Baby B!

Baby B is a GIRL!!!!

Once again, we were convinced this was a boy and she isn't. I am thrilled on so many levels- a) sisterhood is a special bond, and hopefully Gillian and this little one will be close; b) economics; we have all the baby clothes/girl toys we will ever need!! we can keep our guest room because girls can share a room!!; c) laziness; on some level, parenting is parenting is parenting, but there are differences between raising boys and girls, and we already have practice with a girl. Now, we also have a list of pros if this would have been a boy, but needless to say, we could find something to be excited about either way.

Most importantly, she looks great-everything looks healthy. No signs of any abnormalities, everything is measuring appropriately, etc. The tech could have taken her time a little more (she was done lickety split, so no cute moments like with Gillian when we saw her yawn), but the outcome is as good as I could have hoped for. Praise God.

My feet swelled yesterday, instilling much angst in me, since I swelled the first time with Gillian at 19 weeks 6 days after we flew to Atlanta (I had my ultrasound the day before, and remember this vividly). None today, and I'm hoping it means absolutely nothing. Of course, in my paranoia I searched the web for when swelling begins, and it seems it isn't abnormal to start in the 4th month. So, ujaii beathing for me...and lots of praying. I would love to take this little girl home with me when I leave the hospital this go 'round.

Profile:


Gender:


Skeletor...er, um, I mean baby who doesn't have brown fat in her face (yet):

Another short...

I was changing Gillian's diaper today and she was holding her feet while she was laying on her back. Then from out of nowhere as she lifted her bum up in the air-she said:

"Mama, my 'gina is yawnin'!" (yes, her VAGINA is yawning).

I laughed so hard I peed my pants a little.

The Negotiater

At bathtime, we always end with Gillian cleaning up her toys and putting them in her basket. Monday night it went down like this:

Me: "OK, Gillian, let's clean up your bath toys..."
Her: "I can't, Mama."
Me: "Why Not?"
Her: (hands under armpits, arms crossed) "I don't have any hands. See?"
Me: "What are these?" I asked, gesturing at her fingers.
Her: "Those are fingers. Not hands," she patiently explained.

We are in for it. That was as good an excuse as I've ever heard from anyone.

What's in a name

Coming up with a name for your child is HARD. Sean and I have decided that there are a grand total of 10 boys names in the world and 8 million girls names to choose from (kind of like clothing options). We are set if this child is a boy, as we had a named chosen for a boy last time around when we found out we were having a girl (even if it does bug me that I know a guy who annoys me a LOT that has that name...but I'll have to get over that). Not to say that it was easy, mind you. It took us three months of arguing to come agree on Gillian's middle name (and in the end, Sean just gave up). "Gillian" was Sean's idea because he didn't love the name I have always wanted for a daughter ("Sadie Grace" after my North Georgia grandmother/greatgrandmother). He thinks "Sadie" is a great name, but is too cutesy to go well with "Colledge". I thought Gillian was pretty and went well with our last name, and not so common as a lot of other names, so I agreed (just how many names can be made with an "ayden" sound at the end, anyway??). So, here we are again with the girls names. The plan at this point is for me to make a list of every name I can tolerate and he will go through and cross out the ones he couldn't live with if he had to try. It's unfortunate, but I am pretty sure neither of us will *love* the name we give our next girl (if we have a next girl) because we will have had to compromise. Sean suggested we put the whole idea on hold until we find out the gender next month, but part of my nesting is giving this good, solid thought and making my list.

It seems a bit tricky to foresee some of the name landmines that can occur. Virginia, a perfectly respectable and dignified southern name, can become "Vagina" in elementary and middle school. Sherry rhymes with "hairy" and Shelly with "smelly". We have no control over our last names most of the time, but can help our kids avoid pre-pubescent hell with a little careful forethought. I would not name my son Richard and call him "Dick" for example. I probably would even avoid "Peter", even though I kindof like that name. I would avoid gender neutral names like "Leslie" for a boy... See? Hard. It is *almost* impossible to put my mind in the place of a 12 year old boy, but I'm trying.

I read an article recently that related lifetime depression and success with initials, if a person wasn't paranoid enough about the very intense task that is naming their child. So, just in case you though it would be fun to have your kids initial spell "ROT" or "DIE", think again. All I can say is that in modern vernacular, mine are particularly fly, "MAC". How fortuitous...good thing I changed my name.

Odds and ends

(Gillian's very first sled run on her very first sled ride from last weekend)

No one really ever explained how quickly stomach muscles give up the second time a person gets pregnant. I mean, it's like the second HSG starts coursing through your body, your stomach has a moment of happy remembrance of the good old days when it didn't have to work at all, and just decides it now has a grand excuse to become completely irresponsible. I am now a few days shy of 4 months pregnant and I think I look like I'm somewhere between 6 and 7 months pregnant (everyone kindly and politely disagrees, probably to make me feel better, or maybe they don't have to notice every day, so it's easier to blow off my concern). If I had not been convinced by some very nice 2nd time moms that this is completely normal, I might even have a complex.

Our little one is definitely more mellow that Gillian so far. I remember her first spaz out at about 12 weeks and she was never hard to miss after that. I feel tiny flutters every now and then, but I would miss completely if I didn't know what it was. I will actually feel a lot better once I feel regular movement. I heard the heartbeat a week ago, so I am in fact, still carrying a real live baby, but still. The sciatica and other Not So Pleasant symptoms (like areolas that feel like bundles of raw nerve ending) should be reassurance enough, but no so. Not for a person with "worry" on her top 5 list of Favorite Things To Do.

We are trying to make this baby idea familiar for Gillian by getting a few little books about having a baby brother or sister, but it's still a little bit intangible for her 28 month old brain. She's rather read The Giving Tree (which she is currently obssessed with). Maybe it will be more real to her once there is movement she can see and feel. But, maybe not. She is not a huge fan of baby dolls, so maybe the idea of a baby is interesting for a second, then some trivial bit of fluff to throw around. She still prefers animals to baby dolls, or even her own feet to baby dolls. We Skyped with Nonni on Wednesday and she asked Gillian if she wanted to give the baby her bottle (she spied the baby doll in her cradle), so Gillian pulled the cradle over, took the baby out and put her foot in the bed. She proceeded to give her foot a boopie (her lovey-a soft cotton trifold diaper that we have 10 of) and a blanket. She then cradled her foot tenderly, kissed and hugged it, asked it if it wanted a bottle, and pretended it was drinking a bottle before putting it back in the cradle. Then she took it out and said, "Foot wake up, Mama! Good morning foot!". Feet and legs have human qualities. She will often say (if she needs to get by me or Sean) "excuse me, Legs!". She makes her foot sad or asleep by curling her toes over. She makes her foot, or a rock, or her Lambs cry sometimes and of course, you have to ask the personified object if it is OK and what's the matter. Usually she says whatever it is is crying because it wants it's mama. Then I feel guilt that she's projecting her own wanting her mama more often. She likes to pretend that her Lamb's seesaw from their playground is an airplane and make them fly on it to "see Nonni and Grandaddy". Of course, Nonni and Grandaddy can be Lambs, or forks, or they can be fingers (when she says her finger is Nonni, I have to address her finger as Nonni, or she gets a little bent out of shape).

The other night in the bathtub she told me a story about our cleaning lady, Lucy, and how she brought pink cupcakes to our house and sang "Happy Birthday to You" and how they went on slides at the playground. In reality, Lucy did a great job cleaning our house like usual, but I saw no evidence of pink cupcakes and it was negative digits during the period that they were allegedly at the playground, so I kindof doubt Lucy took her to the slide. But I like that she imagined her perfect day, and was able to tell me about it. She also does this thing where she does a snapping kind of gesture and things appear. The first time was a few months ago when she clicked her tongue and did the snap thing with her right hand and said, "there Mama. Let's watch Pretend TV". The click was the remote. I notice this power now extends beyond pretend TV to making food appear for the Lambs and friends when they're eating dinner to snapping and clicking when she gives me an invisible napkin after she makes me eggs to eat in her kitchen. I have no idea where the idea came that she could make things appear, but it would be fun to discover it one day. Also, the imagination extends to pretending other things are something else completely, like the Letter "L" in the bathtub being a razor she gives me to "shave my beard" (something we do with bubbles in the bath) or the Letter H being a band aid for a phantom boo-boo. Sometimes a crayon doubles as a new diaper for her rocks or a cardboard tube as a trumpet or pair of pants. I am transfixed by all of this, of course*.

At playgroup the other day, Gillian said she wanted to go "pee-pee in the froggy potty". We hadn't been to AJ's house in 6 weeks, but Gillian remembered something I didn't-that he did, indeed, have a froggy potty (it was at that time in AJ's bedroom, door closed). This attests that she does NOT get her agile and extremely competant memory from me. Sean can correct his parents on events that occurred when he was 2 or 3 years old. It is really quite freakish, but perhaps a great memory will save her from suffering from the head fog I frequently suffer from that makes a person appear incredibly flakey. Speaking of potties and bathroom habits, I'm not sure that I mentioned how Gillian is extremely private about it when she poops. When she pees, she gleefully announces "I'm pee-peeing in the diaper, Mama!" When she poops, she says, "Mama, go 'way. I need to poop" and will even close the door behind me when I leave her room. She is happy to tell me she's done, and that she needs a new diaper, but I find it endearing that there is SOMETHING so private to her that she wants to be completely alone when she does it. Of course, I don't get that luxury with her around, but such is parenthood.

We had our first swim lesson today at the YMCA and we had an absolute blast (see pics, at bottom). It is strange to bundle up and go out in 20 degree weather to go to a pool, but the facilities are pretty phenomenal, and the heated pool was refreshing and perfect (no wading in required). Gillian got a little too attached to a toy Giraffe that we used to try to get them to swim toward something and use their arms and legs to paddle, but she was gracious in letting him go back and play with his friends in the box at the end. I'll post a video when I get it uploaded. On the way home, after lunch, we ran out of gas. Awesome. It could have sucked a lot more. We walked a half mile to the train station (which reminds me of how I love people who shovel sidewalks in from of their home and wish everyone would), and Sean went to get a gas can and gas while we took the train south home so Gillian could go to sleep. I pulled out all the stops to keep her awake on the jaunt home, and we made it. I hear her snoring as I type (man, does she snore!). I am very, very grateful that if we are going to run out of gas when it's 20 degrees, that we did it so close to a line that can drop us 3blocks from home. This is why living in a well planned city is awesome.



*many of these details are for our benefit to remember how Gillian sees the world at this moment.

Just because

I love this pic of my little angel girl. I also love that today Gillian was making "bean soup" by cutting playdough "noodles" into pieces and putting it in her pot to cook. She served me a plate and told me it would "help you poop, Mama". See, she is listening, after all.

Christmas week

We had Christmas at our house on Sunday the 21st, the morning before we flew down to New Orleans to spend Christmas with Sean's parents and the Charbonnets (including Gillian's greatgrandmother, Adee). Unlike last year, Gillian really got the opening presents thing, and she pretty much refused to do anything without Baby Jesus from our Nativity scene for a couple weeks before that...and she had so much reverance for him. No pretending he was eating or going to bed. Just gentle touches and kisses. Very odd.
Christmas day for us was cozy. We couldn't help but think that next year will be more wild-but it will be here in our own home. The biggest gift for her was a drum set-fully functional, and a real instrument for kids 3-11 years old. She has shown such an ear for melody and rhythm that we wanted to encourage her. Obviously music lessons on melodic instruments will come, but she is just not able to process the discipline of lessons just yet, so we'll hone her rhythm skills for now. Sean built her a little stage with a little rug (complete with Christmas lights) to perform on. Here is a clip from her first jam session (punk rock Twinkle Twinkle Little Star-note the angst!):


Monday morning we headed out to the airport, and had a seamless check in, thanks to Sean's secret check in area and secret security line (if we had gone the way of Everyone Else, we definitely would have missed the flight). Timing was great, but then we sat on the plane for an hour. An hour of inconvenience seems like a blessing compared what might have happened had we tried leaving in the afternoon. O'Hare flights were a disaster for days after we left due to snow and ice.

Nonni and Grandaddy met us at the airport and Gillian went right to Bill like she sees him every day (Skype literally removes any weirdness between her and them after time apart). And just like last year, Sean's bag was lost by United (though last year it was everything but the carseat, which was fortuitous), and delivered after midnight. Gillian was sure she was in heaven with all that attention, and there was no shortage of hugs and kisses for her!! We stayed at the Hotel Provencial, which is a lovely old collection of buildings in a wonderful part of the French Quarter. We usual stay with family, but the usual digs were all booked with other relatives in town for the holidays, so it was a treat to stay in the Quarter, steps away from Cafe DuMonde and the French Market, and everything else we wanted to do aside from visit family.

The first night we had an intimate dinner with Adee, the Thornhills (Suzi's sister's family), as well as her cousin and brother. Gillian is *in love* with Suzi's sister Alyce ("Leesie" as named by her grandson) who she met once on Skype and has been enamored of ever since (she has been talking about her for at least a month), and they played all night with a tub of plastic bugs.
Wednesday was a wonderful day. Nonni and Grandaddy walked Gillian to the Audubon Aquarium in the morning while Sean and I slept in until 9, lounged around and mosied over to Felix's for a fat filled and delicious lunch of Po Boys, etouffe, and Oysters Rockefellar. Gillian had a three hour nap, and then we decided to go out to Jackson Square to hear some music. We danced to the music of the guys that are always in the same place, every year, playing Dixieland Jazz for tips. They had a young little white kid tagging along this time, who by all accounts was pretty amazing on his trumpet and singing.


Gillian enjoyed the street musicians and artists, especially playing guitar with the Gilly-sized puppets:


That night, we had dinner at a place with a giant blow up Santa and Penguin that Gillian had to give a hundred hugs and kisses to before she would grudgingly leave (to the amusement of others in the restaurant), and then we took her home and put her to bed and Sean and I headed out to Preservation Hall for some excellent and very traditional Dixieland jazz. The Hall is all about the music-no frills, rickety benches in an "L" shape in a pretty small room, no beer, no food, no smoking.

Christmas Eve day dawned bright and warm, and heavenly. Gillian got to go to the playground for the first time in over a month, but not before she experienced her first beignets, which, like any sensible person, she loved:

That evening was the big Christmas Eve party at Adees where Gillian was one of the 16 great grandchildren under 8 years old present that night, and it was a wild and crazy evening (Santa came, even!). A huge pot of crawfish etouffe filled the entire house with the smell of Christmas at Adee's, and visiting with all the aunts and uncles and cousins was wonderful and overwhelming, as always. Christmas Day was low key, with a small group for lunch, and we got on an empty airplane and flew home. The day we left New Orleans it was sunny and 80 degrees, and we arrived home to 4 inches of ice in most places (a couple on our windshield in long term parking) and as much as 8 on the sides of the road and bitter cold. In spite of that, it was nice to be home. We all had a blast and so appreciated everything Nonni and Grandaddy did to make the trip hassle free!!

Words and Gillyisms

I am sometimes amazed by Gillian's word associations. For example, we don't use the word "trip", but the other day I asked her if she wanted to take a trip with me to the store. She immediately said "Yes, Mama and G can take a trip on a rocketship". Sean recognized that this was an allusion to the Little Einsteins shows which Gillian saw exactly twice about three weeks ago. The first bit of the theme song goes like this:
"We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship,
Zooming through the sky... Little Einsteins
Climb aboard, get ready to explore
There's so much to find, Little Einsteins" (she burst into the song moments later)

Yesterday she wanted to go to the children's museum again, and I said we would go another day. Then she started singing a song with the word "another"-"Rain rain go away, come again another day"....

She has also started telling tall tales. When she went to the aquarium with Nonni and Grandaddy, she got some wild ideas about the "big shark" she saw and was all excited when she came back to the hotel, talking about the "Biiiiiiig shark that came and bit Gilly on the bum and made a BIG BooBoo right HERE (with pointing)." Tonight she bumped a chair and pretend cried and told me she "boinged her face" and "broke her cheek" and "need[ed] a new one", and that "Papa will buy it". Listening to her prattle is endlessly fascinating, and she talks a LOT, about every single thing she has seen or heard as long as her memory goes back.

Life flashed before my eyes or the Story of How I Almost Lost My Daughter and My Mind in 60 Seconds Flat

Today Sean and I decided on a mutually beneficial use of our afternoon where he would go to Will's shop downtown to use some tools he needed for his violin while I took Gillian to the Children's Museum to entertain her during an afternoon of awful weather. It is a great place to take her a) because it is free for me to take her there and b) getting dropped off makes it completely free. Plan began beautifully. Gillian and I had a blast. She loved playing with all the things and *gasp* they even had a room full of babies this time called "taking care" in the ever-changing "hands on" room. Gillian got to wash a baby in a bath tub and dry her (by the time she was done it was the cleanest baby that ever lived) and then put on a diaper and PJs and wrapped her in a towel, put her ina stroller for a walk, then gave her a bottle, rocked her in a rocking chair, and put her to bed. Hmmm...sounds vaguely familiar. We did all the exhibits. We climbed rope ladders, went down slides, played with butterflies, made choo choo trains out of builders supplies, and played with all the cool science stuff. Sean called around 4:30ish and asked if we could manage another hour and I told him we could, and I would take G to eat at around 5 and see him around 5:30 or 5:45 (he would be calling). So, per The Plan, Gillian and I headed to the food court at a little after 5.

The food court reminded me of an Indian Street Market-crowded, loud, and insane. I was really regretting not having the stroller as I went to one place to get my salad and another place to get Gillian's sandwich and she was running away for fun and spinning around in the throngs (probably one of the most stressful things I have done as a parent-getting food for us in a public place with no control over where she was). At that point I was wishing I had a few more arms and some dorsal eyes or maybe a leash for my ethereal dancing fairy daughter who was oblivious to the fact that she could be trampled or knocked down or kidnapped at any second. I couldn't hold her hand and our heaped tray of food at the same time.

I headed into the mess of tables and people and all their stuff and there wasn't a table to be seen anywhere, and the random ones I spotted had no chairs. I started to feel a little claustrophobic with all the people and strollers and winter coats laying across everything, but managed to find two chairs after asking every person in a 50 foot radius if they were using all of theirs. I got Gillian situated and we both ate peacefully for 10 minutes, and then she got bored with all the sitting business, and got down to resume her running back and forth to test her tether to me (and to test me in general) and maybe to see how many times I could say "Gillian, come here please. Stay near our table". NOTE TO SELF: NEVER EAT ALONE WITH YOUNG CHILD IN BUSY FOOD COURT EVER AGAIN. Not restful. Not relaxing. Stress. Finally I was finished and she ate the intermittent bite of ham and cheese until I was satisfied that she ate enough, and I got up to put the stuff from the tray in the trash can located 5 feet from our table. Then I turned around, and she was gone. Poof.

So in that moment that felt like thousands of moments all suspended in eternal spaces, I saw my life. The devastated mother whose daughter was kidnapped in a busy public place in a matter of 3 seconds when she turned her back, I saw them finding her dead from some sick monster of a criminal-my precious angel, my innocent sweet baby. My adrenaline kicked in, and my heart was pounding so hard I was having strobe light vision. I called for her. I looked around like I was crazy. I started looking at everyone with wild eyes yelling, "Have you seen my daughter??!?? Have you seen her???" She was nowhere. Nowhere. She just disappeared. I was sure she couldn't have run so far by herself. I ran back and forth like the criminally insane desperately looking for her in every chair, and in every face. After an agonizing amount of time (probably 45 seconds that felt like 5 minutes) and sympathetic looks for the lunatic (who was imagining she lost her daughter) from the masses, I, with canine ears, heard a little voice 50 feet away, and there she was at the table of another family across the food court. I ran and grabbed her, all teary and shaking and hugging her like she might evaporate, telling her to never never never do that again. I felt like God gave me another chance to safeguard my most precious thing, and I was grateful. I learned in that moment how your life can change literally in seconds. Someone could have grabbed her and taken off and she would have been gone, like a ghost.

So, out of sheer guilt for my terrible mothering, almost losing her, then scaring her with all my fear and love, we went to the Build a Bear Workshop. Gillian picked out a grey kitty cat to stuff, pushed the pedal to stuff it all by herself, chose a little and very special red heart from the bin of hearts, rubbed it between her little hands and gave it a kiss (because we want to always warm the heart of the things we love), and she put it inside the kitty before they laced him up. His name is Sam. And more than ever, I realized how fiercely I love her, and what her little life is worth to me, and how it could never be the same without her.

News

We have NEWS. There's good reason for my slack posting of late. It's because I have been racked with the exhaustion of early pregnancy...it feels weird to write that- I'm PREGNANT again. God willing, I'll stay that way until this baby is term. Early pregnancy with Gillian was a blur of sleep, naps, barely making it through my work day, and vague nausea. This time the sleepies are a hundred times worse because there is a toddler to attend to, and the nap options are few and far between. Luckily, we are just about out of the first trimester, and that is passing, along with the feeling of constantly being hung over. There is something surreal about going to bed by 8:30 every night and never feeling rested and being on a almost strictly-carb diet because only carbs have been kind to my stomach. The first trimester this time has been so much harder than with Gillian because I can't take care of myself first.

So, I was trying to post a little video of Baby B-we have yet to select a nickname-but my DVD reader is not cooperating. Photos of our two inch long wonder will have to do. We saw *him* at our ultrasound for the sequential screen last Friday (*Sean thinks this is a he, and through complicated logic, made the argument that he is a better guesser than I am, which wouldn't be all that impressive a claim (I was convinced Gillian was a boy so much that for 20 weeks I called her "he"). He was a little wiggly, but not the spastic little jumping bean Gillian was. For the record, I wouldn't mind if this child is mellow.

We have mentioned this to Gillian a few times, but it is beyond intangible. Her thoughts are kindof like this:

"Mama wants a brother
Gilly wants a sister
Papa wants a boy"

or "Gilly wants a sister-Mama go get one!"

or "There's a baby in Mama's tummy-So Yummy, So Yummy!"

I wish I could say I have been as consumed by this experience as I was the first time-when I ready every fetal development book that exists in my giddiness. But, I'm too tired. I'm just trying to function on a basic level. One thing that hasn't changed is my worrying that something could go wrong, but luckily I don't have the time to obssess over that worry like I did before.

Speaking of time and sleepiness.... Here are pics of our Little One at 11 weeks 2 days (1.75 inches long, with fully visible little hands and feet, nose, mouth, and eyes):