I am Shocked...I am Happy...I guess that makes me shappy. My husband and I just found out that we are expecting a baby. I know that people get pregnant all the time...I shouldn't really be shocked...but I am shocked.
You see we just had a baby...not quite five months ago. This baby is just starting to sleep through the night and getting ready to try his first bites of baby food. I certainly never expected to see two pink lines at this point in time. I don't even know if my last C-section incision has totally healed.
My husband is thrilled. It was his insistance that I take a pregnancy test that brought this whole turn of events to light. Since we found out, he is just walking around with that shappy grin on his face.
My three year old daughter isn't shocked at all. She is happy. She already knew I was pregnant, way before those pink lines showed up. She told me she asked God to put a baby in my tummy. She said she ordered up a baby sister this time. If the ultrasound in a few months shows a girl, I am seriously going to ask this kid if she has any intuitions about the lotto numbers.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Mr. Pringles
My son has quite a few interesting nicknames...in fact, he even has nicknames for his nicknames. When I was about four months pregnant I took my three year old daughter with me for an ultrasound. She heard the nurse say that my uterus was the size of a cantalope and from that point on, she dubbed her brother with that name.
She told everyone she saw that her mother was having a baby and we were going to name it cantelope. Her Sunday School teacher thought I was a nut for months, until I had a chance to tell her we were naming the boy after his father...and his father's name is not cantelope.
Little Paul Jr. grew and grew and as his birthday approached, he got a new nick name. Every night when my husband came home from work he would greet me with a kiss, place his hand on my ever expanding belly and say, "How is the Chip off the old block?" Pretty soon, my three year old decided to call the baby Chip, and unlike the name Cantelope, we kind of liked how this name sounded. My husband thought it sounded like a professional athlete's name. It had that little boy in overalls with a slingshot in his pocket appeal to me and of course my daughter, Clancy was just proud to have come up with it.
So Paul Jr. might have been officially named Paul, but from the day he was born he has only been known by Chip...that is until today. Clancy has been calling him Mr. Pringles all morning. When I asked her why she looked at me with that "Duh!" expression on her face and said, "Chips...Pringles...get it?
She told everyone she saw that her mother was having a baby and we were going to name it cantelope. Her Sunday School teacher thought I was a nut for months, until I had a chance to tell her we were naming the boy after his father...and his father's name is not cantelope.
Little Paul Jr. grew and grew and as his birthday approached, he got a new nick name. Every night when my husband came home from work he would greet me with a kiss, place his hand on my ever expanding belly and say, "How is the Chip off the old block?" Pretty soon, my three year old decided to call the baby Chip, and unlike the name Cantelope, we kind of liked how this name sounded. My husband thought it sounded like a professional athlete's name. It had that little boy in overalls with a slingshot in his pocket appeal to me and of course my daughter, Clancy was just proud to have come up with it.
So Paul Jr. might have been officially named Paul, but from the day he was born he has only been known by Chip...that is until today. Clancy has been calling him Mr. Pringles all morning. When I asked her why she looked at me with that "Duh!" expression on her face and said, "Chips...Pringles...get it?
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Hey Chopped Liver!
It didn't take very long after my daughter was born for me to come to the conclusion that I was chopped liver. I think this is true for most mothers. I spent all day with my daughter. I fed her, bathed her, dressed her and even sang her to sleep. I slaved over the stove making her homemade baby food and I took several pokes in the eye every time I cut her fingernails. I read to her, I played with her, and when she was a toddler, I even let her brush my hair. I spent several weeks in the hospital when I was pregnant with her and as a result of having severe eclampsia, I had quite a dramatic delivery. You would think that after all of those things, I would have been her favorite person in the whole world, but the truth is, as a baby, when it came to favorite people, Daddy won hands down.
Don’t get me wrong, he is a great guy and a wonderful father. He played with her and changed her and gave her baths. I didn't begrudge her love for her Daddy, but like all mothers, I wondered why it is when he came into the room, I became chopped liver.
He was even her first word. I know that most babies say Da Da first, so it wasn’t a total shock when she babbled his name at about 6 months old. We had been waiting for those first words. I had been coercing and cajoling her to say, “Mama.” every chance I got. I had been waiting so long to hear that word.
She even looked as if she were trying to form the M sound with her lips. I was overjoyed. I just knew that any moment that wonderful word, “Mama” was going to burst forth from her lips. Her first word came on a Sunday afternoon. Her father and I were standing at her crib, glancing down at her and as she woke up she looked up at us with sleepy little eyes and grinned. She stretched her little arms up and gurgled, “Dada!”
Daddy of course was thrilled and I began to wonder why it is all babies seem to day Dada before they say Mama. I think I may have come up with a theory that explains it. I think that all babies’ first sound is DA. As soon as they hear their voice, they are so thrilled with the sound that they repeat it. Dada…Dada…Dada. And thousands of years ago a father happened to be in the room when baby said this and he decided that baby must be saying his new name for father. Thus the name Daddy was born and we mothers were suddenly relegated to the role of chopped liver. Think about it. I can see how a baby would say Mama for Mother, but where do they get Dada out of Father? I am telling you, it is a conspiracy.
I am almost convinced of this conspiracy theory. Perhaps if her second word had been Mama, I could have fully embraced the theory. Unfortunately her next word was Meme. At first I thought that perhaps that was her cute name for me, but it turns out that Meme is her blanket. So in the scheme of things in our house, the order was Daddy, Blanket, and Chopped Liver…I mean Mama.
My daughter is three now and there is a new baby who has yet to utter his first word...I am trying to convince him that Mama is the word to start with, but I have a feeling I am going to be Chopped Liver all over again.
Don’t get me wrong, he is a great guy and a wonderful father. He played with her and changed her and gave her baths. I didn't begrudge her love for her Daddy, but like all mothers, I wondered why it is when he came into the room, I became chopped liver.
He was even her first word. I know that most babies say Da Da first, so it wasn’t a total shock when she babbled his name at about 6 months old. We had been waiting for those first words. I had been coercing and cajoling her to say, “Mama.” every chance I got. I had been waiting so long to hear that word.
She even looked as if she were trying to form the M sound with her lips. I was overjoyed. I just knew that any moment that wonderful word, “Mama” was going to burst forth from her lips. Her first word came on a Sunday afternoon. Her father and I were standing at her crib, glancing down at her and as she woke up she looked up at us with sleepy little eyes and grinned. She stretched her little arms up and gurgled, “Dada!”
Daddy of course was thrilled and I began to wonder why it is all babies seem to day Dada before they say Mama. I think I may have come up with a theory that explains it. I think that all babies’ first sound is DA. As soon as they hear their voice, they are so thrilled with the sound that they repeat it. Dada…Dada…Dada. And thousands of years ago a father happened to be in the room when baby said this and he decided that baby must be saying his new name for father. Thus the name Daddy was born and we mothers were suddenly relegated to the role of chopped liver. Think about it. I can see how a baby would say Mama for Mother, but where do they get Dada out of Father? I am telling you, it is a conspiracy.
I am almost convinced of this conspiracy theory. Perhaps if her second word had been Mama, I could have fully embraced the theory. Unfortunately her next word was Meme. At first I thought that perhaps that was her cute name for me, but it turns out that Meme is her blanket. So in the scheme of things in our house, the order was Daddy, Blanket, and Chopped Liver…I mean Mama.
My daughter is three now and there is a new baby who has yet to utter his first word...I am trying to convince him that Mama is the word to start with, but I have a feeling I am going to be Chopped Liver all over again.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
I am going to lie about my age.
I was talking to a woman at the play park of the mall the other day. As we watched our children scramble around the equipment we struck up a conversation about parenting. After a while the conversation turned more personal and she admitted to me that she lies about her age. I know that a lot of women do this, but her story goes a step further. She told me that not even her husband knows her own age.
That baffled me and I thought a lot about our conversation for the rest of the day. I know that the society we live in places a premium on youth and isn’t always kind to the women who are becoming “seasoned”. Turn on the TV and it is easy to see that those who aren’t young do everything they can to appear as young as possible. Botox, face lifts, and tummy tucks are becoming as commonplace as trips to the dentist. Striving to create the allusion of youth has become a huge industry, because there is a market for it. Now I am not against helping Mother Nature per say. If a woman wants to look younger or prettier there is nothing wrong with that. I just hate the idea of living in a world that makes a woman think she has to.
I am only 36. Gosh, ten years ago I couldn’t have imagined using the words only and thirty-six together in the same sentence. I remember when 30 sounded ancient and 40 sounded like a person had one foot in the grave. I don’t know why I felt 40 was so old. My mother gave birth to me when she was 40. Of course kids were always asking me if she was my grandma.
Age really is a state of mind. There are 30 year olds who behave like old women and 80 years olds who act like children. With the advances in medicine, middle age is coming later and later in life. I heard recently that 50 is the new middle age and I read that children born ten years from now could reasonably be expected to live to be 130 years old.
So I refuse to be hampered by my age. If I want to wear my hair long when I am 70, I will. I gave birth to my first child when I was 32, my second when I was 36 and I really don't think that I am finished having children. Who knows, maybe I will challenge my mother for the title of the family’s oldest pregnant woman. I will not worry that people think I am not acting my age and I will not lie and say I am younger than I am so they think my behavior is acceptable.
On second thought, I think that I will lie about my age, just not in the way that the woman in the mall does. I am going to tell people I am older than I am. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but think about it for a second. Most women that lie about their age don’t do it in a smart way. They try to fool people into thinking that they are younger, but if I told you I was 26, you would look me up and down and if you actually believed me, you would think, “WOW! She looks terrible for her age.” But if I tell you I look 46, you would look me up and down and think, “Man, she looks great. I wonder what her secret is.”
Who knows, maybe more women will start lying about their age in this way. Maybe attaining the wisdom and grace that only comes with age will seem more desirable than the fresh beauty of youth. OK, I know I am a fantasist. I know that it is true that with age comes wisdom, but I also know that some days I would trade every deep thought in my head to get the old rear end back.I guess I should hope to attain a balance in my thinking and pass that balance onto my daughter. I want to be a woman (and raise her to be a woman) that doesn’t care about the date on her driver’s license as much as she cares about what she is doing with the years she has been given.
That baffled me and I thought a lot about our conversation for the rest of the day. I know that the society we live in places a premium on youth and isn’t always kind to the women who are becoming “seasoned”. Turn on the TV and it is easy to see that those who aren’t young do everything they can to appear as young as possible. Botox, face lifts, and tummy tucks are becoming as commonplace as trips to the dentist. Striving to create the allusion of youth has become a huge industry, because there is a market for it. Now I am not against helping Mother Nature per say. If a woman wants to look younger or prettier there is nothing wrong with that. I just hate the idea of living in a world that makes a woman think she has to.
I am only 36. Gosh, ten years ago I couldn’t have imagined using the words only and thirty-six together in the same sentence. I remember when 30 sounded ancient and 40 sounded like a person had one foot in the grave. I don’t know why I felt 40 was so old. My mother gave birth to me when she was 40. Of course kids were always asking me if she was my grandma.
Age really is a state of mind. There are 30 year olds who behave like old women and 80 years olds who act like children. With the advances in medicine, middle age is coming later and later in life. I heard recently that 50 is the new middle age and I read that children born ten years from now could reasonably be expected to live to be 130 years old.
So I refuse to be hampered by my age. If I want to wear my hair long when I am 70, I will. I gave birth to my first child when I was 32, my second when I was 36 and I really don't think that I am finished having children. Who knows, maybe I will challenge my mother for the title of the family’s oldest pregnant woman. I will not worry that people think I am not acting my age and I will not lie and say I am younger than I am so they think my behavior is acceptable.
On second thought, I think that I will lie about my age, just not in the way that the woman in the mall does. I am going to tell people I am older than I am. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but think about it for a second. Most women that lie about their age don’t do it in a smart way. They try to fool people into thinking that they are younger, but if I told you I was 26, you would look me up and down and if you actually believed me, you would think, “WOW! She looks terrible for her age.” But if I tell you I look 46, you would look me up and down and think, “Man, she looks great. I wonder what her secret is.”
Who knows, maybe more women will start lying about their age in this way. Maybe attaining the wisdom and grace that only comes with age will seem more desirable than the fresh beauty of youth. OK, I know I am a fantasist. I know that it is true that with age comes wisdom, but I also know that some days I would trade every deep thought in my head to get the old rear end back.I guess I should hope to attain a balance in my thinking and pass that balance onto my daughter. I want to be a woman (and raise her to be a woman) that doesn’t care about the date on her driver’s license as much as she cares about what she is doing with the years she has been given.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Martha Stewart or Martha Ray?
I wanted to be Martha Stewart before it was cool to want to be Martha Stewart. I spent long hours picturing my house looking like it jumped from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. In my imagination the smell of cinnamon and vanilla wafted through the halls competing with the smell of baking bread that was coming from one of my two convection ovens. Of course a rack of lamb would be roasting in my Viking gas oven and I would have enough matching china plates and linen napkins to serve all 40 of my guests in the formal dining room.
Then reality hits. I don’t like lamb, I have one electric oven, and although I have beautiful wedding china, the sad truth is, as a proven klutz I am more comfortable using the less expensive stuff for everyday. I cook and I bake and I keep a clean house, but it certainly isn’t fancy or elegant enough to grace the pages of a magazine. At first this kind of bothered me, but then I realized I am normal. As much as I love HGTV, The Food Network, and shows like This Old House, I have come to realize that they set a standard that I can’t hope to ever achieve. My life is real. It is filled with diaper changes, nursery rhymes, running toilets, runny noses, and barking dogs. I am like millions of other American women out there who don’t have someone to pre-measure their spices into cute little glass bowls, so they can gracefully slide them into the dishes they are preparing. Other than my husband, I don’t have “production assistants” doing the dishes that pile up when I make a “gourmet” dinner. I don’t have a garden tub (unless you count the old tin washtub in the backyard that we hose the dog off in), master suite complete with sitting room and balcony to retreat to (my only private place is the shower and since my daughter learned to open doors, it isn’t always that private), or pots hanging on a display rack in my restaurant style kitchen. (I do display my pots and pans…usually in the dish strainer on the counter as they air dry.)
I don’t have the big lofty house you see on shows like House Hunters. I live in a 55 year old brick cape cod. The kitchen is much too small to accommodate Paula Dean or Rachel Ray, but I love it. To me it is cozy. When I roll up hotdogs in Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and throw them in my 1968 Frigidaire electric wall oven, the kitchen warms up in a matter of seconds. The bedrooms are rather small and the 1950’s tile in the bathrooms might make the designers on Trading Spaces shudder, but it is our home and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. We have a huge basement that is big enough for a whole playgroup of preschoolers to tricycle round and round in on a cold winter morning. We have a half an acre of back yard that includes a wonderful slope for sledding on when I am ready to pull my hair out because of the preschoolers riding around the basement. We have scuffed up wood floors that came from a skating rink and a root cellar that is perfect for hiding my secret stash of chocolate. It may not look like an interior decorator put her magic touches on our house, but it certainly does look like a happy family lives with in its walls.
Maybe they should make a show on HGTV about real women in real houses. That would be true reality TV. Heck, I could star in it. I can see it now. We would have a regular segment on how to fancy up Hamburger Helper. I could give all sorts of useful real life tips, like how to get finger paint off of the family cat, or how to tie-dye a shirt that has been hopelessly stained by baby spit up. I could have a weekly spot about plumbing, where call in viewers win a prize if they guess what my daughter flushed down the toilet this week. Of course most segments would be interrupted by baby cries, spills, or an occasional telemarketer or wrong number calling, but that would give me an opportunity to demonstrate real world multi-tasking skills. I could show people how to talk on the phone, mix up a batch of brownies, prepare stew in the crock pot, fold laundry, break up a fight between the dog and the cat, pick up toys with my toes, retrieve a bug from the baby's mouth, wash baby bottles, water plants, answer the door, and plunge a toilet, all at the same time, with a child on my hip.
On second thought, maybe the show wouldn’t work. After all, my kitchen is much too small to fit me and all the cameras and equipment. I wouldn't want to constantly worry about a cameraman tripping on the roller skate that seems to always be left on the stairs, and I would hate to see the production crew come down with the endless colds and flues that my family so generously shares with each other. Besides, maybe the idea of a true to life home show wouldn’t go over so well. We usually watch TV to escape reality and because we enjoy the fantasy it presents, so why would people want to tune in to watch what could be their own life on the screen? Then there is the fact that my mother would watch the show and every time it aired, I would get a phone call that started off with words like, "I can't believe you didn't wash that off before you gave it back to the baby!" or "Why did you let my grand daughter play outside without a sweater on today's episode? I saw on the weather channel that it was only 80 degrees outside today."
Then reality hits. I don’t like lamb, I have one electric oven, and although I have beautiful wedding china, the sad truth is, as a proven klutz I am more comfortable using the less expensive stuff for everyday. I cook and I bake and I keep a clean house, but it certainly isn’t fancy or elegant enough to grace the pages of a magazine. At first this kind of bothered me, but then I realized I am normal. As much as I love HGTV, The Food Network, and shows like This Old House, I have come to realize that they set a standard that I can’t hope to ever achieve. My life is real. It is filled with diaper changes, nursery rhymes, running toilets, runny noses, and barking dogs. I am like millions of other American women out there who don’t have someone to pre-measure their spices into cute little glass bowls, so they can gracefully slide them into the dishes they are preparing. Other than my husband, I don’t have “production assistants” doing the dishes that pile up when I make a “gourmet” dinner. I don’t have a garden tub (unless you count the old tin washtub in the backyard that we hose the dog off in), master suite complete with sitting room and balcony to retreat to (my only private place is the shower and since my daughter learned to open doors, it isn’t always that private), or pots hanging on a display rack in my restaurant style kitchen. (I do display my pots and pans…usually in the dish strainer on the counter as they air dry.)
I don’t have the big lofty house you see on shows like House Hunters. I live in a 55 year old brick cape cod. The kitchen is much too small to accommodate Paula Dean or Rachel Ray, but I love it. To me it is cozy. When I roll up hotdogs in Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and throw them in my 1968 Frigidaire electric wall oven, the kitchen warms up in a matter of seconds. The bedrooms are rather small and the 1950’s tile in the bathrooms might make the designers on Trading Spaces shudder, but it is our home and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. We have a huge basement that is big enough for a whole playgroup of preschoolers to tricycle round and round in on a cold winter morning. We have a half an acre of back yard that includes a wonderful slope for sledding on when I am ready to pull my hair out because of the preschoolers riding around the basement. We have scuffed up wood floors that came from a skating rink and a root cellar that is perfect for hiding my secret stash of chocolate. It may not look like an interior decorator put her magic touches on our house, but it certainly does look like a happy family lives with in its walls.
Maybe they should make a show on HGTV about real women in real houses. That would be true reality TV. Heck, I could star in it. I can see it now. We would have a regular segment on how to fancy up Hamburger Helper. I could give all sorts of useful real life tips, like how to get finger paint off of the family cat, or how to tie-dye a shirt that has been hopelessly stained by baby spit up. I could have a weekly spot about plumbing, where call in viewers win a prize if they guess what my daughter flushed down the toilet this week. Of course most segments would be interrupted by baby cries, spills, or an occasional telemarketer or wrong number calling, but that would give me an opportunity to demonstrate real world multi-tasking skills. I could show people how to talk on the phone, mix up a batch of brownies, prepare stew in the crock pot, fold laundry, break up a fight between the dog and the cat, pick up toys with my toes, retrieve a bug from the baby's mouth, wash baby bottles, water plants, answer the door, and plunge a toilet, all at the same time, with a child on my hip.
On second thought, maybe the show wouldn’t work. After all, my kitchen is much too small to fit me and all the cameras and equipment. I wouldn't want to constantly worry about a cameraman tripping on the roller skate that seems to always be left on the stairs, and I would hate to see the production crew come down with the endless colds and flues that my family so generously shares with each other. Besides, maybe the idea of a true to life home show wouldn’t go over so well. We usually watch TV to escape reality and because we enjoy the fantasy it presents, so why would people want to tune in to watch what could be their own life on the screen? Then there is the fact that my mother would watch the show and every time it aired, I would get a phone call that started off with words like, "I can't believe you didn't wash that off before you gave it back to the baby!" or "Why did you let my grand daughter play outside without a sweater on today's episode? I saw on the weather channel that it was only 80 degrees outside today."
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