38 weeks…it’s not the heat, it’s the pregnancy*

Posted on May 24, 2013 by amandakrieger

When I wrote this post I forgot one detail about pregnancy. I wasn’t even 30 weeks pregnant when I wrote it, and back then I forgot that you reach a point in pregnancy when you’ll do pretty much anything to just be done already…you’ll even endure the most extreme, the unthinkable…you’ll go through labor and delivery.

I’m getting to that point. It’s hot, I’m huge, and I’m ready to meet this baby. I’m 38 weeks today, which means I have two weeks until my due date; and I’m trying to prepare for even longer.

I keep forgetting to ask Tom to take a photo of me, but then I remembered it’s 2013, the era of selfies, and (as of a few weeks ago) I have an iPhone. Internet, I present you my first ever selfie:

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David is angry because he saw Chick-fil-A on the way into the bathroom.

I took the photo at Short Pump Mall because my body no longer fits in residential mirrors. Plus, if anything can class up a bathroom selfie it’s if the bathroom is at Short Pump Mall.

That same day, I got an email from BabyCenter.com with a link to the article, “Is it normal that I don’t look pregnant yet?”

I don’t understand contextual advertising or targeted links, and after receiving that link I’m not sure BabyCenter.com does, either.

Besides all the exhaustion, I’m feeling good. That is, if I’m gauging the way I feel on the pregnancy spectrum. As far as pregnancy goes, my pregnancies have been pretty easy. But even easy pregnancy is hard. If I compare how I feel to how a normal non-pregnant person feels, then I would be very concerned.

I am tired, very, very tired. This exhaustion seems worse than the exhaustion I remember from when David was a newborn. This tiredness doesn’t go away no matter how much I sleep, how much caffeine I consume, or how much I complain to my husband.

But when you’re tired from being up all night with a newborn, you can take a nap and feel (reasonably) better. Or maybe I’m just forgetting.

My body feels wrung out, too. This pregnancy seems much more physically demanding than my first. The way my body feels is the way it feels when I’m running a lot and need a rest day; worn out when I wake up and worn out when I go to bed. It’s bizarre to me to think that, when I was pregnant with David, I’d only given up running one week earlier (and it was mid-July).

As worn out as I am, David keeps me moving, and I’m still walking at least three miles a day.

Earlier this week I woke up and both calves and my left tricep were all really sore. That means I was either doing calf raises in my sleep…or…I guess there’s this, too.

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Yesterday David and I were watching Elmo together and he reached up and patted my belly. He doesn’t really understand that there’s a baby in my belly. We taught him to call my belly “baby,” but once we told him that he started thinking “baby” was just another word for belly.

The pat wasn’t necessarily affectionate, it could have been his way of saying, “Mommy. This is out of control. You might need to cool off on my animal crackers.”

Wither way, I think he’s going to be a great big brother.

Especially if he’ll just push the baby in the stroller while I follow behind sipping a margarita.

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I am still dreading labor, but I’m also trying to not dwell on it. Yesterday I visited a friend who told me that she was more anxious about her second labor as well. After enduring drug-free labor once, you know what’s coming, and what’s coming is sort of scary and a little overwhelming. Her advice was that I should chill out for goodness sake. She said to remember that no matter how difficult it was, I did it once, I can do it again. It’s never smart to toe the starting line wondering if you can make it to the finish.

My plan is to spend the remaining two (three?) weeks of pregnancy focusing on what a blessing it is to be pregnant and to carry this baby as long as it needs me to, and how thankful I am to have a healthy baby and a growing family.

It can be easy to fall into a spirit of complaining during pregnancy. We’re big, unwieldy, uncomfortable. My belly is hanging out below maternity shirts and I’m a walking spectacle, but my goodness does it get any better than this?

*I asked Tom if he understood this play on words and he said he didn’t. But maybe you’re a more discerning reader than Tom?

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The fun police

Posted on May 22, 2013 by amandakrieger

Summer is finally here. It sort of snuck up on us this year. After weeks of one day in the low 60s and the next in the mid-80s, we’ve started seeing mosquitoes and are appalled at the humidity. Welcome to summer in the south.

Yesterday after eating fajitas on the porch, Tom grabbed the hose and, well, David didn’t need any instructions.

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It’s almost Father’s Day, and before that day comes and mandates a Hallmark card, I’d like to say, unprompted by a holiday: Tom is a great dad.

He wakes up with David almost every morning so I can sleep in, then he goes to work, comes home and wrestles with David before reading him books and putting him to bed. Plus, he’s an incredible emotional support system for me and the overwhelming pressures I endure as a stay-at-home mom maintaining a mommy blog.

Tom comes home from work as soon as he can. When he’s home I spend most of my time 1) criticizing him for not helping quickly enough and 2) criticizing him for the way he’s helping.

It goes like this: Tom, can you please wipe David’s hands?…But not like THAT with THAT wash rag and THAT cold water and HIS FACE IS STILL DIRTY!!! I’LL JUST DO IT MYSELF IHAVETODOEVERYTHINGALLTHETIME!!!

I know this flies directly in the face of my role of wife and mother, and I know how terrible this is, so here’s the part where you stop shaking your head and I promise I’m working on it.

(But it’s not like I go to his place of work and leave my shoes in the doorway or open a new cheese ever though there’s already one open.)

Last night was one of those moments. One of those moments when I had to hold my tongue.

Even though David was wearing his clothes.

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And I thought Tom was spraying the hose too hard…

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And it was a little too close to bedtime…

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Every time I said, “NOT SO HARD! TOMNOTATHISFACE!” I was interrupted by a new round of shrieks and giggles.

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And David would shout “Mo-mo-mo rain!!”

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And even though he can’t say it yet, the look in his eyes said, “Mom, do I have the best daddy or what?”

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In search of some light 3 a.m. reading

Posted on May 20, 2013 by amandakrieger

I just finished reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was great, but I don’t think this is really the best stage of my life to really appreciate the beauty of the writing, the complexity of the story, the details, the characters. I’m just too tired these days. Too much of my brain space is taken up with monitoring David’s cheese intake to also keep track of feuds between dwarves and elves. I missed a lot of the story. If you’re an LOTR fan, this will put it into perspective: halfway through “The Return of the King” I asked Tom the difference between Sauron and Saruman.

After LOTR I switched to something a little lighter (it is summer, after all). I read “The Nanny Diaries” in about two weeks and, for the most part, I was able to keep the three main characters straight. Though sometimes I forgot that George was a cat and not a roommate.

After David was born I read nonstop. When you have a newborn you spend a surprising amount of time, several hours a day, sitting down feeding your baby, and I passed a lot of those hours reading.

A friend of mine, who is a mild-mannered adult, recently told me that when her mom was nursing her baby sister, she went to the bathroom and shaved her head. I’m taking that as a realistic warning, so I’m preparing for damage control during the day rather than quiet hours devoted to reading “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

However, I also read while I nursed David at night; I read nearly 100 pages each night. It’s depressing to think of being up that much, but aren’t you impressed at the productivity!?

Reading in the middle of the night worked for me; it helped keep me awake and helped keep my mind off the clock. Before this baby gets here I’d like to stock up on some good books, so I’m looking for recommendations. I want to be able to enjoy them, to be able to follow the plot and keep track of the characters even if I’m sleep-deprived and reading at 4 a.m.

I read a range of books while nursing David — Anne of Green Gables, Gone With the Wind, Once a Runner, Blink, the Problem of Pain. Here’s a list of books I read when David was a newborn (I keep track of books using GoodReads).

Have you read anything that’s light, fun, interesting? I like a range of genres, but nothing super complex and nothing sad…especially nothing sad involving kids (my hormones wouldn’t survive it).

Let me know what I should add to my list. But promise you won’t get offended if, unlike David, this baby sleeps through the night before prom, and I spend the nighttime hours sleeping rather than reading.

Eh, a pregnant lady can dream.

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Twenty-one months

Posted on May 17, 2013 by amandakrieger

David thought I was boring before, but even he wasn’t prepared for the level of lethargy I’ve reached after 37 weeks of pregnancy. The only games I want to play are “let’s lay on the bed and pretend to sleep” and “go to Starbucks and get Mama a Java Chip Frappuccino.”

David will play “sleeping” for a little bit, he’ll lay down and mimic snoring, but then the whole thing unravels into flailing his arms and legs. David has never been a good sleeper, and if this is his version of sleeping then I know why. Two weeks ago he slammed his head into mine and gave me a black eye. Yesterday he kicked me in the other eye. And even the threat of another foot to the face isn’t enough to get me off the couch.

Don’t worry, kid, this pregnancy will be over soon and then Mama will have lots of energy.

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David’s never been a good sleeper but he’s always been a great eater. That’s all changed in the last month as he’s slowly narrowed his palate one food at a time. Now the only foods he’ll eat are:

  1. macaroni
  2. cheese
  3. macaroni & cheese
  4. foods endorsed by Elmo

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The hierarchy of David’s favorites in our home is more and more defined, with Tom somewhere below the cat,  me squarely at the bottom and Elmo triumphantly at the top.

Every now and then I’ll hear Elmo singing a song I know so I’ll sing along. I think maybe David will be amazed that not only do I know how to slice cheese, turn on the bathwater, and let the cat inside, but I also know Elmo’s songs. But I don’t get more than a few words in until David turns around and shouts “NO!” as if I’ve ruined it somehow.

You think Elmo is so cool, but I have news for you, David. Elmo doesn’t have much new material. The Wheels on the Bus? Yeah, that one’s been around for a while. This must be how my dad felt when my sister and I were in high school and thought we were revolutionary for discovering Queen and the Steve Miller Band. Except I guess my dad knew better than to ruin the moment by singing along.

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Tom and I talk about the baby with David a few times a day. Mostly it’s when we tell him, “No, that’s not for David, that’s for the baby.” So when he started saying “baby” all the time, we didn’t pay much attention…until we realized he was calling us “baby.” And it wasn’t because of all this talk about a baby, it’s because that’s what Tom and I call each other. For example, when Tom leaves for work each morning we have a dialogue similar to this:

Tom: Bye, David!
Amanda: David, say ‘Bye, Daddy!”
David: Bye, Da-EE
Tom: Bye David, bye Baby
Amanda: Bye, Baby

Then Tom gives me a kiss and leaves. And somewhere along the way David picked up on it and decided to play along. I didn’t like being called “baby” when Tom started it way back in the day, but I got over it and look where we are now. Now I spend my day being dragged around by a toddler asking for Elmo, baby.

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Every time I pick David up from the nursery at church he’s pushing around a little stroller or grocery cart, so when I saw one at a consignment sale I decided to get it for him. When he saw it the next morning he grabbed it and immediately went to work pushing it around the house with such purpose as if to say, “What have you people been doing? Get to work! We need to push this stroller!”

We let him push it outside on the sidewalk, and now he’ll ask us, “Push. Stroller. Outside.” He’ll do it for an hour, and never comes in without a tantrum because how is he supposed to come inside, what with all the stroller-pushing there is to do?

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Dear David,

Everyone keeps asking me if you’re ready for the baby to come, and aside from knowing how to point at my belly and say “BABY!” you have no idea what’s coming. But to be honest, neither do we. You taught us well that no matter how much we prepare we’ll never be ready.

A kind friend gave me the good advice to spend these final weeks really soaking you in, because after your sibling is born our relationship will change forever. The changes won’t all be bad, but there will definitely be changes. It’s weird to think about, because I don’t really know how to be away from you. I spend nearly every hour of the day with you, change most of your diapers and eat three meals a day with you. Your daddy has all but stopped suggesting a luxurious trip for two to the South of France because he knows what I’ll say, “But, baby? What will you do while David and I are gone?”

Things will be different. Things will change. And you might not believe me at first, and you might disagree with me a time or two in the next 18 years, but you’re one of the biggest reasons we decided to have another baby. I’ve always wanted a large family and it’s because my siblings have been such a blessing to me. They will break your toys and tell on you and divide my attention. But they’ll also roll their eyes with you when Mama sings along with Elmo.

The one thing that won’t change is that Mama loves you so much. You won’t remember much of this time, these 21 months we’ve had together, but they’ve been a beautiful gift to me. I’m so blessed to have you, Doodle Bug, and I’m so grateful for what you’ve taught me. Before you came I didn’t know how to bathe a baby or what to do when that baby woke up in the middle of the night with a fever. Before you came I wasn’t ready for the worry or the exhaustion and I had no idea how much I would love you. I think I might have changed more than you have in 21 months. In that time I’ve learned that there’s no way I can fully prepare for what’s next, but I’m so glad you’ll be a part of it.

Love,

Mama

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How to give a toddler a haircut (especially if that toddler doesn’t have much hair to begin with)

Posted on May 16, 2013 by amandakrieger

If you have a very discerning eye, you may have noticed that David’s hair is growing. David doesn’t have much hair, he takes after his mama. I’ve actually talked about this before. So before you say, “Oh, I didn’t have much hair as a kid either! I didn’t get hair until I was two!” Check that link and weep for the little girl who was still waiting for her hair to grow in the first grade.

My mom said my hair used to grow unevenly and in patches. So I wasn’t completely bald, I at least had patches of hair. David’s hair is coming in a little nicer. It started growing thicker in the back, which seems typical for toddlers. It had sweet curls, so I let it grow. Every time someone called it a “baby mullet” I cringed. David did not have a mullet, and you would know that if you grew up in Franklin County like I did, a place where mullets are not ironic or punchlines, they are a legitimate hairstyle choice.

I also put off the haircut because David started the habit of twirling his hair with his finger. It seemed like a comfort thing; he did it while we were reading books, whenever he took a break from playing with his buses, and even whenever he stirred in his sleep.

I decided to cut it when stray hairs started hanging over his collar because it looked sloppy. I can’t have my kid looking sloppy while he rolls around in the floor like a baby.

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Before we started the cut, I turned on his favorite Baby Einstein video on YouTube. Once he was transfixed, I wet the back of his hair and combed it out.

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This is the only part that distracted him from the images of trains, planes and automobiles. He wanted to use the comb.

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There’s a 36-week pregnant belly (taken last week). Isn’t it crazy how, from that angle, you can barely tell I’m pregnant?

And this is what David’s face looks like while his brain is rotting to the tune of Baby Einstein.

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After combing his hair, I just placed my fingers vertically along the back of his head and snipped.

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I worked all the way around until I’d done the entire back, always cutting vertically.

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My mom cut my little brother‘s hair, but I don’t remember her technique so I just made this up as I went along. All I remember her doing was buzz cuts when he was a little older. I know she definitely trimmed his hair with scissors because he grew up thinking getting a trim always included getting your ear cut.

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I did trim a few stray hairs around his ears, but I stopped there since David doesn’t have much hair on the top of his head. Some of the benefits of having a bald kid: 1) you can wipe them clean when they smear guacamole on their head 2) you only have to worry about haircuts every 21 months or so.

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Our entire family actually got haircuts on the same day. I got an emergency trim when I realized I was so close to my due date and it’d been nearly a year since I’d had a haircut. Maybe if I had more due dates I’d get more haircuts.

I also cut Tom’s hair. I started cutting Tom’s hair when we got engaged, and we still have a fight every single time I cut it. The problem is this: cutting Tom’s hair is a horrible chore. If you want specifics, come over for dinner and maybe that’ll give me enough time to explain what it’s like to pick tiny pieces of hair out of your clothes for months.

Plus, I like Tom’s hair when it’s long and curly.

After 4+ years of this nonsense, Tom gives me a few weeks of warning so I can prepare myself emotionally and physically. And even then I drag my feet. He starts the cut on his own and I have no choice but to fix it.

Even I’ll admit: Tom puts up with a lot.

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I finished David’s cut before he finished the video. I think it turned out pretty well.

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He sat still the entire time, but if Baby Einstein didn’t work we were also prepared with a sucker and arm restraints.

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Unfortunately there isn’t enough for him to twirl with his finger, but you know what they say about a bad haircut: it’ll grow back.

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