How's that Baby Cooking?

So I think I'm about 7 months pregnant with this little baby number 4.  We are in Danville visiting my parents.  Pam is taking care of me and my kids, thus cutting my workload in half. Hush and I were supposed to be galavanting through Europe right now but we had to postpone our trip because I can't walk. Also he has something called a job that he can't ditch right now.  We all miss him terribly but he's coming out here soon.  In the meantime he is enjoying some much needed man time.

The children and I are playing and waiting for our new little sister.  I've never had a baby when my other children were old enough to understand vaguely what was happening and being pregnant with three children has been a totally different experience.

First of all, I travel in a cloud.  A fog of children.  Wherever I go, every way I turn, I nearly trip over somebody short.  So many little feet! So many arms!  With my expanding size I feel very claustrophobic most of the time.  It's good and bad because when we're out I know that if I can feel them touching me or if I stumble over them they are safe.  

My belly is a magnet for them and I love it.  I'm currently experiencing that amazing heaviness below my belly button and sometimes I hold it up with my hands when I'm having a hard time walking.  The children are attune to when I'm struggling and they often try to help carry the baby for me.  "I hold the baby mama.  I help you"  they say as they push up on my tummy. 

Silas has even taken the time to grow a sympathy belly.  I can see why they want to touch my tummy all the time -- I want to touch their chubby tummies too!

As far as symptoms, my favorite inflammation of the pelvis joint that had receded somewhat has returned with a vengeance.  Maybe it's in honor of the World Cup, my soccer player kicked crotch.  I have to lay down for every hour that I'm up, 1:1.  When I'm laying down this little wiggly baby likes to flip around, even laying transverse for a whole day.  That was uncomfortable.  Also I pretty much can't walk.  C'mon body.  You're better than this.

I had problems with Silas rolling the wrong way every day to the point where my md had to do a version (baby rolling at the doctor's office or hospital).  I'm usually able to roll them inside the womb and I can identify fairly well how they're laying by where they kick.  For the last few days this baby has been giving my intestines an internal massage, which means she's currently breech.  Being 29 weeks I should have enough time to flip her around, but of course I have all these umbilical cord phobias.  

Physically uncomfortable though I am, I have little Si who just cannot give the baby enough love.  He snuggles my tummy and lays on it and talks to the baby and kisses it.  The other kids love to touch me and kiss me, but Silas is particularly funny because when he talks to me he puts one hand on either side of my belly like he's holding my face in his hands.  Lots of kisses and pats.  He thinks it's his own personal pillow, which tight and firm as my belly has gotten can be awkward.  

Sneezing is a no. Rolling over, boo.  Moving quickly is a thing of the past.  I think I'll spend the next few months bobbing up and down in the pool.

Or maybe I'll just invest in this: 

The Three Cousins of 2014

After a month of just dying because I couldn't be there for the births and earliest days of these two little babies' lives I finally got to meet the newest little cousins!

Aubrey and Phil had baby Penelope May 20 and Ellie and Mark had baby Abraham June 3.  Being away for baby births makes me incredibly homesick.

Thankfully they are both still tiny.

Baberaham, 2 weeks. 

Penny, 1 month.

Silas having some Baby Abe time.

Pam and Abe.  He looks like Jude and Fiona to me, but mostly like his dad.  Tons of black hair.

And then I got to experience baby heaven while 7 months pregnant with my new baby.  These two are going to be Baby B's lifetime pals.  So grateful to have cousins!  They're going to need a team name.  Flopsy Mopsy and Cottontail?  

Capitola and Johnny Cash

Family Beach Day, June 2014.

Three cars, 20 people.  Ellie at home with newborn Abe.

Same size cousins Otto 3, Sylvie 5, Jude 5 almost 6.

Mimi 7, Alice 7 (Alice is three months older and is a mini human.)

Surfing with Auntie Camille. Also Griffin and Sol.

Here's my review of the beach:

The beach is best accomplished the way we used to do it in Hawaii.  Once upon a time my dad had a huge house on Tunnel's Beach, North Shore of Kauai.  We would walk a few yards to the beach and then go back when we were hungry or needed the bathroom.  No long drives, no parking, no hauling all your crap from the car and then twice as much crap on the way back bc kids who helped initially are too wet and cranky.  I love watching the kids play in the waves, but it's just so much better when you don't have to commit on the basis of an hour and a half drive.  And there are so many mitigating factors: the wind, the tide, hunger, bathrooms, weather.  The beach is hard.

My highlight was actually the drive home.  Mimi and Pam were sitting together and Mimi was controlling the music.  She put on Johnny Cash song after song because he is her current favorite.  She and Pam sang along until Mimi turned to Grandma and asked, "How do YOU know these songs?!"   Pam replied, "My dad used to play them on our record player when I was a child! Johnny Cash is dead and he was older than I am!" Mimi thinks Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson and Katy Perry are all contemporaries.  

Our Main Man

Today was our best Father's Day yet because my kids finally have a real father.  

I let my kids lead the way with how to handle this holiday and they chose to celebrate the main man in their life.  To them Father's Day means Danny's Day.

Hush is the guy they look for in the audience when they sing "I'm so glad when Daddy comes home."  

Hush is the guy they make art projects for and they know the answers to the little interview questions about what their Father likes to do, what he always says, and how they know he loves them.

For the first Father's Day ever they have someone worth celebrating who has spent time with them and taught them things and just simply been there, day and night, showing them what normal can be.  

For the first Father's Day yet I didn't cry at their deprivation of what all the other kids seemed to have.  

They don't call him daddy (to his face) but if he looks like a dad and acts like a dad, he's gonna get honored like one. 

So thanks, bb, for being a better dad to my children than I ever could have hoped.  Thank you for receiving their affection and thank you for giving them a Norman Rockwell childhood.

“I Did Not Expect Those Joys to Be Ordinary to Me”

 

This morning at 6am I started awake.  We’d made a grueling 14 hour drive home from Arizona yesterday and I was so unbelievably sick that by the time we got home I was able only to quickly get the kids into bed and then collapse in a barfy heap.  The car ride home consisted of me first attempting to nap for two hours, then begging to be mercy killed and/or left on the side of the road, followed by a drugged sleep for the last two hours across all three backseats because I couldn’t handle being upright anymore.  I was the least fun traveling partner ever because I think I had food poisoning the night before.

When I woke up this morning I was in a panic knowing that the minions had to be up and ready for school, but that I hadn’t set my alarm, didn’t know where my phone was to check the time, and basically was unprepared for the morning routine.  Disoriented I reached across Hush (smashing and waking him) and found that Hush had found my phone and my charger, plugged it in and set my alarm.  I still had over an hour to sleep.  Blissful relief.

When I did finally get up I vaguely remembered that most of the kid’s stuff was still in the car and it would probably require a luggage heft and shoe hunt.

But to my surprise all of the stuff from the car was neatly arranged in the living room and ready to go – I didn’t carry in ANY of it.  I looked for the dirty laundry basket and it was already by the washing machine downstairs.

I quickly got the kids off to school on time and then went to the car to throw away the trash and take it to the carwash.  All the neighbors trashcans were on the street so I went to the backyard to take our cans out before the garbage truck came.  Our trashcans were already on the curb.

After a morning of surprises effortlessly performed by Hush the Thoughtful Savant, the trash being out on the curb stopped me in my tracks.

Trash is a big trigger of trauma for me.  When I was married to Houdini trash night was just another night of me worrying and waiting for him to appear – another way to log his last disappearance and how long he’d been gone.  One particular night I remember I was about 8 months pregnant and it was trash night.  There are few moments that take me right back to that place of worry and helplessness like the memory of dragging two weeks worth of garbage far down the street 8 months pregnant blinded by both the pouring rain and my tears of hopelessness. 

“I tend to find the ecstasy hidden in ordinary joys

because I did not expect those joys to be ordinary to me.”  -- Andrew Solomon

But today, right now, the alarms are set.  The trash is taken out.  I didn’t have to carry everything in from the car.  I’m pregnant and I am able to rest.  This is my ordinary life, now.  I think that had I married Hush when I was 22 I would have thought this thoughtful behavior sufficient and normal.  Maybe I’d even get used to it and become entitled to being treated with such care and concern.  Instead I have a history of struggle and pain and only in retrospect can I forge meaning from what felt for years like punishing chaos.   And in these moments of surprise and gratitude I appeal to the sentiments of writer Andrew Solomon, “I think that I am indebted, even to [Houdini], because all those earlier experiences were what had propelled me to this moment and I was finally unconditionally grateful for a life I’d once have done anything to change.”

And it is because of my earlier experiences, through which many of you have encouraged me or just simply observed, that I now wake up every morning surprised, grateful and humbled by my unexpected family situation.  And I record it here, lest I, for even a moment, forget.    

Highly recommend this TED talk, good luck holding back your tears!

http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_how_the_worst_moments_in_our_lives_make_us_who_we_are