cat named pig

Baby steps. Over and over again. 

He’ll take one or two, three on a really good streak, and then fall. But if you give him a ball, he’ll hold onto it and stand up to try again. He’s also discovered that a sideways shuffle is a little less risky, balance-wise. Good thing we have this entertainment, since it’s been snowing all morning. 

1. The “big girls” at school coloring a birthday crown for him to wear; him beaming when we put it on his head. (Not that my slow camera and slow reflexes caught the beaming part — but he loved it, I swear.)

2. Siena’s enthusiasm for all things related to his birthday, especially seeing him eat his “first taste of a cupcake and getting all messy!” which she had been talking about for weeks, giddy with anticipation. (Like he doesn’t get all messy at every single meal.)

3. Elliot eating his first cupcake (chocolate; he loved it) and hearing him demand “MORE!” when all the pieces were gone. He also clapped — definitely my son. I applaud anything chocolate. 

4. Siena, Matt and I reminiscing about the day Elliot was born and the first time Siena met him; how she said, “Hi, Baby Elliot,” and gave him the most gentle kiss on the top of his head. She was so solemn the whole time she was at the hospital that first night, very sweet towards her brother but also very cautious about the whole situation, like she was trying to figure out how this was all going to work with this new baby in our lives. Which was pretty much exactly how Matt and I felt. So far, I’d say it’s been working out pretty well. As Siena says all the time, “Aren’t we so lucky we got the happiest, smiliest baby?” And we are. So lucky.

5. Elliot’s birthday evening ended with some music and dancing and (why was I surprised by this?) some naked ballet. Which looks just like Nutcracker ballet, snowflake ballet, swimsuit ballet, or The Number Third Shrek Ballet, except for the obvious difference in costuming. Elliot applauded (he was wearing just a onesie at that point; apparently the audience dress code for a naked ballet is pants-optional) and I flopped down on the couch asking the ceiling why none of my kids ever want to wear clothes. But it was a great, hilarious ending to his first birthday.

6. We had a brunch Saturday (family and a few friends with kids) and Elliot spent the majority of the party playing with these markers, which we already owned and which he has had countless opportunities to play with before, but for some reason they were the most exciting thing in the world that day. Even more exciting than a houseful of kids and a gigantic stack of birthday presents, apparently.

That is basically how we’ve all felt around here for the last few days, just. . . blehhhh. Some kind of weird stomach upset has invaded our house and we’ve all been “under the weather,” which is Siena’s new favorite expression. She works it into almost every conversation.

I had talked to Sara and learned that Avery was very sick all night Sunday, so when I put Siena to bed on Monday night, I placed her wastebasket next to the bed and then had to explain the concept of throwing up, as she has never experienced that particular misery (KNOCK ON WOOD; I AM NOT ASKING FOR TROUBLE BY WRITING THAT, AM I???!?!?). I described it as “when all the food you’ve eaten comes back up out of your belly and you have to spit it out” and she has used that exact wording multiple times since. Like on Tuesday morning, when she first got up and greeted me with, “Good news, Mama! I didn’t have all the food I ate come back up out of my belly and I didn’t have to spit it out in the trash!” Good news, indeed. She seems to have inherited my ability to feel nauseated to the point of death but never actually throw up, which will serve her well when she is pregnant one day and trying to work in an office where coworkers microwave salmon loaf for lunch and eat it in the cube adjacent to hers. (A particular misery I can gladly say I expect never to experience again.)

And poor Elliot seems to have it the worst of all of us. The English language lacks adjectives dramatic enough to describe his diapers this week (I would have to invent new words [grosstacular, for example] to even come close, not that you want me to describe his diapers at all) and the saddest thing happened the other day when he was crawling. He just stopped to lie down in the middle of the room, resting his cheek on the wood floor, too exhausted to even play any more. Poor baby.  

On the plus side, Elliot said “DUNK!” very clearly several times tonight while we were playing with the little basketball hoop he got for his birthday. Anyone who knows his father is not surprised that this would be his sixth or seventh word. 

While I’ve been sitting here eating breakfast:

1. Hidden Easter eggs for him to find; carried/dragged him to each egg and pulled it out for him before he even had a chance to look for it.

2. Slow-danced with him by lifting him up and putting her cheek on his head as she slowly spun him around. 

3.  Set the globe down in front of him and said, “Look, Elliot, here’s the North Pole — see? That’s where Santa lives. Do you see, Little Buddy?”

I definitely recommend having two kids.  

[Since we didn’t have catnamedpig.com when Elliot was born, his birth story was recorded in a list of short notes Matt made in my baby journal at the hospital, and some stuff I jotted on another piece of paper. It’s taken me a year to get the whole story written down in one place, with actual sentences and everything, but here it is. Don’t worry, I left out the really gory labor and delivery details.]

Elliot was born on March 21^st, 2007, a week before his due date.  At my thirty-eight week check-up, my doctor mentioned that, since I was induced with Siena and everything had gone well, and since this baby was clearly bigger than Siena had been, I could have the option of an “elective induction” at thirty-nine weeks.  Offering a fixed endpoint to a woman who is thirty-eight weeks pregnant is like offering water to a person crawling across the desert; I did not hesitate to have her put me on the list. 

I had been having contractions for weeks already, often at consistent five-minute intervals and going on for hours before fading away. I went to bed every single night wondering if I was experiencing the start of labor and expecting to wake up when my water broke or the contractions intensified, but every morning I was still pregnant. My doctor assured me that she thought the baby would come in less than a week and the whole induction would be unnecessary, but I was pretty sure my body would continue to mess with me for at least another seven days, if not forever. Elective induction? Sign me up.

So the morning of the 21^st rolled around, also known as thirty-nine weeks. My doctor had explained that the hospital would call me if they had room for me, so Matt and I spent the morning waiting for the phone to ring. After a couple hours, I called the Labor & Delivery ward. The nurse I spoke to said they didn’t have any beds, and that they usually they don’t call unless it is really slow. I was crushed. Actually, I was filled with rage (being thirty-nine weeks pregnant alone was enough to fill me with rage on a regular basis; being told I wasn’t actually going to meet my son that day made it a billion times worse). I wanted my baby already.

After saying a bunch of swear words and crying some hot, angry tears about the unfairness of it all, I decided to head in to work. I had nothing better to do at that point, and I figured it would be one more day of maternity leave to spend with the baby, should he ever arrive. I had barely gotten to my desk after explaining to a few dozen co-workers why I was still there when my phone rang. It was my doctor (not my regular doctor, who was out of town that week, but the doctor who would’ve been delivering my baby if I had gotten in to the hospital that morning). He had just heard from the hospital and they could take me, after all, and could I head over right now? Ummm, YES. On my way.

Matt and I grabbed our bags from the house and headed over to be induced.

We checked in and the nurse got me hooked up to an IV with Pitocin (the drug that jump-starts labor). I remembered things getting going pretty fast once I got the IV with Siena; I knew my body reacted quickly to the Pitocin, so I was happy when I felt the contractions grow noticeable almost immediately. But I kept waiting for them to get really strong, like the kind where you can’t talk, and that wasn’t happening. The nurse even said at one point, “You look way too comfortable” as I chatted with her and with Matt, barely noticing the labor.

After a few hours and a few centimeters of dilation, the doctor came in to break my water in the hopes of speeding things along. And Holy Mother of Pain (is that an expression?), did things ever speed up after that.

How to describe that first contraction after my water broke, in comparison to the contractions leading up to that point? Well, it was like the difference between something benign, let’s say tadpoles, and that thing that rose up out of the depths and killed Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring. (Anyone else get that reference? And since I just admitted that I’m kind of a dork for LOTR, I’ll go ahead and stop pretending like I don’t know it’s called a Balrog. And it didn’t exactly kill Gandalf – he came back later, stronger than ever. But it sounded like he went through hell, which brings me back to my comparison. Contractions after water is broken: pretty much a fiery hell of pain.) And the next contraction started as soon as that one ended. And the one after that started as soon as that one ended, and so on. I looked at Matt, unable to form sentences, and tried to communicate with my eyes the fact that this was unlike anything, ever.

He didn’t seem to be reading my desperation, so I finally got out the words “Call the nurse,” figuring that at least she would be able to tell I was ready for some drugs. Since the moment she hooked me up to the IV, I had been mentioning my plan to have an epidural as soon as was reasonably possible, so I figured there shouldn’t be any confusion about that strategy.

But Matt didn’t call the nurse. Instead, he looked at me and said, “Hon, you knew it would be intense, being induced. Remember, this was a choice.”

He really said that, word for word. And I’m still married to him. But I am writing about it on the internet, for anyone in the world to read. Because when you say something like that, you deserve to have the internet know about it.

And to his point, well, yes. I knew being induced meant no gradual build-up of contractions, and I knew having the baby was going to hurt. I had done it before, with a faulty trick epidural that didn’t really work (more about that story on Siena’s birthday) so it’s not like I expected a pain-free experience, although I certainly wouldn’t have turned that down.

The nurse finally came in and checked to see if I had dilated any more. I had gone from three to six centimeters in fifteen minutes. No wonder it had hurt.

She called the doctor in, and then the anesthesiologist. They recommended an interthecal instead of an epidural (both involve a needle to the spine; basically, I went for the interthecal because they assured me it would take effect faster and the shorter duration wouldn’t be an issue given how fast I was progressing). It was fantastic. I loved it. It started working almost immediately, which was key, considering that almost as soon as the anesthesiologist left the room, it was time to start pushing

The whole time I was pushing (all fourteen minutes) we were all watching the clock. Siena has been born at 5:26 p.m. and we thought Elliot might end up with the exact same birth time, but apparently he wanted his own. So at 5:27 p.m., I held my son for the first time. Matt cut the umbilical cord, and we both said “Hi, Baby Boy. Hi, Elliot Jacob.”

He had blond hair (there was a great moment during the pushing when the nurse exclaimed, “He’s a blondie!” and my dark-haired husband and I looked at each other in surprise, leading the nurse to joke “Uh oh – this is gonna be awkward!”) and blue eyes, and I was crazy about him. Still am.

Happy Birthday, Bugabee.

Here’s how I’ve spent the last half-hour: scrubbing nutcracker marks off the walls with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Seriously.

What are nutcracker marks? You may well be wondering, since I can pretty much guarantee that this particular problem is unique to my household. They are black, blue or red scuff marks that Siena’s nutcracker leaves on the wall when he bumps into it during ballet performances or as he is carried up and down the stairs. There are also several marks on the wall next to her bed, where the nutcracker sleeps tucked in next to her every night. Those I am not even going to worry about, since no one goes in her room, but the ones on the basement walls were getting out of hand, and we have people coming for brunch on Saturday.

This whole nutcracker obsession is getting ridiculous.  

Have you been dying of suspense? Here’s how it went down.

Fondue Friday got off to a rather rocky start (Matt working late; Ryan running to the store for fondue fuel, AFTER I had checked to make sure we had fondue fuel, when what we really had was an empty container of it neatly wrapped and put away with the fondue set; me growling about “who puts an empty container of fuel back in the box,” etc.). And I always forget how long it takes for that tiny flame to melt all that cheese, and how much stirring is required.

Enough time for TWO huge poopy diapers on Elliot’s part, it turns out. But Siena and Avery did some ballet while Ryan and Sara stirred the cheese and I changed multiple disgusting diapers. Then it was fondue time.  

The girls loved the idea of dipping stuff into the cheese, but I didn’t see either of them actually taste it. They did eat plenty of plain bread, plain cheese that had not been melted, and veggies. They also left the table for a costume change halfway through the meal, and came back dressed in swimsuits, all packed for “Hawaii.” This was followed by some rather inappropriate swimsuit wrestling (I was surprised by this too) and then, of course, some swimsuit ballet, which surprised no one. 

Matt showed up in time to put Elliot to bed and put on some non-Nutcracker music, and the evening ended in a massive search for one of Avery’s socks, which I found (minutes after they had left) in a baby stroller under several tons of dress-up clothes.  

While I went into the evening with equal parts trepidation (open flame, sharp objects, preschoolers who trash my house for fun) and anticipation (Ryan’s cookies. . . mmm. . . must have the cookies. . . . give me the cookies. . . . mmmPRECIOUSSSSSSSSS. . . . MINE), I think we all had a good time.  And the cookies did not disappoint. Might have to make Fondue Friday an on-going tradition. . . .

Hi, Miss Kay! We made the leprechaun hats! 

My guess is that there will be a lot of ducking for cover over the next two weekends. March Madness has officially arrived. I saw this commercial in the last couple days, which perfectly captures what the NCAA tourney does to people.

May you find a hole in the wall in which you’re able to watch all 63 games in peace.

Tonight we are hosting Avery and family for a fondue dinner. Sharp forked sticks, gooey melted cheese, and an open flame — should be interesting to watch Siena and her Number One Partner in Crime in this situation. It’s almost like I’m making it too easy for them. With the paint incident, at least they had to go looking for trouble. Here, I’m serving it to them, literally. At least they’ll be fully supervised the entire time. And not just by Sara and me, since we clearly aren’t very good at keeping an eye on them during these get-togethers. . . . And not just by Matt, who thinks being in the same house equals “watching the kids.” Ryan, we’re all counting on you. You’re our only hope.

…..

P.S. Ryan also makes oatmeal chocolate chip cookies so good that I would consider conceiving another child just so I could blame “pregnancy cravings” when I devoured the whole batch in a matter of seconds. (I plan to eat ninety-teen cookies tonight anyway; I just don’t have a very good excuse right now.)