19 Weeks!

It's been a while since Ive posted anything about this tiny growing person inside my belly.  We're at 19 weeks now.  Do you know what that means?  It means we're almost halfway done!!
I have to say, in general this pregnancy has been much easier than my first one with Violet.  --Not that it's been a cake walk, but I generally I feel better than I did.  Maybe it's because I have my eating figured out these days (I know which foods create headaches, stomach pains, mood swings, lethargy, etc..).  Not that I haven't given into cravings for cheesecake and kraft dinner… but at least I can predict how I will feel afterwards and know how much is too much to send me on the fritz and over the top of a body-chemistry meltdown.  When I was pregnant with Violet, I had no idea any of these food intolerances were lurking with everything I ate.  I felt horrible almost the entire pregnancy.

Mostly now I just feel happy.

Also, I have so much support in my life these days than I used to.  So very much more support than I did five years ago.  I have made exercise a fun part of my weekly routine, I have my work that I love and that keeps me busy, I have a wonderful network of friends and moms who I can count on to laugh and cry with, and I have my most extraordinary husband (of course, he was there the first time-- but I feel like this time around he has somehow gone above and beyond every expectation with his greatness).
Also, this time, I have Violet.
Violet keeps my spirits up, and keeps me busy and distracted every day, which actually is an enormous help.
Next week we get to learn if it's a boy or girl kicking around.  Whatever it is, it feels strong already.
I'm feeling these little punchy kicks.
It literally feels like butterflies all flitting about at once-- knocking around, drinking root beer and pop rocks.  When I'm flat on my back it's a bit startling.  It's a good thing my brother and sister gave us a box of baby socks; I have a feeling those feet are going to need some protection against the wind when they're kicking wildly in the open April air, just 20 weeks away.

     

Appendicitis, or maybe Pneumonia, or maybe a Mystery

There are a lot of really tough parts about being a parent, but on Monday we got a tiny glimpse of what the hardest strand might look like.  

Violet had a bit of a fever on Sunday.  

Then, Monday that little-bit-of-a-fever turned into a raging fire fever, and I found her doubled over on the bathroom floor crying in pain that her chest and stomach hurt.  She was breathing in this really shallow quick way; she was in agony.    

We ended up in the urgent care of Group Health-- and they started doing all of these tests--  putting IV tubes into her tiny arms, drawing blood, pumping her full of fluids, taking ultrasounds.  It's hard to have to hold your child while they are weeping in pain, and know that you have to be the strong one.  You have to comfort them and help them feel safe, even though you are scared bananas.  

Group Health decided without a doubt that it was appendicitis and that she needed to be taken to Children's Hospital to have surgery that evening.  So, off we went, in the middle of the night, across town to Children's.  

Let me just say first that Children's Hospital is an incredible place.  I was so impressed with them.  Every nurse and doctor there just showered kindness on our child.  Between talk and tests and fluid IV's we watched movies, played with play dough, looked at stickers….  and while we were all a bit distracted, they somehow were able to get her fever to come down a bit.  

More ultrasounds, and stomach poking, and X-rays, and finally we got word that the doctors and surgeons were not as certain of appendicitis as they originally had been.  We would have to wait and see if the stomach pain got better or worse and if it moved to the right side of her little bean body, and watch the fever too.  

2am, finally we were sent home.  

Tuesday, another checkup--  Violet asking me on her bed before we left "are they going to do more shots? do I have to go to the hospital?  am I going to have more sugar water in my arm through that tube?  sugar water, just like a hummingbird, that's funny!"  

But luckily, my little hummingbird has been getting better ever since Monday night.  They called and said it possibly could be a small case of what they described as "lower abdominal pneumonia", which often shows itself in young kids through similar symptoms as appendicitis.  

But her fever has tamed itself and she's jumping around like normal…so, at this point I don't really know what to think.  

Kids can get sick so fast.  It's terrifying, and its hard feeling so helpless.  

My tiny lady, who made me throw a birthday party for our cats last week, and who had me build her these giant fairy wings for Halloween.  I thought making fairy wings was hard, but let me tell you, this was so very much more difficult.  I would make fairy wings every day over having any of this happen again--  and really, even this could have been so much worse.  

Learning to Read

I've been ligging around the couch for the past three months, so extraordinarily tired and a bit ill.  Poor Violet, on the days when she's not in preschool, or doing ballet or soccer, she's stuck at home with her slug mom.  

But little people tend to be resourceful.  Yesterday she built a juicer out of tupperware, and I am constantly waking up from my couch naps to find tiny versions of Hawaii built out of legos and old popsicle sticks.
And when I'm awake, she sits with me in my big pile of cats, and blankets-- and we read.
We've been reading a lot.
We've been reading so very much, that she is now reading to me most of the time.
On good days, she takes my hand and pulls me up the road, past the troll, to the Fremont library to check out new "I Can Read Books", and then we bring them home and she devours them, along with juice and goldfish crackers.

I love to watch her face as she works out the words, the little sprockets in her head churning out all these sounds- "apple" and "puppy" and "time"-- with a little mumble to herself that the e at the end makes the i say it's name.  
It's so incredibly amazing.

Tiny little squirt, standing at the party with the Romans and Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte.  All the great readers and writers of the world, here comes my girl.  Smarty pants.
I'm a proud mommy.

   

11 weeks :)

Well. 

It's been an exciting couple of months.  Everything with the shoes, and our trip to Hawaii, and watching Violet learn to read and swim.    

And all that time, the most wonderful little secret stirring around...  

It's been a crazy year, with huge ups and enormous downs... and maybe that's why it was all the more amazing yesterday to see in simple hues of grey and white this eensy-beensy bean 11-week child waving around, kicking these wildly strong legs.  

We are cautiously ecstatic, but signs are good. 

If all continues to go well, April 11th can't come soon enough.      

  

Quiet

I was talking with a friend today, and I remembered something that happened about a year and a half ago--  It was a quiet afternoon following some sort of very social morning.  V  went into her room and shut the door.  And she didn't come out.  She was 3 years old at the time, and so naturally I felt a little worried at how silent everything was.  After 10 minutes, I knocked.  What are you doing?  Are you ok?  

And her answer was this mind opening moment of clarity for me: 

I'm ok. I'm working.  I'll come out when I'm done.  

She was building a tea party of great complexity with every animal and bottle cap and marble she could find... 

  

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.  

Have you heard of this book?  If not, you should google it, or check it out, or just jump in and start reading it.  My friend, who I love so incredibly much, and who happens to be one of the most lovely extroverts I know, also read it and adored it.  

Whether or not you consider yourself an introvert, it's a book that is worth reading. --One that I wish every single one of my school teachers had read growing up.  Anyone who ever felt as kid that Kick Ball is a bit like Lord of the Flies revisited could relate.  Especially now, raising a very introverted child, this book truly made me realize that being an introvert is not something to overcome.  When nurtured and supported, Introverts can be some of the best innovators, teachers, thinkers, creators, and even leaders.  I feel like I finally truly see it in my own kid-- and I am at peace with it, because I see it in myself too-- that all she really needs is down time each day, a quiet space for her mind to stretch and recharge.  Anyway, I could say more, but really.... just go read it.  It's short.  And it will help us all understand each other a little better.     

  

Quiet child-- go inside your Rubik's Cube.  

Take your time to line up all the greens and reds and blues as only you know how 

and come out laughing.    

--And watching,
mapping every word we say
in inky eyes, wide and brown
to translate all the noises into craft and cake
and stories that we'll read someday in magazines
or framed on walls in some museum
built for quiet contemplating minds.     

Monday in June.

Rainy June morning, after all that sunshine.  It provides a quiet space and moment.  Here we are-- Off the sidewalks, out of the sun, inside making lists.  Organizing work.  Did I clean my brushes from the other day?  Some old bank statement under little torn off bits of sponge.  And scraps of tissue paper kept from Violet's birthday that I thought were sweet and might use again for something.
A bottle cap, a spoon, a dried up tea bag in a cup.
Pencil shavings; sketches waiting to be hole-punched.
This is my desk.
Hello Monday.  Tired, aren't we.
Rub your eyes, this week is on and you are still in slipper feet.

Ceremonies

Ceremony season has nested fully in our home, with cakes and velvet regalia; flowers, balloon animals, champagne, family filtering through in soft-leathered shoes, and phone calls from those who are far away.

Yesterday was Tyler's commencement; He was hooded for his doctoral degree.  It was one of those rare exquisite moments that for years to come will be displayed in my mind as little snap shots--  His royal purple gown, and puff-pie pillow hat-- very medieval looking-- and his official hooding, with all his future colleagues cheering on.  Violet on her chair, starfish hands waving for her dad who began this whole endeavor before she was even alive.  

There is something special about these moments where we sit and gaze so intently at the life and achievements of someone close to us.   I remember as a kid watching my dad give talks.  All of these eyes focused on him, and the applause that would come at the beginning-- even before he had said anything-- it always made me realize (even if just for that moment) that my dad was in and of the world.  And it was no different with my mom.  She ran a toy shop, and I would sit and watch her running the counter, handling money, chatting up the customers, winning smiles and hearts.  So in charge.  

I think as adults we don't do this intense gazing enough.  But these ceremonies take us back to that spot, watching from the bleachers, as those who are closest to us achieve a formal place in the world of doers of great things.  

_____

As an interesting epilogue to yesterday's festivities, today Violet had her first ballet recital.  All done up in stars and tights and nerves, I left her with her dance-mates back stage.  It was a very strange feeling to just leave her there, and then sit and wait in the audience for the show to begin.  She kept saying to me this morning "yesterday we cheered for my daddy who was on stage, and today you guys will cheer for me"-- this little mantra going through her head, I could tell, up until the very end.  

Really remarkably strange-- sitting and watching my kid from afar.  Really watching her with that same intense graduation gaze.  As much as we're focused on our kids, I think (at least personally) it must be very rare that I actually take the time to silently just watch her like that, as her own little person with goals and hopes and dreams.  

I expected her to be fearful and miserable up there...  but she was beaming.  Costumes and dancing, friends, music, applause.  It was overdone and silly, and she was absolutely in heaven.  And then the best part: her glowing self pride at the end of it all.  Like she had done exactly what she had always wanted to do.
Goodness, I love my family.  And phew, I'm happy it's summer.  Time for a little rest and woods, maybe?