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It seems to me that for the past few days, Kenny has been working hard to stretch his little wings towards supreme rascal-hood.   If I say go, he stops.   If I say come here, he runs in the other direction.   90% of his antics are accompanied by giggles and mischievous looks, but the other 10% are marred by ear-splitting whining and crocodile tears.

Forget to let him put his own sippy cup lid on?   Encounter migraine-inducing shrieks of manufactured agony.   Try to change a poopy diaper?   Spend twenty minutes trying to tackle him to a flat surface.   Speaking of poopy diapers…

I decided to take the advice of so many of you, and I’ve given potty training a 30-day hiatus.   This is week 2 of no potty encouragement, or even suggestion, on my part, though he asked asked to use it a few times.   But today when I was getting him dressed, he managed to slip out of my hands, completely nude, and charged into my room.   Where he promptly pee’d in the corner.   Then he ran back into his room, where I still sat unawares, and crowed, “I pee-pee’d on the carpet, Mama!”   I was none too happy, but what exactly is the appropriate response?   It was obviously deliberate.   Should I have punished him in some way?   I took him in there to show me and as I cleaned it up, told him that he was never to pee on the carpet on purpose, that that was a mean thing to do and very disobedient.   He managed to look marginally chastened, but not too impressed by my rational and calm approach.

Hours later, though, calm and rational I was not, as the pregnancy hormones hit their pre-lunch peak.   We had just come in from outside, where workers were finishing up our new sidewalk, and, in the drizzle, churning up mass quantities of mud.   As we walked from the garage to the house, Kenny spied one of his footballs in a muddy puddle.   He ran over, grabbed it, and asked if I would take it inside and wash it for him.   I said, “Sure, we can take it inside.   But listen, as soon as we got into the door, we are going to take off our muddy shoes before we walk inside.   And hold on tight to your football until we get into the kitchen to wash it, ok?”   “Ok, Mama!” he yelled, then bolted into the door like a streak of lightening, muddy shoes tracking grime on the carpet, and hurled the filthy football as hard as he could across the room, where it bounced off the coffee table and rolled under the couch.

Am I really here?

I must confess that my vocal-timbre was less than nurturing, as I yelled, “Kenny!   Stop!   What are you doing!   Get back here right now!”   He stopped, turned to face me, then dragged his feet in exaggerated sorrow back to the doorstep.   It was at this point that I sincerely wanted nothing more than to make myself a milkshake and plop in front of the TV and ignore the two-year-old dervish I was responsible for.

Ah, but what is a mommy to do when minutes later he wraps his spindly arms around my leg and whispers, “I love you, Mama.”

Yesterday Casey and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary!   We had a fantastic date night – dinner downtown and an overnight at a classy B&B.   It’s amazing how invigorating just a short trip away together (sans Kenny) can be.

 I thought it would be fun to post a few pictures of Casey and I from “back in the day”…

This was taken a few nights after we got engaged, October 1, 2003…

Here we are at our “engagement photo shoot” – which was a blast!   Talk about feeling like a mini-celebrity for a day…

Our first dance at our wedding (march 27, 2004)…

Our first summer, hanging out on the boat with a four-month-old Dudley (July 2004)…

Ah… how young and “free” we were… we had conversations that we were actually able to finish without “Ex-cuse me peas, Mama!” to interrupt, we went boating on the spur of the moment with nothing to pack but Dudley’s leash and a bottle of wine, we stayed up late, we slept in on Saturdays… I wouldn’t trade our life now for the world, but isn’t it fun to reminisce!!

Happy Anniversary, Casey!!

I think that Casey and I are addicted to home improvement projects.   It seems as if every season, there is some reason to have a truck load of workers inside or outside of our house, making messes, making noise and making Dudley crazy.

One advantage this time though, is that Kenny is more than a little fascinated with the chaos going on outside our door.   We are presently having an old cement sidewalk ripped out of the yard and a nice, even, very lovely stone sidewalk put in.     Since last Friday, there has been cement saws, jackhammers, bobcats and wheelbarrows galore in our yard.   (There has also been several centimeters of cement dust on every surface both inside and outside of our house, but that’s another story.)   For Kenny, it is like living in a construction site fantasy.

Yesterday for awhile, he moved his little booster seat over by the window for a front row seat…

…and this morning he decided that his stuffed animals wanted to watch, too…

It looks like they may finish before the weekend, and though Kenny will be said to see “the guys” go, I will be relieved to re-open Dudley’s dog door and be able to walk out the front door again without stepping into a pile of mud and rocks.

Of course, once they finish, I have no excuse not to clean the windows, walls, porch furniture, floors and screens… On second thought, maybe those guys should take their time…

Kenny and I were discussing Baboo’s impending arrival recently.   He asked, “When is he coming out?”

“In a few more months!”  I said.

“What’s a few more months?”

“Soon.”  

“After lunch?”   he asked.

You’ve got to love little ones who live solely in the present tense!

An Easter Sunday picture… Kenny and his cousins!

I just spent the last 24 hours in the hell of food poisoning.   I think it was a slice of pizza I grabbed at the mall on Friday afternoon… funny, because it tasted “fine” but at the time I remember thinking, “Hm.   This probably isn’t very fresh…”   By 1 in the morning, I was violently vomiting, embracing the porcelain throne, hoping to pass out, if for no other reason than to at least suppress my misery.

By mid-morning on Saturday, I had finally stopped puking, but was so weak and dizzy that I spent all day in bed.   I alternately slept (sitting up – nasty acid-reflux) and lay balled up, clutching my abdomen as I was attacked by vicious Braxton-Hicks contractions.   This morning I was well enough to venture out of bed, and on seeing me upright and mobile when he woke up, Kenny sweetly asked, “You feelin’ better, Mama?”

I actually felt great… for an hour or so… and Kenny and I made pancakes and bacon to surprise Casey with  a Happy Easter breakfast.   By the time we got to church, though, I was barely hanging on again.

I’m still not all there; I haven’t been able to eat much and the contractions are still plaguing me.   Actually, I feel like I’ve been hit by a freight train.

The only good part of this weekend ailment was that Casey was home to take care of Kenny and Dudley.   I truly don’t know what I would have done if he had been at work through all of this.   He even took Kenny to a birthday party on Saturday – that’s love!   A better part is that Kenny has definitely grown a little closer to Casey over the weekend.   Usually he relies on me to do everything, and will often say to Casey, “No, Dadda.   Mama’s going to help me!” when Casey tries to step in.   But with me completely out of commission (and partially out of consciousness), he was totally dependant on Casey, and I think it did them both a world of good.

I have a distinct memory of being pregnant with Kenny – I had to be at least 8 months along – and sitting in a meeting with Casey about the renovation on our house, watching in astonished (and slightly embarrassed) awe as my belly started to move like there was an alien inside, aching to get out.   For about ten full minutes, you could see feet sweep from side to side, the head bulge in one direction, then an indisguisable hiney rise up in another.   I remember the builder trying hard not to stare and me, unsure of whether or not to say something, or just play it cool.

Yesterday, at 25 weeks, this little tiger started the antics.   I thought it was subtle enough for only me to notice, but while sitting on Kenny’s floor playing today, he looked up at me and said, “Is Baboo kicking you right now?”   I showed him and he put his hand out to touch, then moved it away as soon as he felt the movement.   “Did you feel that?”   “Yeah.”   “Was it funny?”  I asked.  “Is he coming out now?” Kenny demanded.   When I said, “Not for a little while longer” he moved away, as if it was all a little too weird that Mommy’s belly was moving by itself.   I tried to get him to touch it again, but he didn’t want to.

Kenny has been fascinated with “Baboo” since we told him we were having a baby, and more and more as the belly grows.   He likes to lift up my shirt and “kiss Baboo” and is constantly asking me, “What’s Baboo saying right now?”   as if I have the inside (ha ha) scoop.   He’s starting to show a little protective concern, too.   A few times I’ve mentioned that I’m tired, or he’s seen me wince and touch my belly, and he’ll ask, “Is Baboo hurting you?   You say not to do that.”   I always explain that the baby isn’t hurting me, but that sometimes it’s tiring growing a baby in your belly.   Then I talk about being pregnant with him, or about when he was first born.   It’s strange, because I’m not really sure how much a two-and-a-half year-old is comprehending about all of this, but I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.   He’s such a verbal little kid, and asks so many questions, it doesn’t seem fair to brush them off with trite answers.

On another note, I’m so appreciative of all the comments and emails you all have sent about c-sections, VBACs, and general encouraging words.   Keep them coming!!

Seriously, I was surprised and honored to find out today that I was selected as one of “The 50 Best Mom Blogs”  on the parenting site Teens Today with Vanessa Van Petten.   (If you are a parent of a teenager (or a soon-to-be-teen), I recommend this site; Van Petten is relevant and hip and a great resource!   No, she didn’t pay me to say that.)   The reader who submitted me is anonymous, but whoever it is, thank you very much!

Today Casey was a guest lecturer at the Naval Academy (something he’s done a few times before) so I tagged along to one of the classes to see him in action.   The professor of the class is a good friend of ours, and his wife offered to watch Kenny for a few hours so I could go.

Ok, until today, I still kind of thought of myself as young.

As I sat in the hall waiting for the classroom to open, I watched the eighteen and nineteen-year-olds stream by and realized that I was not one of them.   It’s been thirteen years since I was in a college classroom and it feels like yesterday!   Ah, but time has a way of flying.

Speaking of flying time, I spent the last half hour looking at pictures from Kenny’s first few days.   I can hardly believe that another squishy little baby is about to descend on our little lives.   I looked at the crazy infant-acne, the circles under my eyes (actually, those still haven’t really gone away) and the gummy grins and suddenly it’s getting more real and less theory that we’re having another one.   Then I looked at Kenny, tangled up in the sheets and stuffed animals in his bed, and I can hardly believe that he’s getting so big.   I feel like I just had him, and now he’s over half my height!

Tomorrow I hit 25 weeks on the pregnancy calendar.   Fourteen to go – my c-section is scheduled for a week before my due date.   It’s a little strange, knowing that I most likely won’t go into labor this time, that there is no guessing the baby’s birth date at a baby shower.   Kenny was an emergency section.   I was adamantly against it.   I was against the epidural, too (mostly for the reason that it can slow down labor and actually increase chances of a c-section), but after nearly 15 hours of labor and no progression, I gave in.   Actually, I think Casey said at that point that one of us needed drugs, and the nurses picked me…

It was another 9 hours (of groggy sleepy disorientation – I’d been up for 24 hours at that point) of un-felt labor before the OB on call woke me up to tell me that she felt that a section was eminent.   I was terrified but at that point so exhausted, most of my fight was gone.   I was running a fever and was still not dilated, and the contractions were less than a minute apart.

It turns out that Kenny was nearly two pounds bigger than they thought he was going to be – and with my small frame, the doctors assured me that I did the right thing in agreeing to the surgery.   This time around, I wasn’t given much of an option.   With two miscarriages and a laparoscopic surgery this year, and given Kenny’s size and the chances that number two will be bigger, my OB said that a VBAC was really too risky for me.   I can’t say that I’m relishing the thought of being carved open like a prize turkey again, but with all we’ve been through this year, I’ve got to trust the good doctor.

It is frustrating, though, to read all the articles in pregnancy and parenting mags out there about the high percentage of unnecessary c-sections in the US, and about the “cop-out” of opting for repeat sections, without trying a VBAC.   I was totally on board with all of that three years ago, but when you’re lying on the table and the one in charge says that for the baby’s safety you need to consent to a surgery, there really isn’t any other choice.

Have any of you out there tried a VBAC for a second (or third) baby?   Opted for a repeat c-section?   Were you given a choice?   Let me hear your story.

Kenny has one impressive set of vocal chords.   He is LOUD.   Most of the time, loud is cute, funny, charming and free-spirited.   But occasionally, when pregnant Mommy has an epic headache, Daddy is having a day and Dudley never got his walk and is flying from couch to couch, airborne with the sheer desperation of needing exercise, LOUD becomes ear-splitting-nerve-jangling-oh-dear-me-can’t-I-PLEASEhaveaglassofwineorsomethingtonumbmypoordeliriousbrain????

Today Kenny has had two modes: Loud and very happy, and Loud and very unhappy.   He is either singing and yelling “Zoomba zoomba!” as he streaks naked from the bathtub in exhilaration, or screeching like a trapped howler monkey and screaming “NOOOOO!!!!!!”  as he runs pathetically from the  kleenex in my hand, then rubs  the snot streaming from his nose all the way across   his face and onto his earlobe.   He was the picture of joy at church today  but the picture of original sin as we tried to get him dressed for church a mere thirty minutes before.   He was jubilant as he played his tambourine in the living room before dinner  and tragically hysterical  when I told him to keep him hiney in the chair and actually eat dinner.

At one point during said dinner, Casey looked at me and said, “This is a circus.”   Then quietly, “What are we going to do when we have another one?”   At that point, Dudley put his front paws on the back of my chair, and laid his oversized head on my shoulder, as if to say, “My thoughts exactly.”   In the space of time I wrote that sentence, I heard Kenny, who is  upstairs with Casey getting ready for bed,  let out a sorrowful wail, pause a moment, then laugh and yell, “Doomba Doomba!”   Now they are having a laughing contest and making burping sounds.   Of course, Casey got his glass of wine tonight.     So not fair.