Through The Looking Glass

(I can’t remember which blog I saw this on, or I’d link. But according to somebody it is Flower Friday and I am playing along.)

(Wait, here it is! I saw it at Vintage Chica, who found the idea here.)

Here is the story of these flowers:

I took a pregnancy test on the last Wednesday of April, while on the phone with Will. It was, obviously, positive.

The following Saturday, he and Sam went to the store together and came home with these flowers. Will explained that he’d wanted to bring me flowers on Wednesday, but couldn’t figure out how to get them home on the Vespa.

I liked it better this way anyhow, because Sam picked out the bouquet.

…nother Jedi!

(Did I trick you? Silly goose.)

Seriously, you guys. This baby’s acrobatics are rivaling Sam’s, and it is still a bitty little thing. I am hopeful that it will be a calm baby once it is on the outside, but I’d say my chances are slim. Last week the baby did something that I described to Will as a “quadruple back flip,” to be said in Jack Black’s Kung Fu Panda voice please. Yesterday it performed such a feat of tumbling that all I could say was “Whoa.” When I told Will, he said it’s obviously a Jedi.

And then today, when we went for our walk, Sam and I found an abandoned light saber. It might be broken, but I think Will can fix it. (Um, honey? I have a light saber for you to fix. We found it in the hallway.) OBVIOUSLY it is for the little Pepita.

Maybe I am biased (see post title), but this study is total fucking bullshit. I don’t eat organic for extra nutrition (WTF?), I eat organic because I don’t want poisonous chemicals in my body.

I love the way you rush to get in front of me at the crosswalk while waiting for the light. Because there is no way a pregnant lady with a stroller is going to cross quickly enough for you, you big important guy! Except, of course, a pregnant lady with a stroller who happens to be from New York. Thanks a lot for making it so I couldn’t walk at a normal pace and barely made it across with the light, you pack of slowpokes. And thanks especially for smoking your cigarette directly in front of my kid. That was awesome of you.

I stole this idea from Swistle.

• After reading her post I really want a Boston Cream donut, which just happens to be the only thing I think Dunkin Donuts does better than all the other donut places. And there are no Dunkin Donuts in Southern California.
• On nights that Sam wakes (usually from a nightmare), he does not always wake up in time to get to the potty the next morning. I don’t mind at all if he has an accident, but I only have two sets of sheets for each bed and he’s gotten both beds since the last time I did laundry and I DON’T WANT TO DO MORE LAUNDRY.
• I really want to go to the Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool Festival this year. I haven’t been since 1999 or maybe 2000 (I forget) and I WANT TO GO but I can’t afford it AT ALL. I miss upstate New York and I miss the festival and I miss my friends and I need to buy some things and WHINE.
• We need a DVD player, Will probably needs a new computer, I still need new glasses, the car needs a check-up, and we’re going to have to buy a bunch of stuff for this baby (mostly diapers and the like) and WE DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY. I am so tired of not having any money.
• I can’t seem to make any headway on my to-do list or my project pile.

On the plus side, the kitchen is clean (er, as long as you don’t look at the floor) and I’ve been making some really incredible food this week. YAY FARMER’S MARKET for supplying us with such excellent ingredients!

So, what have you got to complain about? Tell me here or go tell Swistle.

So Sam is (mostly) weaned and I am (partly) heartbroken.

I don’t know if any child has ever loved nursing as much as Sam did. He nursed when he was hungry, when he was thirsty, when he was scared, when he was sad, when he was tired, when he was bored.

He night weaned just six months ago. It was night weaning–sleeping through the night–potty training boom–boom–boom all at once. It was crazy. It was also much later than many children. I am fine with that. Kids do things at their own pace, and this was Sam’s. Total weaning wasn’t entirely his choice, though, which kind of breaks me up.

Nursing became painful when I became pregnant. I think my milk started to dry up, which instead of discouraging Sam just made him suck harder. OWIE OUCH OW. I made the decision to say no to Sam’s requests to nurse during the day. At first he nursed first thing in the morning and at bedtime. It wasn’t too long before he was only nursing at bedtime. Then the bedtime routine changed; he started going to sleep without one of us in bed with him. He skipped a night, then two, and nursing became an every once in a while thing.

Two weeks ago today he nursed to sleep unexpectedly. He did not ask to nurse again all week. That Thursday he had a nightmare and nursed for a few seconds (in his sleep) after I brought him into bed. Last week he nursed one night (I don’t even remember which one).

Yesterday evening we were watching Buffy after dinner and Sam asked to nurse. I said he could, but there might not be any milk. He tried, got nothing, and went to sit in his chair. He wasn’t mad, or upset. He had another nightmare last night and nursed in bed with me, but he couldn’t get back to sleep until he let go and curled up next to me.

I am fairly certain that I weaned when my mother was pregnant with K, and I know that after she was born I nursed occasionally until I was four or so. I can’t help but hope that Sam will want to try again after this baby is born. Because I am not sure I want him to be so grown up that he doesn’t need to. But I am also really proud of him for not needing to.

(Besides the obvious, like a million dollars and a nicer place to live and Will to get a book deal.)

• A body pillow. It is becoming next to impossible to find a comfortable position to sleep in. I’m sure you can see how this creates a problem for me.
• A bra that fits and does not chafe. It’s a tall order, but what I really need is a cotton bra, with underwire, in my size (which I am not actually sure of, since my boobs have shrunk because my milk has pretty much dried up, which is another entry altogether).
• A bella band, or whatever those things are called. It’s just a tube of stretchy fabric to wear over the belly (the idea is that you can wear pre-pregnancy pants unbuttoned beneath it, but I am more likely, I think, to wear pre-pregnancy t-shirts). I could make one, but I know I won’t.
• A neck massage. Preferably every day. Maybe twice a day.

So if someone could get on that, I’d appreciate it.

At approximately 7:42 this morning Will said sadly that he’d just realized we probably won’t be going back out to Vasquez Rocks until fall. You know, what with it being 1000° in the desert. I glanced at the weather forecast for Agua Dulce, California, and discovered that it was, at that moment, only 65°, with a high of 95°. Stopping only for the fastest shower, we dressed and piled into the car and were in the park before 9:30.

We took the easy trail across the park, and Sam turned right onto the main trail after a bit. He wanted to go to the potty, so we headed toward the nearest port-a-john. A little ways down the trail we saw a couple on horseback riding toward us. I pointed out the horses, a beautiful black pair, to Sam. As they got closer, the larger horse shied and turned away from us. Will picked Sam up onto his shoulders and we moved to the side of the trail. As the man tried to turn his horse, it seemed to panic and they both went over. The horse righted itself and ran off alone. For a moment I wondered why the woman didn’t ride after it, and then I realized that the man had not gotten up, and that Will was running toward him. He knelt down next to the man and I grabbed Sam off his shoulders so Will could help. The woman came over, holding her horse’s reins and looking scared. Will jumped up to hold her horse while she felt for her husband’s cell phone to call 911.

They’d gone over on some rock, and the man was unconscious or at least stunned. I have never seen anything so frightening. After a moment of total uncertainty I said I would go to the ranger station for help, and Sam and I set off down the path. I was nervous the whole way there, because I could hear the horse on the rocks nearby and it still sounded spooked. I was basically ready to throw Sam into the bushes, but it stayed away from us (as I should have expected). I was also nervous because, to be perfectly honest, I was not at all sure the man would be alive when we got back. (Spoiler: he was.)

We got the ranger and after I’d pointed out the trail to him I stopped long enough to get Sam (who was being SO patient) into the potty. Then we walked up the trail and met the ranger, the man (on his feet but with some blood on his arm and face) and Will, who was leading the woman’s horse while she went after the other one. Will had given the man water and his bandanna. Although he had some short term memory loss (no idea how he fell or that the horse fell with him, didn’t remember where his wife had gone) he seemed in much better shape than I would have imagined. We all met up in the parking lot and the paramedics arrived very shortly thereafter.

Two separate cars had stopped to help as well, a man and a woman. I believe they’d both seen the horse on the loose and known something was wrong. The man seemed to know the couple, and the woman was clearly a horse person herself, and gave them some medicated powder for the horse’s knees, which were all scraped up from the fall. Neither of them left until they were sure everyone was taken care of, and the neighborliness of it all was just lovely.

The paramedics looked at the man and determined that his head wound was superficial. He did not want to be checked out anyway, insisting that he was fine. His wife did insist that he let the ranger drive him home while she walked the horses. He kept telling her she couldn’t walk them both, which I thought was rather funny, though we did find out that the horse he fell with is notoriously skittish so it may have been more concern with her safety and less bravado, as it appeared to be. (I assumed, having observed her remarkable horse sense, that if it shied on the walk home she would let it go, take her horse home, and then go after it. Of course I have no idea, but that seemed about right to me.)

I can’t get over how calm and helpful Will was. Not that I ever thought he’d be anything else, but it’s different to actually see someone react in a crisis. He was great. Though we are short a bandanna now.

Yesterday I was hit with the worst depression I’ve had in… months, at least. A long time. It was a DOOZY. In the morning, I couldn’t stop crying, and for the rest of the day I was a useless lump on the couch, with more uncontrollable crying threatening itself every time Sam climbed on me and stuck his elbows and knees into my belly.

(Totally off-topic: I’ve been writing that thing, in manuscript form, which means indenting paragraphs instead of double spacing between them. I have Word set to automatically indent, and when I hit enter just now in Wordpress I was very confused when it didn’t indent. Hi, I got up way earlier than I meant to.)

The morning crying was set off by something that actually upset me, but it got way out of control and out of proportion very quickly and from there it was all hormonal or whatever depression is. I don’t know if it was pregnancy-related or not. Oddly, it didn’t feel like it was. When I was pregnant with Sam I had frequent panic attacks and was a total emotional roller coaster (I must have been So Much Fun to live with), but so far this time I have been on a nice, even keel and quite happy overall. I suspect that NOT quitting smoking three months before getting pregnant, and NOT going off the pill one month before, must have helped. (Seriously, nicotine withdrawal = no fucking party, and the pill made me insane.)

I really hope it was an anomaly. I can’t take five and a half months of that kind of shit.