May 10

Baby Mama — The Last Trimester

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Here’s another great guest post from Tara as she shares her perspectives on the journey of her second pregnancy.

I am officially in the third trimester of pregnancy now. While I would rate it as easier than the first trimester—when I am always nauseated— I wouldn’t exactly call this trimester fun.  

While there are many reasons to complain about this final term of pregnancy, I limit my whining to just six reasons why I wouldn’t mind if my little boy came a few weeks early.

  1. Hurting Hips. Apparently the ligaments in my pelvis have softened, allowing my hips to spread, in preparation for birth. I think they should just wait and soften once I have an epidural, so I can’t feel any of it.
  2. Bladder pressure. Need I say more?
  3. Contractions. While Braxton Hicks aren’t painful yet, it’s still uncomfortable to try to do anything when my uterus is doing its own little work out.
  4. Frequent Doctor Visits. I now have to take time out of my day every two weeks to visit the doctor’s office. It isn’t that much fun anymore. For the first couple of visits when you are pregnant it is very cool to go to the doctor and realize there is a little baby forming inside of you, but at this point I don’t need the doctor’s help to know that there is a baby in there.
  5. Sleeping. I don’t think a comfortable position exists during the last ten weeks of pregnancy. It doesn’t help that once you finally get to sleep you have to wake up to visit the bathroom.
  6. Extra body heat. It isn’t really fun to have everyone else in the vicinity comment on what a nice day it is, when I am sweating.

 All of this being said, I suppose I will forget it all when we bring home our cute little baby boy.

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Apr 26

Where Have Those Lips Been?

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My youngest is really into giving kisses. Unfortunately, she’s discovered “romantic” kissing – thank you endless Disney flicks – and tries to share her love with a little more generosity than what is typically appreciated.

Like any normal, neurotic, parent I fret about her teenage years. How will we ever keep the boys away? My husband will have to dress like a redneck and carry a gun. Or maybe he’ll issue lie detector tests like the father in “Meet the Parents.” Either way, I’m sure he’ll be plenty scary, but what would be my role in scaring off all future suitors?

A flood of memories suddenly came to mind as I watched the little kisser shriek as she chased her terrified older sisters with threats of “juicy kisses.” Those lips have already had quite a ride in just four short years. I began concocting my plan that I decided could include my older girls as well. I would share gross-out moments in a special scrapbook entitled, “Do you know where those lips have been?” that only comes out right before one of them leaves on a date. 

The possibilities are endless but I share here a few lovely moments I could include that would scare off any prom date.

1.       My husband and I were in the kitchen making dinner and catching up on our day, when all of a sudden my mommy-radar heard an odd noise coming from the bathroom. I heard the sound of thirsty guzzling. That’s odd, I thought, as I gazed across the hallway from the kitchen to the powder room. My two-year-old (at the time) was in plain view with a cup in her hand. I asked her what she was doing and she frankly replied. “I was thirsty so I got dink (drink).” I knew she wasn’t tall enough to turn the faucet on, so I asked in horror because I was pretty sure I knew the answer, “Where did you get a drink from?” Her answer, “The toilet.” Needless to say, my appetite was ruined.

2.       When we moved into our newly constructed home, our daughter was only in the crawling stage. As a result, everything she saw went directly into her mouth. And she was fast. I was constantly pulling things out of her grasp in exchange for acceptable chew toys. We had what my husband called “a minor mouse problem” when we moved into our home. (Later he confessed that is was more like a major problem. This is why I can no longer view movies like “Ratatouille” or “Stuart Little.” I have a serious rodent issue.) As I was unpacking the kitchen my daughter grabbed a sticky, glue mouse trap and put it to her face. The 3 x 5 glue trap was stuck to her face and both of hands. An hour later and after numerous calls to poison control, pest control, the doctor’s office, and my husband, the glue trap was removed, the mice were all gone, and luckily no damage was done. (Glue traps are non-toxic. Phew!)

3.       On a trip to Sea World, one of my daughters became obsessed with the starfish in the tidepool area. One of the attendants said she could pick it up and look at it. Like any good mother, I took a few steps back from toddler, so I could snap a shot of this precious moment. My daughter was carefully looking over the red crustacean when suddenly her mouth opened wide and she proceeded to insert the starfish into her mouth. I hopped up out of my squatted photographer position just in time to swoop in to save that poor starfish’s life. It’s proof you never know quite what your child is thinking. While I thought my sweet daughter was considering her life as a future oceanographer apparently, she was actually thinking about lunch.

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Dec 28

The Truth About Santa

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It kills me that my daughter is such a smarty pants.

I’ve spent years using my best undercover secrets to keep the idea of Santa Claus sacred for my girls. I see the end of a belief in Santa as a sort of coming of age or loss of innocence. Over the years I’ve bought special wrapping paper, which I keep in a secured location, that only Santa would use. I’d stash gifts at other’s homes. I’d go to great lengths to elongate their childhood holiday fantasies.

But the day came, and it does for all parents, when one smarty pants asks one detailed question too many, and you can see in their eyes that they’re ready for the truth. My day came a few weeks ago when my oldest began asking questions that if answered would require responses that ranked high on the scale of gigantic whoppers vs. white lies.

It’s one thing to perpetuate the worldwide folklore that all parents, in all countries, pass down to their progenitors, but quite another to elaborate in great detail about the inner workings of the North Pole and Santa. Besides, she’s my overly logical child who can see through semi-complex plot twists in PG movies. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep up my game face so I asked her, “What do you think?”

To my deep disappointment she replied in a matter-of-fact jeopardy-like tone, “I think it’s you and Dad.” Ouch. Well there it was – the cat. It wasn’t just out of the bag it was snuggled up on the fireplace hearth after running around the room for a bit and dining on a five-course meal. I flatly said, “Yep,” and then threatened her with life if she told her younger sisters. As I looked at her ear-to-ear grin I realized she’d known the cold, hard facts about Santa for longer than I’d previously acknowledged and she was finally free to give up the act she’d been putting on for our sake.

I asked her if the kids at school spoiled the idea of Santa for her. “No,” she said. “It’s just pretty easy to figure out it’s you and Dad. I mean it’s pretty obvious.” Well, excuse me, Ms-I-Know-Everything-About- Life, I thought to myself. What other wonders were in the fantastic brain of hers? Then I decided that’s a can of worms I wasn’t ready for and put that can on the shelf in the back of the pantry for another day.

I appointed her my special elf and to my great surprise my disappointment quickly faded into enthusiasm and relief. I finally had a helper. I had an accomplice to my crimes of Christmas. My husband bless his heart is NOT a good Santa. He doesn’t shop, he isn’t jolly and fat, and he doesn’t even like cookies. (Gasp! Who doesn’t like cookies?) The other day I compared him to the grumpy elf from the Santa Clause triology who is lazy and just drinks hot cocoa. He really didn’t have much of a defense and owned up to the bad rap I was dishing out. He’s an excellent father but NOT a great Christmas elf. If it was up to him he’d follow my brother’s theory of gift wrap and cards which is that both of those are optional. (Naked presents! That’s blasphemous.)

So, it wasn’t long before my middle daughter started snooping around and found my super secret stash of gifts. (She’s my street smart child who has Go-Go-Gadget Gift Radar.) Since she’s only a year younger and because I don’t trust the two older girls not to talk I convinced my husband that we should break the news to her as well. She’d already seen the “Santa” gifts and I could just imagine her on Christmas morning in front of her younger sister saying something like, “These can’t be from Santa. I saw them in your room on the 12th of December at 3 p.m. when I said I was doing my homework at your desk.”

When the truth was told she looked puzzled, not relieved. She continued to ask me question after question about Santa, such as his whereabouts on Dec. 24,, 2008, and my associations with him. I felt like I was taking a polygraph under police interrogation as I continued to answer her in my broken record reply of, “He’s not real. I’m Santa.” I thought with time and perspective it would all add up and she’d draw the lines to connect the dots, but in her non-linear way of thinking she connected her dot-to-dot pattern which spelled out the word, “Believe.”

She not only didn’t believe me she continued to embellish in her beliefs about Santa. (I’m not sure what a therapist would say about my relationship with her. I’m sure in some psychology book this means I’m not grounding her to reality or that she doesn’t have faith in me.) As we looked for Santa in the skyline on Christmas Eve this year, she was every bit as enthusiastic and whimsical about the white bearded figment of our imaginations as she’s ever been. I guess passion wins over logic in her heart.

I always thought my brother was cruel for sharing “the truth” with me before I thought I was ready to hear it, but apparently we accept truth once we’re ready to let it penetrate us. Innocence isn’t really lost when we find truth, it’s just revealing something that was always there but we just weren’t ready to see.

Question: How old were you when you discovered the truth about Santa? How did you find out?

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