1 Mother 2 Another

For a couple of months Maddie’s been noticing the toy strollers coming out at the park. At first simply mildly interested, she began expressing more and more curiosity until Brian and I added it to her June birthday list. Fortunately for Maddie, it turned out she didn’t have to wait that long.

Halcyon Days my Aunt Fanny.

Yes, I’m enjoying my last few weeks with Maddie. Yes, they are precious. Yes, I know they’ll never come again and should be savored.

On the other hand, enough with the pregnancy already.

As Maddie becomes more and more sophisticated with her language skills, she attempts bigger and more difficult concepts. Right now she’s enjoying a very minimal grasp of time – past, present, and future.

There’s a Greek myth about the
goddess Alcyone who fell in love with a mortal. When he died at
sea, she drowned herself in grief. The gods felt pity for the
couple, transformed them into sea birds, and would calm the seas
every year for a couple of weeks to enable the birds to safely lay
their eggs. Over time, the phrase “halcyon days” came
about to describe the two weeks around the winter solstice that
sailors believed were typified by unusually calm seas; a sort of
calm peace before the storm.


And that’s where we’re living right now: in the calm
peace before the storm. While a part of me tenses in expectation of
all that’s coming our way – my husband’s
continued job search and the possible move that may result from it,
adapting to a newborn in the house and all the sleep deprivation
that comes with her, and oh yes, let’s not forget the joy of
labor – another part of me is physically willing myself to
try to simply dwell in the moment.

I recently cleaned out my purse as part of my organizing/nesting while awaiting Peanut’s arrival, and found probably ten bucks in change in the bottom of the thing. Looking for a place to dump it all, I shoveled the coins into a small snack bowl I had nearby. Intending to put it into my ceramic house-shaped piggy bank, I was carrying it into my room when I had a divine burst of inspiration. Maddie loves looking at the ceramic house, she enjoys finding coins lying around and bringing them to me, and she absolutely adores any sort of chore that involves sorting or moving items from one spot to the next. I’d let her put the money in the piggy bank!

With the weather turned nice here in NYC (at least for the day), we’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors. Maddie’s enamored of our back yard and begs to go hang out there every spare moment she gets. So we’ve taken to grilling dinner and staying outside to eat, which of course she loves, and letting her get down and run around while we finish up.

Last night while Maddie ran everywhere, she tripped in her slightly-too-big new sandals and scraped her knee open. A mild gash, but a decent amount of blood and a painful-looking horizontal slash right across the kneecap.

She cried, of course, but allowed us to get her inside and cleaned up. We got the blood washed off, the cut cleaned and slathered with ointment, and then came at it with the band-aid.

And Maddie freaked out.

So I’ve been off work for a week now and loving every minute of it. I’m sure I won’t love it when the time comes to pay bills, but for now I feel so much better physically that I suspect I’ll take the financial hit in stride.

Even better, Brian’s still giving me “work” time – the time he’d usually be watching Maddie while I taught – to get baby stuff done, so I’ve accomplished an amazing amount in the past week, from getting newborn clothes sorted out to making some casseroles for freezing to going to Costco and stocking up on diapers. Some of this, admittedly, I would have gotten done in spite of work, but I’m not nearly as worn down at the end of the day now that I’m not multitasking so much.

As Maddie’s approaching the start of potty-training, I’ve been reading up on bathroom germs and dealing with public toilets. I found out some interesting facts and thought I’d pass them on –

As you’ve seen from my blogs over
the past months, Maddie’s been showing a cautious interest in
potty training. We’ve got a training potty in the bathroom
and she enjoys going in and sitting on it while Mommy sits on the
“grown-up potty”, and will occasionally request a
diaper change, but that’s about it. We’re not anxious
to push for potty training since we’re pretty sure
she’d regress as soon as baby sister arrives, so we’re
letting her take her time with this.


We did, though, recently have another minor victory in the process.
She’s always been a toddler who needs to poop away from other
people – Maddie’s spent several months going to a
corner or telling you to “go away” if she is pooping.
For the past week or so, though, she’s been covering her eyes
as if to make herself invisible to everyone. A couple nights ago,
my husband had a moment of divine inspiration during such a
scene.

Dear Maddie:

As we get ready for our future and how it’s going to be different with a baby sister around, I thought it might be helpful for you to know where you came from. You are incredibly special and one-of-a-kind, but are definitely a product of generations stretching back for many years. Here’s what you’ve got, and from whom:

So great news at the OB’s office today – I’ve officially gained weight and am darn happy about it. Never thought I’d say that in my life.

Tomorrow’s my big visit to the OB
– the one where she takes another sonogram of peanut and see
if she’s gained enough weight. If the answer is
“yes” then I’m fine to keep plugging along; if
the answer is “no” then I may be facing bed rest and an
early delivery.


Obviously I’m not a big fan of bed rest, especially with a
toddler already here. Bed rest feels like the time when I have to
make everyone else in my life work harder so I can lie around and
literally eat bon-bons. But more important, I’d like to avoid
an early delivery; since Maddie was a scheduled c-section, I have a
dream that at least one of my kids will get to come when
she’s good and ready.

Madeleine’s definitely taken her love of accessorizing to a new level recently. She’s always enjoyed picking out a cute purse to carry around, or a scarf to play drape over her shoulders, but she’s recently become deeply concerned about her “finishing touches” before she heads out to the park in the morning. Once again confirming that my kid’s, shall we say, unique, here are a few of my favorites, along with the explanations –

With my due date rapidly approaching,
Brian and I are kicking it into high gear to get the nursery (also
known as our bedroom) ready for peanut’s arrival. And as I
rearrange the room and set things in order, it occurs to me that
I’ve come a long way from the first time I set up a nursery.
So I wanted to pass on what I’ve learned – both from my
own experience, and from my girlfriends who passed their helpful
tips on to me.

Maddie’s hit a rough patch
developmentally, where she has no desire to share ANYTHING. Couple
that with her new mastery and understanding of the word,
“Mine!” and you’ve got a cauldron of trouble.


We’ve been working with her on sharing for several months, of
course, and she’s been pretty amiable about it up until
recently. In the beginning, to be sure, she didn’t mind
sharing because she didn’t realize anything was actually
hers. As time went on she became less enthusiastic about sharing
but still didn’t pitch too much of a fuss. On the swings, for
example, we’d make her get off before she really wanted to if
there was a line of people waiting for the full swings. She’d
look unhappy, and we’d talk about the importance of sharing
and how she was sharing the swing with another little girl and
making that little girl happy. She seemed to get it and was ok with
it, even though every day walking to the park she’d say,
“Maddie no share swing please!” “Hopefully you
won’t have to, but if it’s crowded you’ll need to
share.” And thus it went.

We can add something else at the
playground that I’d like to protect Maddie from – new
friends.


Not new friends for her, but for her friend Naomi.


Recently we’ve been encountering a little girl at the park
that is about the same age as Naomi – that is to say, six
months older than Maddie. Naomi and Elena, the new girl, have spent
a bit of time together and cautiously know each other. Elena is a
sweet girl, very good-natured and easygoing. She’s certainly
no bully and is always willing to share.


The problem doesn’t lie within Elena’s personality; it
is simply the fact that Elena exists, and now there are three girls
instead of two.

As I’ve said numerous times before,
my waistline is expanding at a terrifying (to me and the buttons on
my pants) rate in this pregnancy. I spent all of my first pregnancy
wearing those low-slung maternity pants, never really graduating to
those up-to-the-boob panel pants. When I manage to squeeze myself
into my sausage casing-er, pants- this time, though, those low
rises don’t stay risen very long; soon after I start moving
they give up the fight and slide all the way to the bottom of the
belly, leaving me with a gangsta-style hanging crotch and an
unseemly (in wintertime) amount of bare belly showing.


Clearly, I’m bigger than last pregnancy. Even my friends who
are used to me still see me and have their eyes pop out of their
head. But apparently, I’m not big enough for my doctor.
She’s putting me on a “get the girl bigger”
diet.

A couple weeks ago the whole family came
down with a moderate cold. A few rough days later, Daddy and Maddie
were fine, while Mommy, whose body is busy multitasking, was taking
a bit longer to recover. I’ve had a hard time shaking off
that last bit of stuffiness, fatigue, and sluggishness. In fact,
about a week and a half ago, I noticed I was feeling a bit
nauseated as well. Then I noticed that it was only for a couple
hours each morning.


Yes, that friend of every pregnant gal’s, morning sickness,
was back.

So not twelve hours after I posted
yesterday’s entry, I finally got Maddie singing something
other than the ABC song on video.


Here for your viewing pleasure – Maddie sings the Gloria
while eating cereal and blueberries in her pjs. And if anybody
wonders what the Gloria is “supposed” to sound like,
you can head to my husband’s href="http://www.brianmilner.com">website and hear the
original version.


So without further ado – Maddie sings.

Apparently my daughter’s read up on her Shakespeare, because she is certainly finding that there’s no audience too small, no stage too dubious, for her to bestow with her warblings.

Maddie is constantly singing these days. Sounds like fun, and is wonderful when you’re at home listening to music, but not so great in, say, the post office. The other day we walked to buy stamps before hitting the park and she spent the ENTIRE TIME – stroller walk there, wait time, and stroller walk to the park – singing. The same song. Over and over again. As everyone in line eyed me askance, I could only offer up a prayer of thanksgiving that she was singing, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” rather than one of her other favorites.

As I prepare for peanut’s arrival, I have been going through my to-do list and doing the appropriate amount of over-stressing on each item. I’m astounded at the amount of things I got done during my first pregnancy, and have to constantly remind myself that oh yes, I didn’t have a child yet to take care of! So this time around the list is considerably shorter – partly because we’ve got a lot of things done already (no need to do a baby registry, for example) and partly because I’m simply learning to let go of my unreasonable expectations.

Maddie has a fascination with her belly button that I’m sure is shared with most toddlers her age. She’s got a Sandra Boynton book, The Belly Button Book, which is a favorite of hers. And as I’ve mentioned before, Maddie loves showing her belly button off, especially to firemen.

But nothing compares on Maddie’s Joys of the Belly List with Daddy Getting the Tummy.