"Oh no. The bridge is out. I fix it!"

Yes, two complete, understandable (at least by me) sentences in a row. Yee haw! So it seems we're making a bit of progress on the language front. Finally. I swear this kid is never going to talk (... although if I hear "Mama, Mama, sit sit sit!" one more time ... argh!). I know, I know, he'll definitely talk one day and I'll wish for his silent days.

***

I did have a good touch-base convo with his speech therapist this week though. One thing we've never done -- because no one thinks it's truly a concern -- is have his hearing checked. I mean, I know he can hear just fine, but he still has such a mush mouth, it's gotten me thinking that maybe he's not hearing the same things we are. And his therapist said, yes, go ahead and get it checked, but she doesn't see any indications that we'll find anything wrong there. She still thinks he is just simply delayed in his speech. So that's a bit of good news, I suppose.

However ... at this point I don't really see the therapy really doing much good. And that's simply because Mr. Independent has yet to see the point of doing what his therapist wants to do. He'd rather just play with the toys and chat a bit. Great. Glad he's happy to be there. But it's a really expensive hour of playtime. Ronnie said that's fairly typical of his age -- after all, he's only two -- and hopefully one day soon he'll grasp what we're trying to accomplish there.

Aside from the fact that he does not have a people-pleaser bone in his body, I think a big part of his slow progress is that he's not that frustrated yet. He gets along just fine in the world and there have only been a few times he's gotten really mad at me for not understanding what he wants. (The full day of "I-AN, I-AN, I-AN!!" comes to mind. Several hours later ... Me: "Oh, you want to watch the Mystery Island episode of Word World?" Kiddle, with a big grin of relief: "I-AN!")

***

Another adorable interaction we often have:

Kiddle, on all fours, crawling about the room: "Moo. Moo. Moo!"
Me: "Oh, you must be a cow today."
Kiddle: "No, Mama. I a Kiddle!"

Hee hee.

This is either ...

A. a brilliant way for Kiddle to burn off some stuck-in-the-house-because-it's-20-degrees-outside energy

B. I'm treating my kid like a hamster.

You decide.

Okay!

It seems like I've mostly been noting the anomalies about Kiddle lately, so I wanted to make sure I recognize some of our favourite things that happen on a daily basis. Most of them revolve around funny conversations we have -- his speech has improved, but is still not very understandable.

He used to tug on my hand and say a mangled combination of "go" and "come." And I'd always say "Go where?" So now he tugs on me and says, "Go where, Mama."

He loves to bump into me on purpose and say, "Sorry!"

When you ask him to do something, he says, "Okay, I try it!"

And our favourite ... Kiddle: "Cookie." Me: "You want a cookie?" (trying to clarify what he just said.) Kiddle: "Okay!"

What a great manipulator.

Damn kid locked me out of the house today.

In the freezing rain. Without a coat. Without a cell phone.

As I was unloading groceries from the car, he managed to lock the screen door. And no matter how many times I said, "turn the white knob, turn the white knob, turn the white knob ...," he couldn't figure out how to open the door.

Thank God that after living in this house for almost five years, I finally gave my neighbor a set of keys -- two weeks ago, believe it or not.

Well, goodnight then.

Tonight Kiddle PUT HIMSELF TO BED.

Well, not really. I'm sure he thinks he's just taking a nap. But little does he know ... he's in for the night. He's developed a habit of going upstairs to hang out in his room with his pacifier whenever he needs a little break. So tonight around 6:00, instead of eating dinner, I heard him head up the stairs. Fine with me. Chill out all you need, kid.

But about 15 minutes later I realized it was eerily quiet up there. I went up to check on him and found him passed out on his bed -- lights on, pants off. I gave him a dose of Zyrtec, put some pants on him, added a blanket and turned out the light.

So it's 6:30 and my kid's asleep. Woo hoo! Although I know I'll be paying for it when he wakes up after his "nap" in two hours or, alternatively, at 4:00 in the morning. Either way, I'll take it.

It's official.

I'm a complete and total mess.

Stomach virus, pregnancy-related congestion that's turning thick and tasty, and now ... Fat Man Ear.

And what, pray tell, is Fat Man Ear, you say?

Well, this is my normal right ear and cheek:


And this is what my left ear and cheek looked like this morning when I woke up:


Attractive, isn't it? I also have hives on the palms of my hands. The cause? Mr. P and I split a can of chicken noodle soup last night for dinner. Trying to be nice to our troubled tummies, you know. And canned soup often contains MSG. I've got a history of reactions to too much MSG -- for instance, overdosing on flavored chips or Chex Mix -- but half a can of soup? Ridiculous. It's actually happened one other time during this pregnancy, so I can only assume I'm super sensitive to it right now. Again, ridiculous.

I'm off to take an antihistamine.

Happy Freaking New Year (or, the Great Barf-Off of 2009)

I knew he wasn't right.

He hadn't eaten for two days. He had a really bad night last night. Sobbing for Mama, crying out intermittently, clinging to me like I was his last hope. But ... no concrete evidence that would have allowed me to cancel our flight this morning. No fever, no vomiting, no diarrhea. Nada.

Until five minutes after we took off and he started throwing up.

Freshly digested milk.

On a tiny regional jet.

Joy.

Yep, he alternated barfing and sleeping for the entire three-hour flight. We were both covered in puke. And then I started sobbing uncontrollably when I realized I'd left all his DVDs at my parents' house (love those pregnancy hormones!). I felt bad for the people around us, but not as bad as I felt for Kiddle. He was miserable, poor thing. And I felt like such a loser of a mom for knowing something wasn't right and still getting on the plane.

But also perversely pleased that at least I wasn't going to have to get my couch and rugs cleaned again. Small blessings, right?

A bad influence already

Cooper introduces Kiddle to the comedic stylings of Tom & Jerry:

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays from Oklahoma!

We arrived late last night after an already busy week of celebrating.

Monday: Mr. P's family came over for dinner and to exchange gifts. Kiddle doesn't yet grasp the concept of Christmas, but he certainly got into the idea of opening presents.

Tuesday: Kiddle's Hanukkah party at preschool. Shockingly he actually tried a potato latke, even though he was mostly interested in sucking the applesauce off it.


Wednesday morning: Santa came a day early to our house. Kiddle came down the stairs and saw all his gifts laid out: "Wow. Wow. Wow." Too cute. He also thought getting gifts out of his stocking was pretty cool. One item was a tiny Slinky in a box. He pulled it out and said, "Oooh, a box. A box." It's the simple things at that age, isn't it?


Wednesday afternoon: I finally packed and we headed out to brave the crowds at Newark airport. And it was a total disaster, as expected. We totally thought we were in the clear for our 3:00 flight -- unlike everyone else in the terminal, snicker, snicker -- until they announced at 2:15 that our plane hadn't yet left Halifax. Um, you didn't know that a little earlier? We finally got out of there sometime after 7:00. Six hours in an ultra-crowded airport with a two-year-old? So much Christmas cheer.

Needless to say we were thrilled to finally get here. We had our traditional white-trash Christmas morning breakfast of monkey bread, bacon wraps and sausage balls -- yum! And Kiddle and Cooper opened one million more presents. It's hard to say, but I think his favourite gift might just be his Cars Mack truck/race car launcher. Pretty cool.

And introducing ...

... the newest, extra-little kiddle.

19 weeks and 4 days. Right on target, size-wise. And has all his fingers, toes and body parts. We couldn't have asked for a better report.

And that's right ... I said HIS. Kiddle's getting a baby brother. I'll admit there's a tiny twinge of oh-I-won't-ever-have-a-girl-itis, but mostly I'm somewhat relieved.

And my favourite part of this ultrasound? I had to schedule my appointment on a day the doctor would be there, because I'm of "advanced maternal age." Lovely.

What are you doing? Are you PEEING?

Remember how fascinated with the Christmas tree I said Kiddle was? Apparently he felt the need to mark his territory.

Snow, Part II

Ok, here's the first real snow of the year. And what better time to get your tricycle out?

I feel like such a responsible parent for finally getting him some real snow boots. No more snow-filled, frozen-toed rainboots for him! Now I've just got to work on some waterproof pants, I think.

Oh Christmas Tree ...

Finally got the tree up today. I seriously thought about doing it Thanksgiving weekend, so of course here we are on December 19th. It turned out to be the perfect day to do it though. We we're absolutely slammed by a snow storm this morning. I went to the mall just as it was starting to snow and when I came out 45 minutes later there were already several inches on the ground. It took an hour and a half to make the 10 minute drive home. Crazy! So we took Kiddle's babysitter home early and snugged in for the afternoon to get the tree up.

Kiddle was fascinated by the whole process and did a great job hanging ornaments. The battle this year isn't going to be over taking ornaments off and on; it's about turning the lights off and on. I see a zillion time-outs in his near future.

Boy or girl? Yes!

Next Monday is my full anatomy ultrasound, and hopefully we'll be able to find out the sex of this new kiddo. Although I'm not certain "we" will find out because I'm not sure if Mr. P wants to know.* But I definitely do ... I'm too much of a planner to let it be a surprise.

My sister asked me the other day if I had a feeling one way or the other. If I base it on comparing the two pregnancies, I'd say boy. This pregnancy is exactly like my first one so far, but I'm also smart enough to know that doesn't mean squat. (We were so convinced my friend Chrissy was having a girl the second time that I went out and bought her girl clothes. Nope. An even bigger boy than the first one.) But I find myself mentally referring to the baby as "her" -- and with Kiddle it was always "him."

I guess I don't really have any strong preferences one way or the other. Before Kiddle I only saw myself having girls, but now I find myself waffling.

GIRL PROS: much cuter clothes, the relationship with a girl is just totally different than with a boy, my parents would have a granddaughter instead of only grandsons.

GIRL CONS: the teenage years, it seems scarier to raise a girl in this day and age than it does a boy, and, oh God, will I have to play house and dress-up and dolls?

BOY PROS: I already have all the clothes, I'm used to boys now, Kiddle will have a brother -- and I so appreciate that I have a sister.

BOY CONS: I won't ever have a daughter. Or the cute clothes that go with her.

Of course, the baby has to actually cooperate at the ultrasound. Kiddle was all legs splayed, check me out, look at my boy stuff. So no doubt there. We'll see if this one is as open or plays it a little coy.

* Funny story actually. With Kiddle, Mr. P wasn't sure if he wanted to know so we decided he would leave the room during that portion of the ultrasound. Now, we never really thought we'd make it four more months without him finding out, but that it would be fun to see how long we could go.

As it turns out -- four days.

Mr. P's sister got married that weekend and during dinner one of his relatives asked me if we had decided on a name. "Oh yes," I replied, "it's (insert obvious boy name here)," with so much certainty that I couldn't even cover by adding "if it's a boy and Blah Blah if it's a girl." The table got deathly quiet as everyone realized what I had done. And Mr. P got the biggest smile on his face. More from glee that I had busted myself so quickly, I think, than from happiness that it was a boy. And I promptly burst into tears.

Now, as a pregnant chick, I wasn't particularly hormonal. I didn't cry every day, or over tiny things, like some of my friends have. But if I got started crying, I simply couldn't stop. Mr. P finally had to lead me by the hand, blindly blubbering, out of the reception. And it took a good 20 minutes for me to stop sobbing. In the end though I was glad he found out from me, rather than from one of the 8 trillion people who already knew. I would have missed seeing the look on his face if someone else had slipped up. But, damn that glass of wine at dinner! Four days? That's all it took?

First snow of the year

Well, the first one that (kind of) amounted to anything anyway. And, if you believe the weather forecasters, it sounds like we're in for it later this week.

The Great Barf-Off of 2008

Lovely day we've had here. I can sum it up by saying I've already scheduled Stanley Steemer to come over on Monday. If you can handle the detail, read on.

One of the downsides of having a non-talking two-year-old is that they can't tell you what's wrong when they don't feel good. I knew Kiddle seemed off this morning but I didn't know what was bothering him until I gave him his morning milk ... and he projectile vomited it all over the couch and oriental rug five minutes later.

And then on the dining room rug. And back to the couch and living room rug. And of course with a trail of puke across the hardwood floor as we tried to get him to the kitchen. And let me tell you, milk curdles awfully quickly after ingestion. Gross.

So my house smells like barf. I've done multiple loads of laundry. And my kid is begging me for a cracker in between episodes of WordWorld.

But I'll have a clean couch on Monday! And, trust me, it's long overdue thanks to peanut butter hands and leaking sippy cups.

Nap? I don't need no stinkin' nap!

No, no. Those aren't dark circles under my eyes. I'm fine. Great, in fact. No time for sleeping. I need that hour and a half to destroy my room every day. So much stuff, so little time.

Dream a little dream

I'm so tired of crazy pregnancy dreams.* Every night I have these long, very detailed, ultra stressful dreams. They aren't dreams about the baby or delivery, but are crazy scenarios that bring in people and details from my life that I haven't thought about in a million years. I don't remember having them so early in my pregnancy last time and it seems like they went on for a long time, so I don't really see an end in sight. Argh!

There were a couple of themes last night. Can't remember the first one now, but the second one had to do with my college boyfriend. Something about surprising him at his parents house with my best friend from high school. I don't think I was married and pregnant at the start of the dream, but by the end I sure was.

It's not too surprising that he's appearing though. I recently discovered he lives in the Denver area, so he's been on my mind. I haven't spoken to him in almost 12 years (and the last conversation we had wasn't particularly a good one), but I think if this move happens I'm going to call him. Unfortunately for him, he's a traffic reporter at a local radio station so he's pretty easy to find. It's not so much that I want him back in my life, but I'm definitely curious about him (did he ever get married? kids? is he happy?). And our relationship was, to put it mildly, a significant one, so I kind of feel like I should warn him I'm around. You KNOW he's the first person I'll randomly run into on the street. ("Oh, hi. Didn't mean to startle you there ... ").

Anyway, I wish there was some magic remedy -- other than having this baby -- that would stop these dreams. I know I'd be a lot better rested.

* What?! You're pregnant? Did I miss that little piece of news? Click here.

Looks like we're moving ...

... to Colorado.

Where do I start? Mr. P's company bought another company in Boulder. He's been out there four days a week since mid-October leading the integration of the two companies, with the intention of eventually moving there permanently to run the day-to-day operations. However, the partners out there are having trouble stepping back (at all) and have been giving Mr. P a really hard time ... behind his back, to make it worse. He's been very discouraged and feeling a bit abandoned by his boss, so the move was looking less and less likely every day.

But he had a good conversation with his boss last night, so it seems the move is back on. Not a done deal yet, but we're committed enough that his boss plans to start the ball rolling with HR and the relocation people.

And how do I feel about this?

Bittersweet. I finally have lovely friends here and am feeling a bit more connected to the town. Kiddle is loving preschool and has sweet little friends. The town and homes here are absolutely adorable and I know I'll have a hard time finding something similar elsewhere. And while we don't see Mr. P's family very much, at least they're accessible, and it's great to spend time on the Jersey shore in the summers.

Stressed. I've gotten a lot of work done on the house this fall, knowing that this move was a possibility, but I still have a bathroom to deal with before we can put our house on the market. (And it's our only tub/shower, so hello neighbors! I'll be over every couple of days to de-stink.) And if I'm understanding the relo package correctly, we do have an option of the company buying our house if it doesn't sell but that's only after a "reasonable" time on the market, which I think means 90-120 days. So, say, we get the house on the market mid-January, that means our earliest possible time to have a definite contract is probably mid-April, unless by a miracle it sells right away. Which is a dim hope in this economy.

And did I mention I'm having a baby in May?! If I follow pregnancy rules, I'll need to be in Colorado by the end of March, assuming I don't have any complications between now and then. (At least that way I won't have to keep my house clean for showings. I can just stage it and leave town.) So I might be having this kid while living in Mr. P's corporate apartment. Joy. And I'll also need to find a preschool for Kiddle and a new OB for me. My to-do list is going to be three miles long. As will Mr. P's -- who's only here three days a week.

Excited. When I moved to New York, I always assumed I'd move back West at some point. Then I met my Queens-bred husband and pretty much gave up that idea. Which I was fine with ... there are definite advantages to living in the NYC area. But there were two places I always said I'd move to without hesitation -- Austin and Denver. So it's absolutely incredible that we have the opportunity to move to Boulder, and on the company's dime. And as much as I love living in this area, the truth is that I'm a child of the suburbs. The town we're in now is a good blend of the city and suburbs, but I relish the idea of more space and lower taxes and fewer people. New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country -- which is saying a lot because most of the state is decidedly unpopulated.

Kiddle and I went out to visit a few weeks ago and spent most of the trip driving around, looking at different areas. Unfortunately, Boulder is out. It's a lovely town, but housing is not affordabe, even compared to here. We don't want to sacrifice more living space for location. At this point, we're focused on three neighborhoods in the surrounding area. One thing I discovered is that while I know I prefer the look of homes built before 1940 and pretty much anything after that makes me cry, I actually like what they're building out there in the last 5 years. So it looks like we're going to aim for something new (or at least new-ish).

Of course, this might all change tomorrow! But it's sounding much more definite now than it has in weeks. Wish me luck!

Preschool Update

It's a trend! He happily runs into school now, and I even got a "bye mama" today. Woo hoo!

Parent-Teacher conferences are coming up week after next. I'm so curious to hear what they have to say. At least I haven't gotten a question in his notebook like another parent received: "How is Jack's socialization with other kids?" Yikes! I'm going with the no-news-is-good-news approach.