Allo and bye bye

We were all lying on the bed together the other day and I was absently patting my ever-growing belly when JB reminded Riley that hey, there's a tiny baby in there. So Riley leaned over and peered intently at my ginormous maternity elastic waistband, paused for a beat, then shouted "ALLO?" into the general direction of my navel.

(I don't know why he sounds French when he says "hello", but he does.)

We asked him what he thought the baby was doing, and he thought for a second, then said "Sleeping!".

I never know how much he understands, but I have a feeling I underestimate him most of the time.

Thanks for the drive-distraction ideas, my awesome friend Ashley is loaning me her portable DVD player and some movies Riley hasn't seen and I've packed all kinds of old and new toys and hoo boy, wish us luck, okay? Talk to you later, and have a wonderful weekend.

Dreading the drive

Okay, Toddler Hell Scenario Number 3929 coming at you: you've got a long drive from Seattle to the Eugene area planned for tomorrow afternoon. Your 2-year-old has developed a charming habit of screaming whenever he's trapped in a car seat for more than 4 minutes. Short of tossing him out the window of your fast-moving vehicle, smartly dusting your hands, turning to your spouse and saying "Well! That's better!", what do you do? OH GOD WHAT DO YOU DO?

I'll have drawing pads and crayons, a laptop that can play Blue's Clues, a few toys, and a bevy of snacks he will likely refuse to eat. Any other suggestions? Other than Benadryl, which JB has already (cruelly) ruled out?

Enemy fire

Riley seems to be experiencing a stage I like to call All Awful, Nearly All the Time. As an example, I picked him up from daycare today only to have him experience a total system meltdown because I had a red crayon in the car, instead of a purple crayon, which he loudly demanded over and over through tear-choked sobs of grief and betrayal until he was distracted by the fact that he could ALSO entertain us both by removing one shoe then screaming about how he wanted his shoe back on, back on, PUT ON, AAAAAAAAAAAH.

Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like a kid going through a full-fledged tantrum while strapped in a carseat—it's like having a pint-sized Hannibal Lecter back there. I'm thinking of buying a muzzle, just to complete the look.

Once we got home he howled and carried on when I offered him noodles, applesauce, yogurt, and finally (underneath my breath) a knuckle sandwich, and I hope watered-down juice has some trace of nutrition in it because that's about all he had. He used to be a picky eater, now he appears to be living on air and crackers, because every food item is on the Scream and Refuse list, even things that were previously a slam-dunk, such as macaroni and cheese.

After a series of freakouts over the fact that 1) the TV came on briefly (while JB was recording something) but Blue's Clues failed to appear, 2) JB didn't instantly drop his butt to the couch when commanded to do so ("SEET DOWWN!"), and 3) the air molecules in the room kept moving around in an annoying fashion, we diagnosed him as Overtired (And Awful) and dragged his wailing, thrashing body off to bed, where eventually, in his quiet, dimmed bedroom, he gave us both eskimo kisses. So we're going to keep him, but man oh man, it was touch and go for a while there.

Some parenting days are almost physically brutal, you know? You feel like you've been in a war zone, air raid sirens screaming, gunfire over your head, the whole thing. Then you get a soft eskimo kiss from a tiny toddler snout, and you just think, okay. Okay, I can do this.

And later, you eat fifteen cookies, because hello, COMBAT PAY.

For no particular reason

Ta-da!

They're thinking of taking this act on the road! Behold: Cirque du SoLame.

Statement; piglets

I'm just going to post this once, and I'll refer back to it if necessary: we are having a planned C-section with this baby because there are medical reasons for doing so. In my specific situation, there are risk factors that are significantly lowered by having a C-section, and yes, I know all about VBAC options and I've discussed the matter quite thoroughly with my doctor.

I know people mean well, but I want to advocate for anyone in my situation when I say that it's actually pretty rude to remind me to "do my research" on this subject. I can't imagine why anyone would have such a strong Vagina Agenda that it would seem like a good idea to dole out medical advice when it's both uncalled for and, in my case, wholly misinformed. When you tell me it's safer for me to have a vaginal birth, you're actually lying--I mean, I get that you don't know that, but that's exactly why you shouldn't make those kinds of comments.

Let's all just pay attention to our own vaginas, shall we? I won't tell you what to with yours if you don't tell me what to do with mine. Deal?

Thus endeth my statement from the soapbox. Sorry that this only applies to a very small percentage of readers, but I felt I had to address it before every entry that references this baby's arrival gets a smattering of comments telling me to go with the birth choice that's not actually viable for me.

In other news, remember those missing pigs from a while back? Now there are new piglets, and they are so cute I can hardly stand it. I certainly hope they don't go to their "home in the country" anytime soon.

Potty talk

I'm always kind of amazed when I read someone's blog where their words seem to have come directly from my own head. Beth's entry today touches on a theme that's awfully familiar to me: I also never went into labor with Riley, and with plans for a scheduled C-section with this baby, I most likely never will. It makes me sad in some ways that I'll have missed out on such an integral part of childbirth, but on the other hand, I'll probably make it through two births without experiencing my greatest fear: pooping on the delivery table.

Of course, there's always the option of barfing during the C-section. Boy, I'm not sure which one is worse. Maybe if you did both at the same time.

ANYWAY, speaking of pooping, my son has started announcing "poop!" while he's, you know, engaged in the act. He doesn't seem to have any desire to scuttle off to some private area or anything, he'll just be in mid-play and suddenly say "poop"--I'll look over, and sure enough, he'll be sort of grunty-looking. Of course, when I ask him if he's pooped, he will deny it all day long: "No. No, no poop." Even when there are visible wavy stink lines wafting from his butt.

So, I've read a lot of the potty training books and helpful pamphlets and so on, but I thought I'd ask you guys, how did you start your kids on the potty? I have a feeling Riley's not quite ready for Hardcore Potty Madness (nor am I, to be perfectly honest), but it seems like it might be time for some baby steps.

Did you just start having them sit on the potty? Naked? What if they don't want to sit there for more than five seconds? Or what if they want to take the circular potty seat and throw it around the bathroom instead?

Mysterious

Somebody explain to me why Riley can hear a Boeing 747's approach from fifty miles away and that barely-audible drone of jet engines can send him shivering into my lap, but the earsplitting noise of construction workers hacking apart our kitchen with crashing crowbars and shrieking saws about ten feet from where he stands doesn't faze him in the least.

Angelic trumpetings

I started feeling the baby move recently, just these tiny flutters and bumps that I probably wouldn't recognize if I hadn't been through this before. Of course, even us sage pregnancy experts (ha!) can experience Abdominal Confusion. I can't tell you how many times I've been lying down, concentrating on a certain bubbling sensation in my belly, utterly convinced it's the baby performing an impressive series of uterine aerobics, only to have my body send me an audible notification—pffffffffffft—that what I'm feeling is not my unborn child but is in fact gas.

Rush

"I find it! Yayy!"

"No like it. Yucky."

"Mama put on goggies, put on." (goggies = sunglasses)

"Wake up, doggie!"

As we dizzily catapult towards the Year of Being Two, Riley doesn't seem to show any signs of becoming a more emotionally stable entity, as evidenced by 1) the deeply hilarious clog-dance of anger he does when he doesn't get his way (seriously: his stamping little feet become a blur. It's like Riverdance, right in my own house), 2) the unholy Damian sound he so often unearths from the bottom of his lungs in order to burst every eardrum within fifty miles, and 3) the piteous, oh-so-annoying bouts of anger-fueled crying, when the tears are so infused with crocodile essence I swear I can hear a faint "crikey" off in the distance.

However, the bitter pill of all of this tantrumy nonsense is becoming far easier—okay, somewhat easier—to swallow as he becomes less of a squalling toddler-sized baby and more of a little person I can actually talk to. I mean, we hold weird little conversations these days where I say stuff, he understands it, and he says stuff back to me. Sure, sometimes those conversations sound like they're happening on Neptune, but still. It's downright amazing. It's like all along I sort of understood that he would be growing up and becoming more of a fully-featured human, but I didn't really get it.

Also, out of nowhere, he appears to have grown like TWO INCHES in height. I am feeling this panicky combination of wanting him to hurry through the All Tantrum All the Time Stage (uh . . . it's a stage, right? RIGHT?) but wanting even more to slow down this headlong rush of days, because oh, it's so true what they say about parenthood: the days are long, but years fly by much too quickly.

Innerspace

I decided to copy Beth today and post a couple photos of what Baby Numero Two-O has been looking like to date. First, the 8-week ultrasound:

Awwww, just look at him/her! With its bloblike body and lack of discernible arms or legs. Why, it's . . . it's so obvious, I am totally carrying a kidney bean at this point. Perhaps that explains all the gas.

And now for the 14-week scan, which is much, much more clear:

Well, or not. At least it's been helpfully labeled by the technician--I probably could have figured out the head on my own but that random floating white thing doesn't much look like a hand. In fact, it reminds me of those fake lures certain creepy fish will extend from a weird fleshy protuberance in order to catch smaller, unsuspecting fish.

Hmm. That's kind of a disturbing thought. I'm sure that's not what we're looking at, here. After all, it says HAND.

Anyway, there you go: nebulous, grainy images of what's currently growing in mah belly. Which is theoretically not a kidney bean or a cleverly evolved fish or a chestburster alien, but is in fact a tiny little human being, holy crap. You'd think I would be more used to this by now, but still: HOLY CRAP.