Va. is for Lovers

We are setting off on the Va. is 4 Lovers 2009 Grand Tour Road Trip. Wanna see where we are going?


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Could Have Been a Lamaze Coach

This is one of those: I wish I'd had the tape rolling moments, only I was on the phone with Scott who was saying: You should record this, and by the time we got off the phone the moment had passed.

Sawyer, who's been struggling with some plumbing issues due to his fear of pooping in the pot, was desperately trying to (as Scott likes to say) "drop the kids off at the pool."

Justin, good big brother that he is, was trying to be encouraging.

So as I'm in the kitchen, talking on the phone with Scott, I hear the following exchange coming from the bathroom down the hall:

Sawyer: I can't! It hurts!

Justin: You have to push!

Sawyer: Rrrrrrrrrr!

Justin: That's good! PUSH!

Sawyer: Rrrrrrrr!

Justin: PUSH!

Sawyer: It's coming! It's coming!

Justin: You're doing great! Now push again!

Sawyer: Rrrrrrr! I'm doing it! It's coming! It's c0minnnng . . .

I'm so sorry to report that there was no magnificent, screaming, crying end to this story.

Only a tiny, hard little poop.

Poor Sawyer.

Arden 12 months

Okay. Arden is actually 14 months – well, almost 15 months old – but it's the first time in three months that she's been well enough to have her well-baby check up. The doctors just wanted to make sure she was good and healthy before they pumped her full of about a zillion different God awful viruses. As if four painful, stinging, screaming shots wasn't enough, the nurse attempted to milk an entire vile of blood out of a pinprick in the tip of Arden's finger. About 10 minutes in, I suggested she lower Arden's arm below the heart - get basic anatomy on her side.

I decided to see the nurse practitioner this time instead of the pediatrician since the latter has the bedside manner of doorknob. I'd been really happy with the NP during the past few sick-baby visits. But, this time she rubbed me the wrong way. And then, somehow, everything that came out of my mouth made me seem like a freakish obsessive mom.

We got off to a bad start at the begining of our appt. when the NP immediately made a snide remark about the pacifier Arden was sucking. I've been trying to ween Arden off sucking her fingers, which she does compulsively, and onto a pacifier, and I'm having some small successes - in the car, at the store . . . I'd far rather she suck the Nuk than her fingers after she's touched everything in the germy doctor's office. I said something to that effect and got a "Germs are everywhere honey and babies are going to put their fingers in their mouth no matter what you do" lecture like I, of all people, was some sort of germ freak. So then I had to explain that if she could see the state of my kitchen she would know that germs are not my issue.

A few minutes further into the conversation we were on the subject of talking, and I was running through the few things that Arden says (hi, bye, mama, dada, thank you, bye bye dada) adding that it doesn't seem like much, but that Sawyer was slow bloomer on the language front. And the NP told me that Arden was "smart" - as if she could tell that in those two minutes - in case I needed the reassurance that in fact my baby was worth keeping. And then she said that if I took the pacifier away Arden might TALK MORE! I felt the need to explain that she doesn't run around with the pacifier in her mouth all the time. The backpedaling and explaining was only making me feel more psycho by the minute. Then I truly blew her away when I told her that neither of my children will eat roasted chicken. Like she had NEVER HEARD OF THAT BEFORE.

I should have known better at that point than to ask about Arden's bowleggedness and to wonder, out loud, whether a chiropractor could help. The look of ridicule on that woman's face made me feel like the high school cheerleader who accidentally showed up for a debate team meeting. "A chiropractor . . . for bowlegs?" (She came back in a few minutes later, apologized for blowing off my chiropractor question and gave me the standard lecture on working side-by-side with alternative medicine and how it would do no harm if I felt compelled to waste my money).

In retrospect, this is the same woman who shouted at Arden when she touched the outlet cover (something that I had decided to not hold against her initially). I will, needless to say, never take my children to see her again. (If I can help it.)

Arden, according to the Nurse Nazi, is 50th percentile for height and weight - for a 14 month old - and is as smart as an 18 month old. Time to sign her up for college!

Stand UP!

Sometime in the past week – i have no idea where or when – Sawyer decided that he is a 'dada' and that he is going to go about his business the way dada's do. Standing up. That's right. Lift your toilet seats people, we have a wild stream of urine on the loose! But I have to say I much prefer it to the tuck-and-bend technique we had to employ when he was sitting girly style. There was the constant worry that he would stretch or turn and redirect the stream onto himself or, worse yet, me (yes that happened).

On that note, I have decided that one of the best gifts anyone can give a new mother is a sturdy stool, or two, or three. I find I need them everywhere: toilets, sinks, next to the baby's changing table, next to the kitchen counter, under the microwave - he constantly wants to "watch" or to "see" or to "do it myself." At my mother's house last weekend, Sawyer sustained an injury to the shoulder – or face, depending on which version of the story you hear - because he was running across the house stool in hand, moving locations. Maybe he just needs some of those cups you attach to your feet and walk around on. Remember those? Or platform shoes.

Grow Hope

Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden. - Orson Scott Card

It's spring here, finally. The kids and I spend our afternoons outside. Moving rocks mostly. That's Sawyer's favorite pastime. He's very strong. He lifts them into his wagon, dumps them in with a loud crash and pulls them up the hill to a different garden bed where he helps me make a border. He's amazingly useful in that way. I weed and think of new things to plant. Tomatillos here. Peppers there. Cilantro over in that bed. Definitely potatoes. Broccoli or brocollini. I'm jumping on the wheelbarrow and becoming part of the Vegetable Gardening Phenomenon 2009. I think there needs to be a poster of the "I want you" ilk only with Obama's face and a giant green thumb."Plant a Seed. Grow Hope." or something like that. Even the kids are planting gardens at their little preschools this year. I told Sawyer tonight that if he took a bite of broccoli I'd buy him a kids sized trowel and rake. Now that I've discovered the benefits of bribery, I use it whenever possible. As tempting as that was - his fear of green food prevailed. I also like the deceiving choices route: Do you want to taste the broccoli with butter or without butter? That didn't work either. So I'm hoping this whole garden thing is going to perhaps tempt him into the world of vegetables - a place he has yet to explore except to build gardens in his mashed potatoes or drop peas into the engine compartment of his toy car. Scott by the way took a bunch of photos of me planting strawberries today wearing my pink Smith and Hawkins gardening apron and an orange bandanna in my hair. Sadly, there was not card in the camera. (My fault.)So this is all I've got:

I want YOU to plant a garden!