Monthly Archives: January 2012

Welcome Back…

Posted on January 6, 2012 | 4 comments

A recent trend on facebook has people looking up the #1 song on the American  Billboard the week of their birth.  1976 was a great year for popular music.  Earth, Wind & Fire, Queen, Parliament, Paul McCartney, The BeeGees, The Who, Thin Lizzy, Neil Sedaka.  There was something for everyone.

So, I googled and waited patiently.  Expecting to find a long forgotten hit song or maybe an old favorite, a KC & The Sunshine Band song if I was lucky.  I have laughed along with many of my friends as they have posted the song from their birthday week, some of which have been more foretelling than their parents might have guessed at the time.

And what did I find?  John Sebastian’s Welcome Back.   Yup.  A TV theme song.  At first I wasn’t thrilled that it was a song to celebrate the return of Gabe Kotter to the classroom that heralded my birth.  (Although a soft spot for Vinnie Barbarino and the rest of the Sweathogs surely exists in me.) But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s perfect.

And even more perfect that I listened to this song last night.

Because I am ready to welcome someone back to my life.  I don’t buy in to all the spiritual new age woo that you might think.  But that which I do believe, I believe with my whole heart.   And if there is one thing that I know it is that your children, they are and have always been yours.

Genetically speaking, of course, they could belong to no one else, but I think the parental bond goes beyond genetics.  Even more than I believe MQD and I were meant to be together (and I do think that forces stronger than my desire to have a perfect blind date brought  him to me) I believe that he and Emily knew one another before this life.  I look at the way she looks at him, and the way that he loves her with all of his being and I see it.

The moment Emily was born, the first time I looked at her it didn’t feel like we just met.  I had known her all my life.  Just as she had been waiting for me, for the right time. To come back.

Welcome back,
Your dreams were your ticket out.
Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.
Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they’re turned around.
Who’d have thought they’d lead ya…
Here where we need ya…

Well, I did.  I knew they’d lead her to me.  Just as I know that Baby D is right on time.

This morning I woke from a dream a little startled.  In the last 36 hours Baby D has dropped and I can breathe.  And I can sleep.  And apparently I can roll over a tiny bit more to one side than I could before because when I woke, pillow between my knees like a good pregnant sleeper I was just slightly more turned towards my stomach than I have been in recent weeks.   And for a moment instead of worrying that I was no longer pregnant I thought “Where’s the Baby?”

It happened.  Baby D became a baby instead of a pregnancy.  The other day it was KC’s cheesy ballad “Yes, I’m Ready” that made me think I was finally prepared.  And this morning, it was ABC’s Welcome Back, Kotter that made me know it’s almost time.  Just in case there was any doubt I am truly a product of late 1970’s pop culture.

So, c’mon, Baby D…. your dreams and mine, that’s your ticket out.  We’re here.  Waiting to welcome you back.

 

 

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Posted in Family, Parenting, Pregnancy

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Breaking News…

Posted on January 5, 2012 | 6 comments

Sometimes I can be a little bit of a know-it-all.  And I imagine that makes living with me difficult occasionally.  I really try not to act like I am the Great Knower of All Things, constantly imparting my infinite wisdom.

Sometimes I really struggle with being seven years older than my husband.  I pull gray hairs from my head and I see his under 30 smile and I wonder what he sees in me.

And very occasionally these two facts combine and create a perfect moment in time.

MQD was born in July of 1983.  So when Billy Gibbons revealed  a global truth to the world that summer … MQD had just been born.  He was probably not listening to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40.  So, it’s possible he doesn’t know that “Every Girl is Crazy ’bout a Sharp Dressed Man.”  And I am not about to tell him.

 

Side note: MQD, it is not only your bowtie that had me weak in the knees this morning (or this 800 pound kid of yours I am lugging around in my innards.)  But for the billionth time since we have moved in to our house I started to prepare to leave for work and the time had come to find my keys.  And there they were.  Hanging on the key rack.  I am pretty certain I have never hung them there.  So, lest you think it is only your “Clean shirt, new shoes…” that keeps me “runnin’ just as fast [ I ] can” in your direction… I’m not that shallow.  I also love you for keeping track of my keys.

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Posted in Family, Nonsense

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Pregnancy Brain

Posted on January 3, 2012 | 12 comments

This morning I snapped a picture of the bag I packed last night. Packing the bag to take to the birth center has me a little flipped out.  I am not a girl that prepares for things ahead of time typically. And I most certainly do not pack in advance.  I like to start packing at 11:30 pm, somewhere around the middle of the second bottle of wine, for a longer trip.   Or while everyone is getting in the car I like to rush around and throw some things in a bag as I race out the door for  a long weekend.

So once I get packed, it means it is time to go. Or at least that is how my brain works.

So, as I prepared to leave the house this morning I made sure to take a picture.  Because I could have the baby any second.  I could  go in to labor.  Today.  Because I am packed.  Which means it is time to go.

And I thought about that as I made coffee.  As I put my lunch in my lunch bag. As I started the dishwasher.  As I locked the side door and said “Hop in the car, Fish.”

And I started to kinda mentally map out a little blog post about how the bag in our bedroom was giving me the creeps.

And maybe that was what I was thinking when I started to back straight down my driveway.  In to a ditch.

Straight down my not exactly straight driveway.  In to a ditch.  And a tree.

I sat there for a moment.  Stunned.  And then I started to laugh. Well, that’s some Pregnancy Brain right there.  Is there really any need to debate whether or not it is a real thing?  I can’t even back out of my own damn driveway? This was certainly better blog fodder than a picture of a black Eddie Bauer gym bag.

I was calm and cool until  while on the phone with MQD a woman stopped and looked at me, with pity, and asked me if I was okay.

And then I fell apart.  And I cried and told MQD I didn’t know what I was going to do.  That it was cold outside!!!  He calmly told me to go inside . Our house. Since I was in the driveway.  And call AAA.

Of course, AAA. I forget about AAA.  Because I do not prepare for things.  Like minor car troubles.  Or needing a tow.  Or going in to labor.  But I guess I do now.  Because I have a bag packed.  And a picture of our AAA card saved on my phone.  Texted to me by my patient husband.  As I tried to figure out how I was going to stay warm.  While standing in my driveway.  Staring at my car.

The chances are pretty good I won’t put my car in a ditch any time soon.  Since I have the number for AAA in my phone now. So, I wait.  And try not to think about the fact that since I have a bag packed…. I might never have this damn baby.

 

 

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A little bit creepy….

Posted on January 2, 2012 | 3 comments

In preparation for attending Baby D’s arrival in to the world Emily and I have been watching some birth videos.  This morning I told her that she doesn’t have to be brave, she can just tell me what she really thinks.  “I think I want to be brave, but it might just get too creepy.  Like when the vagina just grows and grows… because you know it is going to have to get HUGE.”

Creepy?  I’ll give her creepy….. the kid is a shark.  She is growing a second row of  teeth BEHIND her baby teeth.

But I still made her cookies and let her flop on the couch and watch Annie on the iPad.  I mean… it IS kind of creepy.  All those HUGE vaginas.

Maybe there is room for me under that blanket…

 

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Posted in Parenting, Pregnancy

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Yes, I’m ready….

Posted on January 2, 2012 | 1 comment

My love for KC of KC and the Sunshine Band does not extend only to his hits.  This morning I awoke (to a pile of sharp Emily elbows and Fisher breath and a cat howling at me, but that is neither here nor there) with a song in my head.

An often overlooked KC & Teri De Sario duet, “Yes, I’m Ready.”

I don’t even know how to love you
Just the way you want me to
But I’m ready (Ready) to learn (To learn)
Yes, I’m ready (Ready) to learn (To learn)

To fall in love, to fall in love
To fall in love with you

And I am.  What changed between yesterday and today?  I am ready to catch the leaks.

The first time you become a mother you are encouraged to pamper yourself and focus on your pregnancy and your post-partum period.  Celebrate this new phase of your life.  This time I felt like there was no need to do that.  I am a mother already.  And I know better this time than to think I need to buy every baby item under the sun, so the pile of Baby Stuff is much smaller.  I thought that was what was making me feel like I wasn’t ready.  The unknown gender of Baby D makes shopping for newborn clothes virtually impossible.  We own everything yellow that has a duck and a giraffe on it already.  And really, that’s more than enough.

And yesterday I realized what I was missing.  I needed to be prepared to catch the leaks.

Yesterday afternoon I assembled an army of old friends.  A package of pre-fold diapers to catch the slime that oozes from a baby constantly.  A package of flannel receiving blankets to put down in my bed.  I washed and dried and brought back to life my Lily Padz and a dozen sets of reusable cloth nursing pads.  I made a pile of underwear that I know will end up covered in blood.  All alone in the Target I stared at nursing bras designed for sleeping, camisoles with snaps and pajamas that button up the front.  I stood in the feminine care aisle longer than anyone in my family would have tolerated until I could remember whether I liked wings or not.  Until I recalled that an absorbent core is really just like having a plastic sack of jelly in your underwear and that I hated those.  I stashed those little packs of Kleenex in every purse I own, next to my bed, near the couch.  Because I know how quickly I will cry over the next few weeks as I fall head over heels in love again. While leaking from everywhere but my ears.

And now I’m ready.  To fall in love.  And to catch the leaks.

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