Gone fishin'

Judybat and TheBoy left me yesterday for the first leg of a two-and-a-half week tour of the East Coast. I'll be joining them next week after a quick jaunt to Vegas to attend the nuptials of my mother and soon-to-be redubbed Once and Future Stepfather. (I'm leaning, for the record, toward Past and Current. But I'm open to other ideas.)

My brain has been on vacation for several weeks now, which might explain why I spent $500 today at Nordy's on a dress and wrap -- yes, in pregnancy I have apparently become a wrap kind of girl -- for this wedding and the one coming up the week after. It also might explain why I woke up at 4:30 this morning thinking about the various ways I plan to lose my hard-earned cash this weekend. (Memo to self: Do NOT hit on 15. Do NOT.)

The long and short of it is that we'll be out of our lovely little town for two weeks. We'll have Internet access on our excursion, so you might hear from us between now and then. Or you might not. That's really up to my already departed spouse. Because you all know who's really in charge around here.

Crack parenting

Or maybe a better title would be, "Parenting on crack."

So I was being a very good adult today, picking up the dog poop in the backyard and taking it to the garbage can in the front yard, when I decided to peek into TheBoy's window to see if he was still asleep. The problem: He wasn't. In fact, he had just woken up. And seeing a face in his bedroom window, even Mommy's, wasn't exactly the most calming sight.

He began to shriek. And weep. And shake. When I picked him up, he flinched. We sat down in his rocking chair, and he went rigid. He looked out the window. He flinched again. He pointed to the electrical cord on the floor beside his rocker and said, "Don't let anyone hurt me with that."

What the hell? Eventually, I figured out that he'd probably had a nightmare, and I had the worst possible timing when it came to sneaking a peek at my little angel. I asked him if he'd had a scary dream, and he nodded. He told me someone had hurt him. I asked who. He pointed at me.

Memo to myself for the future: Do not terrify the child by appearing in his dreams. Do not terrify the child further by suddenly popping up in his window without any kind of warning. If feeling the need to terrify the child, wait until he reaches his teenage years and try more conventional means like, say, merely existing or daring to go out in public.

I have a good idea

The Boy informed us recently that he would like a baby and a little brother and a little sister and that's it. We said ok, but it's going to take a little while. Why? he asked, and we told him that mommy would have to grow the baby in her belly. He seemed to accept that, and then he said, "I have a good idea. Mommy will grow a baby sister in her belly, and Ima can grow a baby brother in her belly, and I will grow a baby in my belly."

Well, you won't be able to grow a baby in your belly, we explained. Why not? he asked, most forlornly. I told him only grown-up ladies can grow babies, that he couldn't do it because he was a boy, and I felt terrible. It's biology, of course, and not sexism, but it still felt awful to say, "you can't do that because you're a boy."

I asked AR if she thought he'd be upset about it. She watched him dance with a piece of bread he was singing to.

"I think he's fine," she said.

How to tell you married the right person

Mother's Day should be a big deal in our house. After all, TheBoy has two mommies. Double the maternal instincts, double the pressure. Or not.

Yesterday morning, as TheBoy toddled into our bed and woke me up with his stinky dragon breath and a few well-placed elbows to the kidney/bladder/other especially sensitive parts, I realized with a panic that I hadn't yet made him sign the Mother's Day card I got for Judybat. So I hustled him out of bed, got out the markers, and quickly set him to work scribbling his version of a signature all over the card.

I'm a bad spouse, right? Judybat spent 30 hours in labor, and I can't even get the fruit of her womb to sign a freaking $2.50 card until Mother's Day morning?

TheBoy did his best, and I shuffled him off to present his work to JB. Who promptly hustled TheBoy off to his crafts table, grabbed some markers and put him to work . . . signing the card she'd gotten for me.

Then we let him take us out to brunch. He's getting frighteningly good at using my credit card.

Superstitious

I have been strangely superstitious about this pregnancy ever since Anna first peed on the stick, perhaps because the line that was supposed to declare a simple and definitive YES or NO to our question of whether our latest insemination attempt was successful appeared so faintly. It trailed off into nothingness, leaving us to wonder, are we or aren't we?





Two lines means YES.
What does THIS mean?!


We definitely are. If AnnaRay's physical symptoms weren't enough to reassure me that she's harboring a small parasite (pregnancy is a beautiful, beautiful thing,) then the swoosh swoosh swoosh of its heartbeat that we heard at the doctor's office last week surely should have been.

Should have been.

I was expecting to see the tiny creature, as we did around this time during my pregnancy. (I was stunned to see on The Boy's first sonogram - long before we ever knew he was a boy, let alone The Boy - his 8-week-old heart beating. That and he appeared to be knitting.) But the midwifery clinic we're going to only does one sonogram around 20 weeks. So I left AR's first appointment feeling excited, yet still cautious.

We've definitely been mum about it, telling only our immediate family in the first few weeks. You'd think keeping quiet about something so big and exciting would have been difficult for me, since hardly a thought enters my head that doesn't immediately escape out my mouth. But when I think about this pregnancy the last thing I want to do is talk about it. It's not that I fear having to tell people the baby didn't make it if something goes wrong. It's more that I fear by saying the words, "AR's pregnant," I will cause a miscarriage. Even as I type this, I'm not sure I will post it. That might be taunting fate.

I think what it comes down to is that I am not viscerally involved in this pregnancy, so I feel like I have even less control than when I was growing a kid myself. Don't get me wrong - it's delightful being able to sit this one out. I was worried for awhile that I would feel jealous or left out when my partner was doing the gestation work, but it turns out I'm just relieved not to be the one feeling queasy and getting up six times a night to pee. But sitting on the sidelines, while affording me the luxury of not thinking about having a baby every minute, also means I don't have constant reassurances that the biological work is being done. I wonder of this is how expectant dads feel.

Playing doctor

I feel lousy, and it's getting a little tiresome.

For the past few weeks, I've been exhausted. And I've been waking up eight times a night to pee. And, as poor Judybat will vouch, I've perfected my Walter the Farting Dog impression. Plus, and forgive me for sharing too much, my breasts hurt.

It's the weirdest thing.


Hey, did I mention I'm pregnant?

A survey of local wildlife

1. We went for a hike today on Sauvie Island. Just 10 miles north of us, it's one of our favorite spots for berry picking in the summer and visits to the pumpkin patch in the fall. If that weren't enough, much of the island is a designated wildlife preserve, and as we walked in the idyll of its grassy paths, among ancient oaks along the Columbia River, we spotted at least three great blue herons gliding over water and resting in tree tops. If that weren't enough, a few birders pointed out to us an enormous nest atop a tree at the far end of a small meadow just off the path. In it was a bald eagle feeding her young. I couldn't believe it! It was right there before us, laid out like a nature show, except without commercial breaks. The birders were nice enough to loan us their binoculars for a moment, but you almost didn't need it - those birds are huge!

2. A few days ago, The Boy and I were biking home along the Willamette after lunching downtown with AR, and we saw a sea lion gamboling in the river with some sea gulls. I was stunned to see its fat head emerge from the water, followed by a big old fin, and nearly rode into a pylon. It's big news here that the sea lions are causing problems at the Columbia River dams, where fish ladders designed to help salmon migrate upstream actually function as giant buffets for the hungry mammals, but I hadn't heard about them in the Willamette, which runs right through Portland and is crossed by I5. I've since read that they've made it all the way down to the Willamette Falls in Oregon City, where I guess the snacking is just as good.

3. There were multiple sightings of the gelato-fueled 16-minute miler in our neighborhood this evening. AR and I thought it would be a good idea to stop for a tasty treat on our way home from dinner, though we questioned that wisdom when, after downing a single scoop, The Boy started hopping up and down outside the gelato shop like a deranged rabbit. I asked him if he wanted to walk home with me instead of riding in the car with Mommy, and he said, "Yeah! Let's beat mommy home!" Which he nearly did. He ran the whole half-mile back to the house, shouting "I'm going to beat you Mommy!" to AR, who was driving alongside, clocking him at 8 mph.