My Mother is Running Wild All Over Facebook

Or, isn't it weird when your mother "friends" your friends?  

Yesterday was K.'s 2nd birthday.  A shocking thing, really.  I can't believe we've managed to raise a reasonably well-adjusted 2yr old.  

I am such an emotional wreck with these hormones.  K. is doing so well at his new daycare, and the fact that it allows us to have some low-key time together in the morning is so worth making the change.  Even just doing mundane things, getting dressed, brushing teeth, but in an unhurried way, feels precious and enjoyable to me.  And then I dropped him off at daycare - mind you - most of the work that I'm doing today is from home, somehow that makes it harder to drop him off since I don't have somewhere to BE.  And he went straight to the sandbox and happily began to play, hardly looking up when I kissed the top of his head.  I just felt so emotional.  I can see how important this social experience is for him, yet there is a part of me that just wants to keep him at home and not work.  I suppose when business picks up I will feel more gratified by working.  

I'm freaking out a bit that when the new baby comes I will be faced with the stark choice to work full-time or stay at home full-time.  I don't think that part-time work will cover even the cost of p/t daycare for two.  This is worrisome to me.  I have lots of time to figure it out.  I just feel so torn between wanting to spend all the moments together while he is still so little and needs and loves me so much, but also wanting to keep something for myself, so that when he/they don't need me anymore, I will still have, well, an identity apart from that of "Mom".  

resurrection

I've decided to try to resurrect this blog because, well, I'm pregnant again and it's good to have a place to blab on about things in that condition.

Seven weeks and a hormonal mess of nausea and exhaustion AND weaning the almost-two-year-old just to throw in another body chemistry disaster.  Oh, yes, and the week long visit from the estranged (from each other) parental units.  I talked to an old friend today who suggested that I go see a reiki practitioner to get all the negative energy cleansed out of my system.  It might not be a bad idea.  

Little K. is doing great, notwithstanding the weaning.  He's obsessed with music and listens to the classical radio station with me demanding:  "Mommy, what that instrument is???"  He carries a ladle around the house, blows on it and insists that it's a trumpet.  This obsession is more entertaining to me than the previous motor vehicle obsession.  He is also in the habit of waking up and announcing, "Daddy, I love you too much."  He's gotten "too much" confused with "so much" but it sounds too cute to discourage it.

The cats both had fleas and we had to de-flea the entire house.  That was disgusting.  We didn't even know they were infested because I guess you just don't catch fleas in the city but apparently when you move out to the country you do.

I'm totally freaked out that after I have baby number two I will not be able to travel for a long time because of money and the difficulty that I imagine traveling solo with an infant and a toddler would bring.  My frugal husbad also insists that we only have enough money to make TWO trips before the baby is born.  This sucks.  I have a fantasy that if I go on a financial diet and spend NO ABSOLUTELY NO extraneous money that I can increase this, but we are already so frugal that I'm not sure how much more frugal things can get around here.   Also, what do I cut out?  Don't buy maternity clothes?  Don't ever go out to dinner or to a movie with my husband?  Don't get netflix?  Don't ever go to a yoga class?  Don't buy new shoes even when the old ones are embarrassing?  These are not lavish expenditures, I think.

And there you have it.

Addicted to Nursing

If anyone who has breast-fed their baby long-term (into the toddler phase) happens to stumble by this post, please feel free to comment/give input based on your experience!

As K. nears the ripe old age of two, I am thinking of weaning him.  Eventually.  I always said I would wean him somewhere around age two.  But in my fantasies, his interest in nursing just naturally dropped off, in a painless, child-led way.  In reality, this is just not the way things are going.  He is still nursing and going strong.  And I can't really articulate a reason why two seems the right age to wean, except for my fears of nursing a 7 year old.  Truth be told, I feel squeamish even about nursing a three or four year old, and I KNOW that's all about cultural messages.  I grew up hearing my mother say, "If he's old enough to ask for it, he's too old!"  (She's become more enlightened since then, and has NEVER criticized my nursing K., but I can still hear it in my head.) And of course K. has graduated, just this week, from saying: "sss, sssss" when he wants to nurse, to saying:  "Nurse, please.  Nurse Mommy.  Suck br*ast, milk in breast, hi breast."   Yes.

Derek keeps saying that it's not just K. who wants to keep nursing, and he's RIGHT, damnit.  It's also me.  I am also addicted to nursing.  I tried for a month or two, on the days that I am home with him (3 days a week he drinks from a sippy cup all day at daycare, no problem) to do a little gradual weaning, as in, I would distract him from nursing until after lunch.  I was trying to cut out the morning nursing.  Well, I've completely gone back on that.  The only times I try to distract him from nursing are when he's just very recently nursed and I think he's actually hungry and confusing his hunger signals with a desire to nurse.  I really don't think I have enough milk left to satisfy a 20 -mo-old.  In that situation, I offer him food and that's usually what he wants.  In all other situations, the truth is that he doesn't just want to nurse, I want to nurse him too.

Nursing is wonderful.  It is cuddly and cozy.  It gives me a hormonal rush that feels much like having a cigarette after a stressful day.  (No I do NOT currently smoke.)  It feels like I feel after taking a perfect and vigorous yoga class, or after having a good run.  Why would I want to give that up?   And when else do I get to cuddle my very busy toddler?  So yes, I am in it for myself too.  

How does one give it up?  And how do you know when is the right time?  Even at 20 months, I know fewer and fewer moms that are nursing their toddlers.  So here I am, the lone breast-feeder.

Reptile Feeding

K. continues to be interested in trucks and heavy machinery ever since they started doing road work on our block a few weeks ago. However, he seems to be branching out a bit. I was relieved tonight when he requested a book about a puppy and a book about a duck for his bedtime stories. He has also become interested in Cookie Monster. We are beginning to think that Cookie Monster is the new truck. He must have been introduced to Cookie Monster at school since we don't watch TV at home, but it brings him so much joy that we've been watching the "C is for Cookie" video on youtube a few times a day.

Yesterday we took K. for a hike and stopped at the trailside museum to watch a "reptile feeding". It was only after I'd gotten K. all excited about "the lizard" that I realized this would probably involve animals eating other animals. K. wasn't too freaked out and innocently waved as the last of the mouse's tail disappeared between the snakes jaws, saying: "Bye bye, mouse."

Then they fed the turtle. Being a more civilized animal, the turtle ate a mixture of dog food and vegetables. When I asked K. what the turtle ate, he said, "Pasta." Then, he looked over at the four-year-old next to him and, wanting to make some impressive small talk, said very solemnly: "Cookie monster." To which the four-year-old looked askance and said, "Dude, Cookie Monster isn't even here." (Well, he didn't really say dude, but he might as well.)

cars and trucks

It's been so long since I've written here that blogger has changed up on me. Guilt. The truth is, with the potential career change in the works, blogging has really fallen into the place of lowest priority. Plus, F*cebook just seems so much more fun right now. It's all shiny and new, and there is less work involved.

Little K. is growing (cognitively) in leaps and bounds. There has been road work on our block this week and so there is constant excited talk about that. "A truck! A truck! Digging! Digging the dirt! Orange!" Yes, he just likes to throw orange in there. Just for kicks. Obsessed with the color orange.

He's also (knock on wood) been going to sleep on his own! We just put him in his bed, leave the room, go about our business, and when we check on him he is lying in his crib fast asleep. No crying. And we didn't really DO anything. Just seems like he was ready for it. 18 months later. Hopefully I'm not jinxing it by writing it down.

fuel price freak-out

No, this is not about the price of gasoline at the pump. I wish cars and gas pumps would disappear and we would all have access to safe bikeways and manageable public transportation.

This is my mourning for the days of the cheap airplane ticket. Remember when we were in college and you could literally fly to Europe for a couple hundred dollars?

But this is not about Europe even. When we moved here, part of the deal was budgeting in a few trips a year to NY or elsewhere to be with friends and family. And at that point, plane tickets were half the price they are now. So do that math. (Because you know I can't, haha.)

Of course, things couldn't have been sustained the way they were going. And in an ideal world we would all live closer so that we wouldn't have to do something as wasteful as to hop into an airplane to see one another. But it makes returning to the East coast, eventually, seem like more and more of a necessity. And I'm feeling a little sad about it today. The expense makes everyone seem that much farther away. It was much easier to deal with psychologically when tickets really were so cheap that I felt like I could buy one on a whim. A little freak-out trip. Not so much anymore.