No Ice Please

This week I've been reminded in several hard ways that I am so blessed to have two healthy children. I'm among the privileged to be able to put food in front of them daily and to have a safe home to shelter them. I'm incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by family and friends who love my children and I'm blessed beyond measure to know that God loves my children with an endless, selfless love I can't even fathom. Thank you, God, for protecting my precious babies in ways I don't even realize or understand.

Isaiah, Melora, and I usually take our afternoon nap together our my bed so I can spend some time snuggling between them. Earlier this week I was nursing Melora while Isaiah snuggled on the other side of her. He was stroking her soft hair and soft cheeks very gently when he got too excited and wiggly, and he bumped her head with his own. She started crying, and I gasped, worried that she was hurt. Although Isaiah's used to hearing Melora crying at various times during the day, hearing me gasp so loudly really scared him because he thought he had done some serious damage to his little sister. He immediately started crying - hard - and wailed,
"Oh no! I hurt baby sister." He put his hands over his face and didn't calm down until he was completely reassured that she was alright. I felt terrible for making him feel guilty, and he felt terrible for hurting Melora. Melora, on the other hand had gotten over the surprise of being bumped very quickly and was feeling fine. So Isaiah kissed her head to make it better and told her sorry for bumping her, and we all fell asleep.

Melora and I spend our time together just being with one another and snuggling. When she's awake, she is content to bounce along in the sling and stare up at my face as I go about my chores. I walk with extra springy steps and dance to Isaiah's CD's in the kitchen to entertain her, and I sing and talk in the high mommy voice I've honed during the past two years. The real magic happens, though, when we get time to just stop and gaze intently, uninterrupted in to each others' eyes. She has my eyes, and oh my goodness, I've never been so in love with my own eyes. Hers are blue while mine are brown, but they are the exact shape - more round than olive and really big, especially on a delicate, 5-week-old face. I love to see them take in the surrounding room; I watch with rapt wonder as they follow the light as we move; I giggle when they unintentionally cross as she works to focus on my face. I am smitten. And when she falls asleep and her eyes close, her face changes from cute to absolutely lovely. She looks like a china doll instead of a real person because she is so perfect, so winsome. She has no idea that I can hardly peel my eyes away from her, that I can't help but stroke her velvety skin, that I am head over heels in love with her.

Our weather has finally warmed up enough to allow us to spend a significant amount of time outside. I guess one advantage to a long, long winter is that you really cherish spring when it comes. We have played outside every day it hasn't significantly rained since the beginning of May, (as well as some very wet days when we decided it was worth it anyway.) Little boys are really meant to live outside, and so Isaiah has been busy running around, messing up anthills, digging for worms, painting under the sunshine, chasing bubbles, and kicking balls. We took out a bucket of soapy water one afternoon and "washed" marbles in it for over an hour. Friday evening we put Isaiah in his painting clothes and let him paint outdoors with nature as his inspiration. Oh, and by nature, I mean Pixar's Cars movie. We even ate in our back yard that night because it was way too nice to go back inside. We grilled steak and had a picnic with macaroni salad, corn, and potatoes. Isaiah loved it so much he ate every bite on his plate, plus some of Daddy's steak. Then, the next morning, he woke up and asked to have "steak and corn outside" for breakfast. Unfortunately, it was gray and rainy again, so we had an inside day.

Here are a few of my other recent favorite Isaiah quotes:

I pulled up to the drive through teller at our bank this morning to deposit some checks, and when I rolled down the window, Isaiah called out,
"I'll have a number 2 with no ice please. NO ICE PLEASE!! THANKS!" (I always take my drinks without ice, if you couldn't tell.)

Isaiah often comes up to Michael in the evenings when he's in the mood to play with a sweet, flirty smile on his face. Then in a baiting voice he says,
"Oh no...don't get me Daddy. Don't you tiiiiiickle me!" So Michael always chases and tickles him, of course. Tonight, though, Michael apparently wasn't quick enough to take the bait, so Isaiah said,
"Daddy, don't tiiiiiiiickle me!...Don't get me, Daddy!...Hey Daddy! Come tickle me!!"

Oh the might! Oh the fury! Oh the poop!

This weekend began with what Isaiah might describe as a veritable utopia, if he knew those words, that is. We went to the petting zoo! My wonderful mom friend, Tammy, clued me in on a free petting zoo happening in the cities, so we decided to meet there with our kids and have a playdate. Michael's parents also had the day free, so they came with to be extra kid wranglers/paparazzi for us. Isaiah was pleased as punch to see his grandparents waiting for him by the big white tent. He was thrilled to see some of his favorite kids arrive shortly thereafter. But he was beyond ecstatic to be around the animals. There were goats, a zebra, goats, ponies, goats, a llama, goats, a calf, goats, a donkey, oh and some more goats. We brought Isaiah into the tent and let him roam free with the goats. Most of the kids under the tent were doing normal things like petting the goats or feeding them 50 cent handfuls of goat food. Isaiah, however, was not content to do such things. He decided the full potential of petting zoo joy could only be reached by throwing straw at the goats. So he did. For an hour. He picked up fistfuls of straw (laced with goat poo pellets - I know) and threw it onto unsuspecting, and rather apathetic goats for the entire hour we were there. The best part was that he laughed hysterically every single time he did it. I wasn't sure if I, as the mother, should stop him from throwing straw at the goats, but I didn't really see the harm in it. Sure he was getting goat poop on his hands, but I knew enough farm kids who survived to adulthood to worry too much about that. He never threw straw at the baby goats, and he never threw it at the other kids, so I considered the situation under control.

A few other factors that made the day so wonderful for Isaiah were that it was raining, so he got to use his frog umbrella, he got to hang out with his Walz grandparents and uncles, he enjoyed a McDonald's kiddie cone with his friends, and he had pizza for dinner. If I were a kid, that would have been a pretty perfect day for me too. In fact, it was pretty perfect for me even as an adult!

Melora slept like an angel through the entire petting-zoo experience, and she even slept through the part of the day where I was running through pouring rain with her in the sling under my coat and not very well protected by her ladybug umbrella (which she was gracious enough to share!) She's still a really great sleeper, especially at night. We swaddle her before we go to bed, which really keeps her calm and happy, so the past few nights I've been getting really nice long stretches of sleep. The one problem is that I don't wake up to change her diaper because she doesn't cry to be fed. So I wake up at 6a.m. with the realization that I haven't changed her for seven hours, and then I feel terrible for leaving her in a dirty diaper all that time. Sometimes the poop is still contained in the diaper, but on more than one occasion her diaper hath runneth over onto her nightgown and our sheets. This morning, though, was a whole different story. Melora's diaper was fairly dry and clean because she had been changed recently when I got up to go to the bathroom and get a drink. I was just beginning to wake up as the sun rose and filled our room with a relaxing spring glow. Suddenly I heard a low rumble and felt a tiny cannon blast beside me. Still groggy, I reached over to pull Melora closer to me when I realized my arm was wet. In my half-awake state, the solution was to simply use my other hand, which also became mysteriously wet when I touched her. So I pried my eyes open thinking that perhaps she had wet the bed. Nope. In that one mighty blast, Melora had shot poop up the front, up the back, and out the sides of her diaper. I woke up Michael, whose mind is even more clumsy than mine in the morning hours, and together we changed Melora's diaper, her outfit and our sheets. Then, like the second-time parents we are, we laughed about it and then fell right back asleep. If this had happened with Isaiah two years ago, we would have sat up and talked about how gross it was, perhaps taken a shower, who knows. In fact, in a similar episode when Isaiah was two months old, I actually screamed when he got poop on me. It's nice to know I'm not such rookie now, or maybe I'm just grosser.

Isaiah has shown some real acting talent recently. We've been reading a lot of Curious George as well as watching our daily dose of George during lunch. Isaiah began making monkey sounds quite a while ago, but it has grown into full recaps of his favorite episodes. For a long time I had no idea what was going on when Isaiah would say
"Ooo, ooo, aaaa, aaaah! I feed the ducks. Okay George!"
Then he would walk around the house flinging invisible duck food into the invisible duck pond. I sort of just nodded and tried to keep up.
Another time he was acting out a scene from a Curious George story where George apparently did something naughty. Then he told me,
"Sometimes naughty...need a time out." And he walked over to a corner and sat down. I was completely bewildered because I had never given him a time out in his life. Plus I didn't know what naughty thing he had done.
The lightbulb finally went off because we watched a Pixar short where a little girl loses her penny down a drain and makes an angry face to the men who caused her to drop it. Isaiah was eating dinner that night when he put on his best angry faced and pointed right at me.
"Isaiah, why are you angry?"
"I don't have a penny," he said with his accusatory finger waggling.
"Oh! I made you drop you penny down the drain, right?"
"Yeah!" He said as his angry face changed in to a grin. He quickly reassembled his features to be appropriately angry, and we acted out the scene again. He angrily pointed at me, and I gestured that I didn't have any pennies in my pockets to give him. So instead he took my pretend violin and played it until he got some pretend pennies from a pretend passerby and threw them into the pretend wishing well. (It makes a lot of sense if you've seen the Pixar short I'm talking about.) He's also acted out scenes from several other favorite books including Tom the TV Cat, Rainbow Fish, Peter Rabbit, and George goes Camping. It's amazing to me that a little boy can be so much fun every single day.

Highs and Lows

This week has gone by so quickly. Actually, every day since Melora's birth has gone by quickly. She's already a month old, and I feel as though I've only had her for a week. I'm still captivated by everything she does, her daddy is still hopelessly wrapped around her tiny slender finger, and we're still trying to figure out how to go grocery shopping with two kids. Any hints out there?

Last week was the first week alone with my kids during the day while Michael was at work. By Friday, I felt as though I had a large part of being a mother-of-two under control. At least under control enough not to be curled up in a ball, shaking and sweating on my living room rug. Both of my children survived a whole week without my mom or mother-in-law living with me to take care of them, and the pile of dishes is no taller than I am. Since I'm not particularly tall, I consider that a pretty successful week. I was worried before Melora was born because I just couldn't imagine how I would take care Isaiah's needs, Melora's needs, and my own needs all at the same time. Somehow during that fearful pregnancy time, I forgot that Isaiah is a really capable, easygoing two-year-old, and my husband is superman. Honestly, Michael has been amazing at helping me take care of household chores (including laundry, which is the chore I despise) as well as being a jungle-gym for Isaiah and a giant teddy-bear for Melora every night.

So, with that good week under my belt, I was feeling rather confidant and cocky, and I maaaay have developed a know-it-all-mom-swagger. I guess it was time for a downfall...enter the ear infection (and change the music to a minor key.) Isaiah was up all Monday night holding his head and telling me his ear hurt. We finally got some Motrin into him and he fell asleep around 7 in the morning. My poor baby. It doesn't matter how big he is compared to Melora, how well he enunciates his sentences, how hard he can kick a ball, or how independent he has become - Isaiah will always be my little baby. Tuesday was another rough day because he was lethargic and sad all day long, but he woke up the morning after a fresh, happy little boy again. We played inside and outside, and I just took the time to enjoy my Isaiah again. Melora has also had a stuffy nose the past few days, so Monday night was doubly tough because she didn't get to sleep until late, and at one point in the middle of the night, I had my sniffly little girl under one arm and my crying little boy under the other. Hopefully we've gotten through the tough part of the week and can now move onto the fun part. Needless to say, though, my house is pretty disheveled, as is my hair. That's alright, though, because my living room can be picked up in a flash, and my babies needed me.

Isaiah is still an adoring big brother, and it's fun to let him help us with the baby. He likes to open her new diapers for us when we're changing her, and he also likes to sweep the kitchen floor with the Swiffer. Sometimes he even likes to dump out a giant Costco container of 14,000 animal crackers onto the couch for me. (Oh well - at least he has a sweet heart, and two out of three really isn't bad.) For her part, Melora is extremely tolerant of her big brother, and as far as I can tell, a little fascinated by him. He comes up close to her face and almost kisses her but erupts into a fit of giggles instead and dances away, and she just stares at him with her giant, beautiful eyes. Although he really does love Melora and hasn't acted jealous, I can tell he really appreciates time focused on just him. It doesn't even matter what we do; as long as Michael or I (or both of us, every once in a while) are paying attention to him and only him, he's giddy. I'm trying to make sure I set aside some time every day to put Melora in her hammock and focus on Isaiah. It's so tempting to take that time instead and quickly vacuum or empty the dishwasher, but whenever I choose to pour extra love on Isaiah, it's so obvious I made the right choice.

Today he was sitting on the floor with no pants and his legs sticking out in front of him, and he began squeezing the skin on his knees.
"I'm angry - it's a angry face," he said to one of his squishy knees.
"It's angry too," he said to his other knee as he squeezed it.
I finally realized he thought the lines on his knees looked like an angry face. Oh Isaiah - how much I enjoy you every single day!

I get by with a little help from my friends

The past three weeks have been absolutely amazing. Melora is sweet and beautiful, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the mommy-privilege of cuddling with her for hours on end. Her skin feels like it's made of rose petals, and her hair feels like down. I can't help but stroke her cheeks and tiny fingers any time she's within reach or rub my face against her head whenever I hold her. I love to just stare at her when she nurses and marvel at her miniature, perfect ears or her impossibly small wrists. I had forgotten just how beautiful little baby sighs are - so breathy and light. When I hold her against me and she snuggles her little body into the crook of my arm and lets out a contented murmur, I feel like the best mom in the world.

She's such a mellow baby, which really surprised me. Isaiah was very easy too, and I thought my penance for having such an easy little boy would be a colicky baby the second time around. After all, I was very colicky as a baby, and everyone knows that what goes around comes around. Melora has actually managed to out-easy Isaiah, though, at least in these first three weeks. Isaiah nursed every hour for the first two months of his life, so I was prepared to again nurse for a half hour, rest for a half hour around the clock. Melora is content to eat every three to four hours, though, and then sleep peacefully or stare at the world quietly in between. I was pretty worried that she wasn't getting enough milk and that when I took her in to see the doctor, I would get yelled at for starving my baby. When I expressed my concern to the nurse practitioner, she assured me that most babies only eat every three or four hours, and Melora had already gained seven ounces since leaving the hospital, so I had nothing to fear.

She had already grown enough that I can see a major difference in her size. She fits into her newborn outfits perfectly when only two weeks ago she was so little her hands didn't reach the end of her sleeves. She has also begun to spend longer periods of time awake and interested in the world around her. Her facial expressions are so cute; she looks rather mystified as she stares at people with her big eyes and her mouth shaped into a little "O." I understand that for parents who have babies that wake several times during the night or cry for long stretches of time, it's a blessing that this newborn phase only lasts a few months, but for myself I wish it would go a little more slowly. I look at how quickly Isaiah has grown into a fun little boy, and I realize that I just don't have long to enjoy Melora as the small newborn she is. Luckily, I know from Isaiah that every day is more fun than the one before, and I have so much to look forward to.

Isaiah is still enjoying his new big brother status. He hasn't shown any signs of jealousy yet, which is wonderful, but then again he has been getting more attention than usual. Up until today, I have had someone else here to help me with the kids every single day. Michael's parents stayed with Isaiah while we were in the hospital as well as three days afterwards to help out and enjoy their grandkids. Then Michael was home for the rest of the week with me, and after that my mom was here for two weeks. As far as Isaiah's concerned, it has just been one giant party. He truly is a gracious little boy, though, and instead of wanting me to put down Melora if I have been holding her for a long period of time, he shows concern for her when she's not in my arms. He shares his toys with her, gives her soft blankets, and continues to speak for her, telling us in his high, squeaky baby voice "I want some milk," and "I burped, excuse me."

On the other hand, I miss being able to give Isaiah the time we had before. Two weeks ago in the evening, I was feeling as though I hadn't really spent any time with him for the entire day. Isaiah had happily played with Grandpa and Daddy, but I really missed my little boy. So Michael took Melora to bed and Isaiah and I stayed up late dancing and tickling. It's sweet to be me.

*Melora at one week old and Isaiah helping me blow out the candles on the birthday cake my mom baked me!

Melora's Birth

If you read the post "Bathtub of Horrors," you will recall that Saturday night we had company and then a gross experience where Isaiah pooped in the tub followed by Michael puking in the tub. Ah, what classy lives we lead. Anyway, Michael cleaned all the bodily refuse out of the tub and got it sweet and sparkling for me, and then he began to fill it while I ran upstairs to blog about the hilarious night. I was still having contractions, as I had been having all day, but I was convinced that they were only practice ones and that a warm bath would make them stop as usual. Unfortunately, after filling up the tub for Isaiah's bath, then draining it and using hot water to clean the tub for several minutes, we were out of hot water. So I sank down into a rather cool bath, and Michael again came to the rescue by boiling water on the stove to try to warm up the temperature. By that point, it was a rather hopeless cause, and since my contractions were getting stronger instead of weaker, we decided we should just try to go to bed and get some rest in case it really was the night.

We tried to sleep for a while and then timed contractions when it was obvious I couldn't sleep through them, and at 1:30 in the morning we decided to call our doula, Katie, and Michael's brother, James to watch Isaiah. We arrived at the emergency room at 2:30 and I was wheeled up to the maternity ward. The contractions were so mild and manageable compared to the pitocin-induced ones I had experienced with Isaiah, I wasn't even entirely convinced I was really in labor. I was really worried they were going to laugh at me for being so silly and send me home, but instead they saw I was dilated to 4 cm and admitted me right away. I desperately wanted a warm bath, so as soon as possible, I got into the tub and stayed there for about an hour before I decided to get out because my contractions were slowing down. I was so tired after a sleepless night, but I wasn't able to sleep because my contractions were coming every few minutes, so after several hours of walking, resting, rocking, and showering to try and get things going, I finally decided I needed an epidural to help me get some sleep.

The anesthesiologist came in for my epidural, and started loudly cracking one-liners and talking obnoxiously mostly to himself. When he put the tube in, I felt a powerful jolt of pain run down my spine through my hips and began to hear a ringing sensation in my ears as the room darkened and my head spun. I told him that I heard ringing in my ears, and he asked me if that was normal for me (as if I walked around all the time with ringing in my ears,) and then he wanted to know why I hadn't told him sooner. If I hadn't been woozy and semi-paralyzed I may have kicked him. I was pretty sure my doula was moments away from doing it herself. My blood pressure had dropped to 60/45 and I needed a shot of epinephrine to get it back up, which worked immediately. Luckily Michael, who has quite an aversion to needles, had stepped out of the room so we were both still conscious through the rest of the labor.

Once the epidural kicked in and I was reasonably certain Katie wasn't going to hunt downn the anesthesiologist and throttle him, I was able to sleep for a while, but my contractions slowed once again and I stalled at 7cm for about four hours until we decided I needed some pitocin. Within two hours I was ready to push, and I never had to push hard because she was already within an inch of being out into the world. I pushed gently for 25 minutes, and Michael was able to receive her instead of the doctor. He immediately put her onto my stomach, and she cried, and we cried, and we welcomed our precious daughter into the world! Michael said watching Melora come out and being the very first one to touch and hold her was one of the most powerful experiences of his life. The instant I saw her, my fatigue vanished and I fell desperately in love with my little girl.
"Melora, oh my little Melora," I remember saying to her, "I love you so much my baby girl."

I don't think I will ever be able to describe the moment I met my children for the first time. An entire lifetime of love came rushing into me, filling me up and overflowing so I could pour it onto them. Pain is forgotten, and the other people in the room are non-existent; only me, my husband, and my precious baby are there.

We have been enjoying every moment with her, and Isaiah is particularly sweet to watch. He has begun "speaking" on her behalf, using a squeaky high voice to tell us what she wants. He will come over to sleeping Melora with a toy and squeak "I want frog!" before placing the toy frog on her chest. He also squeakily informs us "I need a new diaper," or "I'm cold, need blanket," when he feels it's appropriate. He wants to hold her all the time and loves to rest his head next to hers and give her kisses. He often gets a cute, dopey grin when she's around and giggles for no reason, and it's so sweet to see that he's falling in love with her just as we are.

Watching Isaiah take care of Melora in his own way has added a whole new dimension to my love for him. It reminds me of when I watched Michael become a dad for the first time (and again with Melora) and realizing that his love for his child was the most beautiful thing I never knew about him. Isaiah is an amazing brother, and I am so blessed with both of my healthy, happy children. Thank you, God, for my Isaiah and Melora. I know I have done nothing to deserve the privilege of being a part of their lives, and I am awestruck at the beauty of your spirit I see through them every day.

Welcome to the world, Melora Karine!

Our beautiful daughter, Melora Karine Walz, was born Sunday March 30th at 2:28 p.m. She weights 6 pounds, 11 ounces and is 19 3/4 inches long. We have all fallen desperately in love with her already and want to do nothing more than stare at her and kiss her sweet head all day. Isaiah is already a sweet, attentive big brother and a good helper to us. We are so thankful, so blessed, and so in awe of our two amazing children. I will write more later, including her birth story, but I am now off to take a bath and go to bed! (You know you just wanted to see pictures anyway.)

Bathtub of Horrors

Warning: This post is a gross one, so you had better posses a strong stomach and the humor of a 12-year-old boy if you plan to enjoy it.

We had a really fun, wonderful night tonight. Also, we had a really terrible, disgusting night tonight. The fun part began when our friends from our Music Together class came over. Isaiah's little friend Ava was decked out in her usual pink fluffy glory, and they had lots of fun playing while we talked with Ava's parents. We found out we got married on the same indescribably hot August day back in 2003, and we had lots of fun laughing about our similar experiences. I was having some contractions throughout the entire meal, but I didn't really want to call attention to them because they weren't too painful to talk or move through. So I just enjoyed myself and discovered that Ava's mom and I share a mutual, amateurish love of scrapbooking as well as a mutual lack of time to scrapbook. We also had a yummy Italian chicken dinner, which was a new slow-cooker recipe for me and they brought over some delicious cheesecake from Cafe Latte.

After our friends left, we let Isaiah play for a little while as we loaded the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen. I was still having contractions, but a warm bath usually relieves the pain. We decided we should give Isaiah a bath before I took mine, though, to help him calm down for the evening, because he was still pretty pumped up from having a really cute little girl over to play. So we filled his bath and Isaiah and I read stories together. Once it was all ready, Michael got Isaiah into the tub and began playing with him for approximately 20 seconds until Isaiah pooped in the water. This has happened about four times in Isaiah's life, but we thought we had learned how to deal with it as quickly and efficiently as possible. When you're dealing with poop floating in water, the learning curve is steep and sharp. So I ran into the kitchen and pulled out a ziplock bag, into which I cut slits so the water could drain out while still retaining the offensive poo. As I was doing this, Isaiah pooped again in the water, even though he had insisted he was done. So then Michael ran back into the kitchen for another bag while I tried to fish out toys as quickly as possible to avoid the poop raft. Suddenly I realized there were three poop rafts in the water, and I simultaneously realized we were huge idiots for not getting Isaiah out the instant he pooped his first poop. So Michael came back with more baggies as I dried off Isaiah and put a diaper on him. Unfortunately, the fishing baggie Michael had gotten didn't work because the holes were too big, so it let out water and soooo much more back into the tub. Then there was nothing we could do except wait for the tub to drain and clean it out.

I was still having somewhat painful contractions and couldn't lean over the tub very well, so the job fell on Michael, who dutifully grabbed a gigantic fistful of paper towels as I brought in the garbage pail. He began mopping up the disgusting mess when he started to gag. He's not usually a gagger when he changes a diaper or anything, but this was one seriously gross bathtub.
"(Cough, choke...) Wow; I really didn't expect it to smell quite that much. How about you slide that scented candle over my way, sweetie...(gag, cough, gag...)"
He continued trying to clean the mess up despite his ever-strengthening gag reflex until suddenly his body couldn't take it anymore, and he threw up right in the tub, losing the wonderful chicken dinner and cheesecake we had enjoyed.
"Oh wow!" Michael said incredulously, "This is a really disgusting night. I'm sorry it's all happening right in the tub, honey."
Just at that moment a rather powerful contraction hit as I was overcome with uncontrollable laughter. I sat down on the toilet and shrieked with laughter and pain.

So Michael had to clean and bleach the tub, (which he did amazingly; it now sparkles like an alabaster effigy and smells like a fresh spring day,) and I soaked the bath toys in a bucket with 409. We agreed that it would be pretty awesome if our baby girl was born tonight, because this would make for one unforgettable story. Maybe I could even deliver her in the tub!

*I thought the picture was appropriate for the bathroom humor contained within the post. Hopefully you will all be brave enough to read another post one day. I can't imagine having one as disgusting as this for a long, long time.

Duck mittens

Nope, no baby yet. I figured I would start off with that because I know quite a few people have been wondering, and I guess if I go for too long without posting something on my blog or facebook, people start assuming I'm in the hospital. So far, though, Baby Girl has remained comfortable where she is, so she's not moving anywhere. My sister-in-law is on spring break, though, and came to stay with us earlier in the week to help me out and take care of Isaiah. So we decided it would be really fun to have the baby while she was here. Laura and I went out on Tuesday morning fully intending to walk around the mall until she fell right out, but Isaiah had a fever and was really tired, so we only walked for an hour. (Plus, I sort of walk like a duck with osteoporosis right now, so it wasn't very pleasant.) Before we left, though, we got some Chipotle with hot salsa in the hope that the spicy food would help spur something. Then after Isaiah was asleep I took a warm bath and spent some time rocking back on the birth ball. Then, my friend/doula came over with a pile of books and suggestions. We tried a few more positions and she tried pushing on a few pressure points, but Baby Girl still didn't feel like moving, so we watched a funny Japanese game show because laughing really hard gives me contractions. I ended up having a few, but nothing to write home about. By the end of the night, the remaining options were few and disgusting. I could opt for getting an enema or drinking castor oil, but I am absolutely not that desperate. Not even close. So Baby Girl stays snugly where she is, and no one goes near me with an enema bag. Everyone wins!

On a related note, my friend Andrea wrote a poem/prayer for me birth that I thought I'd share:

May Ashley's birth not be a long haul
May she be aided by her birthing ball

May Michael relax if a needle is near
And may Ashley not give in to fear

May your contractions be short
And your pains be few
May only good thoughts come to you

May you remember that God loves you very much
Now go birth our that girly and all that good stuff
Amen

Since she apparently isn't in too much of a rush to come out, I've just focused on being comfortable with her new, very low position. It's really not so bad (as long as I have quick access to a bathroom every second of the day) except for the fact that my pelvic bone is separating and sometimes gives me a hard, pinching pain. It's not anything serious or medically troubling, though, so I'm alright with it. My doctor prescribed daily bubble baths (preferably with candles) and chocolate every day. I know - it's a rough life, but I do what I must. Last Saturday, Michael suggested we go to swimming because it would help take some of the pressure off from having a baby living somewhere between my knees. We packed our swim bag and headed out to a hotel nearby that has open swim during the day. Once we got there and paid our $15 for two hours, we realized that we had picked one of the lamest pools in the cities. We decided to make the best of it, though, and all got changed. Michael carried Isaiah into the pool while I stepped into the "hot tub" (the quotes are around the phrase because it was more accurately a tepid tub.) Isaiah was really nervous and really cold in the water, so he mostly clung to Michael and cried. After a minute of that, they both came and joined me in the tepid tub, where Isaiah enjoyed pointing out the green spots on the bottom floor. ("It's green! It's green!") We eventually convinced Isaiah to let us turn on the jets, and he clung to us the whole time, occasionally reaching his hand out to touch some of the bubbles. The up side, though, was that I did feel much lighter for a good hour and a half, and because the hot tub really wasn't hot, I didn't have to worry about my body temperature or the baby's rising too high. By the end, Isaiah had a little more confidence and would walk around the bench inside the tub if we pretended he was a choo choo train. Somehow, we got a picture of him smiling like he was a born swimmer and having a great time. Don't be fooled by the sweet smile, though; that was not his idea of a good time.

Easter was a wonderful day for our family. We let ourselves wake up leisurly because we had planned on going to a later church service. Then we led Isaiah down the hall where he discovered his Easter basket at the top of the stairs and a toy or treat on each stair all the way down to the bottom. He knew what to do with the chocolate bunnies right away, and he loved the toy frogs we found that flash colors when you touch them. (They look like they would give you a pretty good trip if you licked them!) Then I made french toast before we headed to church. He had a great time playing with kids, as always, and then we drove straight up to Buffalo for some time with the Walzes. He built a giant snow bunny with his grandparents and Auntie Laura, and he of course also ate some snow and visited the real bunny, Nibbler. He also put stickers on Easter eggs and ate more chocolate. You really can't ask for a better day.

Isaiah is beginning to get excited about feeding ducks, which we haven't done since Christmas. He must be feeling the call of spring, despite the remaining snow on the ground. Today I was cleaning chocolate off his hands in the car (I had ingeniously let him have a piece of Easter candy for the drive, which he just decided to hold instead of eat,) when he began a nice conversation with me about ducks.
"Feed ducks?"
"Well, when it's warmer out, we'll feed some ducks."
"Ducks eat bread?"
"That's right, ducks eat bread."
"Ducks eat chocolate?"
"Nope, ducks don't eat chocolate. They just eat bread. And fish."
"Oh yeah! Eat fish!"
"Yep, ducks eat fish."
"Feed ducks?"
"Well, sweetie, it's too cold in Minnesota right now, so the ducks don't live here."
"Need some mittens?"
"Well, yeah, I suppose mittens would help them be less cold."
"Hold your hand, ducks...some mittens. Oh yeah!"

The Yuck of the Irish

This Monday I decided to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a nice, traditional dinner of corned beef with onions and potatoes, cabbage, green jell-o with pears, and green sugar cookies. (Green jell-o is a very traditional Irish food, in case you weren't aware.) I had never really had corned beef growing up, but I love corned beef hash, so I assumed I would be quite the fan. Not so much.

The corned beef was nice and tender after a long day in the crock pot, and the baked cabbage was buttery-smelling and juicy, so I was really excited to dive in. Michael started eating before I did, since I was busy breaking up Isaiah's piece of corned beef and giving him a bite. I asked Michael what he thought of it all, since I had never made it before, and he told me it was good. Then, after a few bites, he politely said that maybe we should just save it for the once-a-year celebration of St. Patrick's Day. After another bite or two, he cautiously asked if there would be enough for leftovers tomorrow or if we would be eating something else (as he gulped down milk to try and drown out the taste of the corned beef.) At that point I let the poor, sweet man off the hook and confessed that I didn't think I could ever eat corned beef again. Michael's face flooded with relief, and he offered the tip that if you pile plenty of onions and cabbage on top of each bite of the beef, it really masked the taste pretty well. I ended up just having a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich anyway. My green jell-o with pears was good, though. Isaiah actually ate all of his corned beef, plus some of mine I couldn't manage to eat, his cabbage, onions, jell-o, pears, and a cookie. It's pretty pitiful when my toddler is a better eater than I am. Isaiah also had left-over corned beef and onions for lunch the next day, because Michael and I certainly weren't going to touch it.

As for baby news, our little girl has dropped. It happened last Monday as I was driving to pick Michael up from work. The drop was actually so sudden (and rather painful) that I swerved into the other lane of traffic; praise God no one was there! I wasn't even sure what had happened until I got out of the car and realized that she had either dropped big-time, or someone had snuck a bowling ball into my pants. At my doctor's visit on Friday, he confirmed that she was very low (I actually needed no confirmation of that, thankyouverymuch) and told me that I'm 50% effaced and 3 cm dilated.

While I'm definitely excited that she is apparently going to come soon, I'm also feeling some major control issues. Mainly, my issue is that I am facing the reality of how little control I have. Normally, I find so much peace in giving up control to God, but I'm having a tremendously difficult time doing it right now. I want to count her kicks to make sure she's doing well in there; I want to reread the book on preparing older siblings; I want to label all the drawers so anyone coming to help will know exactly where Isaiah's jammies are supposed to go...I want to do anything I can do that will fit onto a list so I can check it off at the end of the day and feel good about what I've accomplished. I don't know why I'm feeling this urge to have control, but I know I really need to let go. I need to give myself some rest and some peace. God has been so faithful to our family, and he has repeatedly, tirelessly, endlessly shown Michael and I that his provision is more than enough for us. There is nothing I can give my children that will compare to the wonderful gifts God has in store for them, so I just need to get out of his way.

Oh, and just when we thought spring was coming...Minnesota played a dirty trick on us and dumped more snow. Isaiah was delighted because one of his favorite activities is shoveling snow. All day long he asked to "subble sew" sometimes even adding "please, please, please." He finally did get to go out into the mush with Daddy after work and do some "subbeling."

A colorful week

So this Thursday, I wanted to take a shower really badly, and Isaiah was happily coloring printouts of Thomas and Friends and his little picnic table. He usually gets strapped into his high chair when he's coloring, so I was proud to see him sitting down like such a big boy with his crayons. Since he was so content, I figured it was as good a time as any to pop into the bathroom. He stayed happy the entire time I was in the shower, and I was able to relax in the warm water without worrying about him. When I came out a few minutes later, I heard him playing upstairs, so I went right up to check on him. He was happily kicking balls around his room, still holding the orange crayon from his coloring time downstairs, and he was so happy to see me he gave me a big hug. I scooped him up and plopped him on the bed for some tickles. After a few more minutes of playing, Isaiah started coloring on his hand with the orange crayon. It wasn't actually making any marks, but I told him that we don't color on hands, only paper. He looked a little surprised at this news and repeated it,
"No color hands?"
"That's right, buddy, we don't color on our hands."
Then a few minutes later, he poised the orange crayon over his sheets, ready to color on them.
"Nope, sweetie - we don't color on the bed, only on paper."
"No color bed?"
"That's right. We only color on paper."
A dawning looking appeared on his face, and he quietly asked me,
"No color table?"
"Right, sweetie, we don't color on the table, only on paper."
I was pretty impressed that he had used his deductive reasoning on that one when he asked, a little more quietly,
"No color chair?"
"That's right, no coloring on the chair - only paper."
Then he asked, in an even more quiet voice,
"No color slide?"
"That's right, we don't color on the slide either - just paper."
I was still pretty impressed that he was extrapolating the 'only paper' rule to include all these things when he said in a tiny voice,
"No color house?"
"Um, yeah sweetie - we only color on paper."
"Oh," he said rather sadly and looked down. That's when I finally realized I should go downstairs and check things out. Indeed, he had colored on the table, chairs, plastic slide, and the walls of our house. Oh.

Luckily I had been smart enough to give him washable crayons (even if I was dumb enough to leave him alone with them in the first place) so the marks came off with a few wipes of a wet paper towel. I honestly wasn't even a little mad. I realized that we hadn't talked too much about what not to color on, because I had never left him alone with a set of crayons and a tempting house/palate to color on. I just told Isaiah it was time to clean up the colors and gave him his own paper towel. It doesn't even count as a consequence because Isaiah loves to clean and thinks it's a game. Maybe I should have disciplined him more, but I feel like it was more of a learning experience (for both of us) than a rebellion. So, we wiped up blue, orange, and brown crayon marks and then put the crayons away for the day and kept on playing. I guess next time I take a shower, I will have to think of a different activity.

The next morning we were all heading out of the house bundled up in layers because it was absolutely freezing (far below freezing, to be more precise.) We walked out our back door to head to the garage with Michael carrying Isaiah and me carrying Michael's coffee. I had just shut the door behind me when Michael called, "Hey honey, I don't have the keys." Oh shoot! I looked frantically through my diaper bag hoping against hope that I had the spare set of keys in there, but despite the fact that my diaper bag houses more than Mary Poppins' bag, the keys just weren't there. Michael called his brothers to see if either of them had the spares we thought we had handed out, but no such luck. By this time Isaiah was crying because the cold was so terrible and biting that our faces and ears all hurt. I removed my scarf and we wrapped it around the exposed parts of Isaiah's face. Then we booked it to a coffee shop two blocks down to hang out in the warmth while we tried to figure out what to do.

Eventually, Michael's brother Peter drove out and the two of them headed back to our house to try and pick the lock, (which didn't work,) and call a locksmith. Meanwhile, Isaiah and I stayed at the coffee shop where he could walk around and stay out of the cold. We were there for over two hours, and even though they had several books and toys to keep him entertained, he got restless and antsy after being there so long. A nice older gentleman noticed Isaiah was getting bored with my entertainment tactics, so he reached into his bag, pulled out a folksy wooden recorder and began to play. Isaiah was immediately enthralled and walked over to the man's table to check it out. The man obligingly played for him, and then reached into his bag a pulled out another, smaller recorder. He played on that one too for a moment so Isaiah could see how it worked, and then, he quickly wiped the mouthpiece on his shirt and handed it to Isaiah, who immediately stuck it into his mouth. It happened so quickly, I couldn't have stopped it if I had wanted it to. The guy just encouraged Isaiah to blow into it to make some music, which Isaiah did as I thought desperately of my Clorox wipes in the diaper bag across the room. Then Isaiah handed it back, and the guy stuck it back into his own mouth, while I sat there dumbfounded and unsure of what to do. I mean, this man was entertaining my son and being extremely kind...but ew! Isaiah definitely had a cold, which he probably passed onto the guy, and I had no idea what the guy was harboring that he passed onto Isaiah. It was all water under the bridge at that point in time, though, so I just fixed a smile on my face and went on with the morning. Oh, and we did eventually get into our home and Michael got to work only 2 1/2 hours late. Isaiah was no worse for the wear, and so far hasn't come down with any strange diseases from Mr. Recorder.

The pictures are from a photo shoot at our dining room table. Isaiah will make faces on command to entertain Michael and I, so we called out "happy face," "angry face," and "surprise face," while we snapped pictures. It's a pretty great party trick. (He also does sleepy face, silly face, yucky face, and sad face.)

Fingo-Mingoes

This weekend, we drive down to Vesta, MN to visit Michael's Grandpa for his 82nd birthday. Isaiah slept for much of the long drive, as did Uncle James, who had caught a ride with us. Michael and I chatted for a while, but we were in quiet moods. So I spent a lot of my time looking at farmland and thinking. One thing that crossed my mind is how amazing our families are. Michael and I were so young when we got married - both 20, and still young when we had Isaiah (22 and 23.) We really haven't felt overwhelmed or in over our heads, (well - for the most part) even when there are so many older, wiser, more mature people struggling in marriage and parenting. I know the biggest reason is that God is protecting our marriage and blessing it beyond anything we could have asked for, and I really think another big reason is because of our families. We both had wonderful examples of parenting and marriage to look to - my parents have been married over 25 years as have Michael's. Not only that, but their parents have all stayed married too. Michael and I have each lost a grandfather, but we have never had to deal with a grandparental divorce. We knew that when we got married and said "till death do us part," we really meant it, because we had seen that phrase put into action throughout our entire lives. I'm so thankful for my husband, and I know our marriage is a gift to our children.

Isaiah really loved the birthday celebration at the nursing home in Vesta. He was groggy at the beginning, but warmed up after some cuddle time with Grandma Walz. After a walk around the building, I think Isaiah decided he could happily live there. There was a big, beautiful fish tank the spent lots of time admiring. Then, we had cake and ice cream with family and sang "Happy Birthday" (one of Isaiah's favorite songs) and then some residents sat down or were wheeled into a circle to kick a pile of balloons back and forth to each other. Isaiah got right in the middle of the circle and happily kicked, threw, punched, and crawled around in the balloons. The residents enjoyed watching him so much, they forgot to kick the balloons themselves, and had to be reminded several times by the nurse. I saw how beautiful Isaiah was, and how much the residents appreciated his joy and enthusiasm. Oh Isaiah - you are such a blessing to this world, the fact that you are my son fills me with such wonder and love, I think my heart could burst.

Sunday night is usually my night off from cooking a big meal, so we were all just having quesadillas for dinner. I asked Isaiah if he would like some quesadilla as we sat down to eat, and I realized I really need to learn not to phrase things as questions when they are really statements, because Isaiah answers my questions as if he truly has a choice about the matter.
"Isaiah, do you want to eat your quesadilla?"
"Um...no...how about? Just candy."
"No, sweetie. We're not going to have candy for dinner. How about your cheesy quesadilla?"
"How about just cookies."
It's so funny, sometimes I almost want to give in. But never fear - I stood my ground and Isaiah did indeed have quesadillas, not candy, for dinner.

I decided to take it easy yesterday morning and let myself get off to a lazy start. I knew the day would be really full because I was going to re-organize all of Isaiah's toys, so I wanted to have some time just to relax enjoy my little boy. During breakfast we popped in a Baby Einstein DVD about animals and shared a bowl of pears, grapes, and kiwi. I'm so glad I slowed down enough to have that time with him, because it was ineffably beautiful. Isaiah got so excited about the animals he saw on the DVD he could hardly contain himself. His little body bounced and wiggled on the couch as he shouted out the name of everything he saw.
"Elephants! Kangaroo!!"
At one point, he was so excited, he couldn't even speak straight. A flamingo came onto the screen and he shouted,
"Fingo-mingo!!"
Then a hippo,
"Tip-a-pot-a-pus!!"
We snuggled and talked about animals and ate our fruit together for 30 wonderful minutes, and I felt as though I had gotten a break from the whole world. Oh, and Isaiah told me his fruit was delicious, or "mmmm...doo-wishes" actually.

We have been without a shower in our home for nearly two weeks because the diverter in the tub spout stopped working, so the water wouldn't work it's way up the pipe and out the shower head. We have resorted to taking baths and washing our hair in the sink. We had been misinformed that the job of replacing the tub faucet would be extremely difficult and could take an entire weekend, if not a plumber, so we didn't take care of it right away. In reality, though, it took a 30 minute trip to Home Depot and 20 minutes at home in the bathroom. Isaiah even helped by pounding on the tub with his plastic hammer. As we were heading to the check-out line at Home Depot, Michael casually said to me
"You know, honey, when we have the time and money, I think it would really be fun to tear apart our bathroom and make it really nice looking."
Oh - be still my beating heart. Michael had no idea he had stumbled upon one of the most seductive phrases known to a home-improvement, decorating junkie like me. I would have jumped up into his arms and kissed him right there if wasn't 8 1/2 months pregnant and still possessed the ability to jump. As it is, I'm about as agile as the queen of sea cows right now, so my feet stayed firmly planted on the ground, but I thought lustily of ceramic tile and antique bronze fixtures all the way home.

Cabin Fever

This weekend we went up to a cabin north of St. Cloud with the other families in our church small group. The group consisted of ten adults and six kids, all of whom are five and under. We were pretty excited to spend the weekend away, but we weren't sure how long Isaiah would enjoy our time there. He absolutely loves the other kids and talks about them all the time, but being our one and only right now, he has never had to share toys or attention for an extended period of time. We prepared ourselves for a lovely beginning to the weekend and possible breakdowns by the end. We were totally wrong, though - he couldn't get enough of the weekend with kids. He sledded and ran and jumped and laughed and ate snow to his heart's content. He fell asleep on the way home Sunday after lunch, and when he woke up in his own house, he was so disappointed he cried. I think he thought we were going to live in a cabin with five other kids forever. Sorry buddy.

It really made me feel good to see that he enjoyed being with other kids for such a long time, because I know he will really like having a sibling - eventually, even if it's a tough transition at first. Of course, Isaiah would ideally like me to pop out a five-year-old big brother who can play trains and run around with him, but a seven pound little girl who spits up on herself is pretty close - right?

After Michael got home from work one night, we decided we should play a game together. We were inspired because of the weekend with our small group. The adults played games every night and stayed up way past our bedtimes getting all giddy and tired. It was wonderful. Michael and I love playing games together, but we rarely do it unless we have company because our evening routine is just set. So that evening, while Isaiah finished up his dinner, we played two rounds of Othello, which we probably hadn't played since I was actually in labor with Isaiah. Then, of course, Isaiah wanted to join in the game-play, so we brought down Hungry Hungry Hippos. Let's just say the game was a hit. We played for an hour, and Isaiah loved every bit of it, from putting the marbles onto the board to gobbling them up with the hippos, even putting them back in the bag was fun. Michael and I put the game away and whisked Isaiah up to bed, thinking that surely we must be good parents to have such fun with our little boy on family game night. We didn't realize that we had discovered one of those things that may just be too much fun. Michael had to work for an hour and a half to get Isaiah to stop talking about hippos and go to sleep, and Isaiah woke up four times in the middle of the night, just to chat about hippos. He always settled back down with promises of "more hippos in the morning," but I knew I needed a plan so that we didn't have another hippo-saturated night.

The next day, as soon as Isaiah woke up, I brought him downstairs and began playing Hungry Hungry Hippos with him. After a little while, he told me that he was hungry, but I said that he had to play more hippos before we could eat breakfast, so we played another 5 minutes. Then I fed him and suggested more hippo play. We played again for a while when he said he wanted to get down from his chair. I told him that he could, but only if he played hippos for 5 more minutes. He agreed, but he was eager to get down. Then after he had played with other toys for a half hour or so, I told him it was time for hippos, and we played again. Then when lunchtime came around, I told him he could only have lunch after we played more hippos. By the time he woke up from his nap, he was cured, and he didn't wake up in the night to talk about hippos even once.

Michael had to go to a business dinner one night this week, and in that one night my respect for single moms quadrupled. Isaiah had been having a slightly testy day, but nothing major that I couldn't handle. However, 15 minutes after Michael usually gets home, Isaiah began to take it all to the next level. He began testing boundaries like nobody's business ("Isaiah, that glue stick is a no-touch. Sweetie, Mama said it's a no-touch. Isaiah, put down the glue stick down now. Put it back on the table. Isaiah Samuel...Put. The. Glue. Stick. Down.") He also began running around in circles, throwing his toys around, and erupting into sudden excited screams. It was obvious he knew something was up with his schedule, and he definitely needed fun, energetic Daddy to come and replace tired, cranky Mommy. Unfortunately, Michael wouldn't be back for hours - after Isaiah's bedtime. So, I packed him up in the car and we headed out to eat, just to distract him from the fact that his dad wasn't home.

I chose a KFC buffet because Isaiah loves chicken and corn, and I figured it would be easy. I hadn't really thought of how to handle a wiggly two-year-old while trying to fill two flimsy plates with messy food, balance two drinks over my bulging pregnant tummy, and not drop the diaper bag onto the sticky spot on the floor. I did eventually manage to get some food onto our plates and wrangle Isaiah into a high chair at an empty table. Isaiah, thankfully, ate really well and enjoyed playing with the sporks the buffet provided. I also got to eat a few bites between shoveling food into Isaiah's mouth and trying to keep his little hands off the very dirty, sticky chair next to him. Seriously - this was one sticky KFC. We were well over halfway through our meal when I looked around me and realized that I was the lone female in a restaurant full of college guys and homeless men. I guess I'm not really the target market for all-you-can-eat greasy chicken.

On the drive home, Isaiah asked if we could watch Thomas at least ten times, and I kept answering that I was very sorry, but I just couldn't take Thomas tonight. We got home, and I washed the stickyness off Isaiah and changed him into his p.j.'s. Then we read stories for an hour before I brought him into my bed with me and we both fell asleep, exhausted. Michael got home after ten and came upstairs where we were sleeping. We moved Isaiah into his toddler bed and laid down again. I wrapped my arms around Michael and made him promise that he would never, ever leave me. He said that of course he wouldn't, which I knew perfectly well, but I just wanted to hear it. It took such a short period of extra time being a single parent to wear me out and make me short with Isaiah. I'm so blessed to have a husband who comes home from a long day at work and takes care of me and plays with our son. I just couldn't be the kind of mom I want to be if I had to do it alone.

Fuzzy Footie-Pajamas

Hey kids! If you want to do a really cool science experiment, put a disposable diaper into the washing machine and run it to see the diaper explode...If, however, you just want to get the laundry done as quickly as possible with no complications, don't do this. Somehow this morning when I was loading laundry into the washer, a used (just wet, not poopy) diaper snuck in amongst the pile of clothing. I didn't realize it until I was switching the laundry over to the dryer and realized there was a bunch of soft white, rather nasty smelling foam coating the sides of the washer. I then found the diaper underneath my wet, rather nasty smelling shirt. So then I had to clean out the washer, re-do the laundry, and hope there aren't any lasting effects on the machine or on my clothing. Yuck.

On another note, it's cold. And I'm not very stoic about it. Thus far I have refrained from mentioning on my blog that it's really, really cold here, but to make up for it, I inform my husband (who can feel it just fine for himself) 5 to 10 times a day. In fact, I'm about 95% more whiny about it than Isaiah, which isn't saying great things about me since he's 2 and I'm 24. Not only is it sinisterly cold outside, it's pretty darn cold inside too since we live in a very old home (which I do actually love) that sort of just lets the cold seep in all over. We have compensated by purchasing an electric blanket and a space heater so that for much of the day, I can sit under the former and next to the latter with a cup of hot chocolate warming up my hands. Isaiah doesn't really care for the electric blanket, because he doesn't like being under blankets in general, and he's pretty nervous about the space heater, which is fine by me because I don't want him to touch it. For a while I thought I had given birth to a son who really couldn't feel the cold too much or at least wasn't bothered by it, but apparently even Isaiah has reached his limit of cold. For the past three days when I have woken Isaiah up in the morning, he has refused to get out of his fuzzy footie-pajamas. Really, I can't blame him. If I had fuzzy footie-pajamas, you might see me refusing to get out of them too. So, since I have clothing for Isaiah in all sizes up through 1st grade, I've just picked out some clothes that are usually a little big on him and put them over his fuzzy footie-pajamas. The upside of this is that Isaiah is nice and warm, even when we go outside, but the downside is that he has been wearing the same pair of green fuzzy footie-pajamas for three days now, and I'm starting to feel like a pretty gross mom. I guess tonight during his bath, we'll just substitute them for different fuzzy footie-pajamas and hope it's acceptable. I had never realized until now how much he loves his pajamas. At various points throughout the day, he will look under his shirt and happily exclaim "Green jammies!" Ah, simple pleasures.

I brought the camera to our music class again on Thursday as well as some extra prints from last week to share with Ava's parents and the teacher. I got more pictures of Isaiah, and in this batch he's actually smiling in a few. Last time I brought the camera, he was hungry because I hadn't given him a very good snack and grumpy with me for not bringing him enough food. So this week I was filling him up before we got to class with anything he would eat plus some apple juice for good measure. By the time we pulled our van up, he was getting grumpy with me for stuffing him like Hansel and Gretel. It worked, though. I really want to ask Ava's parents this next week if they would want to get together for a play-date since she and Isaiah have such fun together, but I'm actually nervous about it. I normally meet other parents through church or mutual friends, so going up to someone I have relatively little interaction with to suggest a play-date seems weird. I feel like I'm looking for an actual date instead of a play-date. If they say 'no thanks' is it rejection of Michael and me or of Isaiah. It really shouldn't be this big of a deal, right? I guess I'll just have to try and see.

First Crush

This Valentine's Day happened to land on a Thursday, which happens to be the day of the week for Isaiah's Music Together class. So Michael and I spent our evening in the most romantic way you could imagine - dancing around to "Rockin' Robin" with a bunch of other toddlers and their parents. Still, though, there were definitely some romance vibes in the air...Isaiah's, to be more specific. Over the six weeks of this class, Isaiah has harbored a crush on a cute little girl named Ava, and every week his crush becomes less and less subtle. This week her dad brought her in wearing her Valentine's Day dress, and she was like a fluffy pink ball of cuteness. I've got to give Isaiah points for good taste. Isaiah began to follow her around immediately. At one point, when the other children were singing along with their parents, Isaiah and Ava had walked out of the circle (they are both very independent, I guess) and Isaiah was just standing in front of Ava looking at her. Then he took off his own name tag and stuck it onto her dress. She sort of looked at it like she wasn't really sure what to do, but she seems to be pretty good at rolling with the punches, so she walked around with it on for a while. Almost the entire class of parents had caught the act and were suppressing giggles. Like I said, Isaiah isn't the most subtle guy, so they have all known about his crush for weeks. When the song ended, one of the parents remarked that he was pretty sure they were engaged now. Later, during free instrument time, Ava returned the favor by giving Isaiah a lovely pair of finger symbols she had chosen from the instrument basket. After class had ended, Ava's dad said that he hadn't thought he was going to have to deal with Ava's boyfriend for at least another 12 or 13 years. I guess when you're daughter is that cute, though, you have to be on your guard good and early. (Isaiah has continued talking about Ava all week)

Michael has been doing almost all of the bedtime duties in our house now. We realized that Isaiah really needs to get used to someone other than me putting him to bed, and while Michael has always helped out with bedtime, it is only recently that he took over the role pretty much full time. So, every night after a bath, Michael and I will head up to Isaiah's room and dress him in some warm footie-jammies (why don't those come in adult sizes?) and Michael will begin to read stories to Isaiah while they cuddle in bed. After Michael has begun the story and Isaiah is engrossed, I wordlessly get up and leave the room. Even though I would like to smother Isaiah in kisses and tell him goodnight and that I love him and to have sweet dreams, this is just mean because it makes my leaving quite noticeable. Michael and Isaiah read for a while longer, and then Michael turns the lights off and the lullabies on and lets Isaiah fall asleep (or mostly asleep) before he leaves the room.

Isaiah and Michael have become quite adept at this routine, and we've discovered wonderful consequences that go way beyond what we had expected. The obvious one is that I have time in the evenings to myself to do whatever I want. Sometimes this is just catch-up time for me if I haven't finished my to-do list for the day, but I've also been able to read and to scrapbook. Hooray! Something else I've seen, though, is that Michael and Isaiah are closer. It makes sense that Isaiah would become more cuddly with his dad since he reads stories and snuggles with him every night as he relaxes to sleep. It's nice that the change is that visible and quick, though. Another unintended consequence, though, is that Isaiah really isn't that great at going to bed for me anymore. Michael and I just do it differently, and he's not as used to me anymore. I spent 2 hours trying to get him to sleep the other night, in order to give Michael a night off, and when I thought I finally had him down, he sneaked out of bed, ran to the top of the stairs and yelled "Daddy! Daddy!" So I had to pick up and carry him back to bed while he cried "Want Daddy! Want Thomas!" He allowed me to put him into bed again only because I promised that we would see both Daddy and Thomas in the morning. Michael later told me that although he was sorry it took me so long to get Isaiah to sleep, he was also really happy Isaiah had called for him. What a cute Dad.

Love notes

I have been reading a book called Infant Massage recently (it's about infant massage, if you couldn't guess) because I'm hoping it will be a special way to take time out each day and bond with my daughter. Apart from getting me really excited to hold my little baby girl, one of my favorite chapters is about how bigger kids need to be touched too. The author pointed out that kids actually process praise and affectionate statements only 15% of the time when they aren't being touched as opposed to 85% of the time when they are being touched. So this morning when Isaiah woke up, I decided that as I was getting him dressed, I would try a little massage. It was a double bonus for me because not only did I get to spend a long time touching Isaiah's impossibly soft skin, I got to practice the techniques I read about. I massaged his legs, feet, tummy, chest, face, arms, hands, and back while I told him what a strong, beautiful boy he was and sang some of his favorite songs, and then I ended in a back scratch because I know he loves to have his back scratched. I felt good about it, but I didn't expect any drastic change in our relationship because of a single morning massage. After I had gotten his clothes on, though, I was carrying him downstairs for breakfast and he cupped my face in his little hands.
"I love you," he said, completely unprompted, as looked right at me with his breathtaking eyes, and then he gave me a tight hug and patted my back. Needless to say, I'm hooked on infant (and toddler) massage. Starting off this day with a reminder of how in love I am with my little boy was a frillion times better than any cup of coffee I've ever had.

The pictures this week are of Isaiah getting ready for his baby sister. He is feeding the baby doll from my grandma while they sit together in a laundry basket. He will sometimes rock the doll and sing "husha baby" and he really likes to pat her back until I make a tiny burp sound. The other picture is of Isaiah using some items he confiscated while I was organizing baby things. He loved the bib because it has a train on it, of course, and he was fascinated by the pacifier even though he couldn't remember how it worked at first. For quite a while, he tried sucking on it backwards with the handle in his mouth until I finally flipped it around for him. He walked around for a couple of hours with the pacifier in his mouth until he finally forgot about it and I discovered it later under the piano.

Michael and I took a refresher prenatal course that our hospital offered to second (or third or fourth) time parents. We did the normal overview of the stages of labor and breathing techniques, but our teacher (who was just the right amount of hippie for us) also wanted to show us some hypnobirth and waterbirth videos. The difference in the way Michael and I felt watching birth videos during our first prenatal class two-plus years ago and during this class was so vast it surprised me. When I watched similar videos before I had Isaiah, I was focused on the pain the women went through, and I didn't really view the process as beautiful. In fact, the one thing I came away knowing was that I absolutely did not want to have a mirror positioned so I could see the birth, and I shouldn't expect my baby to be cute immediately after he came out. This time, though, I watched the babies emerge with palpable excitement and anticipation, and when the parents looked at their newborns for the first time, both Michael and I teared up with them. Instead of seeing the blueish, vernix coated newborns as kind of cute, but also a little yucky, I felt a huge surge of oxytocin coursing through my veins and blossoming love for my little girl I haven't met yet. The waterbirth video was my favorite to watch because even though both the featured couples spoke Spanish, I could understand them, and hearing one mother exclaim "Mi amor, mi amor... o, pedazo de mi corazon." (My love, my love...oh, piece of my heart) brought back the overwhelming memory of the moment when I had finally birthed Isaiah and my pain was instantly forgotten as I heard myself say "Oh my baby, my baby." Michael and I both agreed that we would never have felt that way in class if we hadn't experienced it ourselves.

Thinking of how wonderful giving birth to Isaiah was, even though I had not been looking forward to it one single tiny little bit, and even though it was undeniably painful, made me think of how strange the joys of being a parent are. Michael and I discussed it as we were falling asleep last night, and he agreed completely. When Isaiah was only a few months old, I remember a single friend holding him while we chatted in a coffee shop. She told me that she absolutely loved to hold babies, but one of her favorite parts was that she knew that as soon as the baby cried or pooped, she had the freedom to pass him right back to his mom. I understood what she meant, but I remember thinking that I would gladly take back my crying pooping baby to care for him. Although taking care of Isaiah when he is "easy" is fun, there is a kind of ineffable joy in taking care of him when he really needs it. When he is scared and he clings to me, when he is hurt and his tears leak onto my shirt, when he struggles to fall asleep in his own bed for two nights in a row but Michael gets him to do it on the third night, when I wipe the p.b.j. off his face or tickle him back to happiness during a tantrum, I feel a special connection to him because I know I am needed. I feel so proud of him and of myself as I watch him grow up, and I know I am growing up with him.

Pre-natal Wardrobe Malfunction

I have been having so many strange dreams lately. I know it's a rather common thing to happen during pregnancy, but it was never quite this...well, strange with Isaiah. When I was pregnant with him, I mostly just had dreams about having a new baby. Pretty normal overall. This time, though, I have vivid dreams every night of the oddest things. One night I dreamed that I bit off my thumb, but I was still really tired, so I didn't want to go to the hospital and I just put a band-aid on the stump and went back to bed. Then the next morning (in my dream) I decided that my thumb-stump looked stupid, and so I found the rest of my thumb and took it in to be reattached.

Another night, I dreamed that Babies R Us had come out with a clothing line for infants still in the womb, and I really, really wanted to get the baby some cute new outfits to wear while she was still inside me. In my dream, Michael and I had a big argument about whether it was a waste of money, and I angrily told him that we would be awful parents if we let her go through the birth process naked. Then in another dream, our baby was born with a big yellow banana peel wrapped around her, so after the labor process, we had to un-peel her. Of course, some are much less funny and have resulted in me waking up with tears streaming down my face, such as the one where Michael was driving me to the hospital to have the baby, and we got into a car accident and he died just before out daughter was born. I'll stick to dreams about banana peels if I can.

I have been continuing to hear my own phrases come back to me out of Isaiah's mouth throughout the day. While I was uploading photos to Costco's website, Isaiah was sitting on the futon half watching me and half playing with a twist-tie. He wanted me to "fix it," and although I don't really know what you're supposed to fix on a perfectly functional twist-tie, I figured I would give it a shot. So I twisted it into a circle and gave it back to him. Then he excitedly exclaimed - "You fixed it! Great job Mama!" Thanks baby.

Isaiah is becoming a little too obsessed with Thomas the Tank engine, and this is how I know. We usually let Isaiah come into our bed in the mornings if he wakes up early, and so the other morning, I was snuggling next to him very warm and cozy. Isaiah had already drifted back to sleep, but I was still awake because I had a little heartburn (not enough to actually get me out of bed and across the room to the nearest bottle of Tums, but enough to keep me awake for a few extra minutes.) I realized after a few moments that Isaiah was whispering in his sleep, so I put my ear closer to his mouth to hear what he was saying, and I discovered he was reciting the names of the engines from Thomas and Friends. It was like some sort of twisted sheep-counting. "Donald, Douglas, Percy, Daisy..." and again, I would like to point out this was IN HIS SLEEP.

So I decided we needed to take a Thomas break for the next week or so. I haven't put away any of his actual train toys or books, but we've had several discussions about how all his Thomas DVDs are broken. I did break down on Thursday, though, but I feel as though it can be excused on account of incredible cuteness. During lunch, I usually let Isaiah watch Curious George, because it makes it easier for me to shovel whatever into his mouth, and it's just less messy than having him feed himself. So, yesterday I told Isaiah that he could watch George while we ate lunch and he answered. "No...no George. How 'bout....Percy!" It was so cute, I actually let him watch his Percy DVD.

Isaiah is becoming more and more excited about our Music Together classes every week we go. I'm also noticing that he has actually developed rhythm, which I think is pretty good for a 2 year old white guy, and he sings the lyrics to the songs throughout the day. One of his favorite parts of the class is a little girl named Ava, whom I'm pretty certain he has a crush on. I have to give him credit for good taste - she is ridiculously adorable. He also apparently likes younger women, because she's only 15 months old. Since Ava is one of the few people Isaiah encounters who is smaller than himself, I think that's part of the fascination. All class long he will follow her wherever she goes and hover so close I'm sure she feels an invasion of her personal bubble. A few weeks ago, though, he also decided to see what would happen if he pushed her. I honestly don't think he did it because he wanted to be mean, I think he was just curious. Of course, Michael and I were mortified that our sweet little boy pushed someone's sweet little girl, and even though her dad said it wasn't a big deal, we felt terrible. Then, to our horror, he did it again the next week, and Michael had to pick him up and take him away from Ava.

So, this last Thursday on the way to class, we all had a talk about how to be gentle to other kids. We talked about not pushing, and once we got to class, we reminded Isaiah that he couldn't corral Ava to go wherever he wanted; he had to let her walk around on her own. Then we held our breath to see what would happen. Thankfully, Isaiah was a perfect gentleman. A few times he got a little close because he sort of wanted to hug her while she was walking, but he never pushed. In fact, at one point, little Ava dropped her egg shakers (little rhythm instruments the kids use sometimes) on the floor, so Isaiah dropped his right next to hers to show her it was alright, then he picked hers up and handed them back to her. He also picked out all the best instruments from the basket during free instrument time and tried to give her every single one. What a little romantic.