Telling Time

Jack today, pretending to answer the phone:

Yeth, we can do dat. Otay, Nonna and Pops, you will be 'ere at thirty o'clock? Atter bedtime? Otay. Bye bye.

Halloween post of the train engineer tomorrow.

Combatting Commercial Influences Already

Jack and I had this conversation in the grocery store this morning:

Momma: Hmmmm... what kind of waffles should we get, Jack?

Jack: I wan de Cookie Monster ones.

Momma: Seriously? That's already starting? How old are you?

Jack: I am two, Momma! (as if I had asked him the silliest, most obvious question ever)

Momma: (before looking at the nutritional information and content) Honey, I'm not sure that the Cookie Monster ones would taste very good. You might not like them, even though they have Cookie Monster on the box.

Jack: Dey will! De Cookie Monster wattles WILL taste yumdee.

Momma: (with relief, discovering that Sesame Street has at least some scruples about what foods it associates itself with, as the first ingredient is whole wheat, there's no corn syrup, the preservatives are minimal, and it's even organic) You know what, these are a good for you green light food. Let's get them.

Jack: (very seriously, as if I had just learned something very important from him) Yeth. Dey will taste yumdee. An dey are a greee ligh foo.

I felt vaguely as if I was in a PBS TV ad.

And I made a note to myself to remember The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood in our annual end of the year giving.

As a side note, pressure from that organization, the CCFC, has led to Disney offering full refunds to anyone who has bought a Baby Einstein DVD in the past 5 years. A few years ago the CCFC filed an FTC complaint that led to Disney withdrawing their (completely unscientific) claims that their DVDs were "educational" for babies, and this is just a further, but incredibly impressive, extension of that admission. Turns out studies now show that though educational TV can be helpful (in some environments, very helpful) to development in preschoolers, any screen media time (including so-called educational DVDs for babies) is actually harmful to infant and toddler development. Plus they're mind numbingly boring--the Baby Einstein videos are just strings of 5 second clips of toys and household objects in motion, things most babies would see and be interested in in real life but not in 2D on a screen. The American Association of Pediatrics recommends no TV time at all for children under two, yet American infants (children under 12 months) watch an average of an hour of TV a day. Check the first CCFC link for information on how to return DVDs.

Exciting Explanations

So I've been off blogging for a while. And a big part of it is because of some very exciting news:

We're having a baby!!!

Baby #2 is due April 25--not quite two weeks after Jack's third birthday and a mere 3 days after Ben turns 30. April will be a busy month.

So for those who are counting weeks, that means I'm 12 weeks pregnant already. Into the second trimester (thank goodness!), and past the worst fatigue and nausea, although that was even easier than last time. I know it's probably silly to keep such good news quiet for so long, but I've been struck recently by anecdotal reminders that up to 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. A friend of mine miscarried at 11 weeks, a neighbor discovered an ectopic pregnancy at 6 weeks, and an old high school friend miscarried at 9 weeks, all three of those happening in the two months since we found out our baby is on the way. In thinking about how hard it must be for those couples to have to repeatedly retract all the happy announcements they had made, we decided only to tell those people we would talk with if I had a miscarriage.

Difficult, though, to blog about other things when the joy of the new baby pervaded every communication I've deemed worthy of blogging. Well, that and the fact that I haven't had much time for blogging as I've done practically nothing for the past two months except eat and sleep. The cleanliness (or rather lack of) of our house is a huge testament to that. Already up 10 pounds and starting to be forced into maternity wear, although a few (very kind or very visually challenged) friends say they can't tell yet. I'm just starting to give up needing to nap every second Jack does.

But after a second OB appointment today, I'm fairly confident saying this pregnancy is going very well and risks for something life-threatening happening to the baby are way, way down. The heartbeat was strong today, and all my bloodwork came back within normal ranges. Amazingly, I'm also fairly certain I've already started feeling the baby move. All the pregnancy books say most women start feeling movement around 16-20 weeks, which makes me sound completely nuts. But a few nights ago the kicks got so intense that I insisted Ben put his hand on my belly. His very skeptical look (if I'm not supposed to be feeling it internally yet, how on earth would he externally?) quickly changed to one of awe. I'm thinking that was corroboration.

Jack seems to have taken my lethargy and moodiness mostly in stride, and for that I credit in large part Richard Trevethick, inventor of the first steam locomotive. Since summer, what began as Jack's strong interest in trains has become a complete obsession for him. We long ago finished reading through every train book in the Brentwood and University City libraries, including those written on 3rd grade+ reading levels, the kind that explain the function of every single part of the train. And yet, every time we go to a library or bookstore or friend's house or even the grocery store (you think I'm kidding), Jack says, "Maydee dey will had a good train book dere. We'll see!" The train set has taken up permanent residence on our living room floor and provides a good 2 hours of entertainment for us almost every day.

He, of course, doesn't quite get all the implications of my pregnancy yet. He's given the baby a few kisses. He understood today that we were going to the doctor to see if the baby was okay. He heard the heartbeat going "ka-bump, ka-bump, ka-bump" and asked, "Is that the baby?" But the bump isn't really there yet, and even when it is, it's still a far jump from that to "We're going to have a new person in our house forever now." Fortunately a good friend of mine, whose son is a few weeks older than Jack is due with her second baby six weeks before me. Yeah, if you're charting that on a calendar, that's new baby for them (2 weeks), Jack's friend's birthday (2 weeks), Jack's birthday (2 weeks), new baby for us. I foresee some slap-dash third birthday parties in our future, accompanied by prayers of, "Please, please, please don't let the baby's first entrance disrupt with his/her big brother's birthday celebration!" I don't envision that being a good start to a smooth sibling relationship.

Also heard over the past few days: this entire sentence from Jack, "Momma, I would like to listen to the Goodbye music on your computer while I am eating my pizza at the table." I think he's mastered the English language.

In another development from this week that normally would warrant its own banner headline post, but is, in light of other news, a mere postscript, Jack may have given up his bah-bah for good! Two nights and two naps without one, and all without tears! And it definitely wasn't Jack's idea to give it up--it was all me and I didn't ask for his input or warn him ahead of time. Kind of out of character with my normal parenting style, but in this particular situation it appears to have worked well for all involved. Yet another reason to take some, leave some of every parenting manual's suggestions. Even those I consider nothing short of child abuse (Gina Ford, Babywise) at least have at base (an incredibly warped view of) the idea that some form of structure/routine is good for the sanity of parent and child.

The reason for my drastic bah-bah zero tolerance policy? A ballooning three-binky-at-a-time habit complete with color preference request lists ("I need a pink bah-bah and a boo bah-bah and a yeddow bah-bah!" He had also started to blur the bed-only boundaries, which caused me to have to say upwards of 50 times a day, "I can't understand you with your bah-bah in your mouth. You need to take it out of your mouth. All the way out. Good. Now can you say that again?" The entire series every time got a little old, and I was really starting to fear for Jack's speech development. Fingers crossed this isn't just a false blip of hope like early potty training success appears to have been...

Good Question...

There are sleep issues in our house again. Nothing like when I first started the blog--the months-long pattern of nighttime waking every hour or two then was mind-alteringly horrible because of my inability to get any REM sleep for weeks on end. The toddler sleep disturbance we're facing now is also rough but in more of a Momma's-going-to-scream-if-she-doesn't-get-a-break way, not a Momma-needs-to-sleep-for-days way.

Jack's refusal to nap last Sunday was apparently only the beginning. Yesterday I struggled from 1:30 until 3:30 to get a very tired toddler to stay in bed, close his eyes, and be quiet. For at least half of that time, I heard a refrain of, "Jack trying to sleep, Momma!" every 5 seconds. Precious if you're reading it (especially imagining the sweet earnesty with which he said it); precarious if you're hearing it for the thousandth time. Yesterday afternoon was a patience endurance test and I only barely survived. After a two hour struggle of getting up and down and closing and opening doors, as a last resort I put Jack into the Ergo Baby sling. When he was very young, Jack used to take at least one nap a day in the sling while I walked around London or just around our flat, so I figured it was worth trying. Yesterday I walked around (which he liked) holding him tightly against my chest and refusing to let him wiggle around or get playful (which he decidedly did not like). Ten minutes later he was fast asleep.

This morning he woke up at 5:30. Bleary-eyed, I took him for a run in the jogging stroller so that Ben, who was up late working last night, could sleep in. Within the first three blocks it seemed like we had already seen half a dozen people walking their dogs. After contorting his head so that he could look up at me through the window of the stroller's canopy, Jack gave me a puzzled look and asked, "Where's Jack's dog?" Ahem. The little boy who has pined for a dog for at least a year has now developed the ability to ask for one. He spent the rest of the run deciding what kind of dog he wanted. For the record, he wants a "niddle one" like Aunt Rachel's dog. According to Jack it would live inside our house in the upstairs. Jack would "pat pat pat" it, throw a ball for it like he does with Miss Kelly's dog Peyton, and ask if it wanted food or wanted to go for a run. It seems he's thought about this before.

The following is a gratuitous photo montage of an afternoon playing with trains which is intended to make up for the lack of pictures in recent weeks/months (Do I ever seem to have any kind of picture post other than a completely unrelated montage lately? My camera is getting a lot less use than it was a year ago.). This was during a day that Jack insisted he did not need to wash his face. In case you hadn't noticed, there are independence-related conversations bubbling up at least every 30 minutes now.

Heard Around Our House

Jack now talks nonstop. Nonstop. Nonstop. And exactly that way--repeating everything several times in a row just to be sure we've heard him clearly. Yesterday was a disastrous example of what this new-found verbosity can mean. We foolishly tried to go to Latin Mass at a different church, and the stares from the almost exclusively over-70 and otherwise completely silent congregation seemed to go along the lines of, "Well in my day I would never have let a child behave that way!" And then naptime didn't happen at all because Jack had too much to say. No, he's not ready to give up naps--it's a one-time thing, and it was not a fun one.

But in every other situation Jack's talking is sooo much fun--now I can get comments and even a few questions in response to my communications! In fact, I've got so many make me laugh comments built up over the past few weeks that I plan on blogging them one at a time every day or two (maybe that will get me back into regular blogging?) until I run out. I'm sure more will build up in the meantime.

Other times, his train of thought is very obvious. As I told Pops that Jack had devoured a "C-O-O-K-I-E" the day before, Jack chimed in, "H I J K L M N O P?" in exactly the same intonation and rhythm.

The ones I find most funny are the comments Jack makes when he understands something I'm saying to someone else but doesn't understand what I'm communicating. Sometimes these responses take a little detective work to figure out. A few weeks ago I was talking to Nonna on the phone about one of my friends getting a doctorate, when Jack starting repeatedly saying, "Kabump, kabump." After a few minutes of questioning I realized that Jack was making his heartbeat sound effect, so I got out his toy medical kit and stethoscope. It was only then that I realized he had started saying that because he heard me say "doctorate." As I asked if that was what he had been thinking, the biggest grin came over his face. Whether it was pride in his ability to communicate or in silly Momma to understand him I don't know, but I'll take it either way.