faced and idealistic and ready to conquer the world. It’s energizing and reinvigorating. That experience is about to be taken away from all of us who aren’t attending or working at a higher education institution. College campuses will turn into high security zones with armed guards, ID swipes and metal detectors in doorways and no access to the public. Like my high school. And the Pentagon.

Is this a good thing? Will it really make our kids safer? And how would I feel if R were a college student?

please top all this llama drama

So I feel like the time is right to address recent drama going on in my life. If you click over to my (step) sister’s blog there, she’s written twice now about something very sad that’s happening in our family. My brother, her stepbrother (and her friend for years before my mother and her father were married), has decided to cut himself (and his new wife) off from the rest of the family for reasons that none of us seem to understand. Or really know, for that matter.

The day of the big blowup, my brother called me to “apologize for anything he’d done to alienate me.” Which of course, didn’t seem like much of an apology to me. I told him I was hurt that he’d skipped R’s christening, when we had people show up from Iowa, Missouri and Florida. Our minister even commented on the fact that my brother was a no-show (noting how sad it was). Brother’s response? He’d sent a gift.  I told him I’d rather he had shown up without a gift. He’s also continually criticized my child-rearing and, oddly, my husband’s fashion choices. But I didn’t bring those things up to him.

I told him that I thought it was good that he was getting all of this out in the open. That he was having a conversation with our mother that would lead to a more healthy, adult relationship that acknowledges fault on both sides and moves forward to grow more close.

He gave me lip service at the time, but has apparently disregarded my advice, sending my mother an e-mail saying that they would not be purchasing Christmas gifts for them and would not accept any in return. If gifts were sent, they would be returned. And his wife returned the birthday card and check my mother sent earlier this month.

I try to excuse his behavior in that he’s young, but he’s really not that young (25).  He’s certainly old enough to know better. And old enough to know that when he refuses to show up for family events (not just mine, even those hosted minutes from his apartment), it hurts people.

Some of the reasons he gave me when we spoke were not outrageous, I even agree with some of them. But I told him we all have to make sacrifices and accommodations because we are family, and while we might not love certain behavior, we love the people. I told my mother basically the same things.

I’m not sure where this is going to go. It makes me sad that R won’t be around her uncle very much. But I think I’ve done what I can. It’s up to them to bridge the gap. And I think I’m going to stay out of it.