Category: Mothering without a licence

Potty humour

We’re having a little trouble with Simon’s ongoing potty training. He’s doing amazing withe the peeing, and has been dry day and night for days, with a few accidental exceptions. The other business, though, has been a bit of a challenge. Because I don’t want this to turn into a huge deal for him, we were willing to let him regress to pooping in a diaper for at least the short term, but he will have none of it. Now, he will poop neither in the potty nor in his diaper. He walks around the house knock-kneed, obviously clenching his poor little butt. Poor thing!

So I was chatting about the situation with some of my mommy friends, and one of them (hi Susan!) sent me a few links to various sites with potty advice, including this one: http://www.medhelp.org/forums/ChildBehavior/messages/32866.html. The last entry contains this parenting testimonial:

“We had a similar situation with our daughter at about 3 years of age. We even tried putting a diaper on her, but cutting a hole in it and having her sit on the toilet.”

I admit it, I laughed. Loudly. Suddenly, I had a painfully clear image of me, sitting at the kitchen table with a pair of scissors, a stack of de-assed diapers piled neatly at my elbow.

I shouldn’t laugh too loud. If the poor boy doesn’t empty his bowels soon, I may yet be de-assing those diapers…

Can you think of any classically bad parenting advice you’ve received over the years?

The other men in my life

So while we’ve been paying so much attention to the little man I’m busy gestating, the other men in my life have been busy with their own milestones.

Can I please have a round of applause for Simon, who has remained in DRY underwear all day long for the past two days? YAY Simon! It took him maybe two days to catch on, and yesterday was a completely accident-free day. The nanny said she had put him in a pull-up to go to the park (just in case) and he told her he had to go and then even held it for the 10-minute trip home.

What’s been really adorable, though, is listening to Tristan coach Simon. Now, Tristan has a personal investment in Simon’s toilet habits on two fronts. First, he was benefitting from our bribes to Simon. He too watched Queen Amidala on Sunday afternoon, and he too has received a steady stream of ju-ju-beans when Simon successfully voided his bladder. But more than that, Tristan seems to be extremely phobic about Simon’s bodily fluids and goes to great lengths to make sure Simon goes in the potty and nowhere else.

They’ll be playing, and Simon will pause and say, “I need to go to the potty.” Tristan will shepherd him into the bathroom, coaching him the whole way: “Okay, now pull down your underwear. Good! Be careful, back up, and point it down. Good. Now go. Yay! Great job, Simon, you did it!!” Imagine this scene repeated maybe every 20 minutes, all day long. Beloved turned to me at one point and said, “So, when did Tristan become Simon’s mother?”

So, how trustworthy do you think a six-day-old potty training habit is? This weekend is our Smuggler’s Notch getaway, and Simon can join an age-appropriate day camp if he is potty trained. If not, he goes to a daycare centre type of thing, with the 6 week to 3 year olds. I know which one he’d prefer, but am worried that he’ll be a little too distracted by the excitement of day camp to remember to listen to the call of nature. Thoughts?

More parental bragging: both boys passed their respective swimming lesson levels this week, too. I was hardly surprised to see Tristan pass from Preschool level C to level D, after his performance jumping off the diving board into the deep end of the pool this month. I was less sure about Simon, mostly because more often than not, he would be happily playing off by himself while the teacher coached the kids who were obviously less comfortable in the water than Simon. On his “report card” the teacher observed: “Simon has amazing confidence in his aquatic abilities.” Translation: he’s friggin’ fearless. Her final comment made me laugh the most, though: “Don’t forget to focus!” Ha! Runs in the family.

So it’s not exactly an official “yay day”, but it seems that this whole month has had me bursting with pride at how quickly my boys are growing up. And the best part? If Simon stays on track, I get a five-month vacation from diapers. If that’s not worth bragging about, what is?

No really, what is? Consider this bragging thread officially open!

The big reveal

The ultrasound appointment went very well this morning. Beloved was teaching and couldn’t make it, but my lovely Mom accompanied me. She was there for Simon’s big reveal, too. What a great thing to be able to share with Granny!

Baby was sleepy, not moving around too much. The technician knew I was squirrelly to find out the gender so that was her first stop, but Baby’s legs were tightly clenched together. She did a few more measurements, and exclaimed with delight about how healthy all of Baby’s parts are. The organs, the spine, the brain stem, the heart – they all look perfect. The placenta is on the low side and near the cervix, but nothing to yet be concerned about.

And then she scanned back up to Baby’s bits and Baby’s legs were splayed wide open. Turns out just like Tristan and Simon, this Baby is an exhibitionist after all. No doubt about it, for the next five months or so I have a penis.

It’s a boy!!!

Pink or blue? Lay your bets!

One more sleep! Wednesday morning at 9:00 is the big reveal, assuming baby is amenable to the exposure. (And you know I come from a long line of exhibitionists.) We finally get to find out whether baby has indoor or outdoor plumbing.

I swear, never in my whole life have I expended so much energy in not thinking about something. For weeks, I’ve been careful not to speculate, not to wonder, and certainly not to hope. But despite my best efforts, I’m now emotionally and intellectually engaged in this pregnancy. I can feel the baby moving almost every day, and a couple of people in my office have tentatively approached me and asked if maybe I had some good news I wanted to share while looking pointedly at my no-longer-subtle belly. (Seriously, people, unless a woman has another human being dangling from between her legs, “Are you pregnant?” is still one of the most dangerous questions on the planet!) So I’ve let go of the fear and given myself over to joy and anticipation.

And tomorrow, the last big question will be answered.

It’s no secret that I would like a girl. Here are the top five six reasons I hope this little passenger is of the female variety:

  1. I want a girl because I think it would be an easier family dymanic to have two boys and a girl rather than strand Simon in the middle of three boys.
  2. I want a girl because I was a girl, and I’ve always had such a wonderful relationship with my mother, and she with her mother before that, and I would love to carry that on to the next generation.
  3. I want a girl because when boys grow up, they tend to move away and girls stay close.
  4. I want a girl so she can be daddy’s little girl, just like I was… and, erm, continue to be.
  5. I want a girl because I fear the grocery bills – and the infrastructure of the house! – if we have three towering teenage boys in the house at the same time.
  6. I want a girl simply because I don’t have one.

And yet, I would be delighted by another boy. Here’s why:

  1. I know from boys. I’ve got five and a half years of insight into mothering boys. I know their bits, I know their preferences, I know their foibles.
  2. I’ve always preferred the company of boys over girls. The idea of spending the rest of my life surrounded by men has a certain appeal.
  3. Mean girls and middle school. I’m not sure I could do it again, even (or especially?) by proxy.
  4. I’ve got a pretty good stash of boy-stuff. Rugby shirts and toy trucks and baseball caps and Sponge Bob videos; I spent a lot of time weeding through the pink pieces at Gymboree and Old Navy to find some truly great boy clothes.
  5. Simply bellowing “BOYS!” to get their attention is far more effective than “CHILDREN!” or – god forbid – actually trying to get out the right name first.
  6. Last but not least, how could I not want another Tristan or Simon?

In the mood for a little prognostication? Throughout this pregnancy, I’ve had a hard time not visibly shuddering every time someone smiled and leaned in and whispered confidentially, “I think this one’s a girl!” (Funny how nobody thinks it’s a boy… at least not out loud.) But I’m ready now! Lay your bets on the table, folks.

Is it a boy?
Is it a girl?
… or…
Will it be too stubborn to divulge its secrets?

Pregnancy songs

You remember how it is with your first pregnancy, when you actually buy the pregnancy magazines, and hang out on the message boards at iVillage comparing each twitch and twang with 600 other pregnant mothers due in the same month as you, and you spend months agonizing over the nursery decorating scheme and hours browsing baby gear at Babys R Us and have the baby’s whole wardrobe picked out and washed and folded and carefully placed in drawers when you’re still only six months along?

*snicker* Ah, I remember those days… barely!

Ahem, anyway, back when I was still all dewey-eyed with the idea of being pregnant with Tristan, I invested hours searching the Internet and local record stores for a copy of one of my all-time favourite soundtrack albums, She’s Having a Baby. Way before I had kids, I loved that album, and practically wore out my cassette copy in the early 1990s – and not entirely because I’ve always had a wicked crush on Kevin Bacon.

Alas, despite a stellar effort, I couldn’t find a replacement copy when I was pregnant with Tristan. Well, there was one copy on eBay for about $60 including currency conversion and delivery and duty, but that was a bit much even for me. But the other day, I was downloading some music from iTunes and out of the blue wondered if I could get some of my favourite songs from the album on iTunes. Turns out I couldn’t (maybe you’ll have more luck on the American version, but iTunes.ca is still occassionally disappointing in its limited selection.) I did, however, find out that the album was re-released in 2003, and I used one of my MotherTalk Amazon.com gift certificates to order one. It arrived on the weekend, and I love it all over again.

But it got me thinking – aside from the ubiquitous country and western songs, there aren’t really a whole lot of pregnancy songs out there, are there? My favourite of all time, which I listened to about a million times when I was pregnant with Tristan, is Danny’s Song (the Kenny Loggins version, thanks), and of course there is Creed’s Arms Wide Open, which came out the year I had my first miscarriage and made me cry gallons of tears over the hormonal years, and Nancy White’s hilarious folk song, It’s Chic to be Pregnant at Christmas.

Danny’s Song by Kenny Loggins
People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one, and we’ve just begun,
Think I’m gonna have a son.
He will be like she and me, as free as a dove, conceived in love,
Sun is gonna shine above.

(This song also has the line “Pisces, virgo rising is a pretty good sign, strong and kind, and a little boy is mine” which I can barely type, let alone sing along, without choking up. Tristan is my little Pisces.)

Apron Strings by Everything But the Girl
And I’ll be perfect in my own way
When you cry I will be there
I’ll sing to you and comb your hair
All your troubles I will share

This Woman’s Work by Kate Bush
Pray God you can cope.
I stand outside this woman’s work,
This woman’s world.
Ooh, it’s hard on the man,
Now his part is over.
Now starts the craft of the father.

Arms Wide Open by Creed
Well I just heard the news today
It seems my life is going to change
I closed my eyes, begin to pray
Then tears of joy stream down my face

She’s Having a Baby by Dave Wakeling
Mixed drinks and mixed emotions
Head in the clouds, put your feet on the ground
All change,
She’s having a baby
You’re growing up now,
You’re settling down, down, down
Will it be a boy or a girl?
And what will it think of the world?

It’s So Chic to be Pregnant at Christmas by Nancy White
It’s so biblical to be pregnant at Christmas
No matter what stories you believe.
And only suffer from gravid senilis
And heartburn and nausea and charley-horses and overwhelming fatigue and frequent micturation and varicose veins and swollen ankles and shortness of breath and that .. tired achy feeling in the groin.

That was about all I could come up with. Can you think of any more?

The one where the nanny didn’t quit

So, it’s the nanny’s third day today, and she didn’t quit yet. I’m so happy! (Amazing how my standards have dropped, isn’t it?)

Seriously, though, even beyond her not quitting, I’m thrilled with the new nanny. The boys ask every day whether Jen and Jordan (her one year old son) are coming today. She brings them to the park; she plays games with them; last Friday, she brought them to her house for the afternoon and they did fingerpainting and came home with home-made, car-shaped cookies. She’s got Simon on the potty a couple of times a day. She even emptied the clean dishwasher so she could put the lunch dishes in it. Really, I love her!

I’m not the only one who loves her. Friday night at dinnertime, Tristan had just finished telling us all the fun things they did with Jen that day. He asked if she would be coming back the next day, but I told him that Mummy and Daddy don’t have to work on Saturdays or Sundays, so we’d get to spend the whole day together as a family. “And besides,” I teased him, “would you rather spend the day with us or with Jen?”

He didn’t hesitate nearly long enough before answering, “Jen!” In other circumstances, I might have been peeved, but frankly by this point, I’m happy with that answer.

It’s still a little awkward having her in our house, though. We’re making up rules as we go along, because I hadn’t really thought any of this through. I don’t know if I should leave a list of suggested lunches for the boys, based on that week’s trip to the grocery store, or just let her root through the cupboards and make it up based on what she finds. I’m also not sure whether I should be buying stuff for her to make lunch for herself.

I was also thinking about leaving suggestions for activities, and leaving her our family membership card for the Farm and the Science museum. If it were me, we’d be going to the library, and playgroups, to parks in other neighbourhoods – anything to burn daylight! – but I don’t want to overwhelm her. I’m not sure I’d want to be doing a lot of field trips by myself with a 1, 3 and 5 year old!

So, day three and all is well on the daycare front. It’s going to nearly break us financially (her pay is barely $100 less a week than Beloved earns) but at least for the next year I’m willing to pay that price. Do you think this is finally the good karma I’ve earned after more than half a year of dreadful experiences?

***

A quick editorial aside comes to mind as I’m writing this post. When I refer back to old posts (which, I am noticing, I am quite fond of doing) should I be linking to the original posts back on Blogger or the ones in the archive here? The original ones have the comments. What do you think?

The 16 week update: Wherein I let out this breath I’ve been holding

Just been for my 16 week OB appointment. Let me tell you, it was a hell of a lot more pleasant than the last time I had a 16 week appointment, and did not live up in any way, shape or form to the “oh no, not again” anxiety dreams that haunted me all last night.

The whole thing lasted – I kid you not – maybe seven minutes. She checked my blood pressure (110 / 60) and asked how I was doing, and pulled out her doppler. Just because my life is not complete without some moments of heart-stopping drama, we didn’t hear the heartbeat on the first side she tried – and my heart shrunk down to the size of a pea. And then, when she pressed her doppler to the left side of my abdomen, there it was: whoosha whoosha whoosha, that beautiful baby music. And my heart grew to the size of an elephant.

And that was it, the appointment in its entirety. The IPS results aren’t in yet, so I’ll have to check back early next week. But I’ll happily celebrate good news when I can. 16 weeks and all is well!

Tristan’s big splash

It’s been such a lovely summer so far, full of sunshine and traveling and beaches and pools and water parks. I know we’ve had a good summer because we’re on our fourth package of swim diapers… that’s a lot of fun in the water!

Over the course of the summer, Tristan has gone from not quite being able to swim the width of the pool with a float to being able to swim very short stretches unassisted in a panicky sort of dog paddle. He’s shown a lot of improvement with all the time we’ve spent in the water lately, and has taken great delight in being able to jump off the side of the pool and “cannonball” into the shallow end.

Yesterday, we spend an unexpected but lovely four hours or so splashing about and lounging on the deck of our friends’ new pool. Despite Tristan’s improvement through the summer, I had serious reservations when my friend UberGeek asked Tristan if he’d like to jump off the diving board and UG would help him get to the ladder. It’s a testament to many, many years of friendship that I would even consider letting Tristan try – that, and the way Tristan’s face lit up when he said, “SURE!” and scrambled up onto the deck before I could even formulate a protest.

The first jump, as soon as Tristan surfaced sputtering and wide-eyed, UberGeek was there to grab him and guide him to the ladder. I took a deep breath of my own and bit back my maternal concerns as Tristan practically ran to the diving board for the next jump – and the next, and the next, and the next. By the end of the afternoon, he was jumping in and able to swim to the ladder completely unassisted, and was also able to swim most of the length of the pool with only minimal assistance. Just like getting up on two wheels, it’s amazing how quickly the little synapses fire in a growing brain to suddenly “get” a new activity and master it.

Simon too was the picture of contentment, splashing around in an unusual swim ring built into a t-shirt, a design I’ve never seen before. While getting him in and out of it was quite reminiscent of shoving him down the birth canal, it seemed a lot safer and sturdier than water wings or a traditional ring float.

In a single afternoon, Tristan went from barely able to swim a foot or two to jumping off the diving board and swimming to the edge, and I went from ensuring neither boy was further than arms’ reach away from a grownup to letting them splash and float contentedly around the deep and shallow ends under their own power. I’m simply gobsmacked. And it served as a good reminder that the boys are likely to be ready to take on new challenges far earlier than I’m going to be ready for them to do so.

I only wish I’d had a camera with me…

Almost 15 weeks update: the midwife question

See, bloggy peeps? I take your advice! I went ahead and scheduled an appointment with the midwife, just so I could keep my options open for a little while longer.

First, I have to tell you that I heard the baby’s heartbeat, and all seems fine. What, you haven’t been obsessing over it, thinking of it every two hours half hour six minutes like I’ve been? Heck, it took me until I was on the bus on the way to the appointment to figure out that I wasn’t having heart palpitations and trouble breathing because of any larger fear of the midwife herself, but over knowing she would have a doppler and I was afraid to face the possible silence like last time.

The bad news is, I really liked the midwife and the whole philosophy of midwifery care. I mean, that’s bad news because if I had hated her on sight, it would have been a lot easier to simply go back to my OB and carry on.

There are a handful of concerns that I can’t quite shake, mostly having to do with scenarios when something goes wrong. To her credit, even though my OB has no bedside manner whatsoever, when she couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat with the doppler at my 16 wk appointment last year, all she had to do was walk me over to the ultrasound clinic on the other side of her office, and she did the scan herself to try to find the baby. I know it would never be that easy with the midwife, even though I understand that they do have full referral access for all that stuff.

I think the one thing that most surprised me and most concerned me is that even with a hospital birth, the midwives don’t use the fetal monitoring tools like the heart rate monitor. With Simon, I can still clearly remember after many hours of stalling labour when I finally began to have serious contractions there was one terrifying moment when the baby’s heart decelerated significantly enough (140s to low 60s) for the nurse to demand of Beloved that he push the call button for assistance. There was no real emergency, and in hindsight it was probably just the stress of passing a baby the size of a Toyota through an opening the size of an orange, but the idea of not hearing that reassuring whoosh-whoosh-whoosh throughout the labour seriously freaks me out.

Here are the other niggling concerns I have:

With Simon, I was 10 days late when they finally started induction, and even then he took more than 24 hours to come out. I asked the midwife about induction, and she said they consult with an OB when you are 42 weeks. Ugh. Did I mention Simon was 10 lbs? I know, nothing says the next baby will be that large or that late, but still…

I have every intention of delivering at the hospital and staying at the hospital for as long as they’ll let me. With Tristan, I was terrified to go home because I didn’t want to be solely responsible for the mewling little mass of perfection, and with Simon I left after 24 hours (against the doctor’s and nurses’ objections) because it was the first time I had ever been separated from Tristan. When the midwife said that it’s standard practice after midwife deliveries for the mother and baby to go home after three hours, assuming all is well, I told her that I wanted to take full advantage of the hospital stay and she laughed and said it’s funny how mothers with more than one at home tend to say that.

Of course, there’s the fact that midwives no longer have priviledges at the Ottawa Hospital, so I’ll have to deliver at the Montfort, but the more I talk to people in the community about this, the less this concerns me. But still.

There are many things I like about midwifery care:

* the post-natal care. The first couple of weeks with baby at home have been rough on me both times. The midwife comes to visit you at home at least five times in the first two weeks after baby is born, and I find that incredibly reassuring.

* longer appointments with more holistic care.

* will know the people who are with me when I’m actually delivering the baby, and they’ll know me (as opposed to taking a gamble on the nursing staff, and the 1 in 10 chance that my own OB is on call that day.)

* when I told the midwife about how at Simon’s birth the anesthesiologist said I was his most difficult case in more than 500 epidurals (!) she suggested we could make an appointment for a consulation with an anesthesiologist before the birth to discuss options. (Seriously! Why did my OB not do something like this after I told her how much trouble the anesthesiologist had at Tristan’s birth?)

* office is very conveniently close to where I work for appointments, as opposed to the OB who is two long buses away.

* no traumatic memories attached to the midwife’s office.

* when I couldn’t help myself and cried a few tears of relief when I heard the baby’s heartbeat yesterday, she smiled and rubbed my arm and said, “Everything’s fine!” in a very comforting voice. As opposed to my OB, who didn’t touch me or express any overt sympathy through the entire miscarriage experience last year. In fact, it was the ultrasound tech, following up on what the OB started and confirming that the baby had died, who took a moment to physically touch me and tell me how sorry she was. It’s just a more humanized level of care.

So, I don’t know. Through the course of the afternoon yesterday, I changed my mind five times. If it weren’t for the fetal monitoring part, I’d be comfortable making the switch. Then again, it’s not like I’m lacking anything with the OB’s care, and I know she’s world-class in her field.

Sigh.

I do know that through this most difficult month, as 16 weeks come and go, through a complete fluke of timing in the overlap of care I’ve got an appointment every week this month. Yesterday I saw the midwife, and tomorrow I go for my final IPS blood test. Next week, I go for my scheduled 16 wk appointment with the OB, to hopefully discuss the IPS test results. The week after that is my first clinical appointment with the midwife, should I choose to go that route. And the week after that is the ultrasound. I couldn’t have planned that better if I’d tried!

So, what say ye, bloggy peeps? You’re the board of directors at DaniGirl Inc, and we need to make a decision today on the direction of the company. What do you recommend?