All is Well

I am going to gush for just a moment here, please feel free to skip.
My newest little Burnside Boy is just perfect, as far as any doctor can see. Apparently the ultrasound technician saw something and proceeded to send me running and practically screaming to google anything I could think of. What I found made me feel better, but I did not sleep well last night.
I spoke with the nurse this morning and after a few hours of phone tag and persistent questions on my part it turns out that all that stress was seemingly for naught. The radiologist had nothing to note except normal functions as for wee Grover (my in utero buddy) and his cardiac functions. I made my OB re-check the ultrasound and the nurse called the radiologist to be sure and all professional opinions concur. My perfect little man is seemingly fine and I can breathe again. I have also come out of my dark cave and resumed normal speech patterns.

The world does revolve around me, thank you.

There is a test that is offered to pregnant women and it's commonly called a Triple Screen. It has a very high false positive rate and is slowly falling out of fashion due to causing much needless worry and being quite inaccurate. When offered this Triple Screen I decided to take it for two reasons. One, forewarned is forearmed as far as I can see. And two, if I get a positive I get an early ultrasound. In addition I had this test with my son and it was negative so it was just a small addition of reassurance.
Well, the good news is...IT'S A BOY!
And the not-so-good news. My Triple Screen came back positive but the ultrasound showed no problems to match the test.
More not-so-good news. I have placenta previa. If this continues until late in the third trimester I will have a scheduled C-section. No big deal for the baby boy, very bad for me.
And the really not-so-good news. The ultrasound did detect a defect in my boy's heart walls. He has all four chambers but there is a thickening of a chordae. I do not know what this means so if anyone has any information I would welcome it. My doctor should contact me sometime tomorrow and I will hopefully have more information and a fetal eco (heart test thingy) scheduled.
For now I am going to assume all will be well but I will try to update my page when I can.

It Could Always Be Worse

Couple arrested in Christmas Day brawl over video game

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1141384

Wii are the world

By Richard Weir
Saturday, December 27, 2008

Woe is Wii.

A Portsmouth, N.H., couple yesterday blamed each other for their black and blue Christmas when they got into a violent fight - and arrested - after an argument over a gift of the popular Nintendo video game.

“This was the worst Christmas ever,” Randi Young, 24, said a day after she and her boyfriend, Heath Blom, 26, were both cuffed and carted off by cops on misdemeanor charges of “domestic-related” simple assault.

Police were called to South Street home where the couple lived with Blom’s grandparents at 1:55 p.m. Christmas day. Officers arrested the pair upon observing bruises on each of them.

Portsmouth police said tempers flared because the boyfriend was smarting over not getting the present he wished for. “Heath Blom wanted a remote-controlled airplane for Christmas, and not the Wii,” said Sgt. Kuffer Kaltenborn.

Blom, a flooring contractor, said the cops got it wrong, and that he had asked his grandparents to get him the $1,000 airplane for his birthday next April. “You can’t fly an RC plane in the snow,” he said.

But he admitted disparaging the Wii game to his grandma and angering his girlfriend, who accused him of being an ingrate.

Blom, still nursing a shiner from the fight, said she called him names “for not liking the Wii.”

“He said he hated it. It hurt her feelings,” remarked Young, who said her boyfriend “told his grandparents that he changed his mind” about waiting until his birthday and wanted them to buy him the pricey plane for Christmas. “When he didn’t get the plane, he got really upset. He acted like a 10-year-old kid,” she said.

One fight led to another and soon Young was packing her bags. Blom said he got angry when his girlfriend hid the Wii game. “I thought she was walking off with it.”

“He dragged me down two flights of stairs, by the hair,” Young said.

But Blom said, “I stood in the doorway trying to block her. She punched me in the eye. She punched me three times. I said ‘That’s it.’ And I pulled her hair.”

Ricky Young Sr., 52, said Blom and his daughter, who he said was left with a “knot on her head” and a swollen nose, “fight like little kids. . . But to fight on Christmas, of all days. That’s crazy.”

Second time around

Last time I was pregnant (by the way, I'm expecting again!) I didn't blog. Instead I wrote long and probably inane ramblings about every tiny change that I'd noted that month or sometimes week. I sent these compositions to a rather large list of friends in my gmail address book and prided myself on keeping my loved ones up to date. Looking back I feel like they must have seemed so self-absorbed. And honestly, I was as self-absorbed while pregnant as I probably was as a teenager, which is really saying something. I seemed to think that I had invented pregnancy and I revelled in it.
So this time around I have yet to send a single email. I now blog and almost 4 months into my gestational adventure this is the first time I have decided to publish something I wrote about it. Am I really less self-absorbed? Well if this "me-me-me" post tells us anything it is that no, I'm not.
But maybe I am. It's only been 2 years since I was at this phase of my life and I am a different person. I can't say that is a completely good thing, because I really miss a lot of the pre-breeding Katy, but I am different.
I now know that the pregnancy part is just a waiting game, and I have never been known as a patient one. Instead of focusing on every twitch of my child-in-the-making I can now laugh at the crazy grimaces of my toddler. And instead of rock climbing and reading detailed descriptions of my in utero friend, I now have a picky eater to coerce food into.
And humility is me. I do not carry off pregnancy well. I have many pictures of my bloated self that remind just how large I get while pregnant. And now I know that I have a very hard time losing weight while breastfeeding, so I continue to be large for many months to follow. So I am not reveling in this pregnancy. I am terrified of having another baby in my house but so excited to meet my new little person. I am petrified of getting stretch marks this time around since I lucked out last time. I can't stand the thought of waddling around like a seal on land while trying to hold a screaming two year old. And did I mention comes at the end of all this indignity?! A screaming, demanding, non-sleeping, fragile little baby.
A beautiful, amazing, loving little creature. Someone else to make my stars align and my world make sense.

Jobbing

The economy. Ick, what a boring word. I took Economics from a stoned, half brain-dead old hippie at Pocatello HS. Needless to say I didn't learn much. I do remember watching 'Men In Black' for the first time in that class. What does Will Smith have to do with Economics you ask? Well, I didn't bother to because I wasn't very interested in Economics so watching MIB was just as interesting. Now I'm old and cleverly disguised as a responsible adult and I actually care, a bit, about boring subjects like Economics and I fear I may have missed out on something. But given the state of our public education system, I probably didn't.
So the economy. Right now it sucks. My grocery spending has increased dramatically over the last several months. My fuel bill hasn't changed much, since I did actually manage to drive less according to gas prices. I am trying to continue the good habits I developed, I swear! But the prices of everything have gone up so much that it's definitely affecting our savings accounts in my house. It is much harder to find a bargain and my checkbook is feeling the pinch.
So I am currently seeking part-time, temporary labor. There is no reason to be scared of the big, bad world of employers. I have done it before. So why am I so hesitant to actually start looking? Well, I dread the thought of leaving my boy for hours and hours everyday. I don't know how people manage that. And I am, of course, afraid to fail. What if I have to call in because K is sick? What if my own house goes to shambles because I am too busy and tired to bother with it? What if I can't learn new skills, I don't catch on as quickly as I used to or I just don't do well? What in the world will Kelly think? I haven't even brought it up to him. He's always been of the mindset that I should just do whatever I want (what a guy!) but he has made his feelings regarding daycare very clear. Is it the same if Killian is just going to one of my mommy friends for a few hours? And how exactly do I feel about that? I would never leave him with someone that I was worried about, but there is always that nagging doubt. Somehow you just know that no one else will watch him quite as closely, even though I am way more laissez-faire than most people I leave him with. Then there is that worry that he'll scream ceaselessly and my friend will resent me, hate my child and our friendship will suffer.
But mostly I think I am really just scared that I am not as good as I used to be. I am spoiled. I'm a stay-at-home mom which is, in all honesty, isn't a difficult job. My customer may be difficult to please but his smiles and giggles and learning curve are all more than enough compensation for the crap hours and manual labor.

If I were more articulate when angry I would sound something like this

'Inconsolable: How I Threw My Mental Health Out With the Diapers'

Marrit Ingman's new memoir: an excerpt

THE UNITED STATES OF GENERICA

I want Picture People to burn, motherfucker, burn.

Our story begins with Julie, our photographer, who probably got this job by talking about how she just loves kids. I bet she has a niece or a nephew. She's probably very nice.

But if she doesn't get that rainbow-colored feather duster out of my kid's face, I'm going to wrestle her to the floor and shove it up her ass.

Each time she waggles the duster in Baldo's face she makes a great, ululating cry, like Xena: Warrior Princess. I can't imagine anyone being amused by this. Perhaps some children are sufficiently chuckleheaded to smile at her capering, her loathsome propeller beanie, her safari vest with epaulets, but mine is not. Mine has dissolved into a weeping mass on the floor of the storefront photography studio.

There are rooms in back that are quieter, that are full of toys for children to actually handle and enjoy, but Corporate Policy dictates that we will occupy the first room – the one in view of the foot traffic in the mall. Presumably, the sight of my child posing with props will melt casual pedestrians into gooey submission, their wallets oozing $10 sitting fees for their own grandkids and offspring. If Julie stands him in front of the blue background holding an oversized Valentine's heart – which she actually suggests – customers will stream to the service desk and join the Photo Club.

I resent this on principle – my son is not a posable Precious Moments action figure built to advertise their services, and if he'd rather stand on the stool than sit on it, why can't Julie just photograph that? – but also because Baldo is clearly nonplussed by the pressure. He doesn't understand why he can't climb into the giant, multicolored, camera-shaped playhouse that is paces away; he doesn't understand why Julie keeps crossing his feet. Nor do I.

"Can't we just leave his feet uncrossed?" I wonder, after he sags into a natural bowlegged repose one more time.

"I don't want to get the bottom of his feet." Julie is readjusting her lens.

"Hold you," Baldo sobs, collapsing into my arms.

"Let's stand on this blue paper and look at Julie's camera," I suggest cheerily. I extend my arms, but Baldo is still wadded up into a tiny ball, his feet tucked, tears squeezing from his eyes. I set him down on the paper.

He stays in place but isn't smiling, so Julie ululates and tickles him with the feather duster. Has this woman any knowledge of the toddler psyche? I worry that we appear stupid to the other parents looking on. There are two three-year-old twins with luxuriant, brown, bow-topped hair and matching pink sweater sets looking on as if the scenario is routine and Baldo's behavior is afoul of it. Ours is a topsy-turvy world if Julie's method of relating to children is the preferred one.

Finally her camera flashes. Baldo runs toward the camera-shaped playhouse, and I have to drag him back. He back-dives, tantrums, screams as if he's being burned. He sinks his teeth into my shoulder. I put him down and begin talking to him calmly, holding his hands, trying to untantrum him.

Julie's beanie pops up over my shoulder. "Uh-oh! We've got a biter!"

I glare at her.

She breaks character. "That's, like, only the second biter I've had. He must be in daycare."

I'm going to strangle this woman with her rainbow suspenders. "No, he's at home with me."

"Did you teach him to bite?"

We struggle through the close-up.

"Let's talk props." Julie lobs the suggestion about the oversized Valentine's hearts.

"This may sound peculiar," I counter. "But do you have a broom?"

"A broom?" As if she's never heard of one.

"He really likes brooms," Jim explains. "It'll be fun for him."

Still her face is blank.

"You know, like in the back? For sweeping up?" I add.

"Well, yeah ... I guess we have one. But it's not a prop broom."

"If he holds it, is it not a prop?" I wonder. This blows her mind for a minute.

"Wait!" she snaps her fingers. Julie is so smart! "There's a witch's broom for Halloween!" She returns with a child-size plastic broom. Even the bristles are a solid mass of plastic. She hands it to Baldo, and he begins dragging it along the floor. He won't stand and pose with it.

The twins are still staring.

"This isn't working." I wrest the plastic broom out of Baldo's hand.

"Okay, we'll just go with those two shots." Julie is rejiggering her camera.

"No, this isn't working." I thrust the broom at her. "This environment is frustrating for toddlers. Are you sure we can't use one of the quieter rooms?"

"We have to use the front room first," she reiterates. "We can only use the back rooms if the front room is occupied."

"That's ridiculous. He's not going to just stand here while people are going by in front of him." School-age kids are scrambling past, gawking inside the photo studio.

I pick Baldo up, and we walk off. "Your pictures will be ready after noon!" Julie chirps.

We walk the entire length of the mall back to where we've parked.

"God, I hate this fucking place," Jim mutters.

"We're never coming back here," I agree in the elevator.

"Except to look at our pictures."

"Yeah."

We are all hungry and twenty minutes from home. We drive halfway back to eat at a restaurant that isn't a chain. Baldo tantrums in the chair.

I'm really sick of this crap, to the extent that it makes me want to smash shit up, and that's a big statement from someone who is easily placated by pie. I want to see a bunch of crazy parents dancing orgiastically around a bonfire of stupid prop hearts, oversized stars and moons, and industrial carpeting.

I'm going to put a sledgehammer through the window. I want to pull down and shatter all those stupid portraits on their walls – the ones with hapless infants strapped into angel wings; the ones with families all dressed alike, like they're starring in some kind of prime-time variety show from the 1970s with Harvey Korman. I want to grind all the fake, forced smiles into a thousand tiny pieces under the heel of my boot. All those generic faces, all those people wearing their cutest outfits from Old Navy, all the prints and package specials framed and hung on tasteful beige walls in McHouses from Scottsdale to Fort Myers. With the same couches and the same IKEA bin of LeapPad toys. All abiding by the same rules: Children must smile. We must not see the soles of their shoes. They must climb onto stepladders or big red wagons and be as whimsical as possible.

All this stuff is family-unfriendly. It's corporate-friendly. Why do we pump our money into this crap? Certainly we love our children. Why do we allow people in propeller beanies to torment them? Some of us know better. We skulked through high school in our Siouxsie t-shirts, refusing to smile when we weren't particularly happy; then we bred and some sleeper cell inside our brains activated, releasing a hormone that makes us disintegrate whenever Hanna Andersson has a sale. Striped tights! We must have striped tights!

What I'm really asking is this: Why is the mall where all the families are?

I saw all these mothers walking around with their babies in Pope-globe hermetic strollers. I had no idea there were so many other people with children in my town. I'd flag them down, but there's no place for us to stop and stand, to talk to one another. We're supposed to roam around like cattle, stopping only to buy or eat or piss.

It concerns me that for so many postpartum women walking around the mall with the baby is their way to "go out." Go out and what? Be isolated in public? Be surrounded by pictures of Abercrombie and Fitch models? Granted, when the four walls are closing in, anything is better than staying at home. But isn't there a better alternative?

I used to fantasize about a giant room with a soft, semi-padded floor, like a gym mat. A drain in the middle of the room to hose down the snot and graham cracker crumbs at the end of the day. You pay a buck or two to go inside with your baby. There are piles of toys, separated into different areas by age. You can plunk your three-month-old down on a playmat and sit and be among mothers. There'd be a coffeepot percolating in the corner, maybe some muffins that somebody brought in.

There will be no organized activities here. You will not be coerced into "circle time." The babies will not be made to play with scarves or clack claves along to some dorky music. And it is clear to all that this is not exclusively for the benefit of your child. This is not some shit to bring out your child's aptitudes or help her get into an exceptional preschool. This is because parenting is a group activity. We are not meant to be sectioned off into little dyads. We are supposed to interact and share our wisdom. We are meant to bitch to each other when we need it, to encourage each other when we need it. The very expression "Mommy and Me class" makes it clear that the baby is the subject and the mother the object.

For some parents, my dream is a reality. A friend who has recently moved to Hong Kong reports that her apartment complex has a "toddler room" for playtime. "Wow," she opines. "It's incredible. Padded floor and a baby ball pit. Lots of toys and books and tons and tons and tons of babies."

Other parents have told me about Family Place, a community center for families in Canada. One Vancouver location offers preschool activities, a toy library, parent support (including a home-visit service), and licensed "childminding" for kids eighteen months and over. The program receives government support from the city and from the Ministry for Children and Families, so admission costs 50¢. Fifty cents. Canadian.

"Family Place kicks ass," one parent told me. "It is one of the major things that I love about living here, that I think every neighborhood in the States could use."

This wouldn't fly in the United States. Not just because we do not mix government and parenting. More to the point is that we do not allow low-key, self-directed play. We have to make childhood as noisomely cheerful and strenuous as possible. Our "family restaurants" have to have birthday whistles and kiddie cups with licensed characters on them. We are – to quote a movie I recently reviewed – the "Fun Police." If you aren't having fun, fun will be provided for you! We can't allow our children to just sit there and stack blocks. We will regulate their activities so that every kid meets a Minimum Standard of Childish Glee. We will have DVDs in our minivans so that the ride from playgroup to Chuck E. Cheese is as fun as possible! Everything a child touches has to have at least one flashing light and beeping noise. You can't even have a plain toddler toothbrush. No, your toothbrush will be fun! With patented Fun Bristles™ and Fruit Berry Fun-sation training paste! The strawberries on the tube are smiling! Your diapers have smiling dinosaurs on the waistband! They're so happy to decompose and provide petroleum for your ass!

This shit exhausts me utterly. No wonder I'm medicated. Parenthood is the mass madness that childhood should be a big, giddy laugh riot; rather, it is complex and often frustrating to those who experience it. Childhood does not exist to look cute and move a product. Childhood is an end in itself.

Woe is you who venture outside of the officially sanctioned childhood spaces. People will look at you as if you've stepped out of a spacecraft with an extraterrestrial clutching your hand. What is that ... that small thing with her? Why is it so noisy? Can't she control it? It hurts my ears! You will be deported to the McDonald's Play Place and made to genuflect before a giant corporate clown. You will eat food formed into nugget shapes. And you will like it, or else be cudgeled with a novelty diaper bag.

Where families cluster – those commuter neighborhoods – the big-box retailers follow. The organic full-fat baby yogurt they used to stock has been replaced with a brand with a Disney tie-in. It's got high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and "poppin' color crystals™" that create a swirl effect. No more bland banana and vanilla – these come in Cotton Candy and Bubble Gum flavors. And there's a story – featuring a popular licensed character, of course – on the bottom of the lid! Another brand offers an "Orange Strawberry Banana Blowout." What used to be a starter food for kids trying out dairy now promises to be a complete multisensory experience, packed with as many flavors and action verbs as possible, lest we risk understimulating our children.

Must our yogurt be so amusing? No wonder our lives feel empty when we graduate to low-fat and all it has is a cow on the package.

To access the yogurt, you will run a gauntlet of greeters who make goofy faces at your toddler and possibly present him or her with a helium-filled balloon. If you are particularly unfortunate, your child will be latex-allergic and break out into a rash by the time you reach the dairy case. If you reject the balloon, your child's tearful wailing will echo from the tire shop to the photo lab. You have become the person you sneered at when you were young and single and knew everything. You are That Mother.

But it's not really your fault. You were doomed by the giant parking lot, the humming fluorescent lighting, the prominent placement of SpongeBob SquarePants, the giant, talking cardboard standees of NASCAR drivers. There is a conspiracy afoot; its purpose is to dope you and your child into grinning yourself to death. And you better smile, or else that feather duster's coming back.

Loser

Am I really so weak? Or are the other moms just better at the facade? I have made no secret of what a hard time I had with my son as an infant but everyone else always seems to slip into their new role with such ease. My friends with wee ones always seem to have their houses put together, they run errands and have social lives. My son was almost 4 months old last Halloween and I spent the evening in the house, crying and trying to stop him from screaming as if he were being tortured. We didn't even pretend to go trick or treating.
I was just on my friend's blog, Jenni. She recently had twins, which makes for 5 very, very young children in her house and she is already back to her photography and it looks like she's been very busy. And yet she has found time to take professional portraits for pay, she has taken fall pictures of her boys, costumed pictures of all her kids and even family pictures! She has even found a way to get her hair done and lose all her baby weight. What a role model.
I am petrified to be jumping back into the world of newborns. So there it is, my big blog announcement! Kelly, Killian and I are expecting a new love in our lives this June. And I am terrified! Last time I had no idea what I was getting into. I blissfully waddled around enjoying my little guys' pokes and prods, completely ignorant of the life-wrenching terror that was shortly to come. Now I know. And I am terrified.