jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

Almost down to single digits, y’all. I am happy to have arrived in that place where labor is a welcome experience, just so I can get a little bit of my body back. I’m ready to haul this little guy around on the outside rather than nestling him up under my lungs. And, of course, I’m ready to meet him. He’s more rambunctious than Alden was and I’m so curious to know if that will translate.

My mom has arrived, and not a moment too soon. Alden gave us five nights in a row of 3am fit throwing and I was starting to hope for the sweet release of death. Yesterday she hustled him off to the mall playground and engaged in a 3.5-hour forced fun session that finally ended when he laid on the floor and sighed, “Go home please.” Finally, he slept through the night. There never was a more grateful mommy.

I’ve started looking at every pesky thing on my work calendar and thinking, “Huh, maybe I’ll go into labor and I won’t have to attend that meeting.”

So, yeah, it’s all about the waiting now. I’m also pretty tickled with the timing, as maternity leave will coincide with all the new fall shows. I shall nurse to the rhythm of Dancing With the Stars. Anything else I shouldn’t miss?

The baby, he has turned. Hooray! I’d love to say it was something I did, but it wasn’t. Shortly after I started fretting I felt some major movement. The acupuncturist said, “Don’t do a thing. You can turn a baby breech just like you can turn a baby upside down.” So I tabled everything until we got another ultrasound, and that’s when we got the good news.

Tomorrow I’ll be 37 weeks. It’s so nice to be in the home stretch. Doc is projecting seven pounds at delivery and that it won’t be any time in the next few days. I know both of those things are simply educated guesses, but they work for me fine so I’m putting them in the ‘win’ column as well.

The other night Alden put his arms around me and said, “Don’t worry Mommy. I gotcha.” I can hardly stand the sweetness.

Tomorrow I will probably be complaining about work or my hips or the heat, but today life feels awfully good.

I think I’ve got the right Friends to answer this too-specific-for-Kellymom question:

Alden is still nursing at night. I know, I said we were going to stop that. He has entirely weaned himself during the day (Awesome, the total reverse of what I was trying). And he will go to sleep for Damon. But if it’s me putting him down, nursing it must be. He will often wake up during the night and ask to nurse — maybe twice. It usually only takes about 30 seconds to do the trick. I don’t know if he’ll hang on longer once I’m making baby milk again or not. I honestly don’t know if he’s getting anything now.

Up until now I’ve been thinking it’s neutral to good because it should help get my production up. I have never been one of those fortune fountain-of-milk moms. But now I’m worried about those first few days/weeks when I may not be making much. What if I nurse him and five minutes later the baby needs to eat? Am I worrying over nothing or is the baby going to wither like a fall leaf?

I’ve been very reluctant to hurry Alden along his path. For a few reasons. The first is that he’s generally independent. He moves along without a lot of fuss. The only thing that will get him truly worked up is being denied nursing when he asks. Since he’s normally so agreeable and redirect-able I’m left to infer that this is something he still needs. The second is that we both enjoy it. We’re apart all day most days. Those few minutes in the middle of the night are kind of precious.

Last time we tried to night wean was about six months ago. We all talked about it then. Alden’s pediatrician was the one who convinced me to leave it alone. He said Alden seemed already on his way and if it wasn’t any real hardship to me then he’d just let nature continue to take its course.

Damon thinks I should head back to the guest room for a few nights. Which could work. But eventually I’ll be back to bed. How to explain to a 22-month-old that I’m not going to nurse him anymore? Especially when he’s about to see me feeding the baby in the night. Moving Alden out of our bed is not an option. Both because his room is far from ours, and because we love having him in our bed and he loves being there.

Any thoughts are much appreciated.

I’m proud to say that I just managed my first overnight away from Alden. Damon’s sister graduated and the two of them went to Kentucky yesterday to celebrate with her. They’re on their way back now. I didn’t go, because I maintain that 8.5 months pregnant women should not be forced into long car trips under any but the most dire of circumstances.

I was anxious and even a little bit tearful in the lead up to their departure. It’s not that I think Damon can’t handle Alden without me. Far from it. But having so much distance between us made me uncomfortable. What if there’s an accident? You know. But I felt a little better as soon as they were on the road, and much better once they were safely at his sister’s house.

It was amazing to have such a long stretch of time to myself. Most days I get something between nothing and half an hour. I made very good use of my time by: took all the baby stuff down from the top of our closet, cleaned out half my clothes, separated out a bunch of maternity clothes that are ready for donation or consignment, hooked up a new iPod dock, moved Alden’s bed, cleaned off my bookshelf, put the old iPod dock on Free Stuff, got all the clutter off the dining room table, arranged all the kid shoes, hats, blankets, diapers, and socks, went to see Julie and Julia, trimmed an out-of-control bush in the front yard, almost finished my book, watched In Bruges, knocked a few items off the Tivo queue and the podcast list, bought an adorable baby mobile, and ordered from my favorite Chinese restaurant.

The guys did great, of course. Alden and his three-year-old cousin Audrey played relentlessly until they dropped just after 10. It was a little harder through the night. Damon said Alden woke up about every hour and asked for me, but he also went back down pretty willingly with some patting and shushing.

I was most interested to hear how Alden did with his baby cousin (6 months old) Tristan. He has almost no experience with babies. He always seems to be the youngest kid in the room. Damon said his response was mixed, trending toward “I think not.” Mostly he ignored Tristan. But a few times he saw Damon holding Tristan and ran over to either say, “Daddy, no!” or “Carry! Carry!” which is his cue to be picked up. Also, he’s gotten (mostly) good at sharing and will now hand over a toy after a few minutes by saying “Mommy’s turn” or “Harper’s turn.” He was outraged that Tristan didn’t understand. Sharing, by the way, does not extend to bouncy balls and those have to be put away when other kids are around.

I can’t wait for them to get home, where I don’t intend to share either of them for the rest of the weekend.

Damon and I eat a lot of Japanese food, which means a lot of restaurants since I don’t know how to make Japanese food. I could learn. I should learn. But I’m not confident with fish. I didn’t eat it at all for about eight years and it was during that time that I was learning what to do in the kitchen.

But that’s not what I wanted to mention.

Last night we went to a new Japanese restaurant we’ve gone to maybe five times since it opened near our house. As is true of most restaurants in Knoxville, the wait staff is remarkably friendly. Alden serves as an excellent ice breaker in general, and nowhere so well as in Asian restaurants. I don’t know why, but those waitresses (and one time a waiter) are crazy for him and it’s not unusual for him to vanish for a while, riding in their arms.

That’s also not what I wanted to mention.

Last night we finished eating and Damon took Alden off to look at some colored tiles on the other side of the room. When the waitress came by with the check, I started rummaging for the credit card. She said to me, “The boss isn’t here.” I could not figure out what she was trying to tell me, so I just pointed a pleasantly blank face at her, waiting for the …and I can’t make the credit card machine work. or …so I’m going to let you super-cool folks sneak out without paying. or … I just had no idea. Then she followed with, “That’s okay, you can wait until he gets back to pay.” Damon was the boss! She didn’t want me to fret about the bill, since my boss husband wasn’t here to take care of it.

This reminded me of our visit to another Japanese restaurant a few months ago. We’ve been going there since we moved and they’ve gotten to know us. Our waitress came to the table at one point and asked where Damon and Alden had gone. I told her Damon had gone off to change a diaper. The look of surprise on her face was hilarious. She said, “Does he always do that?!?!?!?” I wasn’t 100% sure I was following her, so I said, “Change diapers? Um, yeah, he changes lots of diapers.” She laughed and laughed, clearly delighted and a little scandalized.

I don’t mean to pick on Japanese people. Of course every culture embraces different values, including those of gender roles. I would say each of these young women had been in the US long enough to have good conversational English (which, in reverse, would probably take me about 15 years) but were likely educated outside North America.

Closer to home, I had a conversation with a male friend yesterday. He asked me if I had seen the previews for a new TV show that is supposed to be a male answer to the Bravo Housewives series. The Something Househusbands of Something or Other. He figured I’d be interested, since Damon is a stay-at-home dad. I told him I was vaguely aware of the show and he said something like, “They show all these clips of these guys running around doing I-can’t-remember-what. They’re picking up toys, chasing kids.” and then not sixty seconds later he said, “They’re basically all kept men.”

Lucky Damon. I wonder how kept he feels while he’s changing diapers, building playhouses, making lunch, mowing grass, running errands, power-washing the porch, doing laundry, comparison shopping for a vacuum…

Tell me, my stay-at-home-mom friends, how nice is it to be kept? (Assuming it must work in reverse, no?) That must explain why Damon always looks so dewey and well-rested when I get home.

I’m not annoyed. It was just weird. None of those remarks were meant critically. None were meant to try to put either of us “in our place.” It’s just arresting. In our last neighborhood there were several stay-at-home dads/wage-earning moms combos and I got used to it being unremarkable. Here, apparently, it’s still remarkable.