Summer Plans

I have decided to turn over a new leaf tomorrow and start getting up to shower before Rob leaves for work, instead of staying in bed until after he leaves, often with a child or two who has joined me. There has been quite a bit of laziness around here since preschool ended and our schedule opened up into its lovely summer spaciousness. Not showering before Rob leaves results in me turning on TV for the girls while I shower and just a really slow, unproductive start to our day in general; watching TV so frequently in the morning just isn't ideal. And it's not like I'm getting a lot of really restful, restorative sleep during that time anyway.

Ugh, pregnancy-induced sleep troubles... I'm definitely getting to that point, 30 weeks pregnant now, down to two months and a few days until my due date. I am in general getting to "that point", actually-- swelling, heartburn, restless legs, BEING VERY LARGE. I have had my first moments of thinking, "Wow, I am really looking forward to not being pregnant anymore." It's so interesting what one's mind and body does through this whole process. In my first trimester this time around, I had anxiety and actual fear about doing the labor/birth thing again. This was new for me; I don't ever remember feeling literal dread and fear about labor and birth before. I went back and read my birth stories with Grace and Violet and I felt apprehension and dismay about having to do that again. The intervening months have changed my perspective, though, and now I would be perfectly happy to push an 8 or 9 pound baby out of my-- well, you know-- in exchange for not being pregnant anymore. And it won't be very long before I will be all AAAAACK GET HIM OUT OF ME CAN'T BE PREGNANT ANYMORE and would be open to the idea of actually cutting into my abdomen to get him out, if it came to that. So take that as you will; the characteristics of pregnancy are such that eventually options that once struck fear in my heart now seem like not-half-bad ideas. Biology, man-- it's like magic.

I do still have some anxieties, of course-- two main ones. 1) With Grace, my water broke and then nothing happened. I know in my mind that this is very unlikely to happen again (one's body tends to get things going much more easily/quickly after the first time around) but I still sort of dread it. The OB practice I was with at the time would give you 24 hours to go into labor after rupturing membranes and at that point (when I was still having no real contractions and was not dilated at all), we started on a full-on pitocin induction and constant monitoring and all that, and almost ended up with a C-section. It was... not very pleasant and I really don't want to do that again. (With Violet, my membranes didn't rupture until I was fully dilated and about to push, in case you're curious.) 2) I reallyreallyreallyreally hate having an IV and the thing most likely to make me get one would be if I turn out to be positive for Group B strep. For the uninitiated, this is a strain of bacteria that can live in the birth canal (among other places) and cause a serious infection in the baby. If you have it (they test for it around 36 weeks) they give you IVs of antibiotics during labor so that the baby gets the drug and won't get infected during birth. I am not cavalier/dismissive/fearless enough to refuse the antibiotics if I am positive for GBS, but oh, how intensely I hope I am not because being able to labor untethered and comfortable is SO much better. In fact, I dislike having an IV so much that I am probably going to indulge in some magical thinking and try some old-wives-tale type preventative things before my GBS test. How's that for logical analytical decision-making?

So I have big plans for getting up and showering earlier every day, and also I have plans to be more intentional with Grace and some reading and handwriting this summer. We haven't been very consistent with that and she is actually showing excitement and interest about it, so I am going to try to invest some more time in that. When I think back to that testing she did for the magnet programs, I am sort of puzzled that she could score so highly when she wasn't really reading at the time. She does better now with sounding out words, but at the time she wasn't able to smoosh sounds together to read a word. I guess that the tests weren't really testing skills like that but "ability", whatever that means? I don't know.

The past two weeks got swallowed up with swimming lessons and although I still find this somewhat inexplicable, I was unable to do much of anything else besides get us to the pool with all our gear and sunscreen and packed lunches, and then back home again with baths and laundry and the post-swimming routine. Violet's skin turns out to be pretty sensitive to the chlorine so the bath and laundry and all that was necessary, even if it did suck away the last bit of my energy every day. Being at the pool was soooooo lovely, though. It really helped with my swelling and I felt much more comfortable on those days; we shall have to dedicate many days this summer to the pool, even though that session of lessons is over. I might do more lessons for Grace; she did really well and can actually swim now. She can't yet take a breath without stopping (so here is what she does: swim swim stop stand breathe swim swim etc.) but she can actually propel herself forward in the water and looooooves it. Violet, on the other hand, spent the entirety of the swimming lessons yelling in protest. She is not afraid of the water and she is perfectly capable of doing everything the teacher wanted her to do, but she DID NOT WANT TO. She didn't want to be part of the cute group of toddlers playing games and getting their heads wet and blowing bubbles and whatnot; she wanted to go do what SHE wanted to do, which now includes going off the diving board. "I need to stand up there," she points. "I need to jump." I think she will do better with swim lessons next year at 3 and 1/2 when we can explain to her that if she wants to swim in the deep end and go off the diving board, then she needs to do what her teacher tells her to. There is not so much reasoning to be done with her at 2 and 1/2. It's comical how different she is at this age from Grace. Grace has always had such an instinct for participating and joining and doing what a teacher says, while Violet is independent and her own person and yes, sometimes, recalcitrant. It does make me wonder if keeping Violet home from preschool for another year of maturity and learning discipline at home might end up being a really good idea after all.

Celebratory

The middle of June is a time of celebrations for us. Last Friday was my birthday (33 years!) and then tomorrow is our anniversary (9 years!) so it feels like there is lots of fun and special meals and making merry. I did a much better job of having a fun birthday than last year when life was so crazy with having the house on the market and planning our move and Abbey being so sick and everything. Wow, it's almost hard to believe how much life has changed in the past year; I have visceral memories of the stress and anxiety and just how not fun it was to sell a house and plan a big move but it seems very distant now. Anyway, THIS year was much more enjoyable. I had a lovely massage and I bought a pear almond tart from a really good bakery here and we walked down the street to a Middle Eastern restaurant with outdoor seating where we sat in the shade of a tree, eating our pita and baba ganooj and listening to jazz played at the outdoor patio of the restaurant across the street. Basically, it could not have been better. I also had an OB appointment that day with my 1-hour glucose tolerance screen (all normal) which was less fun but I certainly won't complain too much. I have another appointment in a month and then I start going every 2 weeks-- yikes! It's like maybe I'm going to have a baby soon or something.

And then tomorrow is our anniversary, our ninth! What a transformative, joyous, liberating thing being married to Rob has proved to be... We have a babysitter coming over and are going on a date to a new-to-us fancy-ish Italian place downtown. I hope the weather stays nice because I made a reservation out on their patio. I tell you, living in Salt Lake is revolutionizing summer for me. It's like it's an actual pleasant season or something.

Hmmmm, what else is going on? I put Violet's hair in pigtails for the first time, with very adorable results:



Also, today was the first day of swim lessons for us. Grace is in a group class and Violet and I are doing a parent-tot class that runs at the same time. I signed up for these classes about a month ago and then was struck with some anxiety a few weeks later because it had still not really warmed up much. The classes are in an outdoor pool and oh, how I've been hoping it would be not be freezing cold. The pool itself is heated which obviously helps a lot, but on an overcast not-truly-warm day it is rather unpleasant and I end up with blue-lipped shivery children. It's only in the 70s today but fortunately it was sunny so we had a lovely first day. We ate lunch after their lessons and then stayed to play in the pool for a while. Being in the pool feels soooooooo wonderful to me, and I imagine that feeling will only intensity as the summer gets hotter and I get bigger. I had sort of forgotten what an undertaking going to the pool is, though. There's so much to pack to get there, and then the whole process afterward of bathing/showering everyone and rinsing swimsuits and doing laundry makes me feel like I can't accomplish much else that day. Oh well, it's the price to pay for floating about in the pool, I suppose.

For about a day, I thought that Grace had a loose tooth. She was eating an apple and all of the sudden got this startled look on her face, then declared her tooth wiggly. I was skeptical at first because I couldn't feel it wiggling, but she was so consistent about it for the better part of a day that I eventually believed her. She hasn't really mentioned it since that day so I don't think any tooth loss is imminent, but that evening I started a little tooth fairy pillow for her with a tiny pocket for her tooth to go in. Projects like this are so pleasurable, where I use only stuff I have on hand to put together something pretty and fun. I will admit that after looking at line drawings of teeth and then embroidering that tooth on the pocket, I feel totally unconvinced that the shape is recognizable; it just looks like an amorphous blob to me now. Also, Grace insists that she wanted me to put the pocket on the other side, but it's too late for that now and I think it's cute, so there.



I've been sewing quite a bit lately, come to think of it. Sewing mojo tends to come and go in waves, greatly affected by life circumstances such as first trimester exhaustion or moving or there being a lot of good stuff on TV or whatever. The stars have aligned and I have been sewing almost daily, churning out completed project after completed project. I sewed a handful of maternity skirts for me and summer things for Grace (Violet wears a lot of hand-me-downs so most of my little-kid sewing is for Grace) and I've even reached the bottom of piles of planned projects that I haven't gotten to for AGES, which feels lovely. Having energy and time to pursue fun hobby-type things is AWESOME. I'll enjoy it while I can.

Moving Day

Yesterday was moving day for our chickens, leaving the little cage in our garage with its heat lamp for the coop outside.













I am so happy with how the coop turned out; Rob used these plans to put it together. The upper floor has the roosting area and the nest boxes and the bottom part is where they eat and drink and eat bugs and explore. The sides lift off to access the upstairs for cleaning and whatnot. That ladder/ramp pulls up using a pulley to secure the upstairs for nighttime. The chickens seem to be doing well so far, although they haven't yet learned to go upstairs in the evening. We've been manually putting them up there before pulling up the ramp.  Hopefully they will get the idea soon. (Supposedly this is something chickens naturally want to do?) They can get down the ramp and we are pretty sure they are capable of getting up the ramp but they don't seem particularly interested in doing that. Mysterious creatures, these chickens. And can you believe how much they've grown? They looked like this just SIX WEEKS AGO.

Oh, and I don't make the girls wear their helmets to play with the chickens or anything. It just seems like they always go straight for their bicycle/tricycle when they first go outside and then they end up running around with their helmets on all the time.

A Weekend of Brunches

Ah, what a lovely, lovely weekend we have had... Rob had FIVE DAYS OFF because of some scheduling details at his office and oh, what a luxury that was! The 80-hour work week has been a regular in our household off and on for the better part of a decade so this new life with Rob in a real doctor job instead of med school or residency or fellowship is a revelation.

And isn't brunch a good way to enjoy a holiday weekend? I love brunch, as well as its less-fancy cousin, restaurant breakfast, and the even less-fancy cousin, a whole hot breakfast cooked at home. On Friday, we made migas and French press coffee and were all lazy about the house. Also on Friday, after about 18 months of using baking soda and apple cider vinegar instead of shampoo and conditioner for my hair (with breaks for travel and moving), I got some of the vinegar in my eyes for the first time. Ow ow ow ow ow ow... I recommend avoiding this.

On Saturday, we had planned a day trip to central Utah, including our first stop for brunch at Communal in Provo. Provo, for the unfamiliar, is the town where BYU is and is sort of an LDS social/cultural center. I would never have guessed that it is also home to a really fantastic restaurant using lots of local, seasonal food but oh my goodness, it was so wonderful. Definitely worth the drive.





After that, we continued south toward Uinta National Forest, planning to drive Nebo Loop from north to south. Supposedly it is about a 90-minute drive if you go straight through and there are places to stop along the way for a little walking and/or light hiking. Sadly, when we were about 15 minutes in, we discovered that the road was closed, all gated and chained off by the Park Service or Forest Rangers or whoever does that kind of thing. The entire road is closed for the winter and it turns out that it is still too early to get really up on Mt. Nebo this year. We have had an especially heavy year for snow (there were 10 inches of fresh powder up at the ski resorts yesterday, although most of them are closed now) and there is all kinds of concern about flooding and mud from the snowmelt around here. It turns out that part of the road we were planning on driving was damaged up further from such issues. It also turns out you can look up these kinds of things on the internet, which I now know to do before we plan such an outing again. It didn't really occur to me that on Memorial Day weekend trails and road and whatnot might still be inaccessible. The more you know.

Fortunately, there was a trail accessible from the open part of the road so we did a tiny bit of a hike. It was lovely to be out amongst the trees and open air and nature and all.

On Sunday, we had yet more brunch, this time just Robert and me. A brunch date! Hooray! We went to the Wild Grape Bistro, which was very good indeed. I have been having intense sugar cravings (thanks, pregnancy!) so I had this brioche French toast that was all slathered in lemon curd and blueberries and OHMYGOSH I want some more right now instead of whatever virtuous breakfast I just ate.  Sigh... Too bad the weekend of brunches must end.

Let's Not Do Yesterday Again Ever

Well, yesterday was quite a day. Violet had her sedation and dental work and everything done in the morning. It all went smoothly and like it was supposed to, but ugggggggh it was quasi-awful. Not truly awful, because I am well aware how lucky we are to have two healthy children that don't have serious medical problems, but still, on the normal scale of my existence? NOT. FUN. AT. ALL.  They first gave her a shot that knocked her out, then took her back away from us (at which point I burst into tears-- BECAUSE OF COURSE I DID) to do the X-rays, put in the IV for the sedation drugs, do the fillings, and so forth. It took about an hour and then she was in recovery where we could be with her again. She started to wake up about 30 minutes into that. And a very small child coming out of anesthesia? That is something I can do without experiencing ever again, thankyouverymuch. Nothing unexpected or bad happened but the poor thing was all dizzy and floppy and blurry-eyed and agitated, trying to throw her 28 pounds of self haphazardly around in a fit of dim, uncertain consciousness.

But now it is done, and hopefully any other cavities that develop can wait until she is almost 4 or whenever we can just do the nitrous. Or maybe our newfound dental diligence and flossing and so forth will stave off further tooth decay? We shall see. She started to really perk up around 4pm yesterday, and today she is just a clingy, fussy version of her typical self, mostly back to normal. Oh, and Grace had her fillings done a couple of weeks ago. It was a bit more tense than her first time (maybe because it was 3 fillings instead of 1?) and emotionally draining for her and me, but thankfully it all went smoothly.

In other Violet news, I haven't ever publicly declared her weaned, have I? When I got pregnant, she was still nursing most days, occasionally more than once a day, but sometimes skipping a day and only very rarely at night. It started to be really uncomfortable for me so I worked toward weaning. I used some distraction and postponement and shortening nursing sessions (telling her she could nurse till I counted to 10 or whatnot); these kinds of techniques worked for us well, just like they did with Grace. Violet was completely weaned by the time I hit the second trimester, but I don't remember exactly when or how, again just like with Grace. It was very gradual and I am happy about that, although it is sad in some ways to know that there was a "last time" that I nursed Violet and I don't remember it. It probably isn't strictly accurate to call what we did child-led weaning but I am OK with that. And now that I am comparing, I have realized that both Grace and Violet nursed until just past their 2nd birthdays, maybe 26 or 27 months each.

In case you're curious, you don't HAVE to wean an older baby because you're pregnant, as long as you have a healthy normal pregnancy.  I think tandem breastfeeding (that's what it's called when you nurse a toddler and a baby at the same time) is fine and good but I don't think it's a good fit for me and our situation and all. It would be different if the spacing of my pregnancies was much closer but at almost 3 years apart, I feel very comfortable with weaning the older child. In both cases, I feel pretty sure that they would have weaned within a few months anyway.

So what a big girl Violet is getting to be! Weaned, usually sleeping in her own bed the whole night, wispy little-girl hair, talking up a storm... She will be 2 and 1/2 next month. We've dabbled in using the toilet but I don't know; I don't see that being a skill she has mastered anytime in the immediate future. We're closing in on the 3-month mark until my due date so I am not sure it will happen before then. Maybe if I went all hardcore potty-training boot camp on her? But is that worth it? Would having two in diapers be all that bad? I have no idea.

Yesterday was also a pretty momentous day for Grace: her last day of preschool... EVER. When we return to school in the fall, she will be a kindergartener. We had a lovely year of pre-K at the Jewish Community Center and I am very happy with how our preschool experience turned out, even if I did plan it on basically no first-hand information while still living in Texas. Yesterday I picked up Grace there for the last time and brought home with us the ziploc bag with a change of clothes that has lived in her cubby all year and a huge final pile of art projects and now it is summer, I guess? The high temperature today is 60 degrees and it is drizzling so it doesn't really feel like it but I am thankful nonetheless for not setting an alarm this morning, not packing a lunch last night, and getting to spend the whole day with my fun girls.