Let's get this party started

Hi! Let me introduce myself. I'm Sadly. Sadly Mistaken? Remember me? From my last post? The one where I said the baby was most likely coming soon? Yeah. He's not here yet.

I guess I'm already making the classic parental mistake of comparing the first kid to the second kid (or in this case, the first pregnancy/labor to the second one) in assuming that just because I've had some spotting and some contractions like I did with Nolan, the baby is imminent. Just because his due date has come and gone, just because my mom has already been here for four days, just because I am desperately, desperately ready to be done with this pregnancy, I shouldn't assume. You know what happens when you assume, right? You end up awake at 4:30 a.m. four days past your due date watching Beyonce's Single Ladies on YouTube because you can't go back to sleep and your befuddled mind can't think of anything else to do.

I know what it is. I'm supposed to be getting my new MacBook soon. Like, maybe tomorrow (according to FedEx tracking, that is). Doodle's just waiting for it to arrive and for me to get all excited about playing with it and being able to stop using KB's computer, and THEN he's gonna show up.

Sigh.

We'll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading.

Something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear

I think Doodle's arrival is imminent.

I was reading back through my post about Nolan's birth and some things that happened that time around about two days before he was born happened yesterday. (Bodily function type things - if you really want to know exactly what, please feel free to re-read that post.) So unless I am sadly mistaken, I think there will be a baby soon. Like, in the next forty-eight hours.

Watch this space.

Thanks for reading.

People, people, we got to get over before we go under

First things first: Nolan is fine. The surgery went off without a hitch yesterday, he is back at school today and all is well. I continue to be amazed at what a sanguine kid we are raising. I don't know how my hypochondriacal-ass self ended up with such an incredibly unflappable boy.

We kept him up late (for him) Monday night, he slept in (a bit) Tuesday morning, played with KB for a couple hours, and generally wasn't too bitchy about not being able to eat or drink anything. (We had previously prepped him with the explanation that the dentist would be giving him some medicine so he could fix his tooth, and if there was any food in his stomach it could make him very sick. He seemed okay with that.)

We went to the dentist's office at 10:30 and they gave him a little cup of medicine with Demerol and other good stuff (chloral hydrate maybe? I kind of blanked there for a bit, because while he was taking the medicine I was signing a form that said I understood that there was a [very small but definitely still there] risk of SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH with the anesthesia. That'll give you pause.) in it to make him drowsy. Then we got to hang out in the waiting room for about 45 minutes while the drugs took effect. Sorry I have no video goodness for you, Broc - we have no camera at the moment, so YouTube fame shall have to wait. But he was generally very floppy and cute and drowsy and kept saying, "Mommy, my head is too heavy for me to hold up."

Then the doctor's assistant came out to get him, and when she took him out of KB's lap and carried him back through the waiting room door it was all I could do not to tackle her and run away with him. Thankfully, I restrained myself. The actual surgery only took about half an hour, and then they were calling us back to get him. He was sitting in the assistant's lap looking very flushed and tired, but he seemed in good spirits. We got to quiz the doctor on all our post-op concerns, and he was very reassuring, almost blase about it all. The newly stabilized tooth should hopefully last Pickle another year or two, and the adult tooth behind it looks pretty healthy, just a little crooked from the injury. We got a souveneir x-ray to take home with us, and Nolan got a bunch of stickers and a balloon.

We went home and made him a strawberry milkshake, and then he slept for five hours straight. We woke him up for dinner, he ate heartily including ice cream for dessert and then didn't want to go back to bed. So he was up late again, but he still woke up at 6:30 this morning. Perhaps he shall take another nap today...

So he's good. I am immensely relieved, and I feel like now Doodle can come whenever he wants and I won't care because this giant nerve-wracking experience is behind us.

In other news, we decided to do our part to support the crumbling US economy and buy a second car. I was kind of bummed out about it, because we'd done so well for so long with one car, but the public transportation options here in Richmond are sadly pretty limited. KB rides his bike to work as often as he can (which is usually when he works downtown, about 2-3 days a week) but there's no safe way for him to get to his other worksite on the bike. The second car will eliminate a lot of the stress and hassles caused by us having to drop KB off and pick him up on those days - we were eating dinner late because I'd have to stop whatever cooking I was doing to go get KB, and then Nolan was getting to bed late. Or we'd be out at the playground and I'd decide to just drop by to see if KB was ready since we were already out with the car, and then KB would feel all stressed if he wasn't done with work since we were sitting there waiting for him. You know, that kind of crap.

So we are now the proud owners of a used 2007 Honda Accord, a nice, safe, reliable family sedan. We've moved Nolan's car seat over to the right hand side and put Doodle's new car seat on the left side. We have yet to transfer the James Brown and Jazz for Kids cds to the Honda - we'll see how long we can hold him off.

Also-

I keep meaning to mention how, when we were watching Obama's inauguration on TV, Nolan asked me if they were going to play "Funky President." This is hilarious, I think, but not so unlikely when you consider that that is the only song he knows with the word "president" in the lyrics, so all the talk of our new president this and our new president that surely brought the association to mind for him. I responded that I thought that would be cool, but that they probably wouldn't. And, sadly, they didn't. But it would have been cool.

(I also thought, during Obama's speech when he was talking about soldiers who had given their lives for our country and he listed various places and then mentioned Khe San, somewhere out there Walter Sobchak was going, 'Right on!')

So, yeah. No baby yet. We'll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading.

Look at my circumstance (and the bulge in my big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big)

Whoooo nelly. I am tired of being pregnant. I am the largest, most ungainly, bloated, swollen giantess in the world. Pretty soon I will be affecting the earth's rotation with my own gravitational pull. My knees hurt, my feet hurt, my hands are puffy (they look like the "man hands" from that Seinfeld episode.) I have outgrown all but my most gigantic maternity pants, so I am wearing the same five pairs over and over and over again. And doing frequent laundry. I haven't shaved my legs in months. Once I put my shoes on in the morning, I don't take them off again until that night, because I'm afraid I won't be able to get them on again if I do.

Yeah, I'm ready to be done with this. Not that I'm necessarily ready to have a newborn yet, you understand. I just want to be over the pregnant part.

We took a tour of the maternity ward at the hospital where I will be delivering last week, so I've at least scoped out the territory. My mom is coming down on the 21st to stay for two weeks, and then KB's mom comes on March 8th to stay for two weeks as well, so I will thankfully have some help on hand for that first few weeks. I am frantically cooking and freezing food (let the nesting begin!) to be reheated later on. I have washed all the infant clothes in the infant laundry detergent, set up the cradle/mattress/bumper sleep center, and washed and sterilized all the bottles and breast pump accessories (oh, joy) and pacifiers. I have packed my suitcase for the hospital, laid in a supply of size one diapers (they are so tiny!) and arranged for a cleaning person to come once a week (yay!) for a while.

AND YET. There is more to do. I forgot to buy wipes. Our friggin' car needs a new catalytic converter, so we have to go in sometime next week (when the part comes in) to have that replaced.

Worst of all, Nolan has to have dental surgery next Tuesday. Remember last summer? Our vacation in Canada? Nolan fell on a rock and hurt his tooth? The blood and the screaming and the maternal guilt and the cheap Canadian emergency dental care? Yes. That tooth that we thought wouldn't die? It's dying. He went to the dentist last week, they took x-rays, it's not good. They're going to "clean out" the dead root tissue and try to stabilize what's left of the tooth so he can keep it another year or two. He basically is going to have a pediatric root canal. So he has to be sedated, which means no food or drink for twelve hours before the surgery, scheduled for 11 am. That's going to be a fun morning. "No honey, you can't have any juice. Mommy and Daddy can have cereal, but you are not allowed. Trust me, it's for your own health and safety. Really." Plus I'm probably going to need to be sedated in order to let him go INTO SURGERY. My three year old son, having a root canal. Give me a call and let me know where and when I can pick up my Mother of the Year award, I'll be there.

And, as you already know if you are my Facebook friend, my poor laptop was killed in a tragic accident earlier this week. KB, for reasons known only to himself, left a glass of water on top of a teetering pile of Montessori-related paperwork directly next to my TiBook while he looked in the closet for a towel. The water glass fell over. Onto my computer. Which proceeded to pop and sizzle and generally make noises like the short-order cook's griddle in a diner. We mopped it up as best we could, I gave it a few days to dry out and tried to boot it up, but it will only give me The Grey Screen of Death. Of course, I had not backed it up onto my external hard drive since, oh, October or thereabouts, so I don't know exactly how much writing and how many photos I lost. Sad, really. I got that computer in 2001, and have only replaced the DVD drive once and the battery once. Otherwise, it was the same piece of equipment. You gotta love Macs. And, on the plus side, I get to pick out a new one in the next couple weeks.

You know, in my spare time.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Good thoughts going out to Lucy, who was scheduled to have her little girl via c-section on Tuesday the 10th. Hope it all went well! Send pictures!

I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there

Hey y'all.

(Let me just interrupt myself [only two words in! a new record!] with the first of what is sure to be many parentheticals to say this: I was saying "y'all" waaaay before we moved to Virginia. So don't let me hear any crap from youse guys hassling me about my usage thereof and its significance of my being somehow corrupted, language-wise, by The South. But I did learn something new: Apparently, "y'all" is the singular, while "all y'all" is the plural.)

We are doing fine. Sorry if we've worried anyone with my lack of posting. Things are getting down to the wire with the pregnancy (less than three weeks to go!) and KB and I are working like crazy to have as much settled as we possibly can in our lives so things can come to a screeching halt (as they will, whether we're ready or not) once Doodle makes his grand debut.

What kind of things, you say? Nothing very interesting, unfortunately. A lot of bureaucratic crapola, really. Things where you look at your to-do list and go, "Is this why I got up this morning? Really? To inform our auto insurance company of our new license plate number? To make a dentist appointment for Nolan? This is my grand mission in the world today? 'Take car for oil change?'"

We got a renter for the house in Princeton, which is a good thing, income-wise, but a pain in the ass otherwise. I'm hoping things will smooth out once we get over the "getting started" phase and having a tenant becomes more of a routine thing. I swear, we talk to our property manager/real estate agent up there more than we talk to our friends and family. Not that she's not a lovely person, but it's getting kind of old. The refrigerator up there broke (for those of you who are keeping track, that's four major appliances to go kerflooey in that fabulous space-age kitchen in less than a year) and we've been going back and forth with our agent, the repair place, and the tenant, trying to get things fixed. It's a part-time job, really.

Down here in Virginnie we are slowly assimilating into the local culture. We decided to join the Unitarian Universalist church (a.k.a. the Unie-Toonies) and went to our first service this past Sunday. It was pretty awesome. The sermon, delivered by a lesbian minister, was on Charles Darwin and his contribution to society. That's my kind of religion! They have lots of local service/charity work that they're involved in, and they give classes in Bhuddism, yoga and Wicca. I'm looking forward to having a connection to an open-minded spiritual community without all the Jesus and the Guilt and the look-upon-his-bloody-visage-he-died-a-horrible-painful-death-for-your-sins and the glaven. (Can you tell I was raised Roman Catholic? Is it that obvious?) So the Unie-Toonies are pretty much the maximum amount of religion I can handle without having an allergic reaction.

That being said, I have also joined a support group run through a nearby Presbyterian church that is for women who have recently moved and need...well, support. It is a little more Jaheezeus Christ than I would ordinarily have in my life (which is, you know, none) but I find that the group leader does an excellent job of keeping things very open and neutral and not proselytizing or trying to convert people. It is mostly just a varied group of women eating snacks and talking about how hard the transition period is and helping each other find ways to make the best of it. I figure beggars can't be chosers. I do occasionally have to restrain many of my natural impulses toward eye-rolling and snorting (and quoting Chris Rock), but there are definite pay-offs, in the form of recommendations on where to find the best New York-style pizza, or how to get a discount at the drug store. Is that cynical of me? Well, so be it. I am also trying to "pay it forward," as they say, put some good karma out there, by helping bring dinners to another woman in the group who recently moved and also just had a baby.

Nolan seems to be settling in fairly well. We have met a couple of other mommies with boys around his age and had a few playdates, and he's enjoyed himself immensely. Things are smoothing out at his school, too, although I find I'm having a harder time getting used to it than he is. It's a fairly parentally hands-off school philosophy, Montessori is, and I guess it's tough for me to give up that much control. I drive him up to the school in the morning and a volunteer helps him get out of the car, and then I drive up at noon and a teacher helps buckle him into his seat. I never even get out of the car. I don't see or speak to his teacher at all unless I call her at home, which I have a hard time doing. Nolan is not the most forthcoming about his days (what three-year-old is, really?) and so I find myself obsessing over the littlest utterance from him. But they (Montessori) are all about building self-reliance and independence and such, so I guess that's good. We're still investigating other pre-school options for the fall, and we have a classroom visit tomorrow, so we'll see. The jury's still out, in my mind.

KB is enjoying his job, which is nice for me to hear. He comes home every day talking about how much he's learning, how much he's enjoying himself, how many interesting cases he saw that day. It's a definite relief. He's working long hours right now, mostly because he's just getting started and the other doc in the MSK service finally got to take a vacation (he'd been the solo attending since the person KB replaced left six months ago), but things should hopefully settle down a bit soon.

We are toying with the idea of buying a second car, because right now he is only biking/riding the bus to one of his work sites - the other one Nolan and I have to drop him off and pick him up, which isn't such a pain right now, but when Doodle arrives it's going to get more difficult. We just fought for so long not to buy a second car (and having one car is enough of a pain in the ass) that it's hard to admit we need another one. Not to mention expensive. And polluting. Sigh.

So I guess that's all I got, for now. I promise to keep you posted on Doodle's progress. Please let me know how y'all are doing. I know I'm not the best at keeping in touch, but I always love to hear from you.

Thanks for reading.

How many times must we say, this kind of inflation cannot kill us

Well.

We're here, we made it, we're not dead.

And in truth, we are better than not dead, we are settling in fairly nicely.

Today is Nolan's first day of school at his new pre-school (only one this time, so no need to distinguish between English school and Chinese school) and KB's second day at work.

We had about a week to unpack after we moved in on the 15th, and then we spent six days with my dad and stepmother up in Delaware for Christmas - got to see lots of family, which was good, and our visit was actually quite relaxing. They had all the Christmas accoutrements set up so Nolan got a proper holiday. We weren't around all the half-empty boxes so we didn't feel bad about not working on getting things unpacked, and we were able to vegetate a little bit. Dad and Ann (aka Grandma and Pappy) took Nolan for a ride on the "Christmas Train" to look at lights on the 23rd, so KB and I got to have a Date Night. Probably our last one for a while. Then we drove back down to VA and had another week to continue to get settled before KB started work.

And now, it seems, we are into The Swing of Things. There's still lots to do, of course, but now that Nolan has started school I feel like I have some of my own time back again (for another seven weeks, that is) to do what I want to do. We talked over the last month about how Daddy was on vacation from work and Nolan was on vacation from school, but as you might suspect, Mommy doesn't really get a vacation. Mommy does the same things she always does. Such is the way of our world right now.

The move itself was about as painless as these things can go, really, which was a pleasant surprise. The company we picked, while not the cheapest, was very professional and organized. Nothing was damaged or lost that we've been able to discover, and we've pretty much at least opened (if not fully unpacked) every box, so I think we're in the clear there.

Over the last several times we've moved, I've noticed that the process of moving causes your belongings to undergo a sort of churning, whereby items that you probably had forgotten you owned and don't really need somehow end up in the top part of a box of other, more important things. You open the box that says "Office" looking for your external hard drive and find instead random items the movers threw in to fill up the box.

For instance:

-One tape cassette of R.E.M.'s "Life's Rich Pageant" with no case or paper cover in evidence.

-One "Hollywood" snow globe with miniature actors, director and cameraman that used to sit on my desk at H.B.O.

-One can of Meltonian shoe polish in bright green, the exact shade of my Doc Martens, which have not been polished in years.

-One "Afro Chops" novelty wig given to KB for his 40th birthday last October.

-One mini Zen calligraphy board

-One wired-together human skull (this would be more disconcerting were it not for the fact that KB is a doctor)

-One rubber duck bath toy

-One canister of "Create Your Own Shakespearean Insults" word magnets

-One Polaroid close up attachment kit #583 for the Automatic 100 Polaroid Land Camera

Why are these things out on our kitchen counter right now? We don't know what to do with them. They belong somewhere, we're just not sure where that somewhere is right now. They are the odds and ends, the forgotten extras, the items you keep because you're sure that you will use them at some point, you just don't know when (or if) that time will roll around. Meanwhile, the items you really need to find, like the sugar bowl and the band-aids, continue to elude you.

Such is moving. Every time we do it, I'm certain that THIS time we've separated the wheat from the chaff and only kept what we really, truly need, and every time I'm surprised.

But we are here, we are safe, we are not men, we are Devo. I hope you all had a Happy New Year and a fabulous holiday season.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Thanks for reading.

Everything seems to be up in the air at this point

Just a quick note to say I'll be on hiatus for a week-ish. We're moving this weekend and we won't have internet (aieee!) in Richmond until the 27th. Friggin' Verizon. But we'll be staying with my dad and stepmom for a few days over Christmas, so there should be some opportunity to get online then, I hope.

In case I don't get to say it at the appropriate time, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukah and a Kickin' Kwanzaa and a Groovy Winter Solstice and all that. Nolan knows that Santa will be looking for him at Grandma and Pappy's house, so don't worry about him. They will have a tree and decorations up, and we'll bring our stockings.

Hope y'all's holidays are happy and healthy. Best wishes for 2009.

Thanks for reading.

Shellfish is an abomination

Just in case y'all haven't seen this yet...

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

JB as JC. Awesome.

Thanks for reading.

Sleep on the left side, keep your sword hand free

Yes, we're all still alive. Sorry for the lack of updates (is it my imagination, or is that phrase in every third post on this blog?) but we've been crazy busy lately. We're arranging movers and signing a lease, connecting utilities and making doctor's appointments, returning rental cars and packing boxes. Yea, I say unto thee, we are busy as fuck.

But enough about all that. What I really want to do today is chronicle more...

[insert 60s educational filmstrip music]

...Indignities Of Pregnancy!

Yay!

Starting with boobs.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am a fan of boobs, they are one of the pinnacles of human evolution, I agree with you there. Playthings, food sources, sex signifiers...is there anything boobs can't do?

But occasionally, as when you are pregnant and throbbing with 33% more fluid volume than in your non-pregnant state, the boobs can become...a bit much. Take my boobs, for example. Please. (Ba-dum-bum.) No really, I would give anything to have detachable boobs right at this moment. (That was the alternate song lyric title source for this post - King Missile's "Detachable Penis." But I wasn't sure anyone would get the connection.) They are so incredibly, enormously unwieldy and...big. They're heavy. They're itchy. They're cumbersome. It would be a relief to just rip them off via a handy velcro strip and put them on the nightstand while I sleep.

I have had to buy new bras, of course, but not too many new bras, because you don't want to go investing in the complete spectrum of 38 DDDs when a month later you will have outgrown them and need to invest in even larger bras. (The advice for new bras whilst pregnant is completely contradictory to new bra advice normally - you want to buy them so that the bra fits well on the smallest set of hooks, giving you theoretical room to expand as your boobs expand, whereas in a normal new bra situation, you want the bra to fit well on the largest set so you can tighten the bra as the elastic starts to stretch out and not support as well. Or something like that. And lingerie purveyors of the world, can we please standardize our friggin' bra sizing already? Is it an F cup? Or a DDD? Consistency, please, people!)

KB put one of my newer bras on his head the other night (yes, his entire head fit in one cup - granted, he has a smallish head, but still) and starting shouting, "Pilot to bombadier, pilot to bombadier, we've reached altitude! Fire away!" All he needed was a scarf and some goggles.

But he is quite happy with the boobage, he says. There are men out there, I'm told, who are truly not fans of the generous cleavage, who much prefer their women to be card-carrying members of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee, but luckily for me KB is not one of them.

The only good thing about having ginormous boobs is that they make my ginormous belly look somewhat proportional. And even that benefit will go away as I hit months 8 & 9 and proportionality goes out the window - total strangers start to look worried about sharing the subway with you, lest they be unwillingly conscripted into service as midwives.

(And no, I haven't taken any belly pictures this time around. It just hasn't seemed as novel. Or necessary.)

And...let's see, what else, besides the standard heartburn, insomnia, frequent urination? Oh, there's the pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel syndrome. That's fun. Because of the afore-mentioned increased fluid volume, the nerves that pass through the wrist are squeezed, causing shooting pain, numbness, and that lovely pins-and-needles feeling. That'll wake you up at night. So now I wear a nice beige elastic "wrist positioner" to bed every night, with velcro tightening straps that always manage to get caught in the sheets. Yay!

Plus there's the fact that I now weigh more than my husband. Granted, this is not difficult when you are married to a beanpole like KB, as I am, but it is sobering nonetheless. I have gained less weight this time around than I did with Nolan (a fairly universal trend, it seems, gaining less weight in a second pregnancy - perhaps because Mommy is too busy chasing Offspring #1 all over hither and yon to put up her feet and eat some bonbons), but I have gained a fair amount. There must be some subconscious inherited-from-the-cavemen genetic edict that states that the "natural balance" of things is Man: Big :: Woman: Smaller making me feel bad for being more massive.

Pretty soon there'll be no room left in the bed for KB. I've got The Belly, The Boobs, and 47 pillows strategically stacked, folded, layered and tucked to create the optimal sleeping environment for me and Doodle. Sleep on your left side, so as not to put pressure on the inferior vena cava. Elevate your right arm, to try to reduce the carpal tunnel symptoms. Strap on your wrist positioner. Tuck a pillow under your giant belly to support it so your back muscles aren't twisted too much. Tuck another pillow between your knees so your hips aren't torqued. Now, don't move. Breathe deeply. Try to get as much sleep as possible before you have to get up to pee in four hours.

Enjoy!

Thanks for reading.

It's black, it's white

As usual, the Onion said it better than I ever could...

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/black_man_given_nations?utm_source=EMTF_Onion

He's been king now for so long; his days are numbered

Just came from doing my patriotic duty and voting.

Polls weren't too crowded - I went at 10:30 am to avoid the pre-work rush and the lunch-break rush. Saw a neighbor working one of the tables and was momentarily envious. I feel like this is the kind of thing all this moving around shit has robbed me of - the chance to get settled enough to actually start living life and doing things I want to be doing, like volunteering at the polls, rather than busting my ass polishing the fucking stainless steel in my kitchen every time some yahoo wants to take a look at our house.

But anyway. I digress. (No! Me?)

It's weird to me to think of anyone actually wanting to be president, especially with our country in the condition it is now. I think you have to have some kind of low-level insanity going on to even consider taking on that kind of stress. "Economy in ruins? International regard for our country at an all-time low? Health care a shambles? Sign me up!" Fucking crazy, man. So the idea of intentionally voting for someone who not only wants to be president but thinks they can DO something about all that shit...it's just amazing.

We need to figure out a way to get the most qualified person who couldn't want the job less into office. The guy* who just wants to be at home with his spouse playing Scrabble or whatever. Who's not interested in establishing some sort of Washington legacy of power to continue his "vision." Who would be motivated to get things done quickly with minimal bullshit so he could go watch the football game. (Who also, of course, happens to have decades of experience dealing with economic issues, international governments, and multi-billion dollar corporations. You know, that guy.) Someone who would have to be nominated by his peers, not someone who would announce his candidacy on a televised talk show with a series of bulleted talking points. And the panel of peers who nominated him would have to explain why he was the best choice, rather than have the guy himself do it. (I think that's what bothers me about McCain's incessant repetition of his supposed "maverick" status. If you have to say it about yourself, dude...I just don't buy it.)

I think that may be what's appealing to some people about Sarah Palin (not to me, mind you...I'm just saying.) That "regular Joe" shit. "Hey, she has a vagina...I have a vagina...she's just like me!" Of course with Palin it's all marketing, she's just as much into cronyism and under-the-table dealings as any other politician. But there's definitely an appeal to having someone represent us who's just like us. I think that's what McCain was hoping for - an identification that would go beyond politics.

That also may be why Obama does so well even with people who have no idea what his policies are or what effect electing him will have on the country. People see a multi-racial man raised by a single mother who has worked hard and ascended the ranks of society to become a candidate for President. That's the embodiment of the American dream, right there, is what that is. He is more like the population of this country than the decades of old white men who have been representing us for so long are.

Will he be a good president? I hope so. I just voted for the man. But he obviously wants it, too. He's not going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House going, "Nooooo! I just bought Cubs season tickets!"

This theory (such as it is) also applies to parenting, by the way. I now have several acquaintances, both friends and family, who have announced their decision to deliberately remain childless. And I totally respect that - kids upend your life, in more ways than you can ever hope to predict. But I also feel like it's a bit of a loss for the kids, because at least these people have thought about it, you know? They took the time to look at the pros and cons and decide what was best for themselves, and someone who can do that could do the same for children. And probably do a lot better job than the nineteen-year-old and her boyfriend who go "Oops, we're pregnant...guess we'll get married."

Ummmm...no offense, Mom.

OK, I'll shut up, now.

Except to say to Dru and Rose and Ebony I wish I could be voting in Cali today, man.** My NO ON 8 would be heard 'round the world.

Thanks for reading.

*I mean that in a pan-sexual way, of course. Can we all just agree that "guy" means any person? Male or female? I appreciate that some people have tried really hard to have "gal" mean the same sort of thing, only for women, but it just ain't working, folks.

**Ditto for "man."

This town ain't never been my home

So it's decided. We are definitely moving to Richmond, Virginia. We are driving down again the weekend of the 8th and 9th to look at rental houses and preschools, and we will most likely be moving the second week of December. (Awww, yeah....moving during the holidays. Sweet!)

I am sad about leaving Princeton. The town itself has been a really good fit for us - if KB's job had been more his cup of tea, I have no doubt that we'd have stayed here for good. I dropped off Nolan at his English school this morning, and as I was driving home admiring all the fall leaves, I noticed the entire block of the street I was on had Obama signs in their front yards. Every single home. And I smiled. (I would have taken a picture, but as New Jersey just passed legislation allowing cops to ticket you for driving while talking on the phone, I'm pretty sure driving while trying to take a cell-phone picture is, you know, bad.) Not that I'm into conformity or group-think kinda politics, but it was sure nice to see.

But I think Richmond is going to be good as well. It's a good-sized city, it's pretty cosmopolitan, lots of cultural stuff. It is The South, though. It's not the deep south, not by any means, but it is most definitely The South. This is the region of our country that I know the least about and have the least experience with, so this should be interesting. I've been calling folks in the 804 trying to find us some rental houses to check out, and for awhile there no one I talked to really sounded like they were from the south (or sounded like my stereotypical idea of what people from the south talk like - think Sally Field in Steel Magnolias) until I got one guy named Birch who said, "Yes, ma'am" after every sentence out of his mouth. I got off the phone and said, "Now that's what I'm talking about!" to KB.

So please forgive me if I slack off on the posts for a bit. (I know, I know, excuses excuses.) I need to find a home for us and a preschool for Nolan and an OB for myself and work on getting this house ready to sell (ugh) and still keep doing all the stuff I normally do every day for our family. So I may be infected with slackitude for the next little while.

Thanks for reading.

Let's hear it for my baby

Welp, it's another boy.

In case you can't see it, the ultrasound tech helpfully labeled the picture "Boy!!!" and inserted an arrow pointing to the, uh...area of interest.


He is healthy, has all his parts - good palate, good brain, good spine, good heart. He's very active, apparently - I can feel some movements, but both the ultrasound tech on Friday and my OB on Monday were like, "Whoa! What's he doing in there?" As if I have some idea. Knitting? Rearranging the furniture?

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that it's not a girl. So why can't I just come right out and say, "I'm disappointed"? Because that sounds so fucking...harsh. I have to couch it in semi-polite terms and say, "If you asked me, if you really want to know, if I'm being honest...I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed." Somehow that seems more palatable.

And it's not just that I want another girl on the "team" in our household, although that's part of it. I'll be surrounded by penises and I'll never win the Toilet Seat Default Mode war now. ("Down!" "Up!" "Down!" "Up!" "Duck season!" "Rabbit season!") Right now my only ally on the feminine side of things is Lola, and if you've ever met Lola, you know that she's not exactly an asset on the balance sheet of life - she shits on the rug and her favorite hobby is chewing her toes.

It's more that I'd really like to have a girl so I can teach her all the things I think are important about being a girl and then being a woman - all the stuff I screwed up or wished I had known more about or fought harder for (or against). Then again, maybe it's best that I don't have a daughter - I just re-read that last sentence and it sounds like I'd be trying to live my life over again through my daughter. Not a recipe for success. (Whatever "success" is when you're raising kids.)

I was really hoping for a girl, I guess. I just looked at my list of possible baby names for this kid, and there were 11 girls' names and 2 boys' names, both of which are leftovers from the list we made for Nolan. That's a pretty good indicator.

Another big thing is that if we want to try again (for a girl) after this baby, that will just delay my return to the real world by another few years. Sigh.

I'm sure I'll get over it. I'm sure I'll love this kid just as much as I love Nolan.

And I know Nolan's going to be a great older brother, notwithstanding tonight's going-to-bed conversation. We were sitting in the rocking chair, talking about our day, our usual nighttime routine, and in the middle of his typical stall tactics, he comes out with "I don't want your belly to get bigger and bigger and bigger." So I say, "Why?" thinking it will have something to do with him not fitting on my lap anymore. And he says, "Because I'm not ready for all the crying."

Me either, kid. But it comes with the territory.

Thanks for reading.

Judy in disguise

Well, you knew it was inevitable. KB is nearsighted, I'm nearsighted, now we come to find that The Boy is nearsighted.

We went to a pediatric opthamologist last week, and her exact words were, "This isn't the strongest prescription I've ever written for a three year old...but it's close." So we went to the optician the next day and Nolan picked out frames - it was a close decision between purple Power Rangers frames and the bronze ones he eventually decided on. I would have gotten him the purple ones if he really wanted them, since he's the one that has to wear the things, but in my heart of hearts I'm glad he picked the plain bronze ones.


Isn't he painfully, painfully adorable?


*sigh*

My little nerdling.

Thanks for reading.

Livin' it up at the Hotel California

So I'm sure you've all heard about this.

My first thought upon hearing he wanted to delay the debate was this.

It's bush-league psych-out stuff.

Woo! You got a date Wednesday, McCain!

Thanks for reading.

I've given up fags and drugs now, baby

Welcome to Caroline's Cavalcade of Random Occurrences and Tidbits

or

What I Would Be Twittering Were I The Twittering Type, Which I'm Not


-A crow died in our backyard last weekend. It was the strangest thing. I was taking a nap (huzzah!) in our bedroom, which is at the back of the house with windows facing the backyard. I wasn't quite asleep and I heard this commotion of squirrels chattering with that angry noise they make when there's a neighborhood cat perched on the ground underneath them. I didn't think much of it until I heard this big THUMP on the ground shortly thereafter. I looked out the window and saw this dark, unidentifiable shape on the ground and figured I'd better take a look. KB and Nolan were outside raking leaves (in the front) so they didn't see anything, of course. I put on some pants (I get comfy when I nap) and shoes and went out in the back to find a giant, recently dead crow on the ground under one of the trees. (I'm not sure what distinguishes a crow from a raven from a blackbird, exactly - if it's only size, then this bird was on the large crow/small raven end of the spectrum, I'd say.) It didn't appear to be injured or mangled in any way. It was just dead. I don't know what the squirrel commotion had to do with the crow's death, if anything. I made KB come around and pick it up with a shovel and put it in a garbage bag.

Dead crow. Gotta be bad karma or bad feng shui or something. Yeesh.

-At lunch the other day Nolan kept making this "Ffffffffffff" noise with his teeth and lips. I tried to ignore it at first because I thought it was his way of provoking me - we've had a lot of discussion lately about why spitting at the table is Not Appropriate Behavior and I was pretty sure he was trying to see how close he could come to spitting before I started telling him not to do it. So he's going, "Fffffffffff" and concentrating really hard and I'm ignoring him and finally he looks at me and says, "Mommy, why are there no flames coming out of my mouth?" Apparently he was trying to breathe fire.

-Nolan is attending pre-school five mornings a week now - two at his Chinese pre-school (where he went to summer "camp") and three at a regular old pre-school. We've taken to calling the regular pre-school his "English" school to distinguish it from his Chinese school. I feel like we're Amish. "Be careful out there among them English, son!"

-There was a sign on the door of Nolan's (English) pre-school classroom the other morning that said "[this class] has 1 case of head lice." All I could think was "Already? Already with the head lice?" Next up: Pink eye!

-My Omega-3 vitamin supplement is made from fish, flax and safflower oils, but somehow, it's only the fish oil I taste when I burp later.

-If any one of the four of you who read this blog knows anything about Richmond, Virginia, please pass it along with all haste. Richmond is next up on our list of Places We May Move To. We're going down there the weekend of the 4th and 5th to check out the living situation (KB has already had one successful interview) and my assignment is researching beforehand to find out what, exactly, we might like to check out whilst down there.

-The ice maker on our fridge broke. This is the third kitchen appliance to break down in the nine months we've owned this house. Remember how awesome the kitchen looked in those pictures? How space-age and modern and upscale? Yeah, that's 'cause all the appliances are friggin' "prestige" brands like Miele and Sub-Zero and Wolf and cost like, three times as much to repair. So, we are back to making ice in trays, since $400 to repair an icemaker seemed a bit steep, considering we'll probably be moving in a few months. (What was also a pain was that we had to actually go out and buy new ice cube trays to use. What happened to all those stray ice cube trays we accumulated over years of moving from apartment to apartment? Who actually has to BUY ice cube trays? Don't they just reproduce on their own in the privacy of the freezer compartment, like wire hangers do in the closet?)

-My birthday was good. I got to go into NYC for a haircut at Devachan, which specializes in curly hair. Not only specializes in it, but proselytizes for it. They are very pro-curly. They don't want you to straighten your hair. They want you to be happy with your curly hair. The owner of the salon wrote a book about curly hair. They have their own special line of products for curly hair. I like them a lot, but a haircut alone is upwards of $120, so this was a rare and wonderful birthday treat for me. Now my hair has an actual shape to it, much more vertical volume and much less Rosanne Rosannadanna action going on.

Yay!

Thanks for reading.

You were bigger and brighter and whiter than snow

Okay, so these pictures are about three weeks old, but since I hadn't put them up yet, I figured what the hey.

It's nice that the baby is looking more like an actual fetus and less like a cheese doodle (which, incidentally, is what we've been calling it - "Doodle.")

I won't have the ultrasound that everybody's interested in - the one that determines the sex - until October, so my four loyal readers will have to wait a few more weeks for that information, I'm afraid.


Everything went very smoothly - this ultrasound was looking at the brain and the spinal cord to check for defects like spina bifida - and the baby looks completely normal thus far. I'm not considered a "high risk" pregnancy because I'm 33 (for a few more days!) and will be 34 when the baby is due. Once you're 35, that's the magic cut-off date when you're considered "high risk," for some reason. Like so many things in life, the magic age when you're suddenly deemed qualified for something (to vote, to drink alcohol, unknowingly put your fetus at risk for Down Syndrome) is pretty damned arbitrary.

I love this close-up of the baby's head. That swirly thing in front of the baby's face is not, in fact, the umbilical cord, although it does kind of look like that. It's the baby's two hands held up right in front of his/her face.




There were a couple times during the exam when it looked like the baby was trying to get his/her thumb or hand into his/her mouth, which was pretty cool to see. It's amazing how early they start making voluntary movements like that.

Also, look at the schnozz! This time around the kid definitely got Kevin's nose.

Alrighty, that's all I got for now.

Thanks for reading.

Don't you know which clothes even fit me?

In which post I try to link disparate topics and sum up the past few weeks without having any reliable segues whatsoever.

Alllllllrighty then.

So: We went to Canada for a week, stopping along the way (okay, so it wasn't really along the way so much as it was a giant detour) in Boston to visit friends we hadn't seen since we'd moved last year. We tried to cram too much into our 24-hour visit to Beantown, and so left ourselves feeling rushed and almost as if we hadn't really seen much of our friends. But, short as it was, it was great to see everyone, and it did make me a bit nostalgic for Boston. And god, how I wish we had had the GPS when we lived there. It would have saved many hours and tears.

Then, we drove to Canada. Or, to be more accurate, we drove as far as we could and stopped to spend the night in Utica, New York because we were tired and the drive that should have taken two hours on the Mass Pike instead took four.

(Note: When you are road-tripping with a pregnant woman and a recently potty-trained toddler, your bathroom stop quota will rise not linearly, as you might expect, but exponentially, since no one in the car ever has to pee at the same time and all sudden urges to pee must be treated as emergencies.)

We got to Alan and Kathleen's house on Charleston Lake in Ontario the next day around lunchtime and hung out for a few hours, and then KB turned around and drove BACK to Syracuse for a second interview there and a first interview in Rochester. So he was basically working the first two days of our vacation week, and since I was stuck in the house all day with Nolan, I was working too. (I think I need to get better at communicating my expectations to people - I was sort of envisioning, "Ah, vacation! Relaxing on the porch with a trashy magazine and a glass of iced tea! Maybe KB and I can get a date night in!" and instead it was more like being at home, except without any of the familiar resources of home like the library and the car.) We definitely did have some good times later in the week - going out on Alan's boat and going to the beach, that kind of stuff, but then we had a

MAJOR TRAGEDY. Well, okay, it was, in retrospect, more of a minor tragedy, but it was horrific at the time. We were going to the beach with Kathleen and her grandson Duncan, who is 4 (and a younger brother to Alexander, 5, so he delighted in having someone younger to play with [read: boss around], and Nolan was thrilled to try and keep up with him). We had just parked the car and gotten to the beach and were walking along to a picnic table (when I say "beach" you have to picture a forest-y rocky hilly weedy lakeside beach, not a big open sandy ocean beach) when Nolan slipped on a rock and hit his mouth. Big-time. On the rock. Screaming, bloody, wailing horrible horrible-ness. When we finally got him calmed down enough to look in his mouth, one of his two front teeth was chipped and the other was at a wonky angle. We didn't know what to do. We're in the middle of rural Ontario, Canada, and our son had some apparently disfiguring damage to his mouth. Kathleen told us about a dentist she'd gone to in this tiny neighboring town, so we decided to try there and see if they'd take us as an emergency. So we drove for about 35 of the longest minutes of my life with Nolan wailing the whole way, "I don't wanna go to the doctor! I don't wanna go!" and me sitting in the backseat trying to comfort him.

But when we did get there (and I gotta be honest, the town looked like a shithole) the dentist was great. Nolan totally calmed down and she was very good with him. She gently took a look and cleaned his mouth a bit, and then we had an x-ray taken. She said it didn't look like the tooth's root was broken, so it probably won't die, but it will be crooked (and may possibly discolor) until his baby teeth fall out when he's six or seven. She said the only big problem will be if the jawbone ankyloses around the injured tooth, which will make it hard if not impossible for the adult tooth to push its way out, so if that happens we may have to have it extracted.

So we left the dentist's office with a prescription for ice cream and popsicles to reduce the swelling (the first time in my life I've ever gotten THAT from a dentist) and a recommendation to check in with our regular dentist when we got home. (And a bill for $139.95. For everything. Emergency exam, x-rays, everything. Thank you, Canadian healthcare!) I looked like an extra from a horror film, because I had blood all down my shoulder and back from holding Nolan when he was screming.

But, he's okay. On the whole, it wasn't such a MAJOR tragedy. It was very scary and upsetting and I felt like a lousy mother for not protecting my kid, but overall, everything's fine. KB says the crooked tooth will give him character, maybe it will make him look like a kid other kids won't want to mess with. I think it makes him look like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel, but at least it will only be until he's six. Or seven.

And we did get in one non-horrific trip to the beach the next day where we re-visited what we dubbed The Rock Of Doom, complete with Nolan-contributed bloodstain on it. We had some swimming lessons with Kathleen and some boating with Alan and some kayaking around their little bay, disturbing the turtles, and then it was time to come home.

So that was our trip to Canada.

Note the lack of segues.

Maternity Clothes 2: Electric Boogaloo

In other news, I have had to drag my giant Rubbermaid bin of maternity clothes out of storage, as none of my regular clothes are fitting properly anymore. I've been using the rubber band around the buttonhole trick for a couple weeks now, but I guess it's time to give in. I don't even really have a belly yet, it's just that my waist seems to have decided not to exist any longer. It also feels as though this is happening a LOT sooner than it did last time around, but at least I'm able to resurrect some clothes from storage rather than being completely unprepared. Some of the leftovers are going to be completely useless, of course, since this baby will be in a totally different season than Nolan was - I'm gonna need a lot more big-belly warm clothes for December and January. But I was generously given a huge stash of leftover maternity clothes from my friend Sonya, who had her new baby Paul in July. She's worn them through two pregnancies and is like, "Get them outta here! I'm never wearing them again!" so I was the lucky recipient there.

Sadly, Sonya and Ben and Spencer and Paul have moved to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. (Sadly for us, not for them.) They are starting their new life there where Ben is a professor at Gettysburg College and Sonya will be starting in a private medical practice. Nolan will miss Spencer, I know, and I will miss their company big-time. The last time we saw Spencer Nolan was having a fit of pique and refused to give him a hug goodbye, which just served to remind me how in-the-moment kids are compared to adults. Ben and I are like, "Nolan, give him a hug! You're not going to see Spencer again for a long time!" and Nolan's like, "Whatever." To him, it was just another day playing with Spencer, and if he didn't feel like giving him a hug, he wasn't going to give him a hug, god dammit. Future be damned.

All right, I gotta stop now. I started this post over a week ago but Blogger kept crashing and refusing to save and I had to keep starting over until I quit in a fit of frustration (gee, I wonder where Nolan gets it) and now it's SEPTEMBER and I need to write about pre-school and Kathy our Chinese babysitter and "Hair" and that's just too much for one entry. More later.

Thanks for reading.

(Also, can I just say that in the Clash song from which this post takes its title, I love how, even though they are all punk and anti-establishment and revolutionary, et cetera, they still manage to use correct grammar in the line "Exactly whom I'm supposed to be..." That's just so British and awesome.

Okay then. Carry on.)

Long and dark, shiny and black

So believe it or not, KB and my mom and aunt and I went to see Bruce Springsteen play at Giants Stadium on Thursday night last week.

I've never really considered myself a Springsteen "fan," although I can certainly sing along to plenty of his songs, and I've never had any special antipathy towards him, either (like I do towards, say, Rod Stewart). I've never owned any of his albums myself, but both KB and my mom have a lot of them, so I've listened to plenty of his music and become, if not exactly a fan, then an appreciative listener. He has a sort of workman-like quality to his music - no frills, no fancy effects or over-produced noise, just basic, instrument-based rock and roll. His earlier albums are especially classic, and there's a quality of street poetry to his lyrics that reminds me of Tom Waits in a way.

So last December, my mom mentioned that she'd like to see him play and if she got us tickets would we be interested in going? And I was like, "Oh, okay. Sure. I know KB will want to go." So we got our $80 nosebleed tickets and I forgot all about it for six months. And when Thursday night rolled around, I can't really say I was all that jazzed about going - I'm still feeling pretty tired from the placentasmithing and I was coming down with a cold (which I'm just now getting over, thankfully, but of course KB has it now), so the prospect of driving up the Turnpike, standing up and screaming for three hours and getting home at one in the morning wasn't exactly floating my boat.

But boy, am I glad we went. The man knows how to put on a show, even when you're so high up he appears to be 1/8 inch tall and you have to look at the Jumbotron to see what the heck is going on. He's gotta be pushing 60, right? I mean, he and most of his band (for it was the full-on E Street Band Experience) have been making music for like, 40 years or something crazy like that. And he (and all of them) just so genuinely seemed to be enjoying himself, just playing music and having a good time. And they just powered through them! He didn't stop for a lot of stage patter, there were no "We're gonna take a short break" announcements - they played nonstop pretty much the entire three and a half hour show. It was pretty impressive.

He did kind of milk the New Jersey thing a bit - apparently this was the last time he'll ever play at Giants Stadium (they're tearing it down and building a new stadium 50 feet away. Ah, progress.) and he did a lot of "It's great to be home in New Jersey!" kind of stuff, but the crowd ate it up. It's funny, there seems to be a certain level of irony inherent in many of his songs, and I think it's fair to say a large part of the crowd was kind of oblivious to that darker layer of his stuff. Kind of like when Ronald Reagan wanted to use "Born in the USA" as his campaign song, and Bruce turned him down - Reagan didn't get the whole bleak, disaffected thing that song has going on. Ronnie heard the fist-pumping "Booooooooorn in the USAAAAA!" chorus and thought he could ride that wave, never mind that the lyrics are about a man who's been used and abused by his country. So there were a lot of T-shirt and Crocs-wearing, pot-smoking good old boys in the audience who didn't quite get the, how shall I say, deeper aspects of the music.

(It took me a while to realize that people in the stands were not, in fact, booing him throughout the show. They were yelling "Bruuuuuuuuuuuce!" I would hear all this booing and be like, "What's the problem, people? Let him play "Brilliant Disguise" if he wants to!" until I realized what was happening. Duh.)

Apparently, the band have a repertoire of 250 songs that they can choose from at any given show, and they take requests from the audience - you have to hold up a sign with the song you want on it, and he walks around and takes the signs from people and brings them back to the band and they all go through them and pick out which ones they want to play. So it was a nice mix of what they wanted to do and what the audience wanted to hear.

And he did play the one song I wanted to hear, which was "Rosalita." I love that song. We were talking about it before the show, what songs would we really want to hear, and when I said "Rosalita" my mom was like, "Oh, don't count on it. It's rare for them to play that one, apparently." (She watched the 60 minutes special with Bruce on Sunday, so she was the authority.) But it was the final song of the show! It was awesome.

And we didn't get home at one in the morning. We got home at three in the morning. There was a propane tractor-trailer overturned at exit 16W on the Turnpike (which is where the Meadowlands is) so everyone was late getting to the concert. It was supposed to start at 7:30, started instead at 9:30, and he played, including encores, until one in the morning. And I stupidly wore brand-new (cheap) sneakers and got blisters from walking from BFE (where we parked) to the stadium and back.

And I'm STILL glad we went. The man is a class act, all the way.

Thanks for reading.

Have you come to raise the dead?

I blame Rose.

She invited me to join Facebook, the pervasive social-networking whathaveyou that seems to be all the rage with the young'uns these days, with the tempting phrase (and I quote) "Dru and I are on this, Joy. Come to the dark side."

So I joined, figuring it would be just like Friendster or one of those other faddy things that I would be interested in for a few days and then give up on.

But no! It has been...actually, quite good. Time-consuming, but good. I hate filling out all those personal information questionnaires that these sites always seem to have, where you have to concisely sum up your entire being, personality, life, interests, beliefs, pants size, astrological sign, height, weight, sexual preference, et cetera. Who can do that in a few paragraphs?

Initially I figured it would be a way to keep in touch with my legions of cousins, since they are members of the aforementioned "young'uns" demographic, and while it has served that purpose admirably well, it has also gotten me back in touch with tons of other people, from as long ago as high school and college all the way through LA and NYC and up to Boston. It's pretty nice to see those familiar faces and find out about what's going on in their lives. Some friends you don't mean to lose track of and are immensely happy to hear from when you do get back in touch...

Number one among them...Janet! YAY, Janet!

I know the four of you who read this thing know which Janet I am talking about and need no further information, but should you like to be nosy and find out about her life (does it even count as being nosy anymore when we all put our lives up on the internet for everyone to see?) she can be found at mrs-swank.livejournal.com.

We caught up on the phone this past Saturday, and I can't tell you how comforting it is to know that out there in Wisconsin is someone who understands why leaving an answering machine message consisting only of Homer Simpson's thought process ("Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces..." "Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces...") is an act of purest hilarity.

Yay.

Thanks for reading.