Monday, November 30, 2009

It is the shoes that kill me

I actually do not like shopping for baby/toddler clothing. Doing so bring up so many conflicting feelings that I get really overwhelmed and quit. It is probably two or three times a week that I make a "shopping cart" on some site and then close the browser before buying anything. I hate cheap clothing for myself, and I hate knowing that children barely older than my own son might be forced to work in the overseas factories that make the cheap stuff, but at the same time we are not rich and I can't afford only the finest, made in decent countries with labor laws, clothing. And then there is the waste of it all. He'll only wear them for 6 months, at best! The consumerism!

So this leaves me feeling like I should get everything from a consignment or thrift store. The only issue with that is that often, that stuff isn't cute, and it is a lot of time and effort to get what I truly need. And shopping with a toddler in tow can be hard. And most small stores in this town are closed on Mondays. Truly. People in other cities don't believe me, but I swear that most of the independently owned small stores in this town are not open on Mondays. And of course, Monday is my day to hang out with Cooper all day (except nap time, when I do some work). So that's a bummer in terms of time usage.

But the thing that kills me is the shoes. I love little boy shoes. Weirdly, I could shop for shoes for Cooper ALL DAY LONG. Little boy shoes are just the greatest things ever. They are tiny masterpieces. And you'd never know this from his actual selection of footwear, because I don't actually buy the shoes, you see. I just admire them and wish that I had less internal fortitude and could justify splurging on awesome shoes.

His current everyday shoes are a pair of leather sneakers that were exorbitantly priced but I got them on 75% off, making them quite reasonable. They are wonderful shoes and I get lots of compliments on how cute and stylish they are. His famously awesome red-flames shoes were also very pricey but found on super sale. These too drew many compliments.

Of course, he also has cute yellow rain boots (which he likes to wear around the house over his pajamas, which is adorable) and some nice suede boots (still a little too big, but handy in the cold when he's wearing two pairs of socks) and some cute moccasins (too big, but will be perfect in a few months) and some fleece slippers (too big, again, we are hoping they will fit soon).

But he's getting snug in his beautifully scuffed up, all leather, European style, extremely well crafted and attractive sneakers. So I want to find him his next pair of awesome shoes. But where? WHERE? and can I get them for cheap???

Sigh.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Just like brother

Baby #2 already reminds me of his/her brother. Kinda big? Sure seems like it. A highly active kicker and puncher? Indeed. And perhaps most importantly- enjoys flipping from head down to head up, periodically? Yup.

So here we are again. Just like with Cooper's pregnancy, this kid started off being head down and obedient, and then decided to get a little crazy and go head-up (breech). And just like last time, it hurts, it makes my back hurt, and makes it harder for me to breathe, eat, drive, and sleep. But also just like last time, these moves are temporary. Recently, baby only spent about a week breech before deciding to burrow back into the right position.

It is a relief to have the kiddo tucked back into where it belongs, but also I know it could be short lived. Cooper spent weeks going right side up, up side down, right side up...repeat... until finally deciding to stick with head-down. Let's just hope this kid does the same. I would rather not have to get someone to professionally smoosh the kid into the right spot, if possible.

Friday, November 27, 2009

The cough

Cooper and I shared a cold about three weeks ago, and now we are sharing the dry hacking cough from hell. It affects both of us the same way- we cough when we are falling asleep, periodically through the night, and a lot early in the morning. Neither of us coughs much during the day.

For a while, Cooper was coughing hard enough to eventually dry heave, if we didn't somehow get him to stop before it got that bad. Getting the cough to stop isn't hard- a glass of water, an upright position, rubbing the back- and voila, no cough. But at 3am, this seems a little more complex somehow. Needless to say, we had a couple of pretty grumpy nights with one or two 30 minute coughing breaks which inevitably turned into groggy snuggle sessions on the couch. But that's over now, and Cooper's cough is pretty minimal at this point.

So luckily, the worst of it is over for both of us, and now we both pretty much only cough a little at falling asleep, and a little at waking up. Currently, my cough is worse than Cooper's, and it plagues me especially while attempting to fall asleep. Perversely, if I lie totally flat, the cough isn't as bad. But I can't lie totally flat normally, because then I get vicious intolerable indigestion. So I lie flat until the cough subsides, then I get indigestion, then I prop myself up on pillows to relieve the indigestion issue, and then I start to cough. Repeat.

Last night was great because I ate dinner at 3pm so I didn't have anything to make indigestion crop up. It was the fastest I've fallen asleep in about a week, because I could just lie on my side, barely cough, and not have to fear my own stomach acids trying to kill me.

Amazingly, Matt can sleep through all of this. I think that's mostly a good thing, because otherwise all three of us would be sleep deprived.

The other good thing is that this cough is it. There is nothing else. It is a ghost of illness past. No fever, no misery, no sniffles, no congestion, barely any coughing at all during the daytime, nothing, this is it. So while I sort of feel like going to a doctor and being like WHAT GIVES with the cough, at the same time, because I'm pregnant and because Cooper is so young, I guarantee I know what they will say, "Rest, fluids, hot showers, tea with honey, and it will go away soon." I know for a fact that neither of us can take a cough suppressant. So there goes that.

Hack. Blech. Excuse me....

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Important lesson

Cooper just learned this; You cannot clean dog hair off a raisin with a dishtowel. It simply doesn't work, and you are better off by starting over and asking for a clean raisin.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Just like us

Cooper is on a big toddler sized kick of being just like mom and dad. He loves to do the things that we do, even the things that we don't like to do, and sometimes he clearly doesn't understand why we are doing the things we do, but he does them anyway.

A few examples

- Cooper has figured out that I periodically pick up tiny fluffy wads of dog hair off the floor, or from beneath the couch, and throw them away in our cool hide-a-trash. He now (without any prompting or obvious reason) will occasionally go on a dog-hair cleaning binge, where he hunts around for dog hair, collects little pinches of it, opens the trash, throws the hair away, and then closes the trash. He'll often throw away three or four little wads of fur before losing interest. It is great.

- Nothing is more fun than helping put away laundry. Cooper relishes the opportunity to put away his own laundry. He loves diapers the best, but also greatly enjoys tee-shirts, pants, and socks. Sweaters confuse him and often end up with the pajamas. He waits as I fold each tiny item and then hand it to him, "Cooper's shirt!" Big smile. He responds "Booper's Tert, yeah, yeah, yeah..." as he excitedly talks to himself and runs off into the bedroom. I hear the thunk of the shirt bin being extracted. Then I hear him put it back. Then he runs back to me, "More? More?" "Here's a diaper. Put this with the diapers." "Booper's Diapah! Diapah. Yeah." Sometimes, things even make it into the right bin while still neatly folded. It is a small miracle, and extremely useful, that Cooper enjoys putting away his own laundry.

- Cooper has noticed that Matt and I almost never leave the house without a hat on. For a while, Cooper was violently anti-hat, and could not be coerced into wearing one under any circumstance. However, since the cold weather arrived, Cooper's been adamant that nobody (except the dog) is permitted to leave the house without wearing a hat. He gets to pick between his green hat or orange hat (current favorite is green, but it changes often) and then he insists that we wear one too. If we fail to put it on promptly, we get yelled at. "Mama! AAaaat! Aaatt!" as he points emphatically to the hat bin and looks deeply concerned for our safety and warmth. Yes, yes, you are right, let me find a hat....

- Guess who got a "dustbuster" for her birthday? Oh yes, the pregnant lady was getting sick of bending over to pick up dust and little dirt clods, so I bought myself a nice rechargeable mini vacuum. Only I don't ever get to use it. It is Cooper's now. He likes to vacuum under the stools in the kitchen, and behind the french door curtains. Lately, I have to wait until he is at daycare to actually use it for what it is meant for to avoid a tantrum. And he knows full well that it is not sucking up anything if it is not on, so I have to turn it on for him to make it really fun and worthwhile. Sometimes he lets me "drive" him towards the offending dirt zone, and I actually just make him do the work for me. But other times he's sure that the walls need dustbusting, and nothing I do can convince him otherwise.

Monday, November 16, 2009

And then, we got results

Cooper is a bit prone to getting "blocked up" when he's sick. The combination of being a little dehydrated plus super picky about food when he's under the weather often leads to a situation that takes days to resolve itself, and makes him pretty uncomfortable.

So when Cooper woke up with a light fever on Friday and a runny nose, I figured I'd be all smart and proactive. Small cup of prune juice with breakfast! Prune juice with lunch! Prune juice with dinner! Snack! Yes!

I didn't really keep track of what I was giving him, I just sort of offered it whenever he requested juice. Which was pretty often. And he wasn't really eating anything else, actually, because he felt so crummy. Saturday was worse- he basically ate nothing all day but tiny nibbles of crackers or apples that would hardly support the metabolism of a mouse. But cold sugary prune juice! Oh THAT's a good idea! Let's drink more of that. Yum!

And then Sunday he went down for an early nap (he usually naps twice a day when fighting a cold) but couldn't get comfortable. I could hear him on the monitor whining and complaining to his puppy toy that he was unhappy. And then I heard him clearly, and panicky, "Boop! Boop! MAMA MAMA!" So after a minute of me thinking, "that's odd, I swear he's saying what he normally says when he needs a diaper change" I went in to check on him.

The smell as I opened his bedroom door nearly knocked me flat. He looked stunned (possibly low on atmospheric oxygen) and horrified. The prune juice, after essentially 48 hours of being the only real thing he consumed, had done its work. Standing in his crib, pointing to his diaper, he was stating the blatantly obvious. There was a serious situation in there.

We are now on day two of prune juice detox. Evidence suggests that I really, really overdid his dosage. Luckily, he's not suffering in any way, and it CERTAINLY took care of the problem, but oh my god was this not well thought through on my part. And today is a much, uh, tidier and better day than yesterday.

As a nice side note, he's increased his determination to inform me or Matt right away that he's pooped. He's super, ultra aware of what's going on down there and looks right at us, points to his diaper, and clearly says, "Boop!" As in... get me cleaned up NOW, people! This is GROSS!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

For best results

In case you ever need to do this yourself; for best results when attempting to use dental floss to get an extremely tiny wad of venison steak out from between your child's front teeth, use mint flavored floss. The flavorless floss creates a temper tantrum, while the mint flavored floss is treated with the kind of reverence normally only accorded to tiny nibbles of Mom or Dad's horded leftover halloween candy.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Wordsplosion

Cooper's vocab is going through a serious explosion. His mimicry is getting pretty good (dangerously so) and he now sometimes says two word phrases, like "big doggie" or "more blueberries."

His pronunciation of certain consonants leaves a lot to be desired, so he's hard for other people to understand with many words. His hard Cs and Ks are terrible, so the word Chicken, which he uses ALL THE TIME, is incomprehensible to anyone but me and Matt. I never knew how prevalent chicken imagery was in all our lives until I had a toddler that loves to say chicken. Next time you are in a grocery aisle, check it out. Cereal boxes? Chickens. Freezer aisle? Chickens. Book store? Chickens. Toy store? Chickens. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE.

Besides his lingering problems with some consonants, his other major issue is transposition of sounds. For instance, it snowed last night. In the morning, Cooper and I were looking out the window and I said, "Look at all the snow!" to which Cooper excitedly said, "Nose! Nose!"

Precisely what I said... except not.

His trouble with the letter C also leads him to say his own name in very funny ways. For a few weeks he favored Boo-boo. Recently, he's moved towards something a little closer, which can be roughly written as "Boo-ber" or better yet, "Pooper."

I love the fact that he calls himself Pooper.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Yesterday and today

I've had a very weird last two days. For starters, Matt is on a hunting trip, so I'm flying solo with my silly blonde co-pilot. That makes life a little more hectic, although certainly not unmanageable.

Yesterday I had my 27 week appointment and it went great. Baby decided to brace his/her leg against my spine and stick a tiny bony knee straight into the air during my measurements. This startled me and my midwife, but we had fun running the mini ultrasound on my belly and seeing the little body part right there. Needless to say, this kid is a trickster and dang strong.

But then, in a frustrating turn of events, the birth center administrator had to break it to me that they are having weird trouble with my insurance, and it seems like I'm going to fall into a black hole of non-coverage for certain elements of my maternity coverage. So annoying, and stressful. So I spent a lot of time today on the phone trying to verify this is the case (it is), figure out how to get around it (no easy way), alert the appropriate people to the issue (they don't give a shit, because our insurance system is so messed up here in the US of A), and think outside the box for how to avoid the two basic things I want to avoid. #1- I don't want to make important decisions on my medical care providers based on what arbitrary restrictions my insurance has, #2- I don't want to have to spend thousands and thousands of extra dollars.

At the end of the day, after a long sequence of phone calls and thinking and more phone calls, I did come up with a strange but likely effective solution. But I'm mad about the whole dang thing. Mad mad mad.

In other news, another thing that's been driving me crazy about the culture of medicalized birth seems to have been (nearly) resolved today! There's been this big quasi-political heavy handed b.s. in my town about non-traditional care providers (nurse midwives, professional midwives, and doulas) and today the hospital had a meeting and it seemed to go well. I'm really excited at this development, and in the unlikely event that I or baby #2 have an emergency and need to transfer to hospital care, I'm really glad that this means I will still be able to have the people I trust by my side. So that's a big relief.

Oh, and lastly, Cooper didn't cry when I dropped him off at daycare this morning. If that ain't a miracle, I don't know what is.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Our silly sleeper

Cooper's sleeping has been totally bizarre since I got home. Not in a bad way, but really odd. On Friday, he woke up at 5:45 totally WIRED CRAZY and then ended up acting so sleepy that I put him down for a nap at 8am. He proceeded to sleep until 11am, and then have a delightful day with no further napping needed. Yesterday he slept 12.5 hours (7:30pm to 8am) and then took a 4.5 hour nap (noon to 4:30). Lest you think that sleeping that much would keep him from going to bed at night, he was in bed at 7:30, got slightly perturbed at the trick or treaters that were mere feet from his crib as Matt doled out candy, and fast asleep at 8pm.

Then this morning, he was wide awake from 5am to 6am talking to himself. We could hear him on the monitor very clearly. Doggie! Mama! Dada! Dot dot dot water chicken hot hot hot raisins chickens baby Dada! Just endless blather, no sign of really wanted a parent to come get him, no edge of distress in his voice. And then he fell back asleep (so did we) and got up at... wait... 8:45 (well, 745 with the time change, but whatever) in the morning. Bright and shiny! This disrupted his morning quite a bit and we ended up try to get him to nap at 1 (didn't work) so ended up with a redo at 3pm (bingo!), which is where he is now. Sleeping. Again. God knows how long he'll nap.

He's not sick, so we figure that either he'll double his vocabulary in the next few days, or grow two inches. In the past, this sort of odd sleeping has always been associated with something groundbreaking like learning to walk, figuring out how to use his sign language, or similar. My best guess is that he's working on some kind of communication thing in his sleep. The funny soliloquy we enjoyed this morning is a pretty big giveaway that something is afoot in his little brain.

Chicken! Truck! Dot dot baby dot Boo-boo Mama Dada dada dada DOGGIE!