Disney Diary

I can't believe it's been almost a week since we got back from Disney World. The following are excerpts from the journal I kept about our trip.

Tuesday Dec. 1, 2009

First day at Disney World. Baby slept til 8 this morning so I was rested. We all wore our Saints jerseys to celebrate 11-0 after last night's pummeling of the Patriots. Flight was fine - Henry was so excited at lift-off. Dean refused to nap but was a good sport the whole trip. Magical Express left quickly and we were at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in 25 minutes. So beautiful, with a 50 foot Christmas tree in the center. We were pretty hungry and got immediate seating at Boma. So many delicious flavors and the Zebra Domes were as delectable as promised. The we hit the pool - the HUGE pool. A little chilly but the water slide was a blast. The we warmed up in the hot tub. Henry asked where the music was coming from and I said "From speakers in the bushes." "Speakers like men, or speakers like machines?" he asked. Dean was in heaven - "I'm taking a bath OUTSIDE!!" Then it was back to the room. I put Dean down to sleep while M & H went to look at animals with night vision goggles and visited the arcade. Now we are all in bed, writing by book light.

Wednesday December 2, 2009. Animal Kingdom.

Henry: "I kind of liked Expedition Everest, kind of did. The monster made me cry. The dinosaurs [Triceratop Spin] was cool. I liked the first starting when we went on Expedition Everest. I liked The Boneyard best. I really wanted to go on the dinosaur roller coaster [Primeval Whirl] but I was not tall enough. Now let's talk about stuff I like in the hotel. I like the three little circles that look like a Mickey Mouse face [woven baskets on the wall]. Go swimming! Sometimes I put Pop [stuffed animal from Hop on Pop] in my jammies leg. I like that picture that has all the monkeys jumping. Good night."

I am so gratified that my six months of planning seems to be paying off - we definitely came at the right time. We walked onto everything at the Animal Kingdom. Got FastPasses to Everest (2x!) but really didn't need them. Did Triceratop Spin first (2x), no wait in line at all. Henry played Midway games while I went on Prieval Whirl alone -- only ride with a wait (ten minutes and not worth even that). Then Dinoland - The Boneyard. Then Everest - H. was fine until it got dark and the Yeti shadow appeared - poor baby was in tears. Then we saw Finding Nemo - The musical. Then lunch at Restaurantosaurus - geez Americans are fat. Then back to the Boneyard (H's favorite) - he had to go in time out for going back in w/o permission while I nursed Dean.

Then we headed to Africa and did the Pangani Walking Trail - thank god for the double stroller. Then the Safari - H totally bought the "poachers stole a baby elephant" schtick and got worried when the jeep lurched. Gorgeous scenery and animals. Then M and I switched off doing Expedition Everest again. Then it was back to the buses and hotel. M & H went swimming while Dean napped and I tried to get rid of a headache. We had dinner at The Mara, then went to the arcade (Dean latched on to a tire, such a boy), then hung out in the lobby and around the fire pit until it was Dean's NOLA bedtime. We got him a stuffed Mickey at the gift shop, H picked out a "Bruce" (from Nemo) car after we talked him out of a glowing necklace (Matthew has a rule that souvenir toys have to be souvenirs-that-are-toys and not toys-that-could-be-souvenirs).

Changing out plans for tomorrow b/c lots of rain expected Friday so we'll miss out Coral Reef lunch reservation at Epcot. Hope our day at MK is as great as today.

December 3, 2009. Magic Kingdom.

Another long but terrific day. It didn't rain and in fact we had so much sunny, beautiful, breezy weather that I got a slight sunburn on my chest, despite bringing both sunscreen wipes and actual sunscreen lotion - didn't use either.

Woke a little earlier - 7:45 Orlando time - and headed straight for MK. H and I got breakfast for all at Main Street Bakery while M got FastPasses to Thunder Mtn. I got tears in my eyes when H first saw the castle - he smiled from ear to ear. Then we went to Tomorrowland and did Buzz Lightyear - we though H would LOVE it but he was really freaked out that it was in the dark. Very disappointing. Tomorrowland Speedway was a hit, however - he went first with M, then immediately again with me. Then we went to Thunder Mountain - he said he didn't want to go but the guidebook [The Unofficial Guide to Disney World With Kids, indispensable] said it was tame and there were lots of other littler kids going, so we bribed him with the promise of a toy. Alas, he was right and we were wrong - again it was a ride that started out in the dark, so he was too upset to enjoy the fun part. I went by myself and had a good time.

We had better luck at Mickey's Philharmagic - H loved the 3-D aspect and the smells. I nursed Dean during half of it and then he enjoyed it, too.

I think we went on Peter Pan's Flight next - again we had FastPasses and I can't understand why more people don't use it. It always saved us time, to it does take some planning. H loved Peter Pan and wanted to go again, so we got more FPs, but he ended up wanting to do other things by that time in the day. We had lunch at Pinocchio Village Haus, where M realized he had lost his phone - it's still gone. He needed a new one anyway, but it has meant a lot of coordinating meet-ups when we switch off.

H and I went on It's a Small World while Dean-bean conked out in the Bjorn. We went to Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, which we all enjoyed. After that we went to Adventureland and climbed through the Swiss Family Treehouse - we just watched the movie with H at the beach this summer, so it was cool to see it re-created up close. Oh, but first we sat and ate Dole Whips - yum, just as good as advertised in the Guidebook. Dean was just as interested in eating leaves, however. Then we went on Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride, perfect for H. Dean was a little intimidated but a good sport, as always. Was it before or after Adventureland that we went to Mickey's Toon Town? Not sure, but H loved the Barnstormer - it was just right for him. He also enjoyed jumping around in the splash fountain, tho he then complained that he didn't like being wet. Argh.

Eventually we wound up back at Tomorrowland. We got more grub and I nursed Dean by Merchant of Venus while H and M went to the Speedway AGAIN. Then it was M's turn on Space Mountain, followed by mine. Wow -- 23 years of waiting and it was just as thrilling as I imagined [it had been closed when I went to WDW when I was nine years old]. I laughed like a maniac the whole time - just wish H could enjoy something like that (next visit). H and M went on the Astro Orbiter, which H also loved, while Dean and I walked around and took in the sights as dusk brought on the neon. Finally we found a great spot by the ducks on Main Street to watch the Christmas lights come on on Cinderella's Castle. H perched on M's shoulders and it really was breathtaking - so glad we came at Christmas time.

We ended the day with dinner at Jiko, at the hotel. Delicious, great waitress, perfect Lemon Drop. M's in the tub planning out Epcot, the boys are asleep, and I'm about to be.

Sunday December 6, 2009

We're home, Saints just became 12-0 in OT, and I finally have a minute to recount our last 2 days in Disney:

Friday, December 4, 2009. Epcot.

Dean had a really hard night, screaming like a newborn, inconsolable even in bed with us. He woke up early, too, but that just meant we got an early start to Epcot. Arrived just after the gates opened at 9. It was rainy and cold so we donned ponchos and headed to the Seas pavilion - we walked on to the Seas With Nemo and Friends, H really loved it, pretty cool seeing the characters mixed in with the real fish. Then we went to Turtle Talk w/Crush and H sat right up front and made a quick friend - "It's his first time in Disney World, too!" After that we toured the Aquarium which has dolphins and manatees, unlike the one here. Got some great photos of Dean face to face with the fish.

I think after that we had breakfast in the Land pavilion while we waited for our FastPass time for Soarin'. H and I went first - it was kind of a wait, maybe 15 minutes, even with FP - but it was exhilarating, really well done. H immediately went again with M while I sat in the waiting area and nursed Dean. He ended up falling asleep, which was good since we didn't plan to go back to the hotel until mid-afternoon.

It was absolutely miserable outside and our rented stroller was so wet it was useless except as a place to stow the diaper bag as we went from one wet place to another. H and M finally got to ride Test Track and then H and I went on Mission:Space. We did the Green Team "less intense" mission - H loved it, he was the Commander and I was the Engineer. I think the more intense one must be pretty awesome b/c even the Green one was really impressive. Dean and I played in the "Mission Control" area while M and H did it again. A nice "cast member" (they were all nice, must be like making yourself smile when you're angry and eventually you feel happy) let us in and turned on a machine so Dean could bat at the buttons and lights. It kept him happily occupied.
We stopped by Mouse Gear gift shop on the way out and then headed back to the hotel. Dean napped while M and H ate lunch and brought some back to me. When Dean woke up an hour later we all put on dry clothes and headed back out.

It was dark and dismal in Epcot but the rain seemed to have kept the crowds away, even tho it was an Extra Magic Hours evening. We walked on to Spaceship Earth. H accidentally hit "Japanese" instead of "English" on our car's screen, so we couldn't understand a word of the narration, but the animatronics were pretty self-explanatory, and H thought the bit with the our faces on the animated figures was pretty cool [apparently we'll be speaking Japanese in our future]. Afterward, H and I played a projected floor video game that was basically a promo for Siemens but kind of fun.

Then it was out into the mess toward the Land pavilion again. We watched the Circle of Life movie and then rode Living With the Land - I liked the tour through the experimental agricultural station (as did H, tho by time time in his Disney experience it took a lot of convincing to get him to believe the vegetables were real), but I thought the other scenes were kind of tepid. But it was nice to sit down.

It was about 8:00 at that point so we walked toward World Showcase. I was hoping we could get a table at San Angel Inn at the Mexico pavilion, but it normally takes 30 days advance reservations. The rain thinned the crowds, however, so we were seated right away. Poor Henry - everything at Disney is a trick - he thought we were really outside and we had to explain that the volcano wasn't real. Dinner was delicious, tho it was hard to enjoy the margarita with Dean at my side, a little bird only placated with food - thank goodness he's a bottomless pit.

We finished up just in time to go outside and see Illuminations. It was truly beautiful - corny music and all. H was mesmerized.

We finally got back to the hotel at 10:30. For once, we could go right to bed instead of trying to plot our next day via whispers and book lights.

We all slept late the next morning. We headed down to The Mara for breakfast, then Dean and I went to the gift shop while H and M went to the arcade again. [Note to self: never stay in any resort without an arcade]. I packed - frantically - while Dean napped. We had a 1 p.m. checkout and finally exited the room at 1:06. Whew! We had an hour to kill before our bus to the airport so we went to the lobby, where H got busy making etchings with other kids on the entryway floor (he made a lovely flying fish for Bob). We went out to the Savanna and saw the giraffes and zebras and met a pleasant young man (what am I, eighty?) from South Africa who took pictures with Henry. We also tried to find some "hidden Mickeys", with mixed success (it's hard!).

We caught the bus to the airport, ate sandwiches around an aquarium where a dead Nemo was being eaten by the other movie character fish (this really stayed with H, he was fascinated and pointed out the dead Nemo to all the other kids), hung out by a window looking out on the tarmac while our flight was delayed, and finally took off at 5:30. Dean slept on my chest during half the flight, and H got to see New Orleans at night.

And that was that. I was moved by how emotional M was about the trip ending. It really was magical and we have so many memories. Can't wait to go back.

Thanksgiving Eve

Tomorrow is my favorite holiday. What I love about it is the unanimity of spirit -- there's no politically correct way to wish someone a Happy Thanksgiving. Even those who are away from their closest relatives still gather with friends; even the homeless have a special meal; and even the lowliest among us is welcome to a greeting and can find something to be thankful for, at least for a small moment. I love that as I popped the pumpkin cake layers into the oven just now, millions of Americans were doing something similar, all over the country, and frankly, all over the world, anywhere expats still hold a piece of their homeland in their hearts.

Yes, I'm waxing maudlin, but who cares. There's so much to be cynical and frustrated about these days. It's a time to be grateful, and I'm doing my best.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, when we'll wake up and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while Matthew prepares his dish for dinner and I cook up some cranberry sauce from my grandmother's recipe, and ice the cake. Then we'll don our finest ironic clothing and head off to the races at the Fairgrounds. It's become a tradition, one I love. We're sure to see friends there, in addition to all the Foster family that will be there. Then we'll all go back to my Mom's for a traditional turkey dinner. My sister Jane is coming down from Baton Rouge. I'm hoping she'll get to hear Dean's first word -- he just clocked it yesterday, two days before his ten-month birthday. It's "hot." Unusual, yes, but oh so cute. He watches Matthew making supper on our gas stove and lately we've been pointing out the blue flames and saying, "Hot! Don't touch! Hot!" A few days ago, he started saying "Ha" when he saw the fire, but we weren't quite willing to grant that "first word" status. But then he added the "t", and there was no turning back. Now he says "Hot" whenever he can, reaching for our coffee cups, admiring the candles on the mantel this evening as we celebrated my Mom's 60th birthday with filet mignon, baked potatoes, cornbread muffins, and baby peas.

Good food, good health (barring the recent episode of what we think was swine flu that struck both me and Matthew last week), and good, sweet little boys. I love Thanksgiving.

Where is the Off Switch

I think my life may be giving my migraines.

This is not my favored theory; I'd like to think the fact that I've had near-daily migraines for going on five weeks now is because of temporary factors like hormonal imbalances due to breastfeeding, chemical changes due to weaning off Zoloft, or changes in the weather. But it has been my experience that when I can't find an obvious cause for chronic pain, it is usually due to some stress or emotional issue I am not dealing with.

This is especially frustrating given that I feel like mentally I can, and am, handling my life right now just fine. Yes, it's busy, and the juggling act is always difficult, but I feel like I am keeping on top of things. But I guess maybe that's the problem: it requires great effort to keep this ball of life moving forward instead of rolling backward and crushing us. Matthew does a lot -- A LOT -- in our partnership. He not only keeps his business afloat, but also takes Henry to and from school, watches Dean while I am at work, does the grocery shopping and the cooking, plus has to keep up with the demands of our ancient house. I handle my job, breastfeeding Dean, cleaning the house, making and taking the boys to doctor appointments, taking care of them when I get home from work so Matthew can put in a couple more hours on the computer, and keeping up with homework and teacher conferences and school applications. I'd say it's about equal in terms of time and effort. But the mental strain -- I'm not sure I handle my portion as well as he does his.

Part of it is Dean -- he remains as charming and adorable as ever, but he is in a very challenging stage. Like Henry at this age, he has not picked up crawling. But unlike Henry, he hates being in one place. This means we either carry him around the house or actually "walk" with him -- he is constantly reaching for our hands so we can help him walk wherever he wants to go. This weekend I co-organized a neighborhood toy swap, with entirely selfish motives: I was desperate for fresh toys for Dean. And I got them -- but he remains unimpressed by anything that doesn't involve him ambulating. Henry at this age was quite content to sit with a new toy or book for at least a few minutes at a time. Not Dean. If it is not moving or he's not moving toward it, he is not interested. He figures new toys out so quickly and then finds them completely boring. Books are slightly more interesting, but invariably he latches on to my hands and then screams until I start walking him around. My back is killing me! I am torn between establishing trust by communicating that I understand and will respond to his desires (he can signal "up" and "more" and is just so thrilled when we understand what he wants) and establishing discipline by communicating that sometimes he has to just sit and occupy himself while Mommy does one of the million things in the house she just can't do with a nine month old baby on her hip.

So, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit, it is possible my baby is giving me migraines.

But there are other possible culprits. School applications are a big stress right now. We are pretty happy with Henry's montessori school and are actually going tomorrow to tour the elementary campus that he will transition to if he stays past kindergarten. But since he can't stay at that school past second or third grade and we suspect there might be a better fit for him even sooner, we've been applying to the other "good" public schools in New Orleans. There are basically three of them with the right balance of demographic diversity, curriculum, and arts exposure. Unfortunately, every other parent of a four-to-six year old is also trying to get their kid into those schools. There were four hundred parents at a recent open house for one of the top schools. After a two hour tour, during which we couldn't help but fall in love with the campus, teachers, and rainbow of happy, bright, well-behaved children, I asked how many applications they had for first grade last year. "About 70," was the reply. I then asked how many they accepted. The administrator thought for a moment. "Oh, I think one or two."

So I am basically killing myself filling out applications, writing essays (yes, essays), making testing appointments, and assembling birth certificates and other documentation, for...a 1 in 70 chance of him getting in? (The numbers are about the same for the other desirable schools). Argh. There are so many deadlines to keep up with -- each school has a different application deadline, plus you generally have to attend at least one open house ("to demonstrate parental commitment"), and some require testing, and almost all the applications have to be delivered in person. It's enough of a hassle for us to make these dates while juggling my work hours and Dean's nap schedule and Henry's school pickups and Matthew's appointments, I can only imagine how it must be for parents who both work outside the home, or -- I shudder to think -- for a single parent.

Now that I am stopping to think about it, I guess I do have a lot of stress in my life right now. I hope it's temporary and the migraines will dissipate once Dean learns to crawl or walk and all these apps are in and we find out where Henry will be next year...I hope. I don't like feeling like I can't handle my life, especially when I don't seem to have anywhere to cut the stress-inducers. I already have a husband who does more than his share and a job where I can work part-time and two healthy boys -- if I can't handle such a seemingly charmed life...is it possible there's something wrong with me?

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Ah, Fall, you've finally arrived. The title of this post thus has two references -- one, to the changing of the clocks (a.k.a. Daylight Screw-with-Parents-of-Small-Children Time), and two, to the fact that I am now in my third week of weaning off Zoloft. Emotionally, I am doing just fine, and I am enjoying experiencing the full range of my emotional choir again. Physically, it has really been a drag. Beyond the typical withdrawal symptoms of tingling hands, dizziness, mild nausea, and insomnia, I have had an almost-daily migraine since I lowered the dosage two and half weeks ago. I am following the doctor's instructions so that the whole weaning off takes a month, but I had not counted on the headaches. I don't know for sure that they are caused by the change in chemical levels, but it seems like a good culprit. I am just hopeful that this is a temporary situation as my body adjusts. If it turns out that I need an SSRI long-term in order to avoid these constant migraines, I suppose it is a small price to pay, but the fact is that I haven't felt like myself since I became pregnant and I've been very much looking forward to feeling normal again. I am very grateful that the Zoloft was available to lift me out of my post-partum depression, but I missed the highs and lows of my emotions without mood elevators. Yes, I get more irritable and sometimes even more melancholy without the medication, but I like the intensity and rawness of my sadness without medication, the sanguinity of my happiness in its unmediated state.

In other news, we had a fantastic Halloween. Last weekend was the neighborhood Halloween Party at Delcazal Park. I presciently volunteered to man the "big kids" inflatable, since it turned out that's where Henry spent all of his time. Then I went home and watched the Saints rise like phoenix to topple the Giants. We had a pretty quiet week (a good thing, given the migraines), but did squeeze in an open house at one of the three schools we are applying to for first grade. One is a Montessori; one is foreign language immersion; and one is full-time gifted. All are public, which means that every parent in Orleans Parish who gives half a care about their child's education is applying and admission is by lottery. We'd be happy with any; we're just hoping he gets into at least one.

Friday night I took the boys to Tout de Suite for a Halloween shadow puppet show. "Miss" Jill made candy-corn colored pizza slices for all the kids, and it seemed like every kid we know in the neighborhood was there. When we all took our seats, the weather outside was unpleasantly warm, but during the brief performance, fall arrived, raining and chilly. Luckily, the kids were all in costume and baring skin is generally not the costume norm in the under-10 set, so they were plenty warm on the walk/ride home.

Yesterday I took Dean to the thrift store and bought warm jammies for both kids. Then we carved our jack o'lanterns (Matthew's had swine flu and was barfing its guts all over the front steps; I carved fire and traditional triangle eyes into Henry's, and mine was a happy little feline-face). We met up with Max and Chloe for trick-or-treating. Dean was all bundled up in a little bear costume we got from a friend -- it was a little small on him so I had to cut the "head" off and attach it to a hat, but he was cute as a button touring the neighborhood in the Bjorn strapped to Matthew's chest. Henry had a blast. Did we ever seriously worry about this kid's shyness? It has evaporated, along with every trace of his baby fat. At the puppet show, he was right up front yelling at the puppets during audience participation time. Last night he put on his mask at every house and showed off his "Spiderman moves" to anyone who would watch (it's a very fine line between web-flinging and giving the sign of the horns, but no one seemed to take offense). At the end of the night, as we gave out the last of our candy to some weary trick-or-treaters (Henry invited them to "Help yourself, take whatever you want, we have tons"), Henry announced it had been not just the best Halloween ever, but the best DAY ever. At age five, I envy him the lovely experience of having reality match the expectation that things just get better and better. Not that I don't also expect life to continually improve, but I sort of look at it like long term investing in the stock market; Henry looks at life like a day trader, and he always manages to buy low and sell high.

Dean is doing well. He just got his first tooth, a shy little sliver of white on his lower right gum. I will miss his gummy smile, like I miss every day of his babyhood that passes. We have a bit of a mutual adoration society going on right now. I just can't get enough of his bright eyes and wet grins, the way he understands almost everything these days, the way he reaches for me when he's in anyone else's arms, the way he smiles up at me in the morning after he's finished nursing next to me in bed. The only thing I could possibly complain about is his yelling as a form of communication, but I really see that as motivation to work on new baby signs and keep giving him new experiences. We recently switched from three naps and five breastfeeding sessions a day to two naps and four feedings. Spending three hours straight cooped up in the house is a recipe for frustration, for both of us. On my days as primary caregiver, I try to work in a midday errand. Today we all went to breakfast at Jill's, something we haven't done in months, and it really ate up some time before that first morning nap (plus, Dean loves to stand at the play table and watch Henry build legos). Between the mornign and afternoon naps, I took the boys to one of my favorite stores, Brad and Dellwyn's Flag Shop, on Magazine. I can't think of anything more visually stimulating for a baby than being in the store, with flags festooning every inch of ceiling, wall, and floor, plus all the wind chimes and rainbow catchers. We picked out a "Who Dat!" flag, just in time for tomorrow's Monday night football game. Can't wait to eat some dirty bird.

Fall Stuff

The Internet and I are no longer in a committed relationship. We're not exactly officially separated (we still hook up now and then), but we are free to see other ways to spend our free time. And I've been taking advantage of this.

I used to be able to crank out some blog posts, get on facebook, and respond to e-mails in a timely manner by doing these things while the kids were napping. But Henry doesn't nap anymore, and when Dean naps, I try to deal with the gazillion other things I need to do, like fill out Henry's school applications, help him with his homework, take care of laundry, cleaning the kitchen, writing thank you notes, scheduling appointments, etcetera, etcetera. Until I can hire a personal assistant (not likely), it seems posting to this blog and keeping up with the nuances of everyone's daily lives on facebook is going to continue to be low on the priority list.

But we have been doing some cool things lately. Dean is developing by leaps and bounds. He's becoming much more communicative -- he signs "more" when eating and can do other cool tricks like raise his hands when we say "How big is Dean-bean?" and clap when asked. He also turns the pages of books when I am reading to him (he loves books as much as Henry did). And when these nice claps and signs don't get him what he wants, he is perfectly content to scream at anyone passing by at the top of his lungs. Which of course inspires Henry to scream, too. It's really loud in our house most days.

Dean still refuses to crawl, however. Given that this is my second baby who seems more interested in standing than crawling (despite the fact that, unlike Henry, Dean loves to sleep on his belly), I am starting to think this is more a genetic predisposition rather than a failure of encouragement on my part. Nevertheless, I continue to torture him by plopping him down inches away from a desired toy (or, more often, a coveted pacifier). No effect.

Henry is doing great with his swim lessons at Love Swimming. He jumps into the water and can propel himself (it's not exactly stroke swimming but it gets him from point A to B) with his head underwater. He loves going, and I actually love taking him. This is one of the things about parenthood that surprises me the most - I always thought I would dread the driving-to and sitting-at parts of having kids, but I really enjoy those car trips and I even find the time spent sitting during the activity kind of nice. Henry talks more when he's in the car with me - I find out all kinds of interesting things about the kids he likes and doesn't like at school, which teachers are "bossy" (he's very opposed to bossiness these days) and which he can fool into thinking he's paying attention when he's really not, what subjects he likes and which games he doesn't like. I really think some tangible good has come out of these conversations -- he was getting into trouble a lot because he would talk to one of his friends when they were supposed to be sitting silently (Henry voluntarily identifed this kid as one of the "bad kids"). I told him how I got into trouble a lot for that when I was little, even when I wasn't the one starting the talking, I was just trying to tell my friend to stop. We practiced how to look at his friend to tell him 'I want to talk but we have to be quiet right now' and I am guessing it may be working because Henry says he and his friend are both "good kids" now and there have been no time outs for weeks since we had that conversation.

He's finally reading on his own now, too. His reticence with this really baffled me and Matthew. Henry loves books, loves being read to, and even loves just sitting alone and paging through them. But he would refuse to actually read them by himself, even though we knew he was capable of it. Homework was also a battle of wills -- even though his homework was straightforward and he could easily finish it in five minutes, he would take more than a half hour just because he was whining and letting himself get distracted and literally dragging his feet. I was able to cajole him a little and threats and timers also helped, but ultimately he just decided on his own about a week ago that he likes doing homework and now he often finishes before I get back from doing the laundry to check on him. Plus he's picking up books and reading them on his own, without prompting. He especially loves Dr. Seuss, but I went ahead and ordered him some of the paperback "first readers" featuring Spiderman and Transformers, anyway.

Speaking of Spiderman, he should be making an appearance in our house on October 31st. Henry decided that was what he wanted to be this Halloween. We're totally ready for the big day -- the front of our house is draped in fake cobwebs embedded with black and orange spider rings, plus there's a skull hanging on our front door, pumpkins and bat decals on the front window, a giant (like, two feet wide) black spider crawling on our front porch rocker, and bats hanging from our dining room chandelier. I love Halloween and I love that Henry is old enough to really get into it now.

Tomorrow I am taking Henry and Dean and Foster to a pumpkin farm on the Northshore. Matthew has a wedding so we'll stay the night in Mandeville at Paw and Dellie's. I used to be really hesitant to go any significant distances without Matthew or my Mom to accompany me, mostly because I was having so many headaches and didn't want to be stranded somewhere, unable to drive because of the medication. But the headaches have gotten much better recently. I've been taking Zyrtec and that seems to be helping some, plus I've been sleeping better now that Dean consistently sleeps through the night. I guess everything is starting to feel more settled, so I'm a little less stressed. And I've gotten better at recognizing the signs of a migraine and taking medication much earlier -- half the time, I can get away with just two tylenol and a 12 ounce Coke. So, although I still prefer traveling with Matthew (not just for the convenience of a second parent but I am also pretty fond of the guy), I've recently taken the boys overnight to Baton Rouge and figure this trip to the Northshore won't be much different. Plus, we finally (finally!) have a blast of cool air down here, so we can experience a tiny smidgen of the autumn sights, sounds, and cold weather attire that the rest of the country gets to have for months. Then, armed with four pumpkins this year, we'll truly be ready for Halloween.

A Day in the (Messy) Life

I think we are all finally on the mend. In addition to the colds Matthew and I developed a couple of weeks ago, last week Dean developed a fever for two days and then broke out in a rash. I think it was just roseola -- Henry had the same thing at this age -- but he was not his usual happy self for about a week. It really gave me empathy for parents of kids who are naturally more fussy-tempered than Dean.

Weekend before last (man, time is flying by) we drove to Uncle Wil's camp on the Bogue Chitto River. It rained the whole time, which we expected, but we still enjoyed the respite from the city. The weather was cooler, and I loved listening to the rain on the roof. Henry chased frogs and explored the river's edge and practiced darts with Matthew. As much as we enjoyed it, I always find that after a trip -- no matter how brief -- I love being back in my house and in the neighborhood. I love that I can go all weekend without getting in my car, walking instead to the library, the grocery (we finally have a little corner store three blocks away), the wine shop, the park. And our home really feels like a refuge, a place I can rest...most of the time.

Which leads me to the subject of today's post -- how to keep a house neat? I am not talking about clean, not because I don't think having a clean house is important, but because it is so far down on my list of priorities that it borders on endangering my family's hygiene (please don't use the microwave). No, I'm talking about how to keep the detritus of our lives from taking over -- the legos, the balls, the dirty clothes and ice cream dishes, the screwdrivers and pacifiers and junk mail and camera equipment and magazines and tiny magnetic refrigerator letters...we've pretty much given away and thrown away everything we reasonably can at this point in our lives. Lots of stuff has to be kept for now because Dean will be growing into it. And I've tried my best to organize -- almost everything does indeed have a place...it just doesn't usually end up there until I throw a fit at some point over the weekend and insist that we all clean up the house. I'd like to accomplish that on a daily basis, minus the fit.

We've realized that we haven't been expecting enough of Henry. That is probably for a couple of reasons, and they both go back to one thing -- our own laziness. It is so much easier, less time consuming, for us to clean up his messes ourselves than ask him to do it. Asking once is sometimes enough -- he's usually very prompt and polite about responding to a request. But then you have to herd him like a dazed sheep -- he just can't seem to stay on task. And often I don't get get to the point in my day where I can start cleaning until it's almost his bed time, and I usually decide that getting him in bed is more important than hovering over him for fifteen minutes while he puts away his toys and dirty clothes. But we attended an open house at his school this week, and it drove home to us how little responsibility we ask him to bear around the house and how capable he is of doing more. At school, he cannot start on another project until he has put away the first. He must always push in his chair when he leaves a table. He must wash his own cup and plate after snack. We have a few chores he's regularly expected to complete -- set the table, put away the silverware from the dishwasher, empty the bathroom wastebaskets -- but that's pretty much it. He's not learning to keep up after himself on a regular basis, and so we've decided to make that a new priority. It will undoubtedly take more time right now, but I don't want him growing up thinking it's okay to live in daily mess.

I also thought I would take this opportunity to offer, for my own ailing memory as much as for anyone else who could possibly be interested, a snapshot of Dean's schedule these days. He'll be eight months in a few days, and he's learning to do so much, even pulling himself to standing in crib this week. He'll be in kindergarten before we know it, and then it will be hard for me to remember this brief stage in all of our lives.

Henry still wakes up earlier than Dean -- Matthew's day usually starts when he wanders into our bedroom and says, "Daddy, it's seven o'clock!" I doze off for another half hour or so until Dean wakes up. I pop my caffeine pill and nurse him in bed -- by the time we're done, I have the mental stamina to face the day vertically. Matthew gets Henry ready for school while Dean plays on the floor and I get dressed for work and eat breakfast. I leave at about 8:30 and they head out the door to get Henry to school shortly thereafter.

Back home, Matthew feeds Dean a small breakfast at 9:15 and then he's down for a nap at 9:30. Most days, he naps until 11:00. Then he gets a bottle while I pump at work. Not entirely sure what they do at that point -- sometimes they run errands, sometimes they give Dinah a bath, sometimes I think they see who can burp the loudest...then Dean has lunch (usually applesauce or cereal or some other kind of pureed fruit, plus cheerios) and takes another nap at 12:30. On good days he sleeps until 2:00, when he gets another bottle (across the river, I put up the "DO NOT DISTURB" sign on my door), and then he and Matthew get back in the car to pick Henry up from school at 2:30. I get home a little before 3:30 and if we don't have a playdate or Henry's swim lesson or a doctor appointment (the calendar is getting awfully cluttered these days) I play with Dean and give him an afternoon snack and then he goes back down for a nap at 4:00. Then I help Henry with him homework and "clean" the house (see above) like a mad woman. Dean wakes up a little after 5 and I nurse him and then and he and Henry and I go for a walk or Dean and I sit on the porch while Henry jumps on the trampoline or we just sit on the floor and play with toys. Matthew starts supper at 6:00 and we usually eat at 7. Dean sits with us in his high chair and in addition to his pureed veggies or some other glop, he usually eats bits of our food (he loves whole baby peas, cheddar cheese, pretty much anything safe for his little baby mouth to eat -- I have yet to see him turn anything down). Then it's time for Dean's bath, then Henry's. I nurse Dean and get him to bed by 8:00, then direct Henry to clean up his things, read him a story, and then Matthew brushes his teeth and we say prayers (he has insisted on the Lord's prayer since we read about it in Little House, and we also spend some time naming the people we love and things we love about them or hope for them). And then he's off to bed at 8:30. Whew. Then I drink some wine or get in front of the TV or read a book -- apparently, anything but post to this blog.

Errands Envy

Stealing some time at the computer while Dean is bouncing up and down in his jumperoo and Henry is rediscovering his toys after spending the night at Bob's and Pampaw's.

It's been a quiet holiday weekend, mostly because Matthew and I have been sick with head colds. This afternoon we're going over to Chase and Tricia's for some barbeque (we seem to have established a tradition of getting together every government holiday) but that will be my fist outing since I took the boys to the pediatrician Friday afternoon. Boy was that fun -- they both had to get shots (I also got a flu shot) and Henry devolved into a caged animal. It was unlike anything I've ever seen, and I definitely wasn't prepared for it. Ultimately, reasoning and cajoling proved ineffective and the doc and I had to hold him down on the floor to get him immunized. It SU-U-UCKED. But surprisingly, he was perfectly understanding about the whole incident -- it's like his five year old brain could comprehend the fact that the government makes the rules that see he has to have these shots for school, but just couldn't manage to keep himself sitting in one place to endure it. He didn't seem to harbor any hard feelings at all toward me or the doctor about it. Matthew and I haven't decided whether or not to give him the H1N1 shot if it ever becomes available, but now at least I'll know to bring knee pads and other protective gear if it comes to that.

The doctor visit also confirmed that Henry has allergies. He's been coughing for more than 3 weeks now, but without any other symptoms. And he's long had an itchy nose. I just didn't want to medicate him for it unless it began interfering with his life, and recently the coughing has been so severe it;s keeping him up at night and we started to worry he would gag. Matthew has also had a revelation about the powers of allergy medications, having started taking Zyrtec and discovered his fatigue and malaise disappeared overnight. So Matthew, who I think would have been completely against medicating Henry for allergies just a few months ago, was overwhelmingly in favor of Henry taking Zyrtec as well. It's too soon to know if it is really helping, but we also put away most of his stuffed animals and washed all his bedclothes and vacuumed the nursery just for good measure.

In the world of Dean news, these days Dean has two things he loves to do while eating: pooping and talking with his mouth full. Lucky for him he's so cute.

Matthew and I have been talking lately about how cramped our lives feel right now, emotionally. Everything on paper is where it should be -- we have our two healthy boys, our careers are going well, finances are not the challenge they were for so much of our married lives, we love our house, our neighborhood, our city. Yet we still feel overwhelmed. We've concluded it's just the nature of parenting right now. There's certainly nothing amiss, and we very much appreciate all the good we have in our lives. But when 8:30 rolls around and both of the kids are finally in bed, we are just so exhausted, physically and mentally. And as good as the advice to "take some time for yourself each day" sounds, when you are the parents of two small children, there's no such thing as "free time." And time for yourself just doesn't feel as relaxing, as nourishing, when it's stolen. We steal it nonetheless -- a bath here and there, a half hour of reading for pleasure -- but the time doesn't have the same quality it did before we had kids. And we're okay with that -- as I reflected in an earlier post, we both know how brief this period of our lives (and our children's lives) will be. But when you envy your spouse for getting to go to the grocery store by himself -- well, you know you've left carefree days long behind.

Anniversaries

Yesterday was Henry's first official day of kindergarten. He's a little confused by that term, since he's in the same "primary" class at his montessori school as he was in last year, but I took a "first day" picture anyway. It was a terrible reentry. He's been out of school for a month this summer, and yesterday afternoon he said he wished he had only been out for two days because a month was too long for him to be used to it again. Yesterday when Matthew dropped him off, he completely freaked out and it took three teachers to get him out of the car. But then he calmed down, as we knew he would, had a good day, and was completely nonchalant about it this morning, even knocking on the school door himself to be let in.

Wednesday was Matthew's birthday and we had a very low key evening. That morning, he decided he didn't want any fuss, he just requested a "cake I can eat with coffee for breakfast." So Henry and I baked a lemon pound cake that afternoon, and Mom and my grandfather, who moved in with her this past week, came over for takeout from Lebanon's and some of the cake, still warm and moist from the oven. Henry gave Matthew the presents he picked out for him at the grocery store -- a pineapple, mini-watermelon, Kit Kat Bar and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. (I had suggested to Henry that Daddy might like a nice bottle of wine, maybe of the Shiraz variety, but Henry insisted Daddy wanted a pineapple because it was "juicy" -- and he was right).

Last weekend we spent our first night with Matthew's parents in Mandeville since Dean was born. It was also the first time we've really had a chance to kick back and just enjoy the surroundings, since we are usually there for a particular family or community event. This time, Matthew brought his windsurfer and while he and everyone else was down at the lake, I sat in the house and read a book while Dean took his afternoon nap. It was such a treat to sit for a spell with absolutely nothing to do except read -- there was no laundry to do, no household chores, no kids to keep up with, no computer access -- I just sat there for an hour and started reading Zeitoun, my book club's next selection which my mother-in-law also happened to be reading. It's a sort of authorized biography of a well-known New Orleans painter (he painted my in-laws' house before Katrina and is currently painting our next door neighbors' house) who was treated as a terrorist in the chaos after Katrina and imprisoned for months. It's a timely read, considering we are at the anniversary of the worst man-made disaster in history. Last night we sat up late talking with Scott, Rachael and Philip's friend (and ours too, now, but I want to give credit where credit is due) about where we think the city is going. Scott is from Canada but has lived/visited all over the U.S. and adores New Orleans. He's actually spent the past three days volunteering to rehab houses that have sat empty since the storm (there are still thousands), and it was so nice to chat with an "outsider" who nevertheless seems to grasp the confluence of political and natural factors that complicate our recovery. I still can't quite believe it has been four years -- but there's Henry, starting kindergarten (he was only a year when we evacuated) and there's Dean, seven months old and still just as happy and smiley as his big brother at this age. I am reminded once again of how lucky I am.

Beaching

Just snuggled Dean into his crib for the night. In the past couple of weeks, he has started sleeping on his side, and now he even seems to prefer his belly. During his wake time, getting him to be on his stomach is almost impossible -- he screams and immediately flips himself onto his back. Now, he gets angry if we try to move him on to his back when he's in his crib -- thank goodness for the movement monitor, since I know he's supposed to sleep on hjis back to reduce the risk of SIDS.

Overall, his sleeping has continued to be greatly improved from a month ago. We spent last week at the beach with my family and the extended Koske crew, and Dean was pretty hard to settle our first night there. But once we stuck him in the closet (he was in a port-a-crib and we didn't shut the door, it's not as barbaric as it sounds) he seemed happier -- fewer distractions, I guess. He was a real trouper at the beach. We got into a routine pretty quickly -- during his first morning nap, we'd all head out the door and into the sand and bring the baby monitor (it was a 20 second sprint from the shore to his bedroom door). When we woke up, I'd nurse him and then he'd spend some time on a blanket under our beach tent. I took him into the water at least a couple times a day, but the sun was so bright I didn't want to risk giving him a sunburn. The water really excited him. He would screech an squawk at it, like its existence was a personal affront to him, but he was giggle and coo when it splashed up on his legs.

Henry quickly made friends with some boys next door. Matthew and I both remarked on how neither of us was ever very good at those sort of spur of the moment palships. In truth, Henry was not the one who initiated it, and if the boy his age had not been as outgoing as he was, it's possible they never would have hooked up. But luckily the neighbor boys were extremely outgoing, polite, and very patient with Henry, since he was a good year younger. They encouraged him to go into the water (there were a lot of jellyfish, more on that below) so that he was boogie boarding by the middle of the week. They caught and tortured jellyfish, buried each other in the sand, and flew kites every evening. It was terrific.

And then Kate and her kids came -- eleven month old Thomas and three year old Anna. So then Henry had the chance to be the bigger kid and show her the beach, the crabs, the waves, and how to dig really deep holes. By the end of the week, our group's umbrellas and tents stretched in a line in front of our beach house, a happy little conclave of bright beach toys and sandy chairs and wind-swept heads looking out toward clear, azure water.

Aside from the jellyfish, the water was great. There were a couple of treacherous days when the jellys outnumbered the people 10 to 1, but on the other days there were hardly any and you could spot them easily But on one of the treacherous days, Matthew ventured out on his windsurfer. He went so far out I lost track of him on the horizon, and when he came back he was shaking and looked like he had seen a ghost. He actually came close to losing his life -- the farther he went, the more and bigger were the jellyfish, wider than a frisbee and blanketing the ocean as far as he could see. There were thousands. He was terrified to turn around, since he sometimes falls off as he turns against the wind, so he kept going out, thinking they would dissipate but in fact they just got larger and more numerous, like a nightmare. He finally turned around without falling and psyched himself up the whole way back -- don't fall off, don't fall off, don't fall off. And thank god he didn't -- I really think he would have been in mortal danger if he had fallen and gotten tangled up in one or more of those enormous jellyfish, with no one around to assist and in too much pain to get back. It turns out the swarms were so unusual they were reported on the national news.

It was a great week. We took a trip to nostalgia by howing Henry Flight of the Navigator and Swiss Family Robinson. We had group sing-a-longs while the guys played guitar. We ate great meals and drink lots of beer and sangria. We played Taboo and the women kicked the guys' bottoms. My sister and I swapped books and moral support. My Mom fished and fished and fished. I got a tad of a tan.

And now back to real life. I had a migraine this week that last 24 hours. Those are becoming less common, but now that I don't have insurance coverage for them for 6 months, I am always terrified that it will become one of those three day ordeals hat ends with me in the ER. Those are so rare I can count them easily over the past 15 years, but somehow when I know I can't afford it, it stresses me out more than ever. I have pretty much backed off the health care debate. I was becoming obsessed, anrgry, constantly agitated. I;ve given money, stood in the heat waving signs, gone to Mary Landrieu's office in person, made phone calls and e-mails...I don't know what else I can do without giving myself more migraines, which is hardly helping anyone. The week at the beach, I avoided the news entirely, and I'm trying to keep from getting so involved now that I am back. Maybe I'm a coward, but I just can't take the stress right now.

Ah, Sweet Sleep

I'm writing this while Henry is in the shower with Matthew and I am listening to Dean protest his bedtime. There doesn't seem to be any other time to post, otherwise I would be writing more often! We've had another busy couple of weeks, which is not to say there hasn't been some down time...just that I spent it reading or talking to friends or doing something else that didn't involve sitting in front of a computer. I really try to crank out the hours at work while I am there and don't feel like getting back on the computer when I get home.

So Henry tuned five Friday before last, and that Sunday we had his birthday party at the Monkey Room. This year I decided not to order a cake but to make it myself -- Henry loves baking and I figured we could do it together the day before, while Matthew was at a wedding. What I didn't figure was that I also had to come up with a wholesome-nutritious-individual-serving snack for Henry to bring to school on his birthday (I baked and iced 5 and half dozen mini-muffins), prepare two containers of finger sandwiches (Mom helped), bake the two birthday cakes (they were from a mix and Henry did the sprinkles), and then whip up a batch of gluten-free brownies for the kids who couldn't eat the cake. Whew -- by themselves, each one was not that hard. I was certainly was not aiming to be Martha Stewart. But by the end of the weekend, I was so sick of my oven I was almost ready to put my head in it.

Okay, that's as far as I got yesterday in composing a post. All of a sudden Henry was out of the shower, the baby needed another pacifier, and there went the rest of my evening. So here I am again trying to crank this out. Henry is now on the Northshore for the night, Dean is napping, and I've finished a really stressful week at work and am trying to head off a migraine.
Anyway, Henry's party was a success, he loved all his new toys, and I think he really did appreciate all the effort his daddy and I went to to make sure he had a great birthday. I don't want to spoil him, but he's really such a good kid and it really gives us pleasure to make him happy. But next year it's either store bought muffins or store bought cake, I ain't doing both.

Dean has had us pretty tired for the past month. He started sleeping through the night right around 3 months, but then about six weeks ago he started waking up more and more often, all night long, sometimes ten times. He would go back to sleep as soon as we gave him a pacifier, but that was hardly a good solution. His pediatrician gave me a pep talk on "cry it out" and we decided we had to try it.

Okay, that was as far as I got with the post LAST night, let's see how far I get now that Dean is having his morning nap. It would probably help if Matthew was not banging on the house trying to put up a fence so the dogs (Mom's and Dinah) can stay here while we all go to the beach in a week and half, but did I mention we're going to the beach in a week and a half? so I am not going to complain.

So ever since we tried to let him cry it out, Dean has been a much better sleeper. He really only cried much the first night, and even then it was only for a few minutes. I don't think I would have had the stamina to take it much longer than that. We wouldn't have done it at all except we were both becoming zombies, and we figured it wasn't good for him to be having so much interrupted sleep, either. It is too soon to break out the bubbly (or, in this case, the sleeping pills), since I know how quickly old habits can resume and some kids just never sleep well during the night...BUT...it does seem like we are on the right track, and last night he slept the whole night. Since Henry was at Paw and Dellie's, Matthew and I were able to sleep in until Dean woke us at 8:45. I feel like I could run a marathon!

One of the things the doc suggested was that I stop nursing him to sleep at night. All his other naps, I always put him down awake and follow the wake-eat-play-sleep routine, but at nighttime I was doing what I always did with Henry, nursing him in the dark and then putting him down mostly asleep. Now that I try to keep him awake, I can read him a little story immediately after he eats. Henry picked the one we're reading now -- it has fuzzy bees in it and a buzzing sound chip at the end. Dean loves it, and Henry was so happy to be able to pick it out. Henry adores Dean so much I really think he would swallow him whole if he could. As it is, we are constantly having to remind Henry to be gentle and not squeeze him too hard or smother him with kisses. It's hard for him, because Henry now identifies himself more as one of us -- the big folks in the house who take care of the baby. He is always quick to give the baby a pacifier, tells me when Dean spits up, and sighs an adult-sounding sigh when the baby wakes up too early from his nap. And yet he is only five, after all, and I neither want him to feel adult responsibilities nor test his limits by doing all the things we do with the baby. I am glad he's getting some only-child time at his grandparents right now. Not that we've been neglecting him, but sometimes a kid just needs to be a kid.

Five Years

I can't believe my little man is turning five tomorrow. Five years of parenthood...sometimes it feels like I've been a parent forever, and sometimes I feel like he was born just yesterday.

We've been so busy lately, but it's mostly been a good kind of busy. I am occupied with child care or my job or housework or paperwork pretty much all day, until I fall into bed, but most of it feels fulfilling. I could do without the search for health insurance -- a long story there, which many of you know about from my e-mails on the subject, and which I hope to say more about on this blog in the future -- but everything else seems worthwhile.

It is different parenting an infant this time around. With Henry, I always felt tugged between devoting myself entirely to him, and trying to hold on to that independent part of myself, the part that wanted to drink more, listen to the music a little louder, sleep in a little later. I didn't know when life would return to "normal" - and of course, I now know that it never does, not really. But it does get a lot closer. Once Henry was a year old, I could contemplate spending a night or two away from him. Once I weaned him (also around a year), I could drink a bit more liberally, and sleep a little later. Eventually, he learned to dance to the music, too, and is usually the one asking for me to turn it up.

So I know how quickly infancy passes, and for that reason I am trying even harder to hold on to it, enjoy it, not feel that tug. Dean will only suck on my cheeks and giggle while I kiss his toes for long, and for only so long will I occupy his entire field of emotional vision. If that means rocking him to sleep in a back room while every one else listens the band on Mom's front porch, so be it.

That was how we spent yesterday afternoon/evening. Algiers Point hosts Wednesday afternoon concerts during the summer, at different venues in the neighborhood. Yesterday's was at the Crown & Anchor Pub, right across the street from Mom's. She set up a fan on the porch and pulled out some chairs, and MawMaw and PawPaw came over and Matthew's Uncle Wil and Aunt Cindy and cousin John and Mom and Matthew and I sat there, taking in the band set up a few houses down. They shut off the street and a few hundred of our friends and neighbors enjoyed the slight breeze, drank cold beer, got food from the local restaurants that set up tables, and just gabbed and had a good time. Henry's pal Chloe was there so they had a good time running around and working on drawings. Dean enjoyed it less -- he handled it better than the one we took him to last week, which was twice as loud and hot, but he still was not a fan of the experience. Eventually I had to take him inside to see if he would go down to sleep, hence the rocking in the back room. Between taking care of him and checking on Henry, I missed most of the music, but that's okay. I now know how soon I'll be sitting on some porch, enjoying a beer while it's still cold, and wishing more than anything that I had a little downy-haired baby on my lap to spill it.

All In

Ever since I started working in the office again, the days just seem to fly by. It's been a busy couple of weeks. I've had two bouts with mastitis, breast infections that knocked me out (I literally almost passed out at one point) for a couple of days each time. Matthew had two weddings, Saturday and Sunday, last weekend. I took the boys to Baton Rouge Sunday to see Pampaw and the rest of the Oivanki gang at Uncle Steve's for Father's Day. Monday I found out I was rejected for health insurance. Dean has had trouble sleeping all week -- one night he was crying so inconsolably we thought he had an ear infection and had to take him to the doctor today (he's fine). And then there's the fact that rain has been almost non-existent, except for one afternoon deluge for which we were very grateful -- it was getting so hot I was starting to lose the will to live (or at least to exercise).

We're really happy that Matthew now has two weekends off in a row, after ten straight weekends of weddings. But of course, that busy schedule means he now has lots of weddings to process, so there's really no time off for him. It's nice for our pocketbook, but the workload is really stressing both of us out. Right now he's fixing one of our windows because it leaks air, and we're trying to keep as much of the cool inside where it belongs. We took the boys to The Children's Museum today since it has been too hot to go outside, except to swim. Henry's doing really well in that department. In the past few weeks he's gone from refusing to put even his mouth in the water to actually swimming back and forth between the two of us. He's still not a strong swimmer by any means but we are getting closer, and he's so proud of himself. We just made a Michael Jackson compilation to listen to in the car so he can get to know the King of Pop as well as he knows AC Newman and REM. We also downloaded the Thriller film off YouTube and let him watch it (well, most of it, we skipped when MJ turns into a werewolf). This whole week of memorials has brought back my childhood Friday nights, when we would arrive to spend the weekend at our country house in Rosedale and I would put on the Thriller album in my bedroom and just dance like crazy. I couldn't have been more than 7 or 8, but I knew every song by heart.

I am trying not to overlook the wonder of Dean in the middle of the heat and the stress and the fatigue of keeping up with both kids. He has such a lovely personality. He smiles at least as much as Henry did at this age, which is to say almost all the time. He loves his bath, though yesterday he rolled himself over face first in the water, not a pleasant experience for him or his Daddy. His favorite sound to make is a high-pitched screech that woke me from a sound sleep at 7 a.m. the other morning. I ran into the nursery thinking one of my children was on fire, only to see Henry pointing at the crib where I found Dean with an enormous grin on his face. He and Henry have this little game they play where Henry laughs and laughs and then Dean starts talking to him and they're both going back and forth making these funny little half-laughs, half-murmurs. I've tried to catch it on video, but Dean gets very self-conscious on camera and clams up. He also loves peekaboo and sucking on things -- he'll even suck on my chin. He's a fat little man, all chubby cheeks and round little foot-balls. I love watching his feet when I feed him at nighttime. He gets so relaxed and his tiny toes curl up and down and his fat feet cross each other and his sweet blue eyes begin to close as he drifts off to sleep.

I always trusted that I would love both of my boys equally, but it is fascinating to me how the love I feel for them is different, just because they are different. There's no question it's equal, but my relationship with each of them is such a contrast. I am simply in love with Dean, captivated by his every breath, passionate about all his changes. I am deeply loving toward Henry, more compassionate than passionate, but no less enthralled with his development. Rearing them is the most challenging thing I have ever done, but also the most satisfying. Matthew and I set out to have kids knowing the sacrifices that would be involved but knowing that you get out of life what you put into it, and it was time to go all in. I am so glad we did.

Hello Happy Happiness

I know that the attainment of perfection is a hollow aspiration...but, um, have you met me? Well, anyway, laudable or not, I have to say that I think my life right now is as close to perfect as it has ever been, and I am truly happy.

Seems strange that at a time when I'm filled with such contentment I would cease posting to this blog. I have needed some time to adjust to working, to get into the rhythm of the new schedule, and maybe I've just been giving myself a chance to acclimate. Whatever the reason, I am going to try to be on here more often.

My current state of mind stems from a number of things, but I think what has catapulted it into "happiness" (a term I do not use casually), is that I've crossed the last hurdle post-baby and am still standing. Going back to the office was a big step for me. I was pretty sure it would be a smooth transition, but if anything was going to be a hiccup, I figured that would be it. But it has gone wonderfully -- Dean took to the bottle pretty well, pumping is fine, Matthew is enjoying his time with the little guy, and I've really enjoyed being back in the professional atmosphere of the office. I like putting on my makeup and heels in the morning. I like listening to NPR in the quiet of my car. I like focusing my mind on new projects, catching up on the latest industry news, working with my friends and feeling competent again (reasonably) at something other than a one-handed diaper change. And just when I get tired of working and long for a leisurely day with my boys, it's Friday and I'm home all day.

I feel like I have been working to get to this point for SO LONG. Really, it goes back to when I first went to work full-time after having Henry and passing the bar (I had worked part-time up until taking the exam). It was a crushing blow to realize that my plan of working full-time while Matthew was the stay-at-home parent was akin to sticking a knife in my heart every morning. From that point on, we worked toward a goal of both of us working part-time. I eventually negotiated a 40-hour a week schedule (part-time in the legal world), but it was another year before Matthew's business gave us enough security to think about my cutting back further. And by then Henry was older and in school and I was feeling more comfortable with my schedule, so we decided to wait until after we had another child. Two years of trying and almost adopting and trying again later, we finally had that wonderful second child and I had worked four years in a job where my bosses could trust that I could still be a meaningful contributor to the firm even at only 24 hours a week. So here we are -- I work about six hours a day Monday through Thursday and take over primary child-care duties Friday and Saturday. I'm not sure how much closer to the much-mythologized work-life balance you can get.

But it's more than just my wonderful new work schedule. It's Dean and how delightful and manageable he is. Let me just say again, so there is no ambiguity: I have always wanted three children and the fact that my body/psyche/whatever-it-is-that-f*cks-me-up-when-I-am-pregnant makes it unwise for me to be pregnant again has caused me a great deal of sorrow. But it is what it is and I have accepted the fact that I will have two wonderful healthy boys in my life and that's it. So I have moved on to the silver lining phase, which is I WILL NEVER HAVE TO GO TWO AND HALF MONTHS WITHOUT SLEEPING EVER AGAIN. While there were parts of the newborn phase I loved with both my boys and my heart always gets soft and weepy when I think of their tiny little hands and coal-black newborn eyes and near weightlessness in my arms, let's not overly romanticize it: at least for me, the first two and half months of my sons' lives were spent with sleeplessness, constant crying from acid reflux, and, in the case of Dean, migraines and post-partum depression. Now that he is a well-settled, sweet-tempered almost-five month old who usually sleeps through the night, it finally dawned on me that the worst is over. I have no illusions about the other challenges of parenthood, but barring chronic illness or other tragedy in any of our lives, I think I can handle all of it better than I can handle almost three months without sleeping more than three hours straight. Whew.

So here I am/we are: Henry is reading and is such a proud older brother, he's just blossoming in so many ways (today when I couldn't look at something he was doing he told me with a shrug, "Okay, but I don't know what you're missing."); Dean is rolling over and babbling and sucking on his hands like they're covered in illicit drugs (I think he might be getting a tooth); Matthew is way too busy but still seems to thrive on the challenge; and I simply can't think of much to complain about...except the weather, I can always complain about summer in South Louisiana. Damn it's hot.

Cleanup on Aisle Five

Well, it finally happened.

Saturday, in a burst of parental optimism, I decided to take both boys with me to the grocery store, my first attempt at such a feat. Everything was going fairly smoothly until we were shopping for the last item on our list, rice. I was trying to find the basmati when Henry said, "Look, Mommy, I found ketchup." I turned around to remind him that we have a "no picking things up" rule at the grocery store. One second after I told him this and also said, that's not ketchup, that's spaghetti sauce, so let's put it back -- CRASH.

For the first millisecond, I simply didn't believe it had happened. My child had not just dropped a glass jar of gourmet spaghetti sauce all over the floor and all over me. I was never going to be THAT MOTHER -- you know, the one who's kids are always running around, making messes, and generally causing everyone in their vicinity to regard them as if they have the swine flu. And yet, there I was, covered in spaghetti sauce, with Henry crying because he had cut his finger and Dean crying because Henry was crying. Believe me, I wanted to be crying, too.

The store employees were remarkably cheerful about the whole thing, and Henry's finger was fine. But I was still completely freaked out and just wanted to get out of that store FAST. So we skipped the rice (pretty much everyone had to skip the rice while they cleaned up the aisle) and I was grateful to find a line with just one other person in it. As I was signing my name on the slip, Dean decided he had had quite enough and began screaming at the top of his lungs. No amount of sweet talking and pacifier-bribing would quiet his crying, which then turned into gagging -- while he was still strapped into the car seat in the grocery cart. So then I had to hastily get him out of the seat while people are standing behind me, waiting to exit the store.

I was shaking by the time we all finally got into the car.

Wow. Now I know how THAT MOTHER feels and I will never again judge her so harshly.

The day ended up pretty well. Henry and I baked a chocloate chip banana cake from scratch -- it took most of the afternoon and at one point I think Dean and I had such a combination of spit up and flour on ourselves I couldn't tell which was which -- but I am glad we did it because it gave me some one-on-one time with Henry, at least while Dean was napping. After Dean went to bed for the evening, Henry and I stayed up and watched "James and the Giant Peach" and ate our cake. At one point Henry said, "Mommy, I love you. And I like you." And later on, he said, "This was a special night." When I asked why, he said it was because we got to bake a cake and watch a movie together.

Days like that make it so much easier to get over the recent turbulence I wrote about last post. He's improved a lot since then. I think maybe his teacher had the same realization we did about moving on to more challenging work, because he started coming home with books to read to us and his school work seemed to have gone to a new level. He can now spell almost anything if it follows phonetic rules and he really seems proud of his ability to read on his own. There were also dramatically fewer time outs reported.

He also did wonderfully in his little final performance for his acting class. It turns out he was the youngest by far. I think Matthew and I sometimes forget what a small child he still is -- seeing him there, surrounded by six year olds, and still managing to hold his own, really reminded us of how he is still a baby in some ways. When he came onstage, walking on tip-toes with his hands near his face like a little mouse, all the other parents went, "Awwww." He was too intimidated to end up playing the part in which he was cast, but he served admirably as the MC, introducing each scene with his teacher by his side. He was so thrilled to be in costume, with his face painted, and he just seemed to love every minute of it. We were so proud of him.

In Dean news, he is now grasping things and rolling over and developing a sense of humor. I got some full belly laughs when I tried sticking his toes in his mouth. He really loves his massage and yoga time, and I do, too -- it definitely helps me feel connected to him and I think will be a nice afternoon ritual when I go back to the office (next week is my last at home).

I am actively working to manage my migraines. They've picked up again since I started working, and tend to peak on Saturdays when I am juggling both boys on my own all day. I have a hard time accepting that they remain such a big factor in my life, but I am making a commitment to maintaining my biofeedback regimen and practicing the Heartmath techniques and just trying to S-L-O-W D-O-W-N every day. Why is relaxing so much effort?

Transitions

Sorry for the hiatus, but resuming work has been a bit of a transition. I think I have the kinks worked out now, at least for the next couple of weeks, after which I'll have another transition as I return to the office.

The first week back was pretty rough, but not for the reasons I expected. Dean and Matthew handled being on their own just fine, and being able to nurse him throughout the day really made me feel connected. It was the actual WORK that was tough -- within an hour of starting work, I had three projects from three different bosses and everyone needed everything ASAP. With only six scheduled working hours a day on my proposed new part-time gig, I was really under the gun. I ended up having a migraine for three days in a row. Once I got everything done, however, things slowed down, and this last week was a more typical, manageable pace.

The other thing that made last week difficult was that Matthew had so many things going on. May is a really busy wedding month for him -- everyone wants their bridal portraits and engagement sessions done when the weather is nice, and of course they also book more weddings then. Last week he had a session -- either a portrait, or in one case, an actual weeknight wedding -- almost every single night of the week, in addition to his regularly scheduled Saturday wedding gig. So that meant right when I finished working, I had to switch into single-mom mode, all with a migraine or the effects of medication resulting therefrom. There was one afternoon in particular when the nitty-gritty of motherhood really hit me in the face. Ultimately, the kids have to eat, and at that moment there was only one person who could feed them, headache or no headache.

But all's well that ends well and this week was pretty good. No migraines, no evening portraits, I got my work done, and we even bought a new car. Yep, we traded in the Jetta station wagon for a six-person Mazda 5. It was a little sentimental letting the Jetta go. It was our first new car ever, and we bought it when I was pregnant with Henry. We brought him home from the hospital in that car, and it's been pretty good to us ever since. But now we have two kids, which means two car seats. And more and more often we were finding ourselves in a bind because we couldn't fit a third -- carpooling would mean Matthew couldn't bring Dean, and that would pretty unworkable once I'm back at the office. Plus, Henry actually has a social life now, yet we could never bring any of his friends anywhere if Dean was going, too, not unless we took two cars. Matthew was adamantly against getting a minivan, and we're not really SUV people, plus they tend to cost more than we wanted to spend. So we ended up with a silver Mazda 5. It's pretty cool, actually. I am most excited about the ipod jack. I realize this is de rigeur on most new cars these days, but the Jetta and the Versa don't have them, so I'm psyched.

Mother's Day was a long day, but a good one. It started with my sleeping in (after a early morning nursing session), followed by a lovely brunch Matthew cooked up, with my Mom bringing over the champagne for Mimosas. Then we spent the day cleaning the yard and the porch and bought some kiddie pools -- one small one to cool our feet on the porch, and another big one for Henry in the yard. It was a low key day, but I still ended up utterly exhausted by the evening, mostly because of issues with Henry. My dear sweet boy is turning into a bit of a behavioral challenge. The sweetness is still there, but there are equal doses of obstinance, flippancy, and sass. Plus, he seems to have inherited Matthew's absentmindedness. Even when he wants to do the right thing, he is easily distracted and often sluggish. He's also been getting "timeouts" at school. It turns out they use these more as cooling off periods for the kids and it isn't always necessarily a punishment, but apparently there are times when he simply will not obey his teacher. Earlier this week she called us to say he had thrown his work on the floor. Matthew and I ended up having a sort of intervention with him when he got home. Usually, he doesn't like to talk about his day right when he walks in from school, though I can often coax details out of him later at bathtime or when we're reading books. But this day we told him no TV (punishment you would think was akin to cutting off his toes), and we were going to talk. It was a revealing conversation, but we are still unsure of the solutions.

I am worried that the Montessori environment is not quite right for him. I thought at first it would be great because he could work independently and at his own pace. But over the past six months, he has gone from being a shy kid to being very outgoing -- he seems to really like group activities and he certainly has no shortage of energy. I think maybe having to sit in one place and do work all day without a lot of interaction with other kids is a bit much for him (you can usually hear a pin drop in his classroom). He also seems to be frustrated by some of his work, and I have to confess I myself can't imagine enjoying the repetitive nature of it, either. As I understand the Montessori philosophy, the kids learn component skills -- fine motor skills, abstract mathematic concepts, phonetic sounds -- before they learn how to integrate these. I know all parents think their kids are brilliant, and I certainly don't want to excuse garden variety bad behavior as being a result of my child's supposed exceptionality, but the fact is Henry tested with a very high IQ when he was evaluated for gifted. I am convinced he would be reading more now (though he's made great leaps in the past month) if he was given a chance to memorize words, rather than just learn phonetic sounds. And I am certain he would like math if he could see the point of it -- he has a very mathematical mind (Spoon in my head) but it seems to me like the work he's doing at school doesn't make a lot of sense to him.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that we have concerns. We're taking the usual steps to address them -- staying in touch with his teachers, doing some behavior modification at home, trying to give him creative outlets like acting class (which he adores), and considering other possibilities for next year and beyond -- but in general it is just unsettling to feel like my little guy is not shining like I believe he could. The teacher sometimes complains that Henry is just "too silly." I can understand her impatience, but his innocent goofiness is one of the things I cherish about him. He is growing up so fast; there is plenty of time to be serious.

The End of Maternity Leave

Today was Dean's first trip to the zoo, as Henry pointed out, unprompted, as we got out of the car. I can't say he was more fascinated with it than he is by the sound of rain falling or the shadows over his changing table, but it was a successful trip nonetheless. Henry, of course, loved it, especially the new animatronic Dinosaur exhibit. I found it mildly reminiscent of the creepy drum-banging bears at the Chuck E. Cheese parties of my childhood, but he was totally into it. He also enjoyed smashing the stinging caterpillars with his shoes. I'm not sure people from outside South Louisiana can understand the menace of these horrid creatures, but they terrorized our childhoods. They are despicable. And they were everywhere, all over the zoo, hanging onto tree trunks, crisscrossing the sidewalks, even lying in wait at the end of the slides and tunnels on the playground. Maybe spraying the trees for them is bad for the zoo animals, or it goes against the zoo's environmental policies. I can only hope that the reason they did not exterminate them (as a bunch of neighbors banded together in our neighborhood to do this season) was not the one a zookeeper gave us as we instructed Henry to stomp on one: "Oh, no, don't kill it, it's a living creature." Only by the grace of my foot, you nincompoop. It's like keeping a wasp nest in a swingset -- there's a time and place for all creatures, I suppose, but a zoo playground is not one of them.

Anyway...

Matthew is in the kitchen chopping up some zucchini, fresh from our garden, for supper. Dean is napping, and Henry and I are both in the office, he playing computer games on Matthew's computer while I blog. Rain is falling (finally) gently outside. It's a mellow end to my three and half months of maternity leave. Tomorrow I start working again, albeit from home. Next month I'll be back in the office, hopefully on a reduced schedule I am still negotiating. It's because of the potential for that schedule that I think I am less freaked out than I might otherwise be about returning to work. Nevertheless, I am still feeling melancholic this evening. I cannot conceive of another time in my life when I will be off work for so long, short of retirement. Not that I have spent the time eating bon bons, but it has been nice to have this time, especially since the first two and half months were difficult, with the sleeplessness, migraines, and just general assault on normalcy that is life with a newborn. Being home and being the primary caretaker to Dean has meant I've gotten to fully bond with my little guy, to learn his likes and dislikes, his tickle spots and favorite games, the cry that means tired and the cry that means bored. I am just so in love with him.

I have two sons. This still seems both thrilling and strange to me. My experience of the "baby blues" this time (not to be confused with the more serious depression that only set in weeks later) was focused on how Dean is my last baby, my last newborn. The pain of this knowledge was so raw and piercing those first couple of weeks. I sometimes held him in my arms, rocking his sweet little body, crying until the wispy hairs on his head were soaking.

Time (and the misery of waking every two to three hours for two months) soothed some of that grief. Of course I know I could just decide to try again for another child -- but for ever so many reasons I know that is not going to happen. It was hard to conceive Henry, even harder to conceive Dean, and then there were the actual pregnancies themselves, fraught with pain and depression. I have two happy, healthy children, which is more than many people ever get. Even though it is not what I had in mind for so many years and even though it requires some emotional acceptance, it is enough.

In a way, the end of this maternity leave gives me an opportunity to reflect on all the good that is in my life. I feel like I have beein trying to get to this point for at least two years. Once I finally felt ready to be pregnant again, my polysyctic ovarian syndrome made conception very challenging -- drugs and doctors and my constant worry that I was doing the right thing weighed on me for months. Then we turned to adoption, going through all the interviews and paperwork and spending more money than I care to think about, only to have to abort the whole enterprise when international agreements feel through. Then it was back to fertility treatments. Dean was conceived on our last official "try", when I insisted on trying Clomid one more time, even though my doctor didn't hold out hope and the other drugs had not worked. I was so afraid something would go wrong throughout the whole pregnancy, especially when I had to medicate to get through the migraines.

And now, here he is, apparently healthy, unarguably happy, irrepressibly cute. I have two beautiful sons. I have a loving husband who is a terrific father. I have a job I actually like, a comfortable house in a neighborhood I love, and I am no longer feeling so weighed down by depression that I can't appreciate and enjoy these wonderful things.

So, yes, I am sad about maternity leave ending. But really, I have much to celebrate.

The Joy of Closets

We had a very busy and exciting weekend. The new closet is finished! "New" implies that there was something closet-like there before, which there wasn't. Matthew basically tore down/converted an old kitchen into the floor plan for our master bathroom and walk-in closet. The bathroom is not finished yet (the tiling and painting are done, but the toilet and vanity aren't yet installed...or even selected) but the plywood wall between the bedroom and the new space was finally ready to come down on Saturday, so that we could move our clothing from the piles of boxes and makeshift shelves in our bedroom and guestroom into the lovely carpeted closet, with bright white shelves painted last weekend by Matthew and Henry. It is glorious to see everything neatly folded and hung in its place and have that chaos out of our bedroom. Plus, I can now easily get to the washer and dryer. Prior to the start of the renovation project, I always was in charge of laundry, and although its not a task I relish, I like doing it my own way and not having to ask Matthew to deal with it. So now I can get all Dean's spit-up drenched clothes and bibs washed whenever I want. Ah, the little things that make one happy.

Once the clothing and shoes were moved into the new space, we had room in other areas of the house to rearrange other stuff, so yesterday we tackled reorganizing the guest room and the walk-in pantry (which basically serves as our only other closet). We also culled a lot of clothes and household items, which I am planning to drive over to Covenant House this afternoon to donate. And now I have space in the guest room to store some of Henry's toys -- it's been really hard on him having to wait until the baby as awake to get his things out of his room, so now he'll have stash on hand and the space in which to play with it. There are still more boxes than I care to count, filled mostly with books, and stacks of decorative items and wall hangings jumbled in corners, but those will have to wait until we can redo the guest room.

One of the wonderful things about getting all this done this weekend is that I won't be distracted by it when I start working from home next week. Yes, materrnity leave is about to be over. I have mixed feelings about it. When I ask myself if I would rather be a full time stay-at-home Mom than work part-time, the answer is (somewhat surprisingly) No. I really like my job (most of the time) and the sense of competence it gaves me in an area outside domestic life. On the other hand, if I ask myself if I am really ready to go back to work NOW, the answer is also No. But since I'm not sure I could ever say for sure that I am ready, and given the answer to the first question, I think I have to just jump back in as planned.

I think it will be emotionally difficult working from home this next month. It's an arrangement I negotiated in order to have more flexibility to nurse Dean (he still eats seven times a day) and I'll go back to the office on a regular basis the following month. I think it's a good plan, but it will be challenging not being the one caring for him during the day. We've developed such a nice little routine. He usually (which is a relative term, defined as "for the last five days") sleeps until between 7:30 and 8:30 (I know, amazing) and then I feed him and play with him on his mat (he just discovered his hands and loves to bat at things), then I move him to the baby papasan and let him listen to its horrible music and watch me while I clean the kitchen. Then we go into the bedroom for his massage. Then, if the weather is nice, we sit on the front porch and watch the neighbors pass by and the mockingbird parents flit around, guarding their babies. Then it's time for his nap. On a good day (like today) he'll sleep for an hour and half or more, so I can clean the rest of the house, brush my teeth and basically make myself presentable, and catch up on e-mails and household business. Then he's awake again and we spend the rest of the day doing pretty much the same stuff, usually going for a walk with Henry once he's home from school.

I was mostly motivated to get him sleeping through the night early by the need to control the migraines, but the other benefit (beside the sheer pleasure of sleeping seven or eight hours in a row) is that it has given me the chance to enjoy this time. Rather than merely surviving, which is how the first ten weeks felt, for the past few weeks I've been able to feel like a human being, to find humor and joy in the day, and to delight in him. And I've been able to accomplish a lot of other personal goals, like visiting my grandfather in Baton Rouge and friends I haven't seen in a while, getting things around the house organized, and even catching up on some reading. I know things will get more complicated once I am working again. But I am going to try very hard to maintain some of this sense of calm, the appreciation for the gentle unfolding of each day, the grace to recognize (especially in the witching hour of the evening, when Dean is crankier and Henry's energy leaves me breathless) that this is a temporary time of my life, one to cherish and have the patience to enjoy, knowing that falling into bed exhausted at the end of each day because of energy spent caring for my boys is really more of a gift than anything else.

Good Things

It's amazing the difference a week or two can make in the life of a newborn...and his mother. Dean is now the happy, adaptable, adorable baby his big brother was at this age. And...drum roll, please...he has started sleeping through the night. I was going to put that in caps, but I thought it might be tempting fate. Even writing it at all makes me want to knock on all available wood. But for the past week he has slept from his 11:00 pm feeding straight through to six or seven a.m. I feel like a new human being! And although we've been making a concerted effort to keep him on his regular eat-play-nap schedule, his nighttime sleep habits seem immune to the activities of the day -- we dragged him to French Quarter Festival two days in a row, followed by a trip yesterday to a birthday party in Madisonville for Henry's friends, and he still got a good night's sleep. I am so relieved.

And -- more knocking on wood -- I have not had a migraine since I started taking the Zoloft. That's almost three weeks now. I guess my brain really needed the seratonin bath. I still stand by my decision not to take anti-depressants during the pregnancy, but I do wonder what difference it would have made in the migraine frequency and intensity. Oh, well, no regrets, just so happy to be pain-free again for the first time in months.
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My friend Rachel just gave me a t-shirt that says "Motherhood is not for sissies" and I have been wearing it proudly. It's funny -- motherhood (and parenting) is so commonplace, it is so easy to take for granted what a difficult job it is. And yet I can think of nothing more challenging. Being a parent requires use of all your faculties, all your virtues, and the suppression of ever-so-many vices. Taking care of Henry and Dean these past few months has really stretched my emotional capacities. I haven't been writing about Henry much on here, but I really should, he is undergoing a transformation almost as dramatic as Dean's. A few weeks ago I signed him up for an acting class for preschoolers. Not for the reasons one might guess -- I really don't care if he develops any skill or passion for it -- but just because it seemed like a good way to channel his energies and give him the creative outlet I'm not sure he's getting at school. I was a little worried about how he would adjust -- except for school, we've never dropped him off at any activity before. And my fears were justified -- the first day, when Matthew brought him, he clung to Matthew's legs and would not separate under any circumstances. Matthew and I had to convene once they returned and figure out how to handle it. Certainly we didn't want to force him to do something he hated, and I didn't want to traumatize him with separation anxiety. But we felt confident that he could do it, that he could get over his fears and that he would actually like the class once he got used to it. And we wanted him to have that confidence in himself, too. If we had let him quit, we thought it might make him think he couldn't handle new situations. So I spent a good deal of time talking to him about the class, and about how sure I was that he could do it. He maintained that he couldn't, and that he would not participate, but he did agree that he would try it again the next week. And I thought that was a good start. So the next week I brought him. The whole car trip he kept saying he didn't think he could do it, and I calmly repeated that I thought he could. We did a quick goodbye at the class and I waited to see if the teacher would call if he melted down irretrievably. But it didn't happen. And when his daddy picked him up an hour later, he was actually excited, and very very proud of himself. He's now learning lines to be the "ant" in the play, and the teacher says he's doing great. So score one for Henry.

Henry is so bright and articulate and emotionally in tune with others that our next big challenge is figuring out a balance of adult-time and kid-time. He wants to be a part of all our conversations, constantly asking what we're talking about and even chiming in with, "That's right" and "I know" even when he's NOT being included in the dialogue and has no clue what we're discussing. On one hand, this is kind of cute and I know he comes by it naturally -- Matthew and I have both been told we were more comfortable with adults than with other kids when we were his age. But on the other hand, it can be annoying and seems to verge on inappropriate. I don't want to hurt his feelings, but he has to learn boundaries. His interest in adult things is combined with a quickly developing sense of entitlement that is DEFINITELY not appropriate, and which we are working earnestly to curb. But overall it indicates to me that he is really growing up, really learning to express his own desires and interests, and at this point I am mostly grateful that this maturity allows him to delight in Dean and be incredibly understanding and helpful, rather than resentful or competitive. I hope they are always as happy with each other -- no one can get a smile from Dean as quickly as Henry.

Life seems to be getting into a rhythm and I am feeling so happy about my beautiful boys and my lovely city. There is no place like New Orleans in spring, especially during festival season. The sunshine, the birdsong, the brass bands, the crawfish...it's hard not to appreciate all the good things on a warm day in April.

Settling In

It's been about ten days since I started the Zoloft, and I am feeling better. I still don't feel as happy as I believe I have cause to feel, but I am no longer crying every day and everything just basically feels surmountable, where before it felt impossible. I also haven't had a migraine since I started taking it -- and that has gone a long way toward making me feel more in control of my daily life and outlook.

Dean is just delightful these days, smiling and generally becoming more "settled." I remember that happening with Henry at this stage -- in the space of a couple of weeks, he went from being a baby I described in my diary as "never happy" to being content and comfortable in our routines. Dean is proving to be pretty adaptable and easygoing, as our frequent hiking in the Smokies suggested he would be. Yesterday we took him to the Hornets game, along with Henry and Bob, and he just sat there, taking it all in, nursing when it was time, and then sleeping blissfully through the screaming as the Hornets whupped the Mavericks. Then we drove across the lake for a casual Easter dinner with Matthew's parents and left Henry there for the night. It was nice to be the parents to just one child for an evening, though the disrupted schedule yesterday had Dean waking up a lot more last night. At least when he was fussing we didn't have to usual worry of him waking up Henry in the next bed.

Today Dean and I took our first stroller walk (up to now, I've been taking him around the neighborhood in the Bjorn). He wasn't too happy with the arrangement at first, but once we started moving the bumps and breezes lulled him to sleep. The only problem (and I realize that for parents whose newborn never sleeps, this hardly seems like a problem) was that he feel asleep two hours before his next scheduled feeding. I knew he would not sleep straight through that stretch, and sure enough he woke up and resisted going back to sleep. I had to make a decision -- let him get up cranky and thinking he was due a meal, or have our first "cry it out" session. He was clearly tired and in need of more snoozing, so I decided to let him cry. It was really tough, and I'm not sure I'll continue with it, but with me standing next to him shushing and offering the pacifier, he eventually did tire himself out and drift off and has now been sleeping for a good half hour. There are so many decisions like that, all day long, never knowing for sure if you're making the "right" call. I've learned to just go on instinct and try to be consistent, and remember that there's nothing that can't be undone. It also helps that I have a happy and healthy four-year old grinning at me half the time, a testament that I at least managed to "get it right" once before and have a good chance of doing so again.

Getting There

I've been on hiatus, for both practical and emotional reasons. On the practical level, we've been BUSY. After Rach and Phil left, we hopped in the car for a two day drive to the Smokies, stopping at Rock City and Lookout Mountain along the way. We were at the cabin for a week and then made the 12 hour drive home (normally ten and a half, but nursing a newborn slows you down a bit) in one day. One VERY long day.

Then we had a lovely but busy rest of the week and a wonderful weekend, going to the Algiers Riverfest and having our friends Allison and Christian and their new baby boy, Pascal, over for the fest and some impromptu crawfish ettoufee. Today is the first day I've had a moment to sit down with the computer for more than two minutes (tho Dean probably senses this and is about to wake from his mid-morning nap).

There were some cherished memories made in the Smokies. Although I spent the first twenty-four hours sick with food poisoning (bad red beans and rice from a Popeyes on the way up) and had to deal with a couple of migraines while I was there, we managed to hike with the boys almost every day (Laurel Falls, Gatlinburg Trail, a trail I can't remember off the Roaring Fork motor tour, and our annual favorite, the Little River trail). Henry just loved it, especially running ahead of us and hiding behind trees so he could jump out and "surprise" us. Bob came with us and was Henry's favorite scare victim (she was a really good sport, sounding believably surprised even on the tenth "Boo!"). I loved thinking about how much fun it will be when Dean is older and we can all go on real hikes together, to some of the ones Matthew and I loved doing when we lived in Tennessee -- Andrew's Bald comes to mind -- and camping along the river in summer.

Our friends Jason and Ellen were with us for most of the week, and Ellen treated us to a fabulous home cooked meal every single night. This made life so much easier, as Matthew and Bob were available to help with Henry and Dean. Dean started really "waking up" out of his newborn phase during the week, smiling and cooing more often, and he was really a pretty easy baby most of the time, falling asleep in the Bjorn as we toted him around the mountains. He also likes being in the car seat -- Henry hated it and screamed almost our whole trip when we made this trek with him when hewas two months old -- but Dean usually fell asleep within five minutes of a drive and would only cry when he was hungry. But, boy, did he cry then. We had to stop a couple of times in really remote places just so I could make sure he was not going to choke to death while screeching.

Perhaps my favorite memory of the trip was when Henry learned to ice skate. I had tears in my eyes, I was so proud of him. It was a little like watching your child learn to walk, except accelerated -- he went from hanging on to the rail for dear life to scooting around the ice on his own in barely over an hour. Matthew was a very patient teacher while I had Dean on my chest and video recorded the experience for posterity. I was so impressed with the way Henry kept getting up and trying again after each time he fell, big irrepressible grin on his face each time. It seemed like he was experiencing pure joy, just loving the challenge, the novelty, and laughing every time he collapsed between his Daddy's legs.

But I can't pretend that everything over the past few weeks has been sweetness and light. The truth is I have been dealing with some serious depression for about a month now. I feel like it started before my sister came for her visit but really revealed its depth when she left. I spent the three or four days afterward crying at the drop of a hat, all day long. Perhaps what disturbed me most was the fact that I realized I was sometimes going a whole day without really talking to Dean or interacting with him. I changed his diapers, nursed him, rocked him to sleep, but I was too tired and depressed to muster a smile or chat for him. And I realized this was maybe more than a brief dip in my mood when Henry saw me crying -- when I told him that Mommy was just having a bad day and would feel better soon, he said, 'Yes, but then you always get sad again and that worries me." Matthew was worried, too, and I started to think that I should get some help. I talked with a couple of close mom friends who told me about their own experiences with post partum depression and what they described really seemed to match what I was feeling. One friend, whose judgment and good sense I trust almost more than anyone else in the world, told me that when she finally went on an anti-depressant when her last child was born, she wished she had done it with her first two, because he was the first child whose infancy she enjoyed. I was concerned about taking drugs while breastfeeding, but my OB assured me it would be fine. And the fact is that if I relied on my own internal resources to get through this, which I've always done in the past, it could be half of Dean's little life before the depression lifts, and I have to weigh the impact on his emotional development against any riskk the medication could pose to him. Considering everything, I decided it would be best to go on Zoloft for a while.

I'm still very ambivalent about it. I haven't taken medication to deal with depression in thirteen years. It sort of feels like a cop out, especially since I feel confident that once I can get some regular sleep under my belt and Dean gets through the fourth trimester, a lot of this sadness and despair will evaporate. I mean, doesn't everyone with a newborn get worn out and depressed at some point? Should we really be medicating a natural, and temporary, state of mind? On the other hand, I did read that 75% of women who experience depression during pregnancy will also have post-partum depression, and there is no question I was very depressed during the pregnancy. So maybe my emotional synapses got into a bit of a rut -- if this medication will help me get on a new path sooner, so that I can be to newborn Dean the engaged, present mother I was to Henry at this age, I believe it's the right thing to do.

I have felt better over this past week. I'm not sure how much of it is the Zoloft, how much is the renewed confidence I got from a visit with the biofeedback therapist who helped so much during the pregnancy, and how much is the simple fact that Dean is getting easier to handle and more endearing every day. I marvel at his delicate beauty, sweet temperament, and especially the heart-stopping smiles he gives to Henry. The migraines have also been better the past few days, so I'm sure that's helping, too. If Dean can just start sleeping regularly through the night (a feat he has managed once, so I am keeping my fingers crossed we'll be there soon), I feel I can finally enjoy all the sweetness in my life right now.