Tube-tied

I was at my regular prenatal appointment the other day and my doctor asked me if we were planning on having any more children after this baby. "Oh ho ho ho NOOOO," I said in the overly jolly tone I seem to always use when I get asked this question. "No, two will be plenty for us, thanks."

She then went on to ask if I'd considered having a tubal ligation during my C-section this time around. To that, I had no jolly response, only a weak fluttering of the hands and a lot of blinking and head-shaking.

The truth is, I am 99.9999% sure I don't want to have a third child, and JB, for once, is completely on the same page with me on the whole subject of reproduction, so there's no reason why I shouldn't Biggie-size my surgery and go for the tubal at the same time.

Except . . . I don't know, what if there's a .0001% chance we change our mind somewhere down the road? It sure seems unlikely now, but there have certainly been times in my life when I was positive I didn't want any children, much less two. It's so hard to predict what the future will bring, and surgery is such a permanent solution.

Also, this is weird to admit, but there's something that bothers me about sterilizing myself. It's not like there's anything that bothers me about birth control, but removing my ability to have children altogether feels like—boy, I don't even know. Like a step I'm somehow not willing to take, despite our decision that this pregnancy will be the last one.

You know what I wish I could do instead? Donate my ability to get pregnant to someone else. I know that sounds stupid, but that's what I would choose if I could. Just remove the "Gets Knocked Up Pretty Easily" bone, and give it to someone else who's having a hard time, without transferring any of my surely-undesirable genes (bad teeth, poor eyesight, inability to perform basic mathematical calculations). That would be preferable to what seems to me to be the equivalent of taking my fertility out back and putting a bullet in its head.

Reluctant changes

At some point in the next couple months, we'll be moving Riley into a new bedroom. We need to move everything in our office into its new location, which we added as part of the remodel work that's been going on in our house for A THOUSAND BILLION YEARS NOW the past few months, then we can move Riley into the old office space, thus freeing up his current bedroom for the new baby. That office space is quite a bit larger than his current room, and will make a better bedroom for a little kid, and eventually I figure both boys can share that room and we can use what is now the 'nursery' as a guest bedroom (are you following all this? I don't think I'm explaining it very well, I should have included a diagram). See, our plans are all coming together, except for the part where I am cool and calm and in complete control of my sugar intake, that part seems to have SLID OFF THE RAILS JUST A TAD.

Anyway! I'm wondering if any of you have some transition tips for doing the Big Kid bed thing. We're going to use a futon mattress in Riley's room—because we have a fairly new futon sofabed we no longer have room for now that the office is downsizing, and that seemed like it could work just fine as a bed for Riley (probably without the frame to start)—and I figured we'd get him used to the room, maybe spend a few days playing in there or whatever, then just . . . do the normal bedtime routine and see what happens? My brain is kind of flatlining at the part where we leave the room and he's in there without the crib rails. Will he get up and wander around? Pound at the door wailing?

I'm hoping to do this well before the baby arrives, so Riley doesn't associate the squalling new interloper with suddenly being booted from his crib. But that means doing it well before the end of January! Which is REALLY REALLY SOON.

Take twelve chocolate cookies and call me in the morning

Horrifying, irrational, shameful things I am vaguely worried about, with regards to having another baby at the end of January:

• I won't feel the same about this new baby boy as I did/do about Riley

• I will love this baby completely, and it will dilute how I feel about Riley

• Having his parents suddenly paying all this attention to a new baby will make Riley sad and miserable

• My patience, already stretched pretty thin as is, will snap completely and I will become a shrewish, ugly, screechy mother, the kind people have to go to therapy to recover from

• I won't be able to focus on the joys of experiencing all the good baby moments again (first smiles, that delicious head-smell, the feeling of holding a sleeping baby in your arms) and instead will constantly fret over the insanity of repeating all the bad baby moments (teething, not-sleeping, turbo-pooping, and all. those. SHOTS)

• I will feel lonely, bored, isolated, and depressed during maternity leave, and on one endless day the sight of yet another pile of spit-up-stained bibs/washcloths will make me start screaming and never stop

I tell myself it's normal to experience these thoughts, and that everything will ultimately work out in the end, and that having this baby will be a wonderful, stressful, amazing experience, just like it was with Riley, but I also think it's highly unfair that major anti-anxiety drugs are typically considered a no-no during pregnancy. Which is why I'm baking cookies today. AGAIN.

Best toy ever

I would be amazed and grateful over how much entertainment Riley is getting out of this one balloon I've blown up for him out of the $1.25 bag of about a million assorted shapes/colors, except I'm too busy kicking my own ass for not having thought of this before. This photo captures pretty much the only moment he spent taking a break today from batting that balloon around every room in the house while shrieking with joy.

PS. Yes, deflated balloons are choking hazards; I remain vigilant in case of accidental poppage. Or poopage, as the case may be.

Severing the sippy

Does anyone else have a toddler who's surgically attached to their sippy cup? Riley seems to only go for maybe twenty minutes at a time without wanting "JOOS, JOOS, JOOS PEASE", or "MILK, MO MILK, MO MILK PEASE TANTOO WECCOME". The initially somewhat polite line of inquiry inevitably descends into crumple-faced blatting, and I always find myself handing over the cup.

I've read all the books that say this isn't a good idea, think of their teeth and their appetite and their eventual shame at the junior prom when they show up toting a "Dora" themed cup, but this is one war I haven't been interested in fighting.

Until now, that is. We are wrapping up a massive remodel project and our new living room has, oh dear god what were we thinking, carpet. Also: a light-colored couch. I know, we are fools, we are DAMNED fools, but that's the way things turned out. And I don't want Mr. Sloppy dragging his sippy cup all over the place, even if he does hurriedly inform me ("OH NO! OH NO HAPPENED?") when there's a spill.

Anyone have any tips for ditching the ever-present cup? Just distract and ignore when the begging/crying/head-exploding starts, and only allow cups at mealtimes? Substitute water, and laugh cruelly at his betrayed expression?

Heavy matters

I don't mean to alarm anyone, but I suddenly seem to be 20 pounds heavier. I noticed my feet were starting to ache, so I stepped on the scale yesterday, and—whoah! When did that happen? It totally snuck up on me! Well, in a gradual, I-guess-I'll-have-one-more-cookie kind of way.

My husband made a jolly reference to my "big caboose" tonight, and desperately tried to backpedal by claiming he meant I just was looking really pregnant. "Are you saying my ASS is pregnant?" I instantly demanded, and I could see his brain scrambling to find the EJECT CONVERSATION button.

I feel sort of enormous already, and I've still got three months to go. I suppose I should really cut back on the cookies, but the only thing that makes me feel better about my BIG FAT ASS is more cookies.

The naming of things

Lately I've caught myself calling the dog by Riley's name and vice versa. It's not because I'm completely losing my mind, I don't think, it's just that they can be equally annoying in their respective ways, and they occasionally require the same tone of voice. "RI-I mean, DOG," I'll say sternly, "stop drinking out of the toilet! And DOG—I mean, Riley, you quit jumping on the couch right this minute."

I've often heard my mother-in-law cycle through the names of her two sons and husband in the same mental Wheel of Fortune manner, sometimes giving up and saying "WHOEVER YOU ARE, can you help me with this garbage?"

Now that we've got a second boy on the way, I have this feeling I'm going to mix up their names quite a bit when they're a little older. I should go with the old Bill Cosby routine, and just name one Dammit and the other Jesus Christ. "Dammit, will you put that down? And Jesus Christ, what are you doing in there?"

Ups, downs, and creamy middles

Toddlerhood is so infuriatingly inconsistent: one minute we're marveling over just how adorable and funny and charming our little boy is, life seems so impossibly rich and full, laughter fills the air and a faint angelic chorus can be heard—and the very next minute, we're struggling to stay upright, our faces hang haggard and grey, and our sweet child's head spins rapidly while shooting flaming bullets aimed directly at the happiness centers in our brains.

When we all got home today, JB and I had a fantastic time playing with Riley for a while, and then as bedtime approached, the giddy thrill of "Golly gosh, we sure have the best kid EVER!" slowly became replaced with "How much postage would it take to ship this tantruming monster to Antarctica, and where the hell is the nearest FedEx?"

If parenthood is a roller-coaster, then Riley at two years of age is like a season pass to Six Flags. I mean, he's really kind of incredibly great a lot of the time, but his mood swings should come with barf bags. I can think of no other experience that's remotely like being a parent, where the colossal, occasionally overwhelming amounts of pain-in-the-assery are constantly being tempered by moments of nearly heartbreaking wonder and joy—all generated by the same midgety little creature who still poops in their own pants.

:::

I'm talking about diaper bags over at Work It, Mom! — if you've got any recommendations, or you just want to look at pictures of pretty bags, come on by.

Discipline and the two-year-old

At some point in the murky waters of toddler misbehavior, when you've tried calm explanations and distractions and the ignore-it policy and eventually wild, thrashing gestures, it becomes necessary to resort to The Next Level. Yes, I'm talking about the PADDLE OF DOOM. Spare the large painful blunt object, spoil the child, after all!

Oh, I'm kidding. I only dish out corporeal punishment to the cat, in the form of "helping" her out the front door at 3:20 AM with my foot.

No, I'm talking about other sorts of disciplinary measures, and I'm curious what you guys have found to be helpful. In the last couple months, we've been giving Riley the occasional time out, and it seems to work fairly well—we basically just put him in his crib and leave the room until the unholy noise emanating from his scream-hole winds down. I'm not sure if it works because he's got the attention span of a fruit fly and eventually forgets why he was in there cursing our names in the first place, or if he actually just needs a sensory break in order to cut the tantrum circuit; either way, this method usually helps all of us chill out.

I also resort to what I like to think of as the Voice of God, if the situation warrants. Situations that might require the Voice of God include running away from me towards the street, throwing pointy objects directly at my face, etc. You know the Voice of God, right? When you TALK LIKE THIS, and the sheer volume/tone is designed to make all nearby children stop pretending you sound like the wah wah wah Charlie Brown teacher and snap to attention?

So: Voice of God, time outs, and in extreme cases, some internal-monologue-only threats mostly taken straight from Full Metal Jacket. What works for you?

Turning over the reins

So I left my son in someone else's care for five whole days and guess what? HE SURVIVED. He doesn't even seem to be sporting any long-term psychological damage! He didn't malnourish, develop a facial tic, or indicate a newfound appreciation for George Bush. In fact, he seems to have endured our absence just fine.

He definitely missed us, and he's clearly glad we're back (he's been spending a lot of time cuddling with us, pointing to each of us in turn and saying "Mommy! Daddy!" with glee in his voice)—just as we missed him and are glad to be near him again. But all in all, being apart for a while was fine. Especially considering this is the last parents-only vacation we're going to be taking any time soon (newborn due in January AIEEEEEE etc).

I was thinking about all the things us mothers tend to worry about and the micromanaging aspect of parenting we sometimes get wrapped up in, where we become convinced that we are the only ones who can take care of our children and anyone else's methods will be substandard and our kids will somehow experience a significant amount of emotional suffering if we aren't there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I wonder if this is a byproduct of our comparatively isolated modern lifestyles, where childcare isn't typically shared among relatives and villagers and, I don't know, random passing dingos.

(Not that I would let a dingo babysit my kid while I went on vacation. I mean, unless it looked like a really responsible, nice dingo. One that wasn't too hungry.)

I'm glad we were able to trust our family to take care of Riley in whatever way worked for them, and I'm glad we didn't feel compelled to leave a fifty-page dossier on Riley's various potential routines and likes/dislikes and a list of approved activities. This has a lot to do with the family resources we have, but I think it has to do with growing a little as parents, too.