november 2010!

long time no write.

most favorite thing olive says right now--
'my favorite trees are forevergreens'

favorite phrases and words, edition 3 years, 4 months

pregnancy sure slows me down from adding to this, of course, just as olive is adding incredible phrases to the list-- for example, i love how she says skelekin (for skeleton). she also was out gardening in the yard with andy, and said, "if we dig down all the way to the earth, maybe we can see it spinning!" so true.

she started a dance (ballet) class at walltown children's theater that's really great. i think she'd like it even more if there weren't other kiddos there who were a little too young to be there (aka- not doing much but needing a lot of teacher attention), but she's certainly one of the kids that will drift off when the whole class is getting 'instruction'. she's funny how she'll go up to other girls and slowly get closer and closer, then feel their tutus, or touch their beads in their hair (often with the other girls giving her a 'what the hell are you doing touching my hair?' kind of look). she's fascinated by the other girls in class, it seems, and she's really REALLY into doing the moves at home. we pretty much exclusively play the nutcracker ballet music in the car, and recently, she didn't immediately ask that i change it to that when i found a classical station to have playing when she got in the car. it's amazing how our 3 year old has essentially gotten us interested in ballet and classical music with such vigor (andy and i can enjoy and even criticize different styles of ballet, thanks to olive's interest in and basically, obsession with, firebird, swan lake, nutcracker, copellia, sleeping beauty...and we read a LOT of ballet story books, too. we just ordered a bunch of stuff online that will serve as sporadic gifts for her as the baby gets closer to arriving (two months to go!) and then once he's here--

on the other hand, she's also totally hilariously into all things 'poop'. her favorite knock knock joke is 'knock knock' 'who's there?' 'poop' 'poop who?' 'ew! why'd you say poo-poo???'

she's definitely exploring the idea of being a baby already-- calling everything by their first syllable, like 'pizza' would be 'p! p!' so that's her way of acting like a baby. i remind her that babies can't have dessert, and have to go to sleep more, she's not as into being a baby then.

in terms of dance, she knows how to, and remembers and talks about dance moves all the time. she says 'arabesques' like: ar-a-bes-kez.

she is also starting to say 'like' in her sentences like a teenager, but then i realize she's totally, like, getting it from me. wild.

she laughs at every suggestion for a baby boy name, assuming that all of them are silly, and that we're joking. one of them has to be it, so she'll have to understand that we've got to call him something! we're just not sure ourselves, yet, so she just suggests funny stuff like 'poopie' (funny to her!)

she explains things to us and others often by shaking her head and holding her hands palm up on each side of her, saying things like "can you beLEIVE it????"

all her friends at school in her class are boys, and she knows all about the cars movie, though she's only seen it one full time. she's absolutely relating to the one girl car, which is interesting-- she got a blue car in a kid party gift bag recently, and it was like "of course! it's sally!" she really makes everything become families or engage in relationships, so even if she's playing with cars or trains, she's building a room for the trains to sleep in, or making a car and a pig toy talk to each other about what they want to eat. i read something recently about how this kind of imaginary play is so great for helping them try on personas, so in the future they can have a better sense of what takes lots of work to identify with, and what feels comfortable.

elizabeth also told me about how kids at this age (young, like 3) can really benefit from something like her one hour dance class- that kind of focus is so hard for kids, and keeping them (or at least trying to keep them) focused for that much time helps them to retain focus as they grow and try...

Olive catch-up, Thanksgiving Edition

Tough tough tough to keep up with this! I have tons to catch up on, so here goes.

15 weeks pregnant and feeling great (meaning, sick, big, all the right things for being preggers).

On to Olive!!! She just had her 3rd birthday and it was so much fun. Before this party, and I'd say for almost 5 months, we've been talking about 'when you're three' and she's been saying things like, 'when I'm three, I'll go to the potty by myself', 'when I'm three, I'll sleep in my big girl bed by myself', etc etc etc. So now when I say, 'Wow! You're three now! You can go to sleep by yourself!' she replys..."I'm not three I'm two! No...I'm three, but I love you so much that I want you to sleep with me". So what can I do really. She's really affectionate lately, definitely telling us just how much she loves us all the time, especially saying things like, "I want to hold your hand because I love you so much" and "I want to sit beside you because I love you so much". She tells us she wants to be the Real Mary Poppins when she grows up, or on occasion she tells me she wants to be me when she grows up (sigh, blush). Soooo sweet.

The other day, after reading a particularly compelling article in Mothering Magazine (that I can never make up my mind about-- they're pretty much ALL attachment parenting or else tons of guilt, so I don't often subject myself) but this article was all about intuition. It was saying that we should try to remember to help our kids to trust their guts and hearts more, instead of always just focusing on what's taught to them as right and wrong. It was a great, thought-provoking article, and it's made me really think about how I interact sometimes with O. We were sitting at the dinner table, and I asked her "Where did you come from?" (a question that the article said was a good one to ask kids right after they've begun to first speak-- which Olive has been doing now for two years...) and this was pretty much her response-- paraphrasing:

Well, Mommy and I were at the hospital and I came out, and then we held hands and walked up the sidewalk to Daddy's house, then he opened the door and we said, "We're HERE!!!"

Awesome.

On the other side of things, and realizing that she's getting older and every subject must be covered, we took the tadpole home with us from her school to babysit while her teachers were away on a conference, and she often brought up to me that Herman wasn't at school anymore (the Hermit Crab) because Herman was dead. She followed up by saying maybe after the tadpole turns into a frog and leaves that they'll get another hermit crab and name it something, like Herman, Crab-crab, or Bon-Bon.

She still is madly in love with Mary Poppins, but now it's just like a normal-as-breathing type thing to hear her (or any of us really, it's hard to control) singing any or all of the songs from the movie. She does an especially great rendition of "Cast off the Shackles" as she calls it, the mother Winifred's song about being a suffragette. She sings the whole song in a British accent, and it's pretty remarkable her pitch (that's across the board).

Last night we watched a video tape I got at a thrift store for $1 of the Slovakian Ballet doing the Nutcracker. It was good- an hour long, and she watched the whole thing. I took her to this ballet performance by the Triangle Youth Ballet (or something like that) in Raleigh that was Alice in Wonderland (so we've been reading that book more, and it's as weird as ever) and Fancy Nancy's Bonjour Butterfly, and she was riveted. It was cool to see her so engaged. I asked her last night if she'd like to take a ballet class, and she was FAR more concerned with just getting on the stage "with you mommy". She even asked me to tell her a story about her getting on stage before going to bed. I'd gotten her a tiny magnet booklet where it's dancers that you can put costumes on, and we hadn't played with it in forever, but she asked after watching the Nutcracker last night if we could play with that. After asking her, 'can you describe it for me?' a million times, she finally did describe it in detail, we found it, and she had a great time making them dance all over the place. She's into dancing, and needs some new ballet shoes! I'd like to find a modern or other kind of dance to take her to, knowing that things wouldn't get too weird-- the trouble with some modern dance...

At any rate, I'm so grateful for who Olive is, and thankful for the million ways Andy is an outstanding father and husband. I think she's as happy as she is because our family is happy. We are so very lucky, and while it's painful to think of the moments in the future when Olive isn't the only child, I do think that she's going to be an incredible big sister (she was teaching her doll how to properly pet the cat yesterday, instructing Big Baby to rub from top to bottom, and not to pull her tail, Gus doesn't like that and might scratch).

Here's some photos from the b-day event, and her TOTAL EXCITEMENT wearing the fairy outfit that Kendall/Lather gave her for her birthday:

magic with sparklers!

magic with sparklers!
Originally uploaded by ameliorate

Grandaddy's birthday was magical!

bathroom strike, and other forms of independence

Olive is really growing- she's really announcing a lot that she's a baby AND a big girl. I think that she finds that she's being encouraged to do things independently, and sees that it's not all it's cracked up to be (as in, it becomes routine, and not really that fun or exciting).

We did go to the zoo yesterday, and the whole day was so much fun (NC people watching was fun/unbearable. C'mon, put on some clothes. We're not in Myrtle Beach!). We had a blast seeing all the animals with her-- and she had so much fun she did NOT want to take any bathroom breaks.

We took so many photos-- and she really shined as a little person. She's really not a baby anymore, with such an incredible vocabulary...she really knew every animal, and seemed to really get it when i explained biodiesel.

Recitals

Ever since Olive saw her cousin Kendall's dance recital, she's been all about dance recitals. She'll say (when Andy and I start dancing with her), "no. it's my dance recital!" and keep going. She just told me that when you play music, it's called a 'Fresh Recital'. I'm being told now, to come on, it's time for the fresh recital! she's putting drums together to play and we're going to share the drumsticks.

might as well since i don't keep a diary...

Am nearing the end of my miscarriage, I can only hope. This marks 2 and a half weeks of it as an event. Will write a quick recap here, with some detail, so be forwarned:

Tuesday, 3 positive pregnancy tests (Dollar Store kind).

Friday, brown/red spotting.

Friday, blood test for pregnancy hormone count, Chapel Hill. To visit my sister with O and my mom--am told that sitting in the car is a bad place/position if there's a threat of miscarriage. It takes us almost 5 hours instead of 3 to drive to VA because it's pouring down rain the whole time. Totally stressful. I knit.

Saturday, spotting seems to be going away.

Sunday, drive home from VA. No real spotting anymore and feeling hopeful. Got lost in VA and drove an extra 45 minutes out of the way.

Monday, get Friday's results-- 311. Looks too low for 6 weeks. Another blood test.

Tuesday, get Monday's results--311. Yes, they double checked, but it hadn't moved at all. Not a viable pregnancy, but why isn't it going up or down?

Wednesday, get another blood test, Chapel Hill. Bruise on my arm makes me look like I do needle drugs.

Thursday, get results, 331. Confusing, brief panic from a nurse that I could have an ectopic pregnancy, then a quick call back to say that the number increase was negligible, and that it was just the same, still not viable, and very unlikely that it's an ectopic, as it would have been closer to 2000 by then.

Saturday morning, bleeding begins in ernest. I am relieved, but it's not fun. O goes to her grandparents for a slumber party (she loves it) and I go to see Andy play in two bands at Pinhook. An awesome awesome night of distraction where my man really stood out as incredible. I was so proud, and so happy to be there with him.

Sunday, continued. Drive back to Carrboro to get O, out to lunch with the family. Not close enough to a bathroom as I wanted to be.

Monday morning, I pass the obvious tissues, and massive amounts of blod clots resembling liver. Feel weak, tired. Stay hooked to home and the bathroom. Unpleasant. Cancel my appt for another blood test because I just don't feel up to the drive to Chapel Hill again.

Tuesday, blood test appointment, drive to Chapel Hill. Come home and rest, watch part of a movie, a great neighbor with her adorable, sleeping 1-month old comes over to hang out. Surprisingly welcome, considering.

Wednesday, today-- get results, 234. Better, but I was ready for it to be incredibly low, with the amount of blood I'm losing. I bought a vitamin suppliment with lots of iron called Blood Booster that the midwife said was a good thing, and advised even taking two a day, since I already lean towards anemia. Worked hard on late End of Year reports, finally, for my work. They were due Monday, and my boss has been great. Don't think I can contact the kids and their parents and explain why they're so late. Kept Olive home and it was hard, but was good to be with her. Finished reports. Still bleeding a lot, and feeling whimpy. Will have another appointment to check my levels in around a week or so. If all things continue to go 'well' then they should drop to 0-5 soon. If I stop bleeding but my levels remain high, then I may need to get help that I don't want to get. I'm trying to believe that my body is going to just take care of itself. I hope I hope I hope.

It's a weird mix of 'of course I'm fine' and 'I wish I could just lie in bed and get 24-hour massages, watch movies and not engage. It's draining, hormonally rocky, and yet, there's no real way to make something positive out of it other than it is a really good thing it's so early. Not a ton of solice there, but certainly some. My friend Dara brought me flowers, brownies and a porter (at my request, likely not a great idea). SO sweet. The flowers make me have something to look at to remind me that I am actually going through something.

We likely can't try again for a couple of months at least, which makes me sad, too, but all in good time and when the time is right, right?