third time's a charm

What a colossal cliche', huh?  Well, in this case, it very much applies.

In late 2012, we found out we were pregnant.  It wasn't the best time for it.  In fact, the timing couldn't get much worse.  And for a number of highly personal reasons, we really didn't think it was remotely possible for me to be pregnant.  But after I managed to wipe out an entire super-sized jar of pickles (the kind that one usually finds in a store or food concession stand or something similar), it was becoming rather obvious that, despite our insistence that we were absolutely, unequivocally, without a doubt done having children, another was on its way.

Similar to my previous pregnancy, we didn't find out we were pregnant until I was almost half-way through the 9 months.  After a disastrous first appointment with a horrible doctor who, thankfully, had wonderful nurses who were most helpful in finding me another doctor and get my needed tests expedited, my husband and I headed to a private laboratory armed with an order for an ultrasound stamped "STAT".

We sat in the waiting room, anxious to get into the exam room and get that wand over my belly to make sure our baby was doing okay.  Naturally, that was our first priority.  But running a close second was finding out if our baby sported girl parts or boy parts.

If you don't already know, I had previously given birth to two boys from a man who already had a son.  Now you can see why we were very interested in baby's gender.

Finally, my name was called.  We met our tech who was a familiar stranger to me.  While we had never met before, his wife was one of my favorite customers at a bar I had worked at many years ago.  I let him know I knew his wife and congratulated him on the baby I knew they just had.  As we became acquainted and I climbed onto the table assuming the position, I told him immediately that we wanted to know the gender and explained why.

As the picture came on the screen, I saw a perfect little baby who was not like my other two babies before and I don't mean gender-wise.  When I had my ultrasound for my sons, neither was very shy.  As soon as the wand hit my belly, there it was.  My boys were spread-eagle, announcing to the world their gender.  Baby number three, however, was shy.

As the tech took us through the paces, showing us baby's heart and other organs, spine, head, limbs and a cute little face showing us tongue, I saw nothing of baby's private parts.  At one point our tech referred to baby as "she" though I didn't catch it.  I figured he was just mimicking us and our hopeful insistence that this baby was a girl.

That was the only mistake our tech made that day.  As the minutes dragged on, this tech knew exactly what he was doing, keeping us in suspense as long as possible.

And then he asked if we were ready.  I could have strangled him.

As he waved the wand over the part where he knew baby's little parts were (because he already knew where they were having seen them and quickly passing over them so that we couldn't, purposely keeping the gender a surprise for as long as possible) he asked, "What do you think?"

A huge smile erupted on my face as it was more than obvious.  "That's a girl," I said, moments before I turned away and cried profusely.

And it was.  Finally, we were having our girl.

(to be continued)

there goes my baby

Yesterday, I woke up earlier than I had in the past five years. It was so early for me that there were many days in those years that I was barely getting to sleep at that time. But that was not too hard.

Yesterday, in addition to getting myself ready for the day, I had to awaken, clean, dress and feed two other people and make sure they had everything they needed. I had to cook immediately upon waking up, springing into action, instead of taking a good hour to adjust to being awake as I had been able to before. That wasn't the hard part either.

Yesterday, I had to brave the early morning traffic, having not driven at that time of day in several years, forgetting what it had been like and knowing that there were more obstacles to contend with, making any recollection of traffic almost moot. I made great time, actually, and was able to beat the traffic, making my morning rather smooth despite being pretty tired. So that wasn't hard.

Yesterday, I walked through the gates of my old elementary school, my 5-year-old with his Iron Man bag strapped to his back walking next to me, my 3-year-old tagging along, holding my hand, my other hand holding a large plastic bag filled with the required extra supplies for the classroom, as we lugged ourselves and our baggage up the stairs to my son's kindergarten classroom for the first time. I brought him over to a bench where two of his classmates were already patiently waiting for their teacher. These two classmates were already somewhat acquainted with my son: one as a weekly playmate and the other as the son of a good friend of mine. My son spied another one of his classmates not adapting to this big change very well, crying profusely as their teacher tried to calm her down. I looked down at my boy who was, by then, rubbing his eyes, a sign that he was nervous. I knelt down in front of him and told him he was going to have a great day, that everything was okay, that he was a big boy and I was proud of him. I put on my happiest smile and encouraged him. As I looked closer, I saw his face start to break, a pout, a quivering lip and my extremely brave son trying very hard not to cry. When the teacher asked them to stand in line, my son would not move. I gently encouraged him to stand in line, grabbed his extra bag - and his classmate's extra bag - gestured to my 3-year-old who was busying himself with the jungle-gym outside the classroom and followed them in, despite a request made by the teacher the previous week that we let the teacher handle the nervous kids on their own while the parents left, trusting her to take care of all of our children who were complete strangers to both her and each other. By this time there was another child getting really upset. I sat my son down, gave him a few more words of encouragement. I didn't hug him or kiss him, feeling it would embarrass him even more. I whispered, "I love you." told him I had to leave and he nodded, understanding that despite his fear, this was something he had to do, that we had talked about for at least a year in preparation. I walked out with my youngest son who was, by now, crying because he wanted to stay. (And it was only then that I noticed my 3-year-old had been wearing two different shoes). We got in our car, drove the less than a minute drive home, walked into our house and started our day.

Well, we started our day after I closed the door and broke down, crying profusely, missing my first baby; wondering what I was supposed to do with one less child in the house; trying to get over the fact that this little boy had been by my side constantly for the past five years and now I had to let him go; remembering the fear in his eyes, the strength it took for him to hold it together as much as he could; the guilt of abandoning him when I was supposed to be the person who protected him, the person he trusted the most and feeling like a part of my heart was completely missing.

That was the hard part. That was, quite literally, the hardest thing I had ever had to do in my life.

While I can't say my life has been particularly difficult, I am still not above recognizing the slight humor in having such a hard time letting go for seven measly hours a day. I labored through sixteen hours of regular contractions for this child, even longer for my other one. I had managed to squeeze two human beings out of my body, sat through their shots and cried along with them, cried even more every time they were sick and endured countless sleepless nights worrying about them. Even though I had to let my son go in the morning, he'd be returning to me just a few hours later. We'd still have ample time to spend together, doing the things we used to have all day to do. No big deal. Millions of people do this every day, right?

None of that mattered. All I knew is that one day I was holding this helpless, newborn baby in my arms, his eyes wide and searching this bright, open space he'd just entered. Then I blinked and all of a sudden, my son was walking, talking, potty-trained, knew how to write his name, was a master at many video games and had an appetite for learning new things -- especially about dinosaurs and a bunch of other animals, each one more exotic than the one before it. And as he grew, he was growing right out of my arms.

The same fears that choke many parents in my position and the many more parents who've come before were clouding my mind with questions: Would he make friends? Would he be terrified and alone? Would the other kids be mean to him? Had I prepared him enough for school? Had I prepared him too much? What if they lost him? What if he got hurt?

More, though I had thought about it and tried to prepare myself for this big change, I realized I hadn't really anticipated how empty and quiet the house felt without him. My youngest son was still there and he's my little devil, the high-maintenance one, the one I always have to keep an eye on. I figured my days would still be busy chasing after him, stopping him from doing something he knows he's not supposed to do and having more time to be one step ahead of him. But he wasn't that difficult to deal with. The house did not get as dirty as it used to despite the fact that the child making most of the mess was the one who was still home. He was on his best behavior. It doesn't escape me that, perhaps, he was behaving so well because he was feeling lost and alone without his big brother, too.

That day was a busy one and I was distracted from feeling the anguish of being separated from my baby, even though I still thought about him every second that day. Before I knew it, it was time to pick him up from school. I walked through the gates again, this time with excitement, saw my little boy sitting among the other kids waiting to be let go for the day, smiled at the look on his face when he saw me there and knew he was just as happy to see me as I was to see him.

Much as I anticipated, Kane had mixed reactions to his first day of school. Because of his shyness, it was hard to get him to talk about what he did that day. But there were still little signs here and there that betrayed him and told me how much he enjoyed himself. When we went back into the classroom to look for the lunchbox he left behind, he ran around his classroom in excitement, retrieving playthings he'd been introduced to that day and I knew this was his quiet way of showing off. Later, I managed to squeeze more information out of him. He had fun, he learned new things and he figured, on his own, that school was not as scary as he initially thought it was.

That day I received more confirmation that he'd be okay when his teacher told me that she was surprised he wasn't in preschool before, as he knew a lot of stuff. She told me that he only needs to work on not talking out of turn and sitting still. Naturally, as an experienced teacher, she knows these are developed skills. And I understood these were low-grade critiques as he was "on green", the highest section of the class behavioral chart. But the only thing I could focus on when she told me how he did that day was the fact that my extremely shy little boy likes to talk out of turn. You mean, he talked?

So that was our first day at kindergarten. I saw "we" because I hope he carried me with him, not as a person to miss; not as the mommy who left him with strangers; not as the person responsible for this whole ordeal. I hope he carried me as the person who started him on a his educational path, years before he started school; as the person who loves him enough to let him go; as the person who he'd always come back to at the end of every day. I know I carried him with me. I missed him desperately at the small unveiling party Drew and I attended later that day, even though I knew he would not have wanted to go and would have been bored and too shy to interact the way his social butterfly of a little brother was. I stared at a TV that no one had to fight over, a video game console that had not been turned on at all that day. I fed one child, put one child down for a nap, took care of the needs of only one child after three years of caring for two.

Even while I hoped he wouldn't miss us too much and that he was having enough fun to not think about us too much after that difficult and scary first step, all I could think about was how much I missed him. I thought about how much I would miss him, almost every day for the next thirteen years and how much I hope it prepares me for missing him for the rest of my life when he becomes the man he was born to be.

In closing, I want to address my big boy:

Kane, you will never truly understand what you mean to me and who you are in this family. But I hope to show you every day how fortunate I feel to have been blessed with such a wonderful son. I searched for the right fit all my life and realized the day you were placed on my chest that you were the reason I existed. With you and your brother, my world was complete and no void could ever exist that you could not fill. I am so proud of you and cannot believe that I created you, molded you and taught you to be the wonderful child you have become, even as you learned and developed many things that had little to do with me and more to do with what an amazing person you are. Never forget that I am always here for you, that "mommy" is simply another word for "home" and no matter where you are, you will never truly be lost or alone.

I love you,

Mommy

how we did it: potty training

That is, we didn't.

Let me explain.

As my first son neared his second birthday, I was aware that this was the time many toddlers started potty training. I knew that, as a boy, he'd probably learn later than most girls do. But I also knew that there was another baby on his way: I was near the end of my pregnancy with my second son. And from all that I had read, this was not the time to begin potty training an older child. We were advised to keep big changes separate if we could. There was no stopping the baby who was on his way. I couldn't ask him to hang out a bit so I could potty train his big brother and allow him to deal with that, first. So potty training was put on hold for a bit.

When we knew we were over the new baby transition, we did all the things we were told to do by the experts, by doctors and magazine articles and parenting books. We were a step ahead of many people as, by this time, my usually advanced toddler was fully conversational. He could understand all the things we were saying and could talk back. He had his own potty chair, he knew what it was for, we asked him often if he was ready to use it whenever he looked like he was doing his business in his diaper. He accompanied us to the bathroom to see what he was supposed to do in the potty. He expressed interest in using the potty. But he also expressed, very clearly, that he was not ready to use it just yet.

The months dragged on and he was turning three. And then more months followed and when he was half-way to four, he still wasn't showing readiness.

This didn't sit well with some people. Some adults, whether they were part of our family or not, whether they had recent experience with children or were a good thirty years past their baby-raising years, whether they even had kids or not, insisted that he was way too old to be wearing diapers, either the traditional kind or pull-ups. Some parents said pull-ups were a waste of time. I got advice from all directions and some of that advice was not much appreciated. At one point, I was given a book written by a woman who had no experience with child-care beyond having trained her one child much earlier than most children in America are potty-trained and she did it boot-camp style.

And none of this advice sat well with me. I'm not the parent who takes all advice and tries anything people tell me to do. I'm the parent who seriously considers what others tell me, thinks about it logically and tries to reason about what makes more sense.

I concluded that I didn't want to go the naked route, effectively increasing my already over-loaded schedule with more cleaning than I was willing to do while also taking care of my new baby. I decided that taking my toddler to the bathroom every five minutes, ten minutes, half hour, hour, etc. was not going to work. I knew I'd never remember to take him to the potty regularly. I knew I didn't want to deny him basic necessities like breakfast until he used the potty in the morning. I didn't have that kind of patience. I didn't have that kind of time. And honestly, I just didn't want to deal with it.

I also seriously asked myself what the benefits were to force him into something he was clearly not ready for. Would getting him out of the diaper and into big boy underwear accomplish anything aside from shutting up the critics? Should I really be bothered or embarrassed that my son was almost four-years-old and not potty-trained yet? I don't embarrass easily. I don't give credit where I don't feel it's deserved. And I generally don't care what people say or think. Combined with all the expert advice that told me that I was making the right decision, I did what his doctors told me to do: Let him decide.

He was four-years-old and still in pull-ups. One day, while changing his diaper, he started jumping around saying that he needed to pee and I needed to hurry up and put his diaper on. I encouraged him to use the potty and, realizing that his pee was coming and he could not stop it, he ran to his potty and found that he was still too nervous. I had him stay naked for a while at that time because I saw this as a sign that he was, at least, partially ready. Sure enough, just a few minutes later, he decided to use the potty. I cried, I picked him up, I told him how proud I was, I made a very big deal out of this new celebration and called his father at work to share the good news. He was a little embarrassed by all of this. But I could also see that glimmer in his large round eyes that he was also pleased with himself.

After that we had him pick out his big-boy underwear and when he finally tried them on, he didn't really like it. But I went right in with the soft encouragement I was advised to use by the experts. And slowly but surely, he became more comfortable with his new underwear.

I looked at this experience with pleasure, realizing that I don't have stories to tell about all the accidents he's had while awake (he's only had two accidents since). People are surprised when I tell them that after only a couple months of wiping him after he used the potty, he became rather proficient at butt-wiping. Not a single skid-mark on his underwear since he's been wearing them. There was no transition from a baby potty to the toilet we all used. He also decided that on his own. He learned quickly how to stand up when peeing like a "big boy" and how to control his stream.

And I did practically nothing. I did what his doctor told me to do and let him potty train himself. It was later than most but that didn't bother me at all. Critics don't know me. They don't know my son. They rarely know norms or statistics in the first place.

I also realized something else. In allowing him to do this on his own, the accomplishment was all his. I had nothing to be proud of, myself. The only thing I did was listen to my son and let him tell me what he wanted, what he was comfortable with. This big milestone was his milestone, alone.

And now that we're over that hump, we have another three-year-old who is still in his diapers. I don't have a baby to take care of but having to take care of two "big boys" is not any easier than taking care of a toddler and an infant.

My youngest boy is still not ready. And just like I did with his brother before him, I will wait until he tells me he's ready. My couch will not be covered in urine. I won't find puddles that were made without my knowledge, or worse, much more smelly messes. I won't have to deal with digression when I push a child further than he is willing to go. Each step we take will move us forward. And my day will carry on as it always does with messes that are made quicker than I am able to clean up, laundry that never ends, little mouths to feed, hearing my name called every ten minutes, drawing my attention to an owie, a fight, something broken or dirty or a bigger catastrophe. And only when he tells me it's time will I finally be able to clear our shelf of stacked diapers and baby wipes.

When asked by other moms who are dealing with what route to go regarding potty-training, my only advice is this: Listen to your gut. My experiences may not be the same as others, even if they do the same thing. If you'd rather take the routes I chose not to, that's perfectly fine. Only you know your child. You are the one who will have to deal with what comes with potty-training so let this be your decision. Trust your instincts. Pay attention to your child. Don't sweat the small stuff. And remember that no matter what you decide, you and your child will be fine.

trimming it down some

In fitting with the streamline theme I plan on working on for the forseeable future, I'm playing a requiem for my parenting blog and moving the stuff on over this way.

The first throwback: Flipping out. It's just something I do from time to time.

life is seldom all rainbows and sunshine. even the happiest people find themselves feeling the cracks in their foundation get larger and larger and suddenly have barely a second to decide whether they want to indulge in an nervous breakdown or not. many people don't want to admit that they have such emotions, let alone show them to others. often, the last people we want to be witness to such a moment of weakness are children, especially our own.

among many of the reasons why we choose not to show our kids such things is believing that we should represent strength and stability to children who are still learning about the world around them and the way they should respond to that world. if mommy and daddy can't handle the stress, why would they think they should be able to?

so when i find myself in the middle of a breakdown i no longer have the strength to fight off and i am unable to get myself into a room that has minimal childish traffic and there's a little boy asking out loud, "why is my mommy crying?" my first instinct is to wipe away my tears and pretend everything is okay. then i realize that no amount of hiding myself now is going to change the fact that i was already caught. kane starts offering me candy, telling me not to cry and then looks knowingly at his daddy and says, "mommy just needs to lie down." (son, mommy needs to lie down for several years...)i start to wonder about the effects this will have on my son. and then i realize that just as with all things, such a spectacle should be accompanied by one very important thing: communication.

when the shoe is on the other foot and kane or drew find themselves too upset to function, i neither ignore nor coddle. i try to remember that this is not some animal to train but a human being with real emotions, valid whether we like to think they are or not. i do my best to redirect their frustration and try to calm them down, using words to express those feelings when applicable. these aren't things only children can benefit from. these are things we all need. and what could be more comforting to such a young child than knowing that mommy and daddy get upset sometimes too.

before the wave of emotion even passes i make sure that when my son is trying to understand how i feel and why i'm crying, i acknowledge his questions and accept his help. if he feels he can comfort me, it stands to reason that it will make him more inclined to let me comfort him. when i am able to be calm and speak reasonably, i confirm what he's already beginning to understand: adults cry when they are sad, too. i let him know it's okay. i let him know that being sad is momentary and i will now always be this way. i let him know that we can make decisions and look at the world more positively and start to feel better. and i let him know that everyone needs help and comfort sometimes.

there's no shame in showing weakness to your children. there's nothing wrong with letting them know that you are just like them. it's a raw form of communication that shows them what you may not be able to "just tell". and communication when expressed appropriately is never a bad thing.