Dear Baby Number Two

Dear Baby Two,

I have yet to take a picture of my growing belly with you inside. I have yet to peruse the aisles of Target imaging all the things you and I might need.  I have yet to begin work on your bedroom, although your time in utero is half way through.  

I am sorry about the two weeks I didn't take prenatal vitamins because I ran out of them and forgot to go the store. Every single day I forgot.  For two weeks. I am sorry that I have fallen twice and surely scared you with the surges of cortisol and adrenaline.  I am sorry that raw vegetables have disgusted me since May and you have gotten none of their benefits.  

I wanted to give you all the grace and goodness I could muster, but I fear I have not.  

But as I sit here in the early morning, your brother still asleep, I daydream about you.  I wonder about the way your voice will sound. I wonder about the color of your hair.  You ride silently with me all day, even when our schools days are 12 hours long.  You are my ally.  When I lay down at night you wake up.  Your elbows and knees are a welcome feeling in my belly.  Your dad can't feel your movements yet, so each jump is just between you and me.  I am happy that you are my child. 

 I may not get all the things accomplished that I should before you arrive, but I am so excited for that day. The lack of preparedness is not be confused with a lack of readiness. I have arms you can sleep in and the anatomy to feed you.  This time around I know that beyond all the niceties of nurseries and pinterest-inspired crafts, that this house of love made by your dad, brother, and I are enough.  You, Sundance, are so loved.

Always,
Mom

5 Things That Happened During my Second Pregnancy That No One Warned Me About

This time everything is different.

People told me so many things about carrying a second baby.  Some of their stories were good and some were awful.  I was optimistic that my next go round would liken itself to my first pregnancy, which was pretty good. I have not had a terrible pregnancy, I know people who have it had it so much worse, but a few things have happened to me this time that were unpleasant, new, and even scary because I was not informed about the possibility that these things could happen.

1.  Morning sickness.  It is only ever talked about as the nausea that steamrolls you in the morning and often leads to vomiting.  Through my own experience I can tell you that that is not always true.  Sometimes that wave of nausea causes you to empty the contents of your core in a different, more gross way.  And that can happen every day.  For a month.  Oh, and sometimes the nausea can be significantly worse in the evening than the morning.

2. Instant Monster.  As a generally calm person, the desire to bite off heads was new to me.  There were times that I was feeling sick and moody, where in my first pregnancy, I might have laid down in bed or taken up residence on the couch.  When those waves of inner and outer sourness hit me during this pregnancy, I would again try retiring to my bed or the couch, but there were always the knees and elbows of a toddler jamming into me, whilst being used as jungle gym.  In those moments, I felt like I would explode.  My skin hurt. My senses were immediately overwhelmed. And I was instantly a monster.  I would pick up my kid, give him some fruit snacks and sit down on the closed toilet seat to try to get my hackels down.

3. Small belly.  EVERYONE told me variations of "You will get huge fast!", "You will pop by like 10 weeks!", "Fat you gonna be."  So I got a little excited to have some outward evidence of my little bean.  I feel like I have begun to stretch out, but I look rather unnpregnant to the people not living inside my body.  I have heard some of the craziest things from women when I told them I am pregnant. "For real? You can't even tell!" Well, you know what all this did for me? It gave me a complex that there is something wrong with this kid or with me because I don't look as expected.  Seriously, I had to talk to my therapist about it.  It was a constant thought.  Yet, as I always knew in the back of my mind, that this baby and I are fine, I was reassured when I heard his/her heartbeat yesterday.

4. Fainting/dizziness/lossofmusclecontrol.  This one scared me the most.  I was in the kitchen and suddenly I could not feel my legs.  It was like they turned to hot metal- warming up, going soft, and giving in.  I fell onto my butt, shattered the glass in my hand, and terrified my husband and son all at once.  I shook for most of the day, waves of dizziness swept over me, strange sensations in my body kept me constantly on edge.  Turns out, fainting (what happened to me qualifies as fainting), is not that uncommon during pregnancy.  It can be brought on by about a million factors, blood sugar falls, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, lack of iron in the blood, etc.

5.  Nose bleeds with added bonuses.  I knew that nosebleeds were common and I had had a few the first time I was pregnant.  While my body decided to add to that unique experience by passing large and gross blood clots from my nose.  This one was a true surprise and had both my husband and myself appalled.  (It is not good when no one is able to keep a level head in a new situation)


The point of exposing myself as a gross, shaky, neutrotic person, whose nose has betrayed her, is to let you know that these things can happen, and if they happen to you-you are not alone!

The Parade Returns!

I have been away a long time.  My last post was in April.  In beginning of May, this happened...

Anyone else recognize the dollar store test?

Yep.  Up the spout again.  Another bun in the oven.  Back in the saddle.  Going to be a mom of two.

My cup runneth over.

The Taming of the Child (through a profuse usage of exclamation points)

 

 On Thursday after my students boarded their buses for spring holiday, I sat down to call some families.  I was making a list in my head all week of students who were doing a great job as of late.  I made three phone calls, each showing success in different areas:

• A boy who was failing due to talking, playing, and general tomfoolery had been more focused and engaged in his work this week
• A girl who is prone to emotional outbursts made it through the week without a tantrum 
• A boy who often gets angry and confrontational with kids made it through the week without threatening anyone

I called the guardians (an uncle, a mom, and an older sister) and spoke positively about their student's positive behavior improvements.  The guardians were pleased by the report and I was able to make a connection with the adults at home-letting them know I was invested in their student and that they were having success at school.

After I hung up the phone, I left the building in route to pick up my own kid and perhaps if I wasn't sitting in traffic for thirty minutes I wouldn't have had time to have an existential crisis on the matter.  Yet, as I sat squished between cars in the 5:00 standstill, I scanned the radio twice before settling on silence and began to mull over the conversations.  I put myself in the role of the parent of one of my students.  Thinking about the type of call I just made and I felt it hit me.  Like a ton of freaking bricks.

We tame our children. 

We turn them into versions of people that we think will have some likelihood of surviving in the environment around us. 

We (teachers) try ceaselessly to help all the kids who walk through our door find academic, social, and emotional success.  So our kids who are wildly emotional (passionate), our kids who are loud and silly (humoristic), and our kids who are hostile (distrusting until proven otherwise) are molded into schoolable kids.  Do they become less passionate as a result?  Does some part of them disappear?  Does their sense of carefree wonder get stifled by our projections of what success look like? 

I am a human who conditions other humans to fit in a sort of box!  (At this point I am freaking out in the car). Forget test scores, reading levels, knowledge of science, or math, or history-I shape 10-year-olds into who they are as people!  WHAT MAKES ME QUALIFIED?!

As my heart started to pound in my chest, I remembered, I am their teacher!  I am their advocate!  I am there to be there for them!

And suddenly I remembered how I feel when the other kids shy away from these passionate, verbose, and high-strung kids.  
I remembered how I feel when these kids are reluctant to trust me. 
I remembered how much I care about them.

My heart settles on a thought-I don't think I could or would do anything different.

Then I started thinking about my kid.

I tame my child. 

I attempt to turn him into a version of person that I think will have some likelihood of surviving in the environment around me. 

I (parent) try ceaselessly to balance my child's natural wildness and the social norms of society on him from the start.  I know how I feel when my kid is knuckle deep in his nose at church and screams like a banshee when I try to intervene.  And I also know how I feel when I see him tromping most triumphantly through the over grown weeds, wielding a stick, and giving loud commands to his imaginary crew of followers.  

I feel the weight of all of this. I want my child to be free in his mind and free in his spirit.  I want my kid to have healthy relationships with other people.  I want my child to know how to navigate different situations with ease.

I want him to be happy.



Really, I just want to not screw him up.




For more on my teaching adventure see:
Reflections on my first year of teaching at an urban school

I'd Do It For Him.

 When I started writing blog I had no vision for what it would look like in the future, but here we are three years since the farts first went on parade and I still have more stories to tell.  The most recent of which, is a whole new level of momness.

My least favorite place to take my son is to a store.  The battle of getting into the cart, the fact that his arms can reach the shelves, the bribing with snacks, the eventual flinging of the snacks, the checkout line, the getting him back out of the cart- all of it stresses me out.  But we parents, we do it anyway, don't we?  Multiple times a week, sacrificing our good mood for tubes of toothpaste and yet another gallon of milk.

Needing a random assortment of things, a superstore would allow me to get all I needed with only one cart debacle.  So on to Walmart we went.  I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ready for a meltdown and pack of fruit snacks if things got really dicey.  Up and down the aisles we wound collecting our supplies as he munched quietly on his pbj.  Finally, we made it to our last department-photo.  At the counter I ask for my pictures and then manage to talk the young employee into checking me out there.  He hesitantly agrees as I start pulling art supplies, kale, and baby wipes out of the cart. But three minutes later, I was all ready to go, giant-front-of-the-store-line avoided!

Feeling like a winner, we left this far corner of the world and headed out.  Winding through a few side aisles, we hit that big opening that leads straight to the door. Then my son starts crying out of nowhere, which is really uncharacteristic of him.  I am not saying I have one of those kids that doesn't cry, but it is usually preceded by the word "no" or running face first into a door.  Again.   But nevertheless, he was fussing and chanting "Momma hod choo! Momma hod choo!"  So I scoop him and he lays his head on my shoulder.  Figuring that he is just tired, I lean my face to his, enjoying the little cuddle.  One hand on the cart, we continue toward the door, past a big cardboard display of bargain towels, toward a a wire rack of $5 decorative wall paintings of flowers, and birds and the like.  Then suddenly

He ralphs...

Everywhere...

Thrice...

I freeze.  Not sure what to do, I just sit down.  He is still laying on my shoulder, but now both of us are coated in yuck.  I keep telling him, "It's ok.  It's ok.  It's ok." which I realize now was entirely for myself. As I am sitting there, looking on at the disaster that has befallen upon this major thoroughfare, in this the busiest store in America, an older man stops to ask if we are ok.  Snapping back to life, I respond that having clean up paged would be so helpful.  He smiles and leaves.  A minute later I hear the call, "Clean up needed in action alley."  Action alley?  Damn skippy this is action alley.  Towels are cheap, you can decorate every wall of a room for $20.00, oh, and there is vomit everywhere.  

People continue down the path toward me, first noticing that my cart is not moving, then realizing why, then taking a detour.  I apologize profusely and everyone is profusely nice to me in return.  In between apologies, I watch the giant mechanical door, just 20 yards away opening and closing, letting the non-puking shoppers out into the night.  Yet, there we sat.  Together on the floor, coated in throw up, feeling the cool draft with each customer's exit.  It was lonely.  I was humbled.  I was so mom.  Not grossed out yet, not trying to flee the scene in shame, just rocking my little boy as he rubbed his face further in toward my neck, smearing his trails of his evacuation into my shoulder.  I was reminded so instantly of all that I would endure for him.  I always knew I would give him my organs or fight off a bear for him, but I hadn't considered the possibility that could end up on that hateful people of walmart website with vomit in my hair.  But I would do it for him.


This reminded me of one of the most tender moments from The Simpsons.

(image from: http://images.laughaton.com/13479/Simpsons-Moments-8211-Do-It-For-Her)

Speech Therapy

We speak a code language at our house.  It is an alphabet without L's, PH's, J's, F's, TH's, sometimes R's, or multi-syllable words.  And let me tell you-I am quite fluent in this vernacular.  It rivals Spanish as my next best language.

While it is good that I know "Pa push da bunt!" means "Phil(the dog) pushed the button on the remote and made the volume go off.", but at 28-months, it is time to help the world understand my son. 

This Thursday, he will be evaluated for speech therapy.  I am both very excited and inexplicably hesitant.  Since he was born, he has been free to be himself.  We have not cut his hair, pushed him toward an interest, prompted him to decide if he is going to be left or right handed.  He has just been his own choosing.  In so many ways my husband and I have shaped him in to the little man that he is, but it happened organically and without an agenda.  Now we are letting someone else in.  And it feels strange.

I am the one who pushed for him to be tested.  Many kind people in our lives encouraged us that he would grow out of it and be fine in a few years.  It isn't a bad theory, lots of kids do manage it alone.  But until these people have been here on a 12 time out kind of morning.  Until they have listened to my son yell the same things over and over until he starts hitting because no one knows what he is saying.  Until they have heard the garbled speech for an entire car ride home from daycare and not understood a dang word of it, it seems unfair to make such a claim.

I believe in interventions. I am a teacher for crying out loud! Do you know how many meetings I have sat in, where a parent was informed that their child was in need of intervention?  Do I suddenly know how they feel? Yes.

It isn't shame.  It isn't embarrassment.  It isn't really sadness, though my eyes disagree.  It is the heartbreak of feeling like a helpless parent.  Of knowing how the multitude of sacrifices made since pregnancy, just weren't quite enough.  Not that those were in vain, but that according to some measure against others, against the "norm", something may be broken and I can't fix it.  


*Update*

We had the evaluation.  We learned two things:
1. He is definitely marble mouthed and the doctor did not understand all the things that my son said, but his mouth is able to make all the phonemic sounds.  Even though there are several letters missing from his alphabet now, he is physiologically able to make them, and he will.
2. He wants to talk like other people he hears- 4+ word sentences, multi-syllable words, etc, so he uses "jargon" (nonsense words) to fill in the spaces between words he can say to feel confident in his speech.   All this time we couldn't understand him, but a good bit of the time, they weren't words in the first place.
3. There is no obvious indication that he will mature through the speech stages at any significant lag from the norm.
4. I feel sadness that I projected a problem onto my child by comparing him against the world.
5. My child, speech impaired or not, is a wondrous being that delights my heart.



If you would like to know more about speech stages, this link may be of use to you.
http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/topics/earlychildhood/speechlanguage/brochure_speech.aspx