On My Mind

Before we actually had Theo, we were 100% positive we wanted two kids. Each of us has one other sibling in varying years of separation (S. is 3 years older than her bro, me 7 years older than my sis), and we were sure we would want a sibling withint 2 years of Theo.

Hence our appointment with the RE tomorrow to talk business, particularly regarding doing a frozen embryo transfer with me as the carrier (Is that the right term? That kind of makes me feel like a pigeon!).

But lately, we've been thinking..how the hell would we do it with two? We are exhausted constantly (blissfully so, but still, exhausted nonetheless). S. can barely make it out of the house with one. We go many places with Theo and it seems that adding to the pot would only make us pull our hair out more. We've watched as S's cousin with an almost-three-year-old and almost-one-year-old twin girls has been run around ragged by her brood. She handles them amazingly, don't get us wrong, but we know how exhausting it is. And she has a shitload of help with those kids and we really don't--it's our babysitter during the school day and that is really it for caretakers on a regular basis.

So, what are some pros and cons of having an only child? Well, as teachers, both S. and I do notice a difference with only children. They can be...well...I don't know...I do not want to sound off -putting, but perhaps only children are a bit more..entitled? Ach, it's delicate, I know. I am just speaking from experience, and S. has occasionally seen the same thing in her little kids. One of my high school friends that I shared the most drama with was an only and her mother's interference in her day-to-day life confounded me. It was like, jeesh, doesn't she have anything better to do?

Of course I know better now, in retrospect. At the time, not being an only, I didn't really get it. I get it now.


And then on the other hand, our neighbor is an only child, and she is Theo's future babysitter, remarkably smart, cute, and nice, and is super-close to both her parents. She is wonderful. And they have traveled all over the country with her from a young age.

Is it selfish to have another? We have so many more resources to give when there's only one to give them to.

So, what to do? Do we cut our losses and raise Theo solo?? He has plenty of cousins around to play with. We could be happy with just him. But would we be missing out on even more happiness by not having another baby??

This is just what's on my mind. I'll let you know how the RE appointment goes tomorrow. Yikes.

Yeah right, mom!

Just to throw my last post back in my face, I'm sure, Theo has decided to be a fuss bucket at unusual times--including 4 in the a.m. I can only guess that teeth are coming. Poor dude! Poor mommies!

I'm sure he did that just to remind me that babies are unpredictable in every imaginable way.

What teeth gel, if any, did you guys use when your little ones started teething? We bought this "100% natural" homeopathic stuff only to find that there is parabens in it. We're looking for something a bit less...icky. Any suggestions? 

Random Ramblings

My kid still amazingly still has no teeth. No sign whatsoever except all the drooling. But I suppose we should be happy that we don't have that awful poor teething sad cry going on quite yet.

Theo is loving food--we had to put blueberries on hiatus for now because they are ridiculously messy and stain stuff (duh!), so we've moved on to pears. Yummy, juicy, clear pears.

We occasionally watch random vintage Sesame Street clips on YouTube (prompted by my spontaneously remembering all of the words to  song I haven't heard in 25 years-it's an odd talent I have), and found this one surprising. I guess I always knew that Sesame Street's thing was to be inclusive and appreciate diversity, but when I heard the girl sing "I've got one daddy, I've got two" I almost dropped to the floor. And the best part is, I knew all the words to that song as a kid and it never registered as strange or stood out to me, ever. 

Gotta love Sesame Street. Damn liberal left-wing media agenda!!

Slow News Day

We are negligent bloggers, there is just no getting around that anymore. The most I can bare to do most of the time is post pictures of Theo. I know that is sort of satisfactory for some, but not for me. There was a time when this blog was one of the only outlets we had for our frustration. This is not to say that our frustrations have ended, and indeed I will make good use of you all again as sounding boards when our next TTC frustration (because isn't TTC always a frustrating experience?) exhausts me and nooneunderstandsbutyou!!

So, in the meantime, knowing that frustration is peeking out from behind a tree up the road, I'll leave you with these pics. Mealtime is far from blissful, but Theo does usually enjoy himself, which keeps his mamas happy for sure. He's only sort of got the hang of the food bag, in which we've stuffed some blueberries for munching. Yummy! 

Free Time

We've heard that six months is a tough age for the little babes. Alas we do find that vaguely true over in babymaking town. Poor T is drooling an ocean over those tiny teeth that just haven't broken through to the other side yet. No sign whatsoever except for the shiny face and chapped, slimy hands.

I would say the best thing about six months, though, is trying all the new food. It is awesomely fun, and I really don't get why people buy baby food in jars. I mean, I probably saved like 500% on baby food this month and I still paid $5 for two organic avocados, $4 for an organic sweet potato, less than $2 for a bag of organic peas, and $2.50 for a bunch of organic bananas. At 80-something cents a pop for a jar of organic baby food, I would say I have myself a bargain. Making baby food is definitely beyond the thrill of the bargain for us, though. We like knowing we prepared everything especially for T--we picked it out, peeled it, washed it, mashed it--is this really too much trouble for some people? I get if you're traveling or something, but jeesh.

Okay, enough about my food tirade. I think I'm just feeling so sad for the little dude and his teeth that will not be. Soon soon, I know. As long as everything else stays the same forever and ever I'm good. Like sleeping, for instance. Sleeping can stay. We like sleep--all of us.

We had reached an impasse with our cloth diapers in December. They were constantly leaking, the babysitter kind of stopped using them, and we were just generally unhappy for them. We recommitted in 2009, did some more research about our possible issues, and seem to be back on track. He still can't sleep overnight in them, though---anyone have a good solution for heavy overnight wetters?

Oh, the things I think about now in my free time...

Goals for 2009

I don't like to make New Year's resolutions. I know it's a month past New Year's already, so this is coming incredibly late, but I thought I would start ruminating about this now. This year, I'd like to read more, move more, perhaps move out of my town, and get pregnant. Yes, it's time to start thinking about #2...

I think we have to start thinking about this now because family planning when there's money involved is, well, just more difficult than your run-of-the-mill hetero family planning. I'm sure their's goes something like this: "So, want to have a baby soon?" "OK, let's have sex and see what happens." "Okay, great!"

I know that is an exaggeration and I am NOT insinuating that it is always that easy for heteros to get pregnant. I know it's not and that it can be just as stressful (and expensive!) But after watching S. go through 13 insemination unsuccessfully, I just don't know what is going to lie ahead for me. I'm the same age now as S. was when she started, just about. However, she was incredibly regular--I'm not. I'm also not entirely convinced that don't I have some sort of cyst-situation going on in there that may need to be looked at and resolved before we can start trying.

And then there's this-----it's important to us that Theo has a biological sibling, so do we go with using our donor and my egg, or one of his frozen brothers or sisters sitting in the hospital where we had our IVF? Right now, the donor is not available, but may be in the future--but they don't know when. This is not good. Will it be in a year? A month? Never?? But Theo's brothers and sisters are available right here, right now, for the one-time cost of a FET. But what if it doesn't work and then there's no donor sperm left? What if what if what if what if????????

Clearly we have a lot to work out. What I do know is that it is day 17 of my cycle and I haven't freaking ovulated yet, according to the monitor. WTF?! This is not a promsing start, but I'm going to be positive until we meet with our RE in March. I can, will, and do ovulate. I can be and am regular. I can get pregnant this year.

Most likely you will not hear me talk about this again until our meeting with the RE. I just wanted to put it out there and get it off my chest. So there you go.

I love this kid's hair. I did NOT style this faux hawk--this is 100% natural!

Kidneys: The Update

We took the boy in for his unpleasant procedure this morning. All in all, I would say he did great considering they shoved a catheter up his nether-regions and left it there to watch him pee on screen! However, there was very good news that came out of it all---no reflux! AKA, the pee is not going back in, just going out like it's supposed to.

So now we're on an every-six-month ultra-sound and check-up schedule. Hey, we'll take it. It also means we won't have to give him antibiotics everyday to ward off possible UTIs that come with reflux--not a prospect we were exactly looking forward to. We don't even use antibacterial soap!!! 

Anyway, it's all a non-issue (for now) and hopefully in six months it will disappear completely. Honestly, we didn't think it was reflux because this beastly child pees SO MUCH, that to think any way going back in would mean that there wouldn't be a diaper available to hold all that liquid!

So, pee away, little Theo, pee away! 

Happy Half-Birthday Theo!

The grand finale is totally worth it!

My baby is 6 months old today. How did that happen?

Yay for democracy!

We dressed Theo in his red, white, and blue tie-dye shirt today, but he promptly managed to poop all over it by the end of the morning. Hope that's not an omen of some kind...

Smiles and cheers all around for OUR new President!

Stroller Whores

Well, we gave being baby minimalists our best shot, but to our chagrin we are now the owner of 4, count 'em FOUR strollers. In our own defense, I feel obligated to talk about each of them and their individual functions:

-Snap-n-go for infant carrier--so very handy when Theo was a wee lad and didn't mind being in the car seat. Now the straps hardly fit around him (even though it's supposed to go to 30 lbs.) so we need another solution since we'll be switching to the big car seat very soon.  

-Large Peg Pereggo - purchased before Theo was born for a steal on Craigslist. More drawn by its designer-ness (though we know this pales in comparison to the Bugaboos, Stokkes, etc.) than its functionality, we took it out for the first time last weekend. We loved the roominess for our huge dude and the versatility of the seat positions. Storage compartment gets a thumbs down, though.

-Umbrella Stroller - We got this as a shower gift. When he's older, it will be good, although I know it has pretty much zero support.

- Peg Pereggo Aria - a one-handed, extremely lightweight version of our Cadillac Escalade of strollers up there. It's awesome. We think we like it better than the big Peg, although we just bought it yesterday, again as a steal off of Craigslist. Ahh, Craigslist...

There is a real reason we bought that last one. Theo goes to a babysitter's house every day, and every day he is strolled there in his infant carrier since our sitter lives across the street from S.'s school. Sooner rather than later, little Theo is going to get a big-boy car seat, which means the end of the Snap-n-go. The Aria will stay at school with S., and go back and forth to the sitter's house every day. So it's almost like we don't even own that last stroller, since we won't be traveling with it or really even using it. 

Okay, I just had to get that off of my chest. Please don't judge me for my excessive baby gear! 

all things medical

Some of you may recall way back in the day of 20-week ultrasounds, they found an irregularity in the baby's kidney. Well, that baby turned out to be Theo, and the irregularity still exists. We just went to a pediatric urologist hoping to have him wave us a way saying "see? I told you it would resolve by itself..." But no, Theo has Grade 2 (1 being best, 5 the worst) hydronephrosis of the left kidney and needs a VCUG, which is a catheter inserted into his penis, dye injected into his bladder, all on ultrasound so they can see which way the fluid is moving. Hopefully, not toward his kidneys. I know this will give us an answer once and for all if anything is wrong, but I don't want him to go through this. hmph. 

On another note, he's covered in patches of an excema-like rash. We have a call into the pediatrician. It doesn't seem to bother him, but it's all over his belly, spotty on his back, the back of his knees, his neck. Poor little doodle. We've been spreading Aqu@phor on him pretty liberally. My worry is that it is a sign of food allergy. We started rice cereal on Christmas - he was 5 months and sooooo ready. That kid was born to eat. 

Oh yeah, 19lbs2oz. Big doodle.

Any advice, experience, concerns????

What a year!

From my giant jolly 5 month old to my ever-unhappy newborn.

We're Off!

..to a distant state for Christmas. Here is our packing list, to be shoved in the back of S.'s dad's 12-seater work van. I dare there to be any room left for passengers after we get through packing it up:

• one exersaucer - not collapsable
• at least 3 bags of groceries, just from our home, nevermind what S.'s parents are bringing
• several bags and 2 boxes of presents
• one huge bag just for Theo
• a suitcase for us
• a bag o'toys, blankets, etc...
• diaper bag plus our own personal purse-type bags (we barely carry purses anymore-anyone else have this issue? Bye-bye handbag obsession, hello diaper bag obsession!)

Ugh...and this is after S.'s parents have put their luggage, presents, and groceries in. Even with that long van, I predict it will be a squeeze. But all for love of family do we travel thus, right? This will be Theo's longest car ride yet--we'll see how he does. We leave tomorrow after school time, so most of the driving will correspond with sleepy time, in theory.

Here's Mr. Theo styling in his car seat last weekend. We hope he'll be that happy in it all week!

Always the eldest!

Theo's not the baby any longer. His cousin arrived Sunday evening. 

Meet Jackson Joseph - what a cutie!

We will be spending Christmas with him several states away. We can't wait to squish on him. Theo's going to look like the beast he has become next to this teenie-weenie. What special gifts we have this year.

A Weekend of Miracles

I am the bah-humbug of this family, but even I had to admit I was pleased with everything that happened this weekend while we were away. I was worried about numerous things, from packing up all our crap to traffic driving into the city on a Friday to a cranky baby in line at M@cy's to see Santa. Behold the miracles our magical trip contained:

1. NO TRAFFIC! Once we finally crossed the Triboro (I mean the "RFK Bridge"), I finally had to burst out "Where is everybody?!" which prompted a whack from S. because you never jinx a good streak like that.

2. Pete came down to both help us empty the car and give us his parking spot on his block. What a good friend.

3. We carried Theo around in the Ergo and he had zero meltdowns. Zero. He was amazing--either sleeping or taking in the sights of the city. And, the biggest miracle of all...

Theo totally dug Santa, and I really think we got the real one who totally dug Theo back. No screaming, no fussing. Not a peep. And the line was just not that long--half-hour tops.

4. Then we got to Soho, which on a normal Saturday would be obsurdly crowded. No one there. We were in and out of the Paul Frank store to pick up a couple of onesies for S.'s mom to give to Theo and his cousin (who is supposed to be born on Thursday!!). And they were 25% off. And they were serving milk and cookies.

5. We ate sushi. Theo stuck his hand in the soy sauce. He seemed to enjoy it.

6. There were some other boring things we did that went smoothly. We made it home and ate yummy pizza. We ate bagels and coffee for breakfast, went to Ikea, then went to visit more friends in CT.

The only bummer was the ride home in snow and non-plowed or salted roads. That really sucked and definitely added a bit onto our ride, not to mention was stressful as hell, but all in all I'd say the exhaustion was blissfully warm and squishy and sufficed to even get me to sing a Christmas carol or two in the car. S. declared me offically "in the Christmas spirit." The end.

And We're Off...

There isn't one weekend in December where we are not either going away or have something going on. This is the inaugural weekend of December insanity, and we're off to the city to stay with friends and maybe, just maybe, stand in line to get Theo's picture taken with the Macy's Santa Claus. This sounds like insanity to me, but S. insists we're "making memories!" It will be an adventure nevertheless, toting Theo around on the subway and down city streets. I'm kind of interested to see what our lives would have been like had we not moved out, and had to deal with the consequences of being city mamas. I know there are plenty of you out there whose blogs we read who deal with this everyday, so let's see if we have the muster to do it for even one weekend!

One of my biggest defects is that I have wonderful ideas and intentions, but terrible or not-so-perfect execution and follow-through. This blog is a perfect example. In theory, I love writing on the blog. The reality is, I come home from work exhausted from a long day, then am Mommy and home chef and housekeeper and various errand runner, and then I don't even have time to check e-mail let alone write a blog entry. I'm sure this is a common tale, and my intention is certainly not to fill this particular entry with woe and whining about how hard my life has become. The fact is life is more challenging now, with less down-time, especially this time of year. But the fact remains that life has improved in immeasurable ways.

Today I officially adopted Theo. I found the day to be a happy occasion, but S. found the whole thing absurd rather than a celebration. We had to pay $1,000 just so that some other state or country can recognize our marriage (by default) and the birth of our son (by law). She just doesn't think we should be having to do this in the first place. But I'd like to remind her that there are plenty of states (like, mostly the rest of them) that wouldn't even have allowed our adoption today to have happened, and certainly in not such a pleasant way. The judge smiled and flirted with Theo the whole time (the whole 5 minutes it took) instead of being all grave and serious. We never felt talked down to, but felt encouraged by her words: "I don't see why we shouldn't make this family right now." Bloggers already know that love makes a family long before the law does, but it was affirming nonetheless, especially in light of all the craptastic civil rights repeals as of late.

And so I'll leave you not with an adoption picture exactly (he screamed his head off through all of those!), but with a four-month picture of Theo happily playing in his (now legal) family home.
By the way, this kid is, for all intents and purposes, a beast. His height percentage was apparently "off the charts", and he weighs a whopping 16 lbs, 12 oz. Yikes!

working mama

Being a working mom is even harder than been a stay-at-home mom and I thought that was hard! It's like having 2 full-time jobs. I'm exhausted. I can't ever imagine having a minute to myself. My god, how will I blog? :) I know it's just a matter of getting used to our new routine. But, whoa.

Actually, the first two days of this week, our babysitter's kid came down with pneumonia, so I had to call C. mid-day to go get him. I couldn't leave on my first day back, right?! Then he went to school with me on Election day when we had Professional Development (aka - no students). So it's only been two days. She says he's been great. 

I love being back in the classroom. It feels good. And I love being reunited at 3pm. It's really the perfect situation. I just need to realize that I'm not going to do as much in the classroom - let it go - I do not need to be teacher of the year! There's no productive early mornings or late afternoons with the little Theo with me. Priorities, right?

Little Stinker

Hope everyone had a happy Halloween weekend. I'll let you know how day one as a working mom goes tomorrow. I'm too busy to be freaked out - I'm sure that will creep up at 3 am.