coffee talk

This morning's learning experience: the properties of coffee grounds. Daniel had a blast scooping some old decaf out of a bag and into a bowl ... though, as you can see, much of it ended up on the floor. (He helped sweep it up after he was done.) Sometimes he'd raise it to his nose and sniff it; I think he didn't know what to make of it.

The other night, we drove as a family to Mississippi Market to do some grocery shopping. This store is across the street from a Caribou Coffee where we often stop for lattés and mochas, and its signage lights were on, since it was dark out. I wasn't in the car to hear this, but Steve swears: Daniel saw the store, pointed, and said, "Mocha!" I don't know where he picked that up. I didn't think it was something he'd learned to associate yet, but ... I should know by now that he absorbs a lot more than I expect.

oscar talk

"Are you going to tell everyone about my Oscar victory?" Steve wanted to know. Yes, in our annual "pick the winners" contest, he beat me by two points, picking 13 winners to my 11. What's more, he tied with our resident film critic, Chris Hewitt of the Pioneer Press, whose picks were in bold on the ballot sheet. The kicker? Steve has seen pretty much none of the year's big movies. I haven't seen very many of them, either. But that didn't stop me from enjoying last night's 80th Academy Awards! Here, my totally random thoughts on the big evening.

I just love Jon Stewart. Period. I don't care what anyone else says; he had me giggling throughout the night.

I knew about Cate Blanchett and Jessica Alba, but I hadn't heard that Nicole Kidman is pregnant. When Jon Stewart said that, I kept looking at her body when she came out to guess how far along she is. Barely a bump, so maybe ... four months?

I am thrilled that Falling Slowly from the movie Once won best song. Those tunes from Enchanted were just so mediocre. And I loved it when Jon Stewart brought the woman back on after the commercial to give the acceptance speech that she'd been cut off from giving. It was one of the great unscripted moments of the evening.

Another great moment: Marion Cotillard's genuinely surprised reaction when she won for best actress, and the way she couldn't stop shaking as she walked offstage with her face in her hand. I thought La Vie en Rose was such an awful movie that I turned it off after an hour and a half (with still an hour to go), but Marion Cotillard did do a fantastic job playing Edie Piaf.

Diablo Cody was surprisingly sweet when she accepted her screenwriting award for Juno. I was moved when she — a former stripper — thanked her parents for loving her just the way she is, and it made me feel slightly guilty that I was judging her for dressing like, well, a stripper. For those who aren't aware, Diablo Cody used to live in the Twin Cities and write for the alternative weekly, and she wrote the script — her first — while sitting in the café of a suburban Target.

Where was Ben Affleck? Let me rephrase: Why didn't Jennifer Garner (who looked amazing, by the way) bring her husband as her date?

Steve Carrell is just ... so ... funny. I wish they'd have more of him. Maybe they'll ask him to host one of these years — oooh, that would be wonderful!

I would have loved a Stephen Colbert cameo, too.

I couldn't stop giggling during the "binoculars and periscopes in film" montage. Color me gullible, but I assume that was a joke and not really a serious montage they'd have run if the writers had continued to be on strike.

I got all choked up when they showed Heath Ledger as the final entry in the "deaths in the past year" montage. Such a waste. That shot of him leaning against the cabin in his jacket made me want to see Brokeback Mountain again. He did an amazing job in that movie.

Of the best picture nominees, I don't think I want to see No Country for Old Men, even if it did win best picture — not after they described Javier Bardem's character as a Hannibal Lector-style killer (with Dorothy Hamill hair — ha!). I don't do violence very well these days. I probably won't see There Will Be Blood, either. I do want to see Atonement and Michael Clayton, and I've already seen Juno.

Why is everyone so down on Tilda Swinton's looks? She has always been pale and angular, so what's new? That is how she looks, and not everyone is movie-star glamorous. She's talented and interesting and clever, and that's what counts in my book. Not whether she needs to color her eyebrows. (Of course, this comes from someone who found myself wishing Diablo Cody had dressed better, so take it with a grain of salt.) My favorite line from her best supporting actress speech: "George Clooney, you know, the seriousness and the dedication to your art, seeing you climb into that rubber bat suit from Batman and Robin, the one with the nipples, every morning under your costume ... on the set, off the set, hanging upside down during lunch. You rock man."

remembering my uncle

My prayers go out to my Aunt Gloria, who lost her beloved husband of 20-something years, Bruce, on Wednesday. This photo was taken when we stayed with them for a night on our California trip last May. I remember it as being such a relaxing, peaceful stay, and that was due a lot to what a good couple Gloria and Bruce were. She told me on the phone last night that her marriage to him was by far the happiest time of her life. They loved to travel and have been all over the world. They would have gone to Hawaii next month to celebrate their anniversary.

I didn't know Bruce's health had been failing, so I was completely taken off guard when my dad called me last night with the news. (Strangely, my dad's Aunt Dottie, whom I never knew, also died this week, and he heard about both deaths within the same hour.) Bruce had diabetes and heart problems, and things had gotten worse in the past few weeks. A week before he died, Gloria told me, she went outside and prayed before bed, like she always does, asking God to give her a little more time with him. Tuesday night, she thanked God for that time and told him she was ready if he needed to take Bruce. She went upstairs, and Bruce, lying in bed with a catheter in him, held her in a hug for an especially long time. The next morning, he was gone. He died in his sleep, peacefully. Gloria said it was a blessing that he did not have to suffer or go to a hospital and that she is so happy about that. Still, his loss is terribly sad, and I know she will be grieving for a very long time.

Gloria, I know you read this blog, so you know that Steve and I send our love to you and your family. As you said, there is no doubt that Bruce is in heaven right now, and I am certain he will be near you always.

connecting

I don't know how well he understands, but Daniel likes to lift up my shirt and put his hand on my belly and say, "Baby ... hi!" I've placed his hands there when I can feel the baby kicking, but I'm not sure if he felt anything or knew what he was feeling. Maybe more than we give him credit for? Anyway, I took this picture today by holding the camera out by my side while sitting on a chair, my far leg tucked under me, and shooting blind. It's totally blurry, and that's probably the only reason I'm posting it here; I'm typically not one for displaying the big, bare belly shots!

the family table

Though Daniel has a couple of plastic plates and baby forks and spoons given to him as gifts (and he does use plastic sippy cups), I have never bought plastic dinnerware for him, and I don't plan to add to the collection he already has. At breakfast, he usually eats his yogurt and cereal out of a small, white ramekin. Other times, if the plastics are dirty, we use our regular white bowls and plates and sometimes just hand him one of our spoons or smaller appetizer forks. The everyday glasses we received as a wedding gift (Picardie tumblers) came with a tiny juice glass (in addition to a regular-sized juice glass) that's nearly the size of a shot glass — too small for Steve or me to use, but perfect for Daniel's little hands.



The main reasons I haven't bought much plastic are that I worry about harmful chemicals leaching out, and we don't have a ton of room in our kitchen to store extra dinnerware. And, truth be told, I just think our old, white, everyday plates are prettier than plastic. (Though Daniel does enjoy looking at the baby lion on the plate his grandma gave him for Christmas!) In writing earlier about trying to find a balance in creating a child-friendly home, this is one area where I haven't felt very eager to load up on children's products. I like to think Daniel will learn to be careful with breakable things this way. So far, we've lost no glasses — they're pretty unbreakable — and just one plate. And Daniel's ability to drink from a grown-up glass is improving every day. He does like to dip his food in his milk before putting it in his mouth, but I chalk that up to exploration, and I'm sure he'll outgrow that phase soon enough.

His new booster seat arrived via Amazon the other day, and he was so proud of himself when I let him have his snack at the table. He's still a messy eater, so I think we'll have him in the high chair a bit longer, but I look forward to the day when he can sit with his mom and dad for dinner.

what do you do all day, anyway?

I ran across this Carolyn Hax column in a binder full of parenting information, and I thought it was one of the best job descriptions I've ever read for a stay-at-home mom. Not that I have any friends who have complained like the person who wrote the letter (to my knowledge) ...

two boys

In the pictures, you can tell they are brothers — they look so much alike. Their light-brown hair is thin and straight. Their mouths are big and wide, and I can just picture how great their grins are when they show their teeth. Their chins have matching little clefts, and I can see mischief behind those lively eyes. They remind me so much of how I imagine Daniel and his brother might look at that age. Maybe that's why the deaths of these two little boys, Hunter and Jesse Javens, ages 9 and 13, of Cottonwood, Minn., have stayed in my mind all morning. I can't stop looking at their pictures on the front page of the newspaper, along with the other two children who were killed in the school bus crash in southern Minnesota.

I don't mean to minimize the losses of the other two children in dwelling on the Javens brothers — not at all. All four deaths are tragic, made even more senseless by the reports that the woman who sideswiped the bus, causing the accident, apparently was not in possession of a valid driver's license and wasn't supposed to be on the road. It's just that my mother's heart identifies in a particular way with the mother of the two brothers with the hanging-down hair and big mouths and eyes so full of life. It's just too easy to imagine it being my boys, and that fills my heart with sadness.

It's so easy for me to get caught up in my own world of "What if I die of cancer before I see my boys grow up," but this reminds me that you never know when or where grief and tragedy will sneak up on you. I know there are people in this world, including friends, who know this all too well — who have had loved ones jerked from life so unexpectedly, whose own lives will never be the same because of it. It has never happened to me, and knowing that people I care about are dealing with the real thing every single day, it feels a little strange writing about sadness stemming from something that happened to people I don't even know. But the imagination is a powerful thing, and this is where mine has been today.

it could be worse

It seems my hip and lower back discomfort (to put it mildly) have an official name — or two, depending on how I understood my physical therapist and chiropractor: Symphysis pubis dysfunction and sacroiliac joint dysfunction. (I'll let you click the links to Wikipedia if you feel like learning more.)

A printout the physical therapist gave me says: "This painful disability frequently results in the woman experiencing great difficulty caring for her family, social isolation, depression and relationship difficulties." Maybe not so extreme, but it's true that I have a lot more trouble getting around and carrying Daniel. It goes on to advise caregivers not to dismiss the condition as "the aches and pains of pregnancy" or to use words like "separated" or "broken pelvis." Yikes, was my first thought when I read that! The "client" should: "Reduce non-essential weight-bearing activities, e.g. stairs, shopping, lifting and carrying." Right. Like that's realistic! I also should be avoiding straddle movements and standing on one leg. Yep, those do hurt. And during labor, my "team" should "keep separation of legs to the minimum" and in particular avoid the feet-in-stirrups position for giving birth. Fine by me! Just as long as I don't have to squat ... because I'm not supposed to do that, either.

I fervently hope that this condition will ease up considerably after I have the baby, though I hear muscle laxity continues on through breastfeeding, too. This has been a pregnancy challenge I didn't expect, but I am glad I am not completely unable to take Daniel places or carrying him around, as much as it might hurt. The belt helps a little, and proper pillow support at night does, too. (I do dread those multiple middle-of-the-night walks to the bathroom.) I have a feeling I'll be handling this a lot better once the deep freeze lifts for good. Spring is just so good for my spirits. And spring, at least this year, means a new baby! Six weeks to go ...

faces of teething

"owwwwie" ...



... hope through the tears, my sunny valentine ...



... and sweet relief: the "paci"

daniel versus the pottery barn kids

Ever since Daniel was a speck in my eye (well, womb), I've been thinking differently about home decor. I flip through the Pottery Barn catalog and see images of beautiful vases filled with perfect, delicate flowers, sitting atop coffee tables alongside glass candle holders, and I think: Clearly, this Pottery Barn family does not actually have children. Even though the catalog's mudroom has individually labeled cubbies for the kids' backpacks, and the Christmas catalog shows stockings hung from photo-frame stocking holders (bronze or silverplate!) monogrammed with each child's name, I don't quite believe the kids actually live there. Because if you put Daniel in that house, he would rip it apart in minutes. That beautiful pot of roses would be overturned onto the beautiful rug below, and the artfully arranged piles of books on the lower levels of shelves would be thrown across the floor, alongside the DVDs and CDs he pulled off the media console. Maybe the Pottery Barn kids are older and have been strictly trained not to touch the contents of coffee tables or the electronic equipment that sits in plain open view in those gorgeous media centers, but Daniel's curious fingers would have Pottery Barn mom and dad scrambling. House plants? Ha.

So I was quite amused to read this New York Times article, which I found courtesy of the Star Tribune blog Cribsheet. Basically: Having children changes lots of things about a couple's lifestyle, and for parents (particularly older ones) who have spent time and money furnishing their homes the way they want them, the world of baby gear and childproofing can come as quite a shock. “Once you become a parent, your home is not your own,” one woman is quoted as saying. “I think you mourn your previous life, at least for a while. You’re never going to have what you had.” Amen to that.

I'd say our house is still a work in progress when it comes to decorating it. Steve and I don't have a lot of expensive furniture, but we've bought a few nice pieces over the past few years. (I cringed when one woman in the article said her 4-year-old used a pen to carve her name into a cherry dining table just delivered from France. “I thought I would die,” she said.) But I know I've had to let go of some of my decorating dreams since Daniel became mobile.

Our living room is strewn with toys, which sometimes end the day reorganized into their baskets, but often spend the night un-put-away. A few of the sharper corners on the coffee table and wood mission chair are covered with horrendously ugly foam protectors, which we realized were necessary after Daniel started to bruise his head on them repeatedly. The coffee table is shoved up against the beautiful cherry bookcase, giving him more play space and blocking from his reach (for now) a few items we would like to keep there untouched — certain books, the box of bill-paying essentials, candles, pottery figures I acquired in Mississippi. The open shelves that serve as part of a dividing wall between our dining room and the front door used to have family photos lined up on them (and Steve's entire CD collection, a holdover from his bachelor days that I confess I was happy to see go). Now they're pretty much empty, except to serve as repositories for harmless, unbreakable things like stuffed animals. We deliberately chose a closed armoire to house our TV, stereo equipment, DVDs and CDs because otherwise they would become part of Daniel's toy collection. Some toddlers might leave that stuff alone, but not Daniel. He has an amazingly persistent sense of curiosity. We set up old stereo equipment in the basement playroom just so he can push buttons, turn knobs and insert plugs to his heart's content. Maybe he will be like his grandpa and be an electronics genius.

In the meantime, we walk the ever-shifting line between keeping our belongings (and son) safe and not giving in completely. We haven't drilled any holes for drawer-blocking devices into our bedroom dresser or nightstands yet — we just can't bear to — so Daniel has free reign in our drawers. We adjust by making sure there's nothing in there that can hurt him. Pens? Nope. Foot buffers? OK. Socks? Fine. We're training him to put them back when he's done pulling them out of my sock drawer. (I am sure we will regret this choice the day he carries some embarrassing bedroom item out into the living room during playgroup, but so far he hasn't looked twice at the ... ahem ... unmentionables.) I resonated with a comment one woman in the article made: “I’m pretty sensitive aesthetically, and it does something for me when I look at a pretty room," she said, describing a dining room they converted into a children's play area. "Looking at what the room used to be was the visual equivalent of listening to Bach or Mozart. Now it’s the visual equivalent of listening to Barney.”

I figure it's just a few years before maybe we can have some of our space back. In the meantime, we try to keep a sense of perspective. We may not have a perfect house, but we do have a pretty cute son (who I'm sure is going to have a pretty cute brother), and we're very fortunate for that. So we live with the toddler-proof home and do our best to keep him away from the gorgeous coffee table displays when we go to other people's houses. That's our life, and I'm OK with it.

pick up a book ...

These "memes" seem to be going around lately, like the flu. (That analogy will be relevant when you read my answer!) How can I pass this one up when the instructions tell you to pick up the nearest book? This one is from Kristine's blog. Instead of tagging anyone, I'll just invite people to participate: If you post this on your blog, leave me a comment so I can come look. Or, just leave your answer in the comment section.

Here are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Mine:

The 2003-2004 flu season was particularly bad, with more reported infections and fatalities than usual. But when all was said and done, there were a total of 153 deaths in children seventeen years and younger in the forty states that were studied. If we included all fifty states, we could guess there were at most 200 deaths in children that year.

From The Vaccine Book by Dr. Robert Sears

33 weeks, 15 pounds, 2 inches

Here I am at 33 weeks of pregnancy. And check out these pictures from when I was 33 weeks pregnant with Daniel. I don't know if you can see much of a difference, but in that 2006 post, I reported that I had gained 40 pounds thus far in my pregnancy. With this one, I have put on just 15. And here's a little piece of trivia you won't see in any pictures: My uterus has stretched my scar out to just under 14 inches long. Right after my surgery in September, it measured just under a foot. Wierd!

owwwwwie

The time: Around 10 a.m. yesterday.
The place: In front of the refrigerator.
The scene: Daniel has gotten bored with Sesame Street and indicated he'd like a snack. I'm looking for something to feed him, and he is rummaging, picking up the various bottles within reach in the refrigerator while I tell him what's in them. "Ketchup." "Syrup." "Lemon juice." He puts the syrup back sideways, and as I reach in to straighten it, CRACK — a sudden pain in my lower back, and I almost fall on the floor. (It's always the little things that make my back go out. One day I was standing in the kitchen with a bowl of cereal in one hand, a spoon in the other. I raised the bowl a few inches, and ... CRACK.)

So I made it to the couch (just barely) and sat down to think things over. Thoughts like: "I thought my back was getting better, so what's the &$%@ deal?" "How am I going to take care of Daniel today when I can barely move?" "How am I going to get through the next seven weeks with all these back issues?" "Oh, man, this hurts." "I think I need to go to the chiropractor ASAP." "How am I going to get there?" "I think I need to call Steve." I struggled back to my feet (amusing Daniel, I'm sure, with my imitation of a hunchback) and into the kitchen to find the phone, brought it back to the couch, made the calls I needed to make, and spent most of the rest of the morning leaning against a heating pad until Steve got home.

I feel moderately better today, but I had to take Daniel in to see the doctor, and there was slippery ice in front of our house and in the parking lot at the pediatrician's, and that's a deadly combination. We made it in one piece, and fortunately, Daniel is fine. He's been waking up every night saying, "Owwwwie," and he had a fever over the weekend; I was worried he might have an ear infection or worse. But it's just a cold — combined with some major teething — so there's nothing to worry about. Just nurse him through the "owwwwies" as best I can. And nurse my own "owwwwie," too.

good tv tonight

Pride and Prejudice, Episode 1, starring Colin Firth, deliciously, as Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet. 8 p.m. CST




I've been watching the Sunday night Austen Fest off and on for the past month — saw Persuasion and Mansfield Park, missed Northanger Abbey and Emma. I own this particular BBC production on DVD (it was my first DVD purchase ever!), but I may tune in tonight anyway, just because.

window lust

"Sometimes it feels like we live in a tundra," I said to Steve this morning. We were cleaning: I was clearing the table, and he was sweeping the floors, and the sun shining warmly through the front windows belied the fact that it was 10 degrees below zero outside. The landscape seemed endlessly white at that moment, despite the fact that we live on a street with many colorful cars and houses. Wind had swept the snow into soft, smooth piles along the sidewalks, and I could almost imagine polar bears sliding down them. Steve nodded, and then said, "But it's a tundra where we have The Owls [whose new album was recently playing on the CD player] and coffee shops and friends." Which is true, and the polar bears slid out of view.

A couple of weeks ago, we spent a weekend night at Steve's dad's house, a big, inviting home on some woodsy acreage about a half-hour north of here. It was restful and quiet, and throughout the house, I noticed how solid and silent and airtight the windows were — unlike the old, drafty, rattling ones in our house. I put my hands up to the edges, feeling for any sort of draft, but there was nothing. Our bedroom was toasty that night, and the cold air stayed outside with the dark silhouettes of the trees. Good windows, I realized, are one of those great pleasures of winter, like cashmere socks, down comforters and hot cups of tea.

These cold nights have brought Daniel back into our bed precisely for that reason. His "big-boy bed" is under one of our bedroom windows — a drafty one — and even the heavy, velvety curtain doesn't hold the cold air back, and it creeps down around his head. (We keep meaning to put up that plastic film that 3M makes, but we haven't gotten around to it yet this year.) Around midnight, he wakes up and won't be consoled back into his own bed, so we bring him in with us. Lately, he's been sick with something that's making him feverish at night, and while part of me wonders if a blast of cold air would cool him off, he seems more comfortable in between us. Last night, he just fell asleep there while we watched Big Love. Sometimes his coughing woke him up, and other times it was the wind rattling the windows. "Wind," he says in his sweet, trusting voice (not to be confused with rumbly sounds that make him say, "Airplane").

So I've been lusting for new windows lately. Seriously, lusting. Yes, they will probably have to wait, and a bathroom makeover and tree trimming are still our top priorities for the moment. Good windows don't come cheap, and this isn't something on which I want to cut costs. From a practical standpoint, I don't know how much of the cost we would recoup in resale value compared to, say, a remodelled kitchen or bathroom. Not that that matters much to me: Our own comfort is important, too. And I do want them with an unusual amount of passion.

not bulky under garments!

I went back to the physical therapist yesterday, and it was a much better visit than last week's nightmare. I even got a very nice massage around my lower back and right hip, where I've been suffering ever since I overextended my hip flexor muscle while climbing over a baby gate in December. (Note to pregnant-ladies-to-be: It's true what they say about your muscles being a lot more lax during pregnancy. Beware of this! Don't go trying to do the splits just for the fun of it.) The therapist seems to think my pelvis is cocked, too, so I have exercises to do at home to try to stablize it.

Aaaand ... I'm sporting a stylish new belt under my clothes! It's the two-part Maternity SI-LOC, designed to help support the three "bony parts" of the pelvic region: the left and right ilium and the sacrum. (Do I sound impressive with my medical talk?) I have to say, ugly as it is, I do feel more stable, and it's less painful for me to walk around and hold Daniel with my weight on my leg. I do still find myself hoisting my leg up with my hand when I get in the car or climb into bed, but hopefully this will tide me over until the baby is born. I wonder, though: Why does this show a $33.55 retail price on the manufacturer's Web site, and I had to pay $50 for it at the doctor's office?

six pieces of trivia

My friend Vanessa (a.k.a. Ahuva Batya, her beautiful Jewish name) at The Anguished Corn has taken up blogging lately, and her nearly-daily posts are a new pleasure in my Internet world. She's tagged me on this little game, so I'll do my best, even though I'm not feeling very imaginative today ...

The rules:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.

So ... here I go:

1) I like mayonnaise on my hot dogs.
2) The actor Bill Murray once gave me a $100 bill as a tip when I bartended at a party during college. I spent it at Macy's on a lacy bra and a pair of shoes.
3) I can whistle through my rolled-up tongue, but only on the inhale.
4) The first album I ever bought was Beauty and the Beat by The Go-Gos.
5) I started taking violin lessons in fifth grade, switched to cello in eighth grade, and played through the end of high school. If not for personality conflicts I had with my teacher, which left a bad taste in my mouth, I might have continued.
6) In high school, my friends and I used to play a game where we guessed what each of us would be doing in 10 years. The prediction for me was that I would be curator of an art gallery or museum in San Francisco.

I tag Sarah, Johanna and Carrie.

moods

So you've probably noticed a couple of template changes in the past month. The last one, called Scribe, is so literary, and I love its warm, wintry feel, but I just wasn't in the mood for it today. It felt cluttered and overbearing, suddenly, and I didn't like the way the sidebar titles spilled over onto the next line. I wish I could find a perfect template on Blogger, but none of them satisfies my mood completely. Nonetheless, it's fun to experiment — and that includes color combinations. Today I was in the mood for this maroon-and-green-on-white combo, but I might change my mind later. So bear with me.

play group

I love our play group, and that says a lot about the wonderful people in it because I would have sworn, pre-motherhood, that I was not a "play group" type of person. I didn't relish the idea of sitting around with a bunch of women talking about "mom stuff" and feeling the pressure to keep up. I thought it would be a lot like baby showers, where I can only take so much before it's time to get out of there. But it's not that way at all. These women (and one dad) are so intelligent, thoughtful and nice that it always feels so good to get together with them, and I look forward to it. It's like the way you instinctively relax when you sink into a comfortable sofa. We met about a year ago, when our babes were still just that — toothless, helpless, not even sitting up yet. We were all in the same ECFE class, and we kept meeting after the class ended, and now we've seen our babies grow into toddlers — running around, developing personalities, saying each other's names, pulling things out of each other hands. Now that we have a year of history behind us, it's fun to imagine what our kids will be like a year from now, when they actually learn the art of playing together, not just in tandem with each other.

Anyway, here's Daniel today at the top of the slide, with Calla in the background.



And here he is just getting ready to come down. He was sitting on my lap when I exported this one from iPhoto. He saw it and said, "Slide," and then, "Wheeeee!"



Of course, where there's a broom ...

good things

Over the weekend, I finished and turned in the long behemoth of a story I've been working on for the past few months. It felt so good to get that behind me — I literally felt pounds lighter as I bounced down the basement stairs to tell Steve: "Guess what I just did!" And I didn't mention this earlier, but I did end up getting an interview with the company founder. It was actually on my birthday, of all things fitting! The company's PR agency called around lunchtime and said, "We understand you'd like to speak with Mr. X. Well, he's actually in his office for the next hour if you can do it." Yes, Daniel was running around with a big blow-out practically leaking out of his pants, but at least he was quiet for the 20 minutes I needed, and he didn't do anything crazy like unplug the computer or stick his finger in a socket.

What a great Superbowl game! (The end of it, anyway — I didn't watch it all.) As a former Mississippi resident, I'm not immune to the Manning Mystique, and it was so exciting to see Eli Manning lead the Giants to victory just a year after his brother Peyton did it with the Colts. What an amazing touchdown pass to Paxico Burris with less than a minute to go in the game! Part of me wished the Packers had made it to the Superbowl this year, but this game was an exciting end to the season anyway.

Steve and I had been talking all week about going to our precinct caucuses tonight and voting for a democratic candidate. But when it came down to game time, we were tired, and we reasoned that since one of us supports Hillary and the other supports Obama, we would have cancelled each other out. So we stayed home and had a late dinner and gave Daniel a bath. Steve got back from the gym just now and reported that his brother-in-law and sister did go, and it was apparently very chaotic and unorganized. So I think we made the sane choice.

I'm 32 weeks along in my pregnancy, and baby is doing well. He's lying a little sideways, and I hope he gets his head back down in the next four weeks so he can come out facing the right direction. For now, the midwife says, he has plenty of room and plenty of fluid, and he's just having a good old time.

ms. moody

I wish I had something thought-provoking or even funny to write about this week, but all I can do is reflect on how &*#% hormonal I've been for the past few days. It's not fun for me, and it's not fun for Steve, and I'm sure it's not much fun for Daniel, either. Even though I try not to let it show when I'm taking care of him, I'm aware of being just a little quicker with the sharp tone of voice if he won't go down for his nap (for example), if he insists on pulling on the beads on the lampshade or pulling all my bottles of foot cream out of the nightstand drawer. As for Steve, well ... I don't like to play out the inner workings of our relationship on this blog, out of respect for him, but let's just say it hasn't been a stellar week for us. He mistakes my moodiness for anger at him, and maybe some of that isn't imagined. I'm holding on to resentments that probably aren't that big but feel big in the heat of it. Little things irritate me. Even if they have nothing to do with him, I end up taking it out on him in, and he's confused, walking on eggshells. I don't know what to do.

Yesterday was awful. I was crying about everything. I had an appointment with a physical therapist, and I'm sure she and her staff wrote me off as a complete basket case. I cried when I had to sign a form saying I'd pay for my treatment even if my insurance didn't cover it. I cried when I tried to make a quick call to the insurance company to double-check on my benefits because they are so ridiculously unhelpful. I cried when filling out the paperwork made me late for my appointment and the therapist told me I'd have to have an "abbreviated" visit because she had another appointment in 20 minutes, as if they think I have nothing better to do with my time than arrange for childcare and drive 20 minutes each way to Maplewood. I cried when the babysitter called in the middle of the appointment and told me Daniel was inconsolable, and I could hear his cries in the background and over the phone when she put him on for me to talk to him. I cried after I got off the phone and the physical therapist said, "Well, you have to take care of yourself, too," as if I had no excuse for being upset about my upset son. I cried when I learned I'd have to come back next week because it meant deciding yet again what to do with Daniel. I cried as I drove back to the babysitter's house because the whole thing had been so stressful, and I don't need this stress. It's not good for me, and it's not good for my immune system. (On the bright side, Daniel did cheer up and was in a pretty good mood when I got back to the babysitter's house. Thanks again, Jennifer.)

Then last night we added up all our expenditures for the month and found we'd gone over budget in almost every category. $150 over budget for groceries, and I thought I'd worked pretty hard trying to stay within our $400 goal. And in drawing up our budget, did we not even think about how we would pay for classes for Daniel, like ECFE and Music Together, which we are taking again this winter? We didn't even factor those in. Surely we are not that strapped for cash — Steve did get a big raise, after all — yet looking at the balance sheet last night made me feel that way. I came away feeling so pissed off and glum, and it sent me into another tailspin, and when Steve went to the gym like he always does on Thursday nights, I wasn't in the mood to try to get Daniel to bed — he fights it so much, and I just didn't have the energy — so we just sat up and watched the new Eli Stone show (but not Lost, which I may try to get on DVD and catch up from the beginning). So Daniel didn't get to sleep until 10:30, and then he was up again at midnight screaming about something he couldn't articulate, and he ended up spending the rest of the night sleeping between us, which he's done for the past week or two, which is fine with me and probably warmer for him.

If it weren't for the fact that I'm pregnant and that these emotional ups and downs (mostly downs) are supposed to be par for the course, and that it's the dead of winter to boot, I'd consider the possibility that some counseling might be in order. God, I hope I start to feel better soon. On the plus side, I've actually been more at peace with the cold weather this week. Even Wednesday, when we left the house on a 13-below morning, I felt OK. It was cold, but it was sunny, and the sky was blue, and that did wonders for my spirit. Just a little sunshine ...