cute baby girl clothes

These outfits (I don't know why blogger rotates the picture) almost have the effect of a 4-D ultrasound in making me excited to meet the new one. My co-workers threw me a little baby shower, which was very kind of them. I didn’t expect it, since their policy is usually to have showers only for first babies. So it was a nice surprise.

My energy seems to be up and my mood is definitely lifted. I found out I’m already one centimeter dilated. Yay! I’m ten percent of the way toward pushing and without major pain. I know it’s not a big deal – the doctor said it’s normal at this time during second pregnancies. But I’m going to take it as an achievement.

Getting closer to the end gives a boost to my spirits. I’m taking a vacation day to get a pedicure and to shop and prepare for River’s birthday party this weekend. I turned the party into a brunch for our friends (mostly with kids) followed by birthday cake. Which means I broke my own rule of only inviting as many kids as River’s age. We are expecting 16 children and quite a few adults.

I asked people to bring a brunch dish rather than a gift, so I don’t necessarily have to feed 40 or so people. But since it’s been over a year since we threw our last party, I do want it to be nice. Today I bought champagne for mimosas, ingredients for potato basil frittata, baked French toast, and double chocolate layer cake. I’m aiming for this – which is pretty ambitious. I bought all kinds of fun cookies and snacks for pu-pu platters. Tomorrow I’m buying flowers, poinsettas and mylar balloons for all of the kids, which will make our home colorful and festive.

Good food, flowers, champagne, balloon, friends and a little boy excited about his birthday all make me happy. As does approaching the end of the 40 weeks.

one of those days

Yesterday was one of those days in which I had just too much to do and felt like I couldn’t manage to do any of it very well. I suppose I should have expected more days like this when I took on too many responsibilities during my third trimester. So perhaps I should be thankful this was the first day I felt I was running perpetually behind.

River had a Thanksgiving meal at his preschool. So first I had to drop him off, then go home and bake a sweet potato casserole, then be back in time for the musical concert (scheduled to start promptly at 11:30) and lunch. In the meantime, I had to start and finish my statistics problem set before my afternoon class.

I left late for the concert and had to walk there carrying a fairly heavy and hot casserole. I tried not to stress. River didn’t seem to recognize he’d be singing in a concert today. He probably wouldn’t miss me.

But it’s his first concert ever!, another voice called out to me. It’s my first chance to meet parents of his classmates, to see his classmates all together! You are going to miss it. You are going to let him down. I hadn’t managed to finish my problem set, meaning I wouldn’t be able to turn it in on time (this is the first time I’ve missed a deadline). And because our car broke down, I had to cancel River’s appointment for a flu booster shot.

I arrived ten minutes late and thankfully, the school had waited for straggling parents. I saw River seated at the front of the multi-purpose room, wearing a headband with colored feathers. He was scanning the room and looking concerned. “Mama? Mama?” I could hear him say, as he looked for me. Oh God, he really was expecting me to be there.

When he saw me, he tapped the child next to him and pointed at me, “Mama! That’s my mama!” I recognized I needed to treasure that moment, his pride at my presence and wanting to point out my arrival to his classmate, who could probably care less.

In any case, I was so glad to be able to shoot a video of his first ever recital of a few Thanksgiving songs. I didn’t expect that he’d know the songs, since he is there only one day per week, but he did and I think it will be a cute addition to the video treasury of his early years.

I saw that among all the 3- and 4-year old kids, River was the only Caucasian. Virtually everyone, with the exception of a few teachers, was Hispanic. This is what attracted me to this place. I wanted River to be able to form friendships with native Spanish-speakers. He seems to fit in just fine. But today I realized that I felt a bit culturally out of place and perhaps this won’t be as easy as I thought.

For starters, I was expecting a Thanksgiving meal. The teacher told me there would be turkey. So I volunteered to bring sweet potato casserole. She didn’t seem thrilled by my suggestion, but said OK. To my surprise, none of the food was traditional Thanksgiving fare. There was one small rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. The main fare consisted of “tacos dorados,” fried tortillas stuffed with chicken and served with black beans, sour cream and salsa. There were enchiladas in green sauce, oily fried tortillas to be topped with black beans, crumbled cheese and grated lettuce, potato chips, juice and soda (no water, no diet soda), cookies, fruit, rice, and a cabbage/beet salad. One parent brought fried Oreo cookies – a delicacy I had heard of, but never tasted.

It was pretty fun to be able to have such a Mexican meal, despite the fact that it wasn’t what I was expecting. But I felt like I stood out as the only Caucasian parent and that I may have appeared odd speaking Spanish to my child. These people could probably identify all of my grammatical mistakes. I spoke to some of the kids, I sat across from a teacher, and I tried to talk to one mother. But the dialogue didn’t flow easily. I felt I was being received with a certain reserve. It wasn’t a situation in which I could comfortably suggest a playdate.

I’m used to going into new environments, being met with some initial suspicion and then forming friendships and trust. But it’s hard when you only have a half hour every couple of months. The lack of regular interaction makes it hard to get to know people. This isn’t a place where parents volunteer or where there are easy opportunities to be in communication.

So I have to be patient. I’ll go to the events that I can, and hopefully as I see people more, they will come to feel more comfortable around me. I also have to wait until River begins to form friendships and then I can try to support those, and get to know the parents in the process.

It’s interesting to find myself in such a culturally distinct setting in my own backyard. It concerns me that the Hispanic community in my area tends to live apart. I’d like to get to know more of the residents. It’s seems it’s easier for children to do this, freed from so many of the adult judgments and expectations. So I put River in there and hope he can serve as a bridge.

As I felt I was running behind or performing subpar on most of the things I did, one thing I did manage to accomplish (thanks to the broken down car) was walk – a lot. I covered over 14,000 steps, about 7 miles. Not bad for an almost 35-week pregnant lady.

another nice fall weekend

Among the highlights:

I received my first batch of Christmas cards, wrote something on them, got River to sign them, got Mark to write something on the ones for his family, stamped them, addressed them and put them in the mail. I’m astounded. A few people are not only going to receive cards from me, but they will get them before Thanksgiving. I feel like superwoman and credit the nesting hormones. For a review of the cardstore.com cards I ordered and a 20% off coupon, see here.

Dancing in the living room with River while we twirled ribbons. He still had whiskers painted on his face from an afternoon event at the library, where he was made into a dog.

We found a new tenant, at least for a few months, and it’s a married woman. I feel much better about the possibility of going into labor or dealing with breastfeeding and/or pumping with a woman around than a man. And she’ll be gone on weekends, so there is a chance I won’t have to disturb her with my labor.

The in-laws visiting, bringing with them roasted duck, fried oysters, scallop ceviche, pumpkin pie, chocolate chip cookies and side dishes. I could get used to that.

The in-laws reminiscing about their recent safari in the Serengeti, reawakening my travel urges and providing River with valuable lessons about the place and animals. I’ve taken a safari in the Serengeti (it’s amazing) and it’s one of my dreams to do that as a family when my kids are teenagers. There is nothing comparable to seeing wild animals up close and in their element – plus I’m taken with the people, the landscape and the history of East Africa. Mark is not so enthusiastic. The other day, while gazing at the full moon, River said he needed a spaceship because he wanted to go there and see the craters. He suggested Mark and I go with him. Maybe the Serengeti doesn’t sound so far away after all. In any case, it seems closer to River now that he has seen some photos and has some carved animals, some books and a t-shirt with Swahili phrases.

I have lots of things to plan for and to look forward to in the coming weeks – a constant stream of events, gatherings, meals, celebrations and things to cook. This is putting me in an unusually festive mood. It’s also distracting, which is a good thing now.

Time to read statistics (not that I especially enjoy it, but it has to get done) and poetry.

An afternoon nap, two days in a row. It completely changes the second half of the day. I can’t wait until I can have some rest time every afternoon.

Continued mild, golden weather.

A fun playdate at a friend’s house. They seemed to be functioning surprisingly well just a few weeks after the birth of their second. So that gives me hope.

The passage of time. I’m getting closer to wrapping up work and closer to getting this large moving object out of me.

last farmshare pickup

Tonight marked the end of a season. It was our last farmshare pickup. We were back to mostly greens, as it had been when it started in June – lettuce, escarole, kale, swiss chard, mustard greens, radishes, garlic and scallions. But unlike in June, it was already dark when we arrived. Even in the blackness, I could see that the plants had been cut down and the fields lay bare waiting for next year. It was lonely driving up the gravel road in the dark, only one car outside of the lighted barn. It was such a contrast to the summer months, when I sometimes I had trouble finding parking, and families and couples strolled the fields, collecting their flowers, hot peppers and herbs.

This is the third year I’ve belonged to the farmshare. It was an incredible year in terms of bounty. We have only a half share, yet were getting over 10 pounds of organic tomatoes per week for weeks on end. There was no way I could use anywhere near that much (sometimes we received nearly 20 pounds), so despite giving many away, my freezer is now bulging with freezer bags filled with tomatoes.

But my favorite part of the farmshare this year was the way River was able to participate. I considered joining a farm that drops the shares off at a local natural food store. It would certainly save time and gas to not have to go to the farm myself. But I find participating in the connection between the earth and my nourishment is good for my soul. I love the smell of the air in the field, the sight of the vegetables hanging from tendrils, and the resin that sticks on my hand after picking cherry tomatoes. I like knowing that the food I eat was just pulled from the earth that day. Best of all was giving River that connection.

I arranged my schedule so that I’d have the car on the farm pickup day and could leave work on the earlier side, allowing me to pick up River and get to the farm before traffic got too bad. He accompanied me most weeks, helping me to pick peas and tomatoes, to cut flowers and herbs, to weigh lettuce, arugula, cauliflower, potatoes and sweet potatoes, to collect peppers and tomatoes and greens. In the course of one season, he learned more about the origins of his food than I knew when I went to college.

He’s still only 2, but he knows that you pick tomatoes when they are red, and blueberries when they are blue (“no verdes!” he says). I allow him to use the garden shears and he is capable of cutting flowers on his own. He can use tongs to put objects on a scale and he understands the concept of measurement. He took such joy in the collection of flowers, arranging them in the vase, smelling them and admiring them through the week. He understands that flowers die and can be replaced with new growths. He understands that no more vegetables will be growing until the spring comes. He recognizes a corn stalk and knows if the corn has been removed.

We recently started to stop by a nearby dairy farm to buy eggs, meat and cheese (once I got over the price shock of real farm eggs and decided it was worth it). There he saw the cows milked and the origins of his milk. He now makes a point of making clear that his milk comes from cow teats. During our visit this evening, he asked why chicks hatch from some eggs and other eggs are eaten.

I suppose for a two-year-old farm child, this would all be common knowledge. Perhaps I’m overly impressed because I was so far removed from this world during my childhood. I grew up near a sheep farm and would visit it sometimes. So I had a decent idea of how wool is shorn. But with the exception of a short stint with a garden plot, I didn’t have a clue about where my food came from or how it was produced. Nor did my parents seem to care much. I grew up on white bread, Jell-o, and iceberg lettuce.

I think it’s exciting and beautiful to watch my child understand this connection and to participate in the process. For this reason, even though my schedule is going to be tighter and my responsibilities greater by next farm season, I plan to sign up again and take River for weekly excursions to pick up our food from the source. I can’t wait to share in this time with him again.

Beautiful weekend

Highlights of the weekend:

Beautiful golden leaves and sunny fall weather. I was able to walk outside without a jacket. Since it’s likely to be snowing by the time the baby comes, this weather makes my due date seem far away. Yet being able to enjoy the crisp, comfortable weather, the light diffuse with golden leaves, makes the time go faster.

A visit to a farm, where we learned how to harvest field corn, shell it, and grind it. River got to see the farm animals and take a wagon ride with dad.

Lunch in a restaurant with super-cool décor – stained glass windows and a huge lion painting on the wall.

Getting to meet a friend’s 2.5-week old baby.

Taking a walk with River, and going at his leisurely pace. Stopping to collect colored leaves and hang them from the stroller.

Watching Babies with River. He watched it rapt for an hour, before I paused it for dinner, then eagerly watched until the end. It really is a great movie for toddlers, as long as you are OK with your child seeing breastfeeding. It’s an especially good opportunity to watch it with them and talk about what babies go through and memories of what they were like as babies. As a soon-to-be big brother, I think it gave him a good overview of what he’ll see in his sibling’s first year of life. He definitely already understands that I’ll have milk in my breasts that the baby will be drinking.

I made and ordered my first batch of holiday cards.

River taking a FOUR-HOUR nap this afternoon – so long that I had time to nap myself, and get some other things done. When I went in to wake him (yes, I had to rouse him), he lay face down with his diaper pulled down far enough so that his butt cheeks were bare. Cute photo.

Turning the pumpkins decorating our porch into puree and toasted seeds. I have enough puree to freeze several portions. I think the first batch may get turned into these.

What did you do this weekend?

This kid wants to go to school

This week Mark and I accompanied River to spend a morning at a Chinese preschool we are considering for next year. Despite the new environment, the new kids, and the fact that everyone was speaking a language he’d never heard before, he integrated quickly into the activities and for two hours, became a part of the class.

When it was time to go, he cried. In the car he begged, “I want to go
back to school!”

Similarly, on his first day of preschool, he had no reaction to our leaving, but cried when we came to pick him up. This kid really wants to be in school.

I think back upon one of my earliest memories, sitting by the window as a toddler on a rainy day, lamenting that I couldn’t go to preschool that day (I was in a 2 or 3-day per week program) and asking my mom how long it would be until I could go back to school. I also remember the day we got in a minor car accident on the way to preschool dropoff. I was not only kept from going to school that day, but wasn’t allowed to take up my friend’s invitation to spend the afternoon at her house. I still remember my intense feeling of missing out and drudgery, as I sat home with nothing to do and my mom tried to get over her anxiety after being hit by a semi while driving with a couple of toddlers and a baby.

I have several vivid memories of the time I spent at the preschool itself. I can remember both my teachers, several of my classmates, the rope we used to take walks outside, the church building, how I loved sitting in the younger teacher’s lap during story time, how I struggled with the left/right exercises, and even the layout of parts of the classroom.

Preschool was pretty much the highlight of my life at that point of my existence and it seems to be the same thing for River. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.