The mall, the Christmas train, the tears

Train, train, train, train -- daddy, will you buy that (damn) ticket faster?

Lyric ran just as fast as those little legs could carry her to get inside the little train with all the the other kids.

And then...Daddy closed the door. Man, oh man, her tears streamed.

Who else cried? Nope, it wasn't the snotty nosed kid who had to get out of the way while the conducter opened the door so that Lyric could get back out.

Mommy cried, too. (Poor daddy.)

I just wasn't ready for that tiny person to go riding all by herself, all the way across that mall floor, around such a big circle.

Eighteen months, and she still needs her mommy. Whew.

Heart melting

Kevin is in China again for two weeks. Lyric's finally reached the age where she is asking for him.

She's also at the age where she can be quickly distracted by a banana.

Before he left, he made her another video, which she watches each morning with a huge oatmealy grin on her face. She gets especially enchanted by the scene where they are both flying like ragdolls while jumping all over our king-size bed.

We also Skype every night at 5pm (7am in Kowloon). They are heartbreaking to watch....he leans into the camera and kisses her and she leans forward, arms outstretched and saying "UP!" so he can pick her up through the screen. Kills me everytime.

Things are much easier than I expected than last time Kevin was gone a while. She's been a total doll, and I've tried to remember not to try to do five things at once while spending time with her. So we've had a marvelous time hanging out, giggling, rolling, eating, and running around every night. It helps a ton that my family is so quick to help out, so I get a break now and then to, you know, shower or something.

Fetus Willow Ariya (spelling still up in the air) seems quiet but fine -- I'm pretty sure Lyric was exactly the same. Second trimester is a dream compared to first and third. Though I'm again eating like a Sumo Wrestler trying to make weight. Ick.

Life is, all in all, pretty good. I miss my husband.

Shiny Happy Mommy

Lyric was sitting on the living floor yesterday playing quietly with some toys and listening to music when the TV's radio channel started to play Shiny Happy People. She jumped up as if possessed and stood in front of the tv, arms outstretched, palms up, with a giant grin on her face.

She just swayed and twirled and danced, and I think somewhere inside, she sang Shiiiiiny Happpyyyyyy Peeeople.

It's now my favorite song ever.

I'm so happppppyyyyy, happy to be meeeeeee

Our camcorder misses all the best stuff.

I had to put a TV show for Lyric on so I could do some work uninterrupted, and of course I felt awful about that.

OK, I had to put on 5 of them. They're short. I'm on deadline. I'm an awful, awful mother.

I looked up from my work when I heard a very sweet "i'm so happpppyyyyyy, happpyyyy to be meeeee" playing on the TV. Lyric was twirling in a circle over and over, arms to the sky, head back, giant smile. She kept reaching down and patting her rosy little cheeks and then reaching back up to the sky.

OK, I must not be that awful a mother.

Before that, we were sitting on the chair together, cheek-to-cheek, giggling and watching whatever, and she kept pushing her cheek more and more to mine, like we shared one head.

It really can't get any better than this.

Long N Strong

Long and strong are the pink lines on my latest pregnancy test -- which I've taken 3 of in the last 4 days to verify that I am, in fact, still carrying an elusive poppy seed (such as the one my body gave up on so fast a couple of months ago.)

I am woman, I am Irish, I am fertile. Let the babymaking commence. 

Somedays I get so excited by the idea of bringing Lyric a playmate and potentially lifelong friend. Other days I feel bad by how awful she could feel that we are bringing an outsider into our awesome trio. 

Unlike last time around, when the idea of creating a lifeform with a tiny penis scared the bejesus out of me, this time I'm up for anything. I've discovered you can, in fact, find clothes that don't make your little boy look like a miniature widget sales representative on casual Friday.

I suspect Lyric would be less irked by a boy -- she likes her nannyshare boy toy and her 3-year-old crush, Jack.

But if it's a girl, we get to make them a share a room longer and we get to use hand-me-down clothes.

4 weeks today...whohoo! In another week, I can actually tell a couple of people. 

What's in *your* toddler's wallet?

Lyric got her first plastic today -- a library card, not an AmEx. (That's for preschoolers.)

I wanted her to sign the card, but the librarian checkout girl was not as in love with the cuteness element as I was and asked me to please move along.

Her first library book borrowing set included:

• Baby daVinci: My Body
• Baby's Busy World: A Point and Learn book of baby's first words
• Touch and Feel Dinosaur
• Animal Friends: A Global Celebration of Children and Animals.

Baby book writers aren't much for brief titles.

We spent our full two hours at the Library pretending it was a race track. I'm exhausted. And I've decided that Oak Park Mommies are, generally speaking, unfriendly. I just don't have the Right Look. My hair isn't too casual, I don't run marathons in my spare time, and my fashion color of choice contains no color.  

In other news: Kevin and I went on an awesome eating-walking expedition yesterday through Old Town, the Gold Coast, and Lincoln Park. I want to move back into the city so badly sometimes. I feel like time is moving by so fast and I'm stuck here in a black hole watching the earth rotate from afar.

Being a grown-up can be truly a drag. Got to go: I'm being asked to go touch and feel a dinosaur now.

Electronica Photographica

Along with our latest digital camera and the iPhoto app came our sudden inability to actually print any photos.

And there's no chance of ever making a photo album--we simply take too many pictures.

So, no baby book. This blog is pretty much it.

Since I saw Kath's baby book for Emma today, I'm going to "baby blog" Lyric's words. When my faulty memory tells me in 30 years that she was reciting the opener to to "A Tale of Two Cities" at 9 months, we have something more reliable to fall back on.

Thusfar we have, in rough order of word acquisition:

Mama

Dada

Hi

No No No No No

Meow

Nana (Once meant "banana," and devolved into "I want that!" for all desired objects)

Ball (Bah!) 

Nose

AH! (short for Arf! Applies to all animals to which Meow does not, which is not many)

Her breadth of understanding is far more extensive, which is neat.

She even sits on command (when the Commander is holding a treat. It is a bit too much like having a puppy.)

Rain on the Parade, Blood on the Stick

One unused pregnancy test left in the box. Thought I'd give it a whirl this morning.

It's funny (sad funny) how much I looked forward to taking those first two tests tests, and how long I laid in bed dreading taking this last one.

As I stood waiting for the little clock to turn into a YES+ or a NO-, I got my period.

 My uterus has a really dark sense of humor this month. 

The perpetually screaming nannyshare baby arrives in 15 minutes.

I need to go hide in my room. 

Two little, One little, No little pink lines

According to the two pregnancy tests I peed on this morning--"just for fun"--I am no longer pregnant.

I tell you this as I finish reading the Yahoo! blurb about Angelina and Brad's brand new twins, Knox (ooooh, silent letters!) and Vivienne, and while I listen to the hippies downstairs have loud, banging sex against their living room wall while their kids are at day camp. (This surprises me because the wife normally seems to loathe her husband. Maybe she's actually bludgeoning him. Or maybe it's the Orkin man.)

I thought the first pregnancy test I took this morning was broken--99% accuracy means 1% dead-wrong. Right? So I ran out and bought the overpriced test with LED screen displaying a black-and-white "NO-:=" or "YES-", leaving no room for "is that a line? Is it pink? Is it dark enough? I wanted no room for interpretation.

Until I saw the NO-.

For two seconds, I hoped I had it upside down and I'd be writing about how it the electronic test was just "-ON" and boy wasn't that funny.

Now I understand why We (I speak here of My People, the Creators, XX, Womyn, Grrls, etc.) are counseled so thoroughly to wait 3 months before spilling the fetal beans.

I have told a couple of dozen family members and friends about the pregnancy. Now I have to untell. At yesterday's family party, I was **so** interesting. Today I'll be pitiful and silly for having jumped the gun.

Apparently, a quarter of all pregnancies are believed to end in an early miscarriage. But as my boss said recently, "Common is one thing, but your life is very different."

Some doctors even advise against using the "We can Tell you're Preggo Faster Faster Faster!" tests for this very reason. Next time around, I shall heed that advice.

My heart hurts. 

At my cousin's recent soccer game, we hung out with a suburba-dad who was with his "almost 3!" little girl Kaitlin and her little chubbo brother Jack, who was just two days younger than Lyric is. They were exactly the same age distance apart as Lyric and Baby Doe McCarthy would have been, had the little seedling stuck to the wall like he was supposed to. They were so adorable together (Jack and Kaitlin, not Lyric and the fetal poppy seed). 

Now we start over and I try not to think that there might be something wrong with my Systems. Of course, the pregnancy test I bought lists a main cause of a "false positive" as being "pre-menopausal." Yeah, thanks for that. 

Kevin just brought in the mail, which included an appointment reminder from the ultrasound doctor. Not much to do but shake my head and snort cynically at that particular postcard.

Everything I do the next time around will likely have an ominous pressure surrounding it,  becoming the The Reason It Didn't Take Again. The cat slept on my stomach! I drank a Very Berry wine cooler! Someone stop me before I kill again. Sigh.

I called the doctor's office to see if I could come take a "real" pregnancy test, but I don't think it's worth it at this point. Even if they say yes, I'm pretty convinced I'm just waiting for the biological evidence to emerge.

And yet I'm still 1% hoping for a great big happy surprise. There's 1% room for error in every test, after all, right?

The Thin Pink Line

A few months after we had Lyric, and no offense to the newborn, our main takeaway as: "well, we're not doing *that* again anytime soon."

But in our early parenthood delirium, we decided we were now getting too much sleep. Our new sleep vampire emerged even more quickly than the first. Practice makes fetus!

For about 20 minutes after I watched that second faint pink line emerge, I was clinging to the "oh shit" side of the fence, thinking of how I will leave the house--or use the bathroom--with an infant and a toddler dragging me down. But then Lyric awoke and was her usual awesome self, and all I thought was convenient and cute it will be for her to have a live playmate and minion. 

I hope the new Sibling has some well developed cajones (cajonas!), as Lyric has had plenty of "older sisters" explain the merits of bossy big sisterhood. As an only child, it's hard for me to understand the Older Sister chip the'yve all carried since the day they were replaced complemented with a younger model.

Her new nanny share partner may be a vehicle for teaching Lyric to Share. Currently, she understands only how to Take, Destroy, and Whack.  

Things I worry about 20 times a second: 

1. Lost or damaged fetus. 

2. Being too financially stretched to send two kids to Waldorf, Montessori, University. Or piano lessons. Or the public pool

3. Failing to ensure Lyric isn't as devastated by the new creature as my Original cat was by my smaller cuter cat. After 12 years, she's not recovered. 

4. Entering the second half of my life without any time available in the next decade to be groundbreakingly daring or creative. In the past 9 months, I went from being Swinging Editor in San Francisco to Marketing Mom in the Midwest.

5. Knowing my kids will never see me as a young person. Knowing we'll be dying when the kids reach the age we are now. Leaving them without family. 

Things I am very excited about 20 times a second:

I'm pregnant! I want to tell everyone I see. But I can't yet. But I want to. But I can't yet. But I want to.

She's 390 days old

“Our Jeremiah is 22.5 months on Thursday!”

“Little Graystone is 37 weeks today!”

“We you love our precious Bathsheba so much, we count the days!”

Why say, "She's one!" when you can be precise, right? Can you believe she's almost 400? Other parents annoy me, I'm surely just as irritating; I'm just in a subgroup of those who admit it.

Exhibit A: Lyric is clearly the most perfect thing on the planet. I just bought a half dozen books on discipline because she grabs the electric socket, watches me, waits for the "noooooooooooooooo," and then gleefully inserts the metal fork with a sparkly grin.

I bought the books because I'm still so smitten, her joy not only kills me, but my reticence to say anything might just kill her.

That first year of momhood was snappy breezy. I'd read a few articles and interviewed a few key players, including a mother of three kids under age 10. None are in juvey, rehab, or a boy band, so clearly my friend is an expert.

Other than those few inputs, we've all good on our own. Lyric is possessed with cuteness, "wicked smahts," and impressive physical prowess. She's funny as hell, cuddles like a champ, and has appointed one of our cats as her soulmate. She has little stranger- or separation- anxiety, prefers books to TV, and says "banana." She's inherited my addiction to chocolate, thinks I'm a Divine Goddess, and is the one human assured of a deep, gut-level smile from me just for showing up. 

She's perfect just the way she is. 

Except when she's not. Once a day, or every other day--or so--she is clingy and whiney. And I, it seems, have no tolerance for her being not perfect. I become agitated, irritable, and ... whiney. Then I reveal my annoyance to her. Sometimes I yell. At a 1-year-old. So now we know that she picked up her whining from mom, and that perhaps her intellect was sourced elsewhere.

I just had the best year ever, and now I have to start actual "parenting." Somehow eight books on discipline are supposed to rectify 35 years of emotional immaturity.

The first book quickly informed me that the problem is not Baby; it's Mommy. That was news to me, merely because a) the book apparently has an audience of > 1.  And b) I have always been quick to point the finger at myself, but I thought perhaps this time it was just a matter of Showing the Child How to Be Even More Perfect.

And so, after having my head removed from my ass, I see that Parenting will be the most effective method of having my own flaws discovered, emphasized, and with any luck, examined and addressed.

I wonder how many times I will have to learn that it's not just about me anymore.