One Fab Chica

So it's been a rough day. Jack has been getting up 4-5 times a night, and not going back to sleep without rocking/being held. He must be going through a tough period of separation anxiety and needs the extra comfort, but it's hard on us. I was awake with him from 3:45am till 5:15am last night. I got him to sleep at 5:15, and he got up at 6:30am with Mike. Mike and I have been having heated discussions on how to deal with the sleep issues. Sleeping with us wasn't going well (for us; he's a thrasher and we couldn't get any sleep) and sleeping in his crib isn't going well for him. And discussing parenting strategies on little sleep is an emotionally-charged thing. I was in tears several times today. However, in the late afternoon, as I was awaiting Mike's return from work so I could get a little reprieve from keeping tired baby happy, we found a package on our front doorstep. It's one of those things that comes right when you need it just to brighten your day. My fabulously sweet friend Sarah in L.A. sent us a care package with such great, great stuff. We opened it downstairs, which allowed Hawkeye to chew up the wrapping paper: i.e., happy dog. Then we took out the first thing-- a handknit Christmas stocking for Jack that is stunningly gorgeous. The colors, the size, the detail are all amazing. This is one talented chica (yes, folks, that's why she's teaching the stars to knit). Observe:


This was going to be the second year Jack was going to have no stocking because I didn't want to buy him one, but rather wait until he'd have a homemade one he could keep forever, like I have. Unfortunately I have little to no crafting skills and had yet to figure out how to make him one myself, so I figured we'd wait another year before tackling that (he doesn't "get" this holiday stuff yet, anyway, so I didn't feel too bad). And yet here we now have a gorgeous stocking made with love from Aunt Sarah: i.e., we have a happy mommy. Not only that, but I found some wonderful chai tea bags and a book on baby/toddler food. This also comes at a perfect time, as I was just telling a friend today that I'm running out of ways to cook vegetables that I can get Jack to eat and am sorely in need of new recipes to try. Voila! Sarah reads my mind and here we have a fun book for baby recipes. Not only that but it's filled with giant photos of babies, which happens to be Jack's first word ("Bee-bee."), so he sat on my lap and looked, wide-eyed with glee, at all the babies, saying "bee-bee, bee-bee, bee-bee" all the while; i.e., happy Jack. Sarah, you sure know how to send a box of joy at just the right time. Thank you, you rock. Everyone else, if you are in need of a good friend, I suggest you look her up: Sarah O., Hollywood. :) She also has a little blog, which has been feeling a bit lonely lately, listed on my blogroll. Cheers to you Sarah dear!

lump of coal?

as expected, jack's first meeting with santa did not go too well...



however, the indoor snow went over quite well.

Oh Boy!

We ventured out into the ice storm today for our ultrasound. Luckily it was early in the morning, when it was still rainy and slushy and the roads weren't too bad. After we got home, things the snow picked up and it got colder, so we were lucky we still had the appointment. Everything looked good as far as the tech could see, and we counted 5 fingers on each hand :) And it's another boy. I'm excited to have two of the same gender since they'll be so close in age. I hope that gives them an edge on friendship, though I know there's never any guarantee. Just like with our last pregnancy, we had the girl name all picked out, but haven't narrowed down the boy names yet. We've got a good short list, but still need to decide. It's fun knowing now so that we can say "he," and start getting ready to refer to him by name. We do have a big discussion ahead of us though, as I don't want to circumcise and Mike does. It may take us the entire last half of the pregnancy to come to a decision on that. Unfortunately there is no way to compromise on it, so we have to decide one way or another. Sigh. But we are very happy that everything looks good and we have another little guy on the way!

snow

Jack's first experience with snow was a hit:






As you can see, he was all smiles. Yep, we are raising an Iowa boy!

second pregnancy musings

jack is napping and it's snowing. this gives me time to sit and muse for a little while about things, and i've come to some conclusions about subsequent pregnancies. i've been trying to focus more on this pregnancy lately, since i feel i did little else during the first, and this one has been more of an afterthought. it always bothered me when friends would make comments that they kept first year calendars for their first borns, and paid close attention to sterilizing bottles and such for those first kids, but when second or third children came along they didn't bother. i had always told myself that i would try hard to make sure each child of ours got equal attention, got plenty of photos taken of him/her, and never got short-changed for being a subsequent child. i've come to realize during this pregnancy, though, that it's going to be harder than i had hoped. i have less time to revel in the joy of being pregnant or think too much about the coming baby simply by virtue of the fact that jack takes up most of my time and energy. for this reason the pregnancy is flying by and i feel at times like i'm missing it in some ways. most of the time that i do spend thinking about the new baby's arrival is focused less on the anticipation of what he or she will be like, and more on how we will survive with juggling two kids under two. a lot of things change from the first kid to the second. for example, the wish list. for my first pregnancy, we set up two registries with an infinite number of baby gear "essentials" to make jack comfortable and happy. it was about cute outfits, cozy infant seats, and trendy diaper bags. as we compile the list of wants and needs for baby #2, we realize that the things on it are no longer baby-centered as with jack, but they are now parent-centered: gift certificates for take and bake meals, cleaning service, dog-walking service, larger and more practical diaper bags (that can handle packing cloth dipes for 2 kids, sippy cups, bottles, changes of clothes, cheerios.... we may have to start toting around a suitcase.) i think with our first pregnancy, everything was exciting, and the anticipation was more of bliss than of worry. with the second, we are in some sort of survival mode; anticipating with both pleasure and anxiety. i'm sure everyone goes through this, and just learns to manage. i keep thinking, "what am i going to do when mike returns to work after those first 2 weeks of leave?" it will definitely be an exercise in multi-tasking. until then, i'm still making as many plans as possible to do all the things for this baby that i did for jack. i have a baby book and a first year calendar, and within both i've already entered some information. i'm going to be sure that this baby gets some photos alone for his/her baby book, rather than always having joint photos with jack. i'm going to try and be good about photos of milestones, etc. i'm sure it will be a learning experience!

a little hello

Hi everybody. It seems these posts are getting fewer and farther between, but Jack is keeping me so busy these days that it's hard to sit down for more than a minute. I can't imagine what it will be like with TWO! According to the baby gaga ticker, we have only 147 days until that happens. I'm thinking that it may be April instead of May, though, given our history of earlier birth plus the fact that subsequent babies tend to come before rather than after the due date. Who knows, but either way, 100some days seems short! Our ultrasound is in a week, and we are really hoping everything will look developmentally normal and healthy. I still feel fine, and the pregnancy is progressing well, if not quickly. The little one is moving around now as I type.

Jack is going through a tough time. Teething is partly the culprit, but beyond that he seems generally frustrated with life most of the time. He's become very determined to do things, and when they don't work out ("no, Jack, we aren't going to play with the thermostat anymore," "no, Jack mommy is currently on the phone so you can't play with the reciever," or even things like trying to walk across the room and tripping and falling) he melts into a tantrum and uncontrollable emotion. I'm sure it's normal for his age, but it's very frustrating for me. His most worrisome trait is the headbanging that accompanies most tantrums. Usually it's on the carpet, but at times it lands against my chin or chest, or sometimes the door frame. He's a wild man. I think it's partly age, and partly the fact that he's like his dad: if he can't do something perfectly, it's not worth doing at all. :) So we have been losing a lot of sleep at night as he wakes up with teething pain frequently, as well as a lot of patience during the day as he needs constant entertainment to remain relatively happy. I keep trying to find things to get out and about and do, to keep him distracted, but it's hard when it's so cold. This past weekend we had to cancel a lot of fun plans due to the ice storm. Even little trips like packing up and going to the play area at the mall seem labor intensive at times. But we are surviving the winter, so far.

We got our holiday tree this weekend and Jack helped decorate. It's a little more sparse in the ornament department this year, since we had to pack away all the metal balls after he got a hold of one and shattered it all over the floor. But he had fun helping hang ornaments, and our living room is very festive.





On the dissertation front, I have 13 interviews left to get through (all in Spanish). Once that is done, and I'm really having a hard time motivating myself to just get through them quickly, I'll be able to sit down with ALL my data, interviews, newspapers, fieldnotes, and all, and figure out what the heck this paper is going to be about. That's scary and exciting at the same time. I hope to have a big Ah-HA moment, where it all makes sense, but I know it may be awhile before that happens. My goal of starting my writing in January is plausible, but not definite. I will have the interviews done by then, but I don't know if I'll have the outline made up yet. Still, it's nice to think about finally finishing the data analysis, and moving onto the real writing process. Again I kick myself for not doing the interview transcripts while in the field, but hindsight is 20/20. At the time I thought I could easily do them at home, and spend more of my research time just being there. But now I realize how much time I wasted.

Mike is gearing up for a bunch of new patients to come to his pharmacy at the end of December. Another Hy-Vee pharmacy is closing and sending all their records to his pharmacy. So things could get very busy, very fast. They are going to have a lot more staff to offset things. One of the pharmacy technicians he hired from the closing store has my name: Brandyce K. isn't that strange??!
Hope all is well with all of you readers!