Jumping Thing

Uncle Ross and Aunt Niki came through with another fun birthday present this year. The pump just arrived on Thursday, saving Scott from having to blow the whole thing up by lung alone. Sawyer was typically scared to death for the first ten minutes, but came around once Mommy got in and showed him it wasn't going to swallow him whole. We put it up in the loft so we could leave it up for more than one day and the best part of the whole thing is that it absolutely wore the kids out. Both went to sleep last night without the slightest complaint.

Maybe she called you?

Is this what I'm like on the phone?

Should have been a nurse

In the throws of the Great Recession, Scott and I couldn't have two worse occupations. Construction has tanked and journalism is dying. Scott sadly lost his job about a month ago due to the fact that his company suddenly realized they had only nine projects on the books. He'd already survived one round of layoffs, but ultimately the new guy had to go. He hit the ground running, and I've been proud of him for that, sending out nearly 60 resumes and landing about half a dozen serious interviews, plus a handful of second interviews. But, so far, nobody's taken a bite. He's either too qualified or the competition's too stiff. Meanwhile, I've been seriously re-evaluating the family situation and would love to get everyone under the same roof again, but with major newspapers folding left and right, there are just as many journalists on the street banging doors as contractors. Scott's three-week severance has run out, and Virginia's measly unemployment (Scott hit the top of the pay scale with a weekly allowance of $300) is supposed to kick in here at some point (any day now. . .). Times are definitely tight. I was down to one diaper and no milk last night when some money came in, but woke up this morning to realize I'm out of coffee (equally as dire). Mommy blogs tend to be about happy times- first steps and funny moments. But, the truth is that, here at least, these aren't the happiest of times. I hope that down the road we'll be able to look back and tell our kids stories of how we made it through. One thing I've learned about myself in recent years is that I'm surprisingly stoic in the face of crisis. What I've realized lately, however, is that I don't have to go through these things alone. I have incredible friends and family, some of whom have been around for decades. We are getting ready to step into the void here, and I invite you to hold our hands.

Bye Bye Baby

I don't know when it happened. I wasn't paying attention. Arden has stopped sucking those two fingers on her left hand. I'm afraid to jinx it. But she isn't even sucking them when she goes to sleep. I'd been plotting ways of breaking the habit for some time: bandaging the fingers with first aid tape, taping on a Michael Jackson style glove, applying foul-tasting nail biting solution. For a while the sucking habit was so bad I couldn't even get a picture of her without her fingers in her mouth (although just now I struggled to find even one). I couldn't walk through the grocery store without somebody saying in a ridiculous baby voice: "Do dos fwingers taste soo gwooood?" I definitely thought I'd still be struggling with this when she's six. It never honestly crossed my mind that she'd just simply outgrow it one day.

Just your average comedians

When my children were infants,my blogs focused on stats from doctor visits and milestones - a first smile, a coo, a word. And, with Sawyer at least, I documented a lot of what I was going through as a new mother. I will never forget the time I wrote 500 words on folding laundry. I look back on some of those old posts now and wonder that anyone ever read them or commented on them. I can barely reread them myself. And in a few years when my kids are deep into sports and school the tales of potty training will be yawners.

So what is currently captivating me about my children is how similar they are. I thought siblings were supposed to be opposites, and in some ways they are - she's fearless where he is timid, she's right handed while he's left handed, she's needy and he's independent. But, Arden, who I had pegged as dark, brooding and angsty in utero turns out to be just as much of a comedian as her brother. They can crack each other up for hours in the back seat of the car. She's not just his audience, as I thought she would be, she's at the mike, making faces and cracking jokes and turning him into a puddle of giggles. And lately she's taken to wrestling with him, and she puts him down with half nelson type moves that make me wonder if she wasn't Andre the Giant a past life. I have no idea if its okay to let them wrestle like that. Watching the whole thing, I'm halfway between cracking up and cracking down.

And as far as those stats, we went to the doctor the other day for Sawyer's 3-year and Arden's 18-month checkups. They were both a little above the 50th percentile for height and a little below the 50th for weight. They are both developing just great, beyond their ages verbally (imagine that after all I worried with Sawyer), and meeting all the milestones. The only surprise was when the doctor (not our normal doctor and not the nurse practitioner I'd sworn off last time) commented that Sawyer has a "musical heart murmur." Considering I'd had the full fetal scan and everything looked fine and that nobody's ever mentioned it before, I was pretty shocked. But she didn't say anything else about it and didn't seem concerned. She just said that this is the age these things tend to show up. I know that will give my mother a fit, since heart problems run in the family and Ross's murmur caused her a great deal of consternation when he was young, but the doctor didn't seem worried and so I'm not either. I'll just be curious to see if it comes up again in the future, and if it does, maybe I'll ask more questions.

Also, I'd like to note that Arden has now passed the age that Sawyer was when she was born (17 months). That, in my mind, was always a big milestone. Dealing with Arden and her terrible twos temperament and thinking about having a newborn baby on top of that, I don't have clue how I survived.