The Laziest? The Laziest.

Calder's birthday is less than 20 days away and what have I done to prepare? Nothing. Check that. I have a half filled out evite that is primarily being sent to MY friends who no doubt want to spend a Saturday afternoon watching a three-year-old refuse to eat cake. I am sure of this.

After rotating through monster trucks, race cars, and then Lightening McQueen specifically, Calder seems to have finally settled on super heroes as his birthday party theme. Fortunately for me, lacking in time and energy to throw together anything really supertastic, the googles have a wide variety of Marvel oriented birthday party supplies which cater to Calder's specific tastes, Iron Man and Wolverine in particular. I also like this decision because I am of the opinion that a 2-D cake version of Iron Man's mask is much easier to produce than a 3-D monster truck. Having the whole week off in advance of the shindig I might even bust out some gumption and try my hand at fondant since that much red food coloring is bound to be rough on the digestive system. Amazon, however, will have my back for the rest.

Thanksgiving Vacation

Four days virtually alone (Bruce questionable-hockey tournament) with Calder may just be the end of me. I have no car and it's basically too cold to sit around and wait for a bus so we are pretty much stuck indoors. So far the breaking things total, Calder, not me, is three ornaments, one table and one lamp. We did kill time by setting up the Christmas tree and putting out some decorations. Oh yeah, and making a nearly full Thanksgiving dinner of which Calder ate almost nothing. He will eat duck but not stuffing. And he complained that his jelly "had stuff in it." Go figure. I am totally glad I didn't stress too much about putting eggs into the food I was preparing. Not that he avoided an allergy break out altogether. Oh, hell no. No, that came later when he finally DID eat something (ice cream) and it wasn't even something I had made, just purchased. Yay for motherly guilt! It wouldn't be a holiday if I didn't accidentally poison my child.

Since it was Thanksgiving he are the things I am thankful for*:

-My family and friends who keep me sane.

-Having heat. 

-Sparkling apple cider, so at least I can pretend I am drinking my troubles away.

-Three kinds of pie.

-Bruce, even if he is kind of clueless he's still a wonderful guy.

-And Calder, my little love bug, snuggle puppy and all around cuddle monster. It's difficult to get mad at him for breaking my ornaments when he shows such enthusiasm for the tree.

Now if he would just learn to use the system!

*I have difficulty with sincerity, please accept this in its stead.

Smart Aleck

Life with Calder, while generally wonderful, is also occasionally a bit of an entertaining mess. I should have known that we were in for some serious trouble from the moment he tried to trick me into giving him a new train car by depositing his diaper contents into the potty. Oh, how innocent we all were back then.

Even seemingly good things often come with unforseen consequences. Sure, it's really nice to have a child that is fairly advanced verbally, he can finally tell us exactly what he wants or needs, no more fruitless guessing! BUT! the ability to talk is also accompanied by the ability to talk back. In short, Calder has become a total smart ass.

Like in the car on one of our more recent trips to Canada with the dog:

Bruce: If you don't stop pulling his ears, I am going to stop the car and make you sit in the back!

Calder: OK.

Bruce:...

Calder: OK, Daddy. I go in back now.

Calder: Stop car, Daddy.

Calder: Stop!

Bruce: (under his breath) Shut up. Shut up. Shutupshutupshutup.

Me: snickering Great idea, honey.

While much of what he says can be met with eye rolling and stern warnings about language (what did yoy just call that tree?!) sometimes it is just to funny to hold in the laughter. I could say that it's just me that thinks it's funny because I am his mother and hostage to his foibles but the lady at the toy store who overhead this last weekend couldn't help herself:

Calder: Get away from me, Mommy!

Me: That's not how you talk to Mommy.

Calder: Get away from me. Pleeease.

He is also already a master of passive aggression. Any question: what do you want to eat? what clothes would you like to wear? what would you like to do today? will be met with the answer, "Anyfing". Anyfing, at first blush sound like a pretty agreeable response. Yay, the kid's open to anything! I can choose chicken and spinach paninis instead of chicken nuggets and frozen corn, wooo! Not so. Anyfing actually means "not anything that you could possibly consider offering me right now unless it is a Spiderman shirt, dinosaur museum visit or McDonald's." In short, nothing. Calder is a difficult person to please.

He can also be inadvertantly insulting. For example, last night:

Calder: Your tummy is big.

Me: Why is my tummy getting bigger?

Calder: Cause you fat.

Me: But what's in my tummy making me fat?

Calder: Food.

Thanks, buddy. You're lucky you're cute.

Standing Offer

Today on the El a woman offered me her seat. I'll admit, I was kind of taken aback. I mean, I AM pregnant but I didn't think it was that obvious. I still fit into (some of) my pants for the love of monekys! I personally don't think that I even look that pregnant. Of course the cut of my sweater under an ill-advised wool coat (60's today) did give me a pronounced belleh so I can see her point. However, I am working on the same train/bus seat principle as last time, no taking seats until I am ridiculously huge unless it has been some sort of unreasonably crappy day, so I said a polite "No thank you" and smiled. BUT. Then I started thinking about it and wondered if maybe she thought I said no because I am not really knocked up and she just inadvertently called me fat and I started to feel bad on her behalf. I know some people totally flip out about this kind of stuff and I didn't want her to worry. So of course I just willed whatever abdominal muscles I have left at this point to stop whatever they were doing and let my gut hang out over my low rise jeans in all it's jiggly glory. I was determined to look pregnant enough to assure this chick that she HAD been correct and was not some sort of evil train bodysnarker. And though I was sweating my ass off (seriously, 60's) in my cardigan and coat, I didn't want to remove either because I just didn't want the random lady to feel bad about herself for trying to be polite. Apparently, I feel there is such a sincere lack of good feeling in this world that I am hesitant to discourage even maybe misguided attempts at kindness.

New Doctor

I finally selected a new doctor and Tuesday was my first appointment. And I learned something, my old doctor's office is maybe not so hot with communicating things you should know. 

Me, last time I was there: When and with whom should I make my next appointment?

Them: New doctor, around 16 weeks and you should do it soon.

What they did not say: New doctor, around 16 weeks and you should do it soon then come back in here to sign some paperwork to make sure they get all your files even though you told them where you were coming from and we are located in the same building so it should be super easy.

Yeah, that's right, I picked the one of the three referrals that is located in the same building as my old doctor. Why? Well, after perusing Yelp and a bunch of other doctor review sites, I decided that the people who use those sites all essentially have a bone to pick, rendering them worthless. Like, the front desk staff was mean to you? Boo hoo hoo. That's what they do. So in the end, I went with the office that was closest to me and that I already knew how to find because despite living in Chicago for over eight years, I still routinely get lost.

Still, even though they had NONE of my medical history and the visit was pretty much rehashing everything that has happened so far, I feel like I made a good choice. They only asked me to pee in a cup just the once and the nurse who came in first had a great sense of humor. "OK, I am going to go let the doctor know you are ready. You don't have to get undressed yet. No one likes to meet a new person naked." And then the doctor didn't even make me to it! New doctor lady, even though I am still not sure of your name, you are aces in my book. While we chatted she brought up the office policy of having one of the office doctors on call every day for only deliveries so that you never know who you might get. Just like the last time, i am to rotate myself around the office and acquaint myself with the other doctors in case she is not the one on call that day. Or, OR, since I had a relatively normal and swift (the 40-45 minutes of pushing last time, while not commented upon, certainly produced an eyebrow pop) delivery with Calder, once I hit 39 weeks I would be a candidate for a scheduled induction guaranteeing that MY doctor would be the one in the delivery room with me. Nice. 

Except... being induced was horribly boring. It wasn't really an awful experience but neither Bruce nor I could get any sleep and we were both insanely uncomfortable in the hospital room with constant noise and lights. And now I have my own flat screen television at home with Netflix on my Wii so the hospital provides no great advantages for spending my early labor there. In fact, I am almost certain that I hit the epidural earlier than I would have otherwise just so I could get some damn sleep before it all started going to hell. I am not the type to have a Birth Plan. My birth plan is mother and baby both survive in relatively good health with whatever the appropriate amount of medical intervention is. But... but I had really not wanted to go the induction route this time. Been there, frustrated by that.

Oh, and now I have no idea why my due date is anyway so it's a little early to be making plans for this stuff. Original date given by first doctor, May 12. New date from new doctor, May 15. Am I 14 weeks or 15 weeks? NO IDEA. Assuming it is 14, my new doctor asked that we schedule some appointments at odd intervals to get me on the regular every 4 weeks schedule that they prefer. She suggested, 18 weeks, 21 weeks and then 24 week to get me regular and thought that I could get away with the 20 week gender identifying ultrasound at the 18 week appointment. Sweet, that falls right when my mom will be visiting. She'll be stoked. 

Ah ha ha! Right. I should know by know that nothing I do relating to doctors ever goes as planned. The front desk lady, despite my having written instructions to this extent, was not having ANY of this. At all. And one thing is certain, you do not mess with the front desk ladies, they are mean. So now my moms gets to miss out on the reveal and I will have to go right back in two weeks later to find out for myself. That should be fun. Me, Bruce, Calder (daycare is closed that week, naturally) all crammed into the ultrasound room. This should go swimmingly.

Canuck-ified

Let's skate, eh?

Date Day

Seeing as how I am currently trying to get Calder cleaned and dressed for our trip to the Museum of Science + Industry today, it makes total sense that now is when I would finally decided to write about what we did last weekend. Sure I could have found a better time to write this such as when Calder isn't launching himself from cushion to cushion at the dog in his complete altogether while singing along with the Little Einsteins (He is waaaay excited about this little trip. "Body parts!? Auntie Cary?!") but yesterday I was given a little motivation to lay fingers to keyboard and tell you about our not really all that exciting day. I mean, that girl writes a post EVERY DAY. Can you imagine that? I think her child is a fake, that's the only explanation for having that much time and energy to blog.

So. Last Saturday. Originally it started out as something simple. Bruce had hockey and Calder needed a haircut quite badly. Hockey place and haircut place are conveniently located in the same suburb. This same suburb also has a nice children's museum. Not Indianapolis palace of childlike wonder nice but still, nice enough for $12. As a one car family, a very simple plan developed: Drop Bruce off at hockey, take Calder to haircut, take Calder to museum, pick Bruce up from hockey.

The first part of the schedule went off smoothly. Calder got his haircut at the same fancy kid-centric place as last time. Now, I know I could have saved myself some cash and just brought him any old place but I took a lesson from Calder's cousin Q who ended up looking like a Marine recruit the first time my sister thought she could get away with non-airplane shaped salon chairs and brought Calder back to the land of scissors and distractions. He acquitted himself admirable I must say. I would totally post pictures of him post snip but then you'd just say, "I thought you said you got him a haircut?" Yes, Calder wasn't interested in losing too much fuzz, he's worked so long to acquire it, you know, so the stylist basically trimmed his mullet (me to her: "He's half Canadian. He comes by it honestly.") to a less Deep South length and cleaned up the front a tad and voila! Calder still has a whole mop of feather fine, blondish hair, it's just now less Farrah and more Bieber.

After a successful haircut we pretty much drove across the street to the Kohl Children's Museum. We'd been there before so I knew he'd enjoy it. While they don't have any kind of body parts display they do have a pretty impressive water room and I know Calder likes the fake train engine. As to the body parts. Since out visit to Louisville, Calder has been OBSESSED with the human body. He can now name most of the organs on his cool Sesame t-shirt (he gets stuck on the pancreas) and likes to thumb through kid's anatomy books at the book store. This can only mean one thing, he's either going to be a doctor or a serial killer. ANYWAYS. Calder=having lots of fun at the museum. But so were the seven or so different birthday parties going on that day. I had assumed that getting there at the crack of opening would allow us some quiet(ish) time there where I didn't have to be constantly vigillant for some larger kid throwing Calder out of the way to himself play with the air tubes.

I think at this point it is worth noting that A. Bruce had just informed me that he would be staying ling than originally planned and B. I hadn't had anything to eat yet that day. Seeing as how I was mostly fed up with the museum and Calder was starting to get dismissive of their lack of dinosaurs and body parts, we ditched the eleventy billion other children and headed out to lunch. At a place that specializes in having lots and lots of beers. Naturally. Actually, I chose that place because it provided a great bribery opportunity. If Calder behaved himself, he'd get to go to the nifty independent toy store across the street. And if he ate his lunch, he might even get a toy. Of course what he didn't know was that we still had several hours to kill so we'd probably be going there regardless. Let me tell you, bribery may not be the best method of raising a child but hot damn it certainly works. Calder ate most of his lunch and even scarfed down portions of mine.

Seeing as how lunch was a well-behaved success, I made good on my promise and took Calder toy shopping. He got a squishy shark ring that lights up, a book about zombies that makes noise, and a tin whistle because he has begun requesting a musical instrument as of late. He really, REALLY like Little Einsteins lately. All of this came out to under $15. Calder is a very cheap date. It's me that likes to run up the tab because, not really feeling in the mood to continue shopping, I decided that what Calder and I really out to be doing was taking in a movie. Megamind to be specific. So I texted Bruce that we may be a tad late in picking him up but tough noogs, we'd been waiting for him all day. Other than a mid-film pee break, Calder was a veritable angel during the movie. Of course it could be by that point the child was friggin' exhausted and would have fallen asleep in my lap but for the constant explosion-y noises on screen. 

Whatever the cause, Calder was good. And that's why I think I felt compelled to tell you about this whole boring day. For the duration, Calder was good. No, he was GOOD. My child had not one tantrum, not one thrashing fit, not one sulky-fest pouting session. It was amazing. We had lovely, if occasionally somewhat nonsensical conversations. I didn't yell once. We played and cuddled. Calder acted like I wasn't totally detrimental to his having a good time. I had my baby back. The terrible twos monster decided to take the day off and Calder and I got to have a great day together. It was the best date I have had in ages.

Second Trimester, Clothesing In

According to the googles I am at 14 weeks and officially into my second trimester. I decided to celebrate this, combined with my growing fatness, by dragging my maternity clothes up from the basement. After washing and sorting it all two things struck me: 

A. How exactly did I get by with only two pairs of jeans, one of which I hate to the point of never, ever wearing? I am in jeans every single day (when not camped out at home in sweats, of course). All of them. AND I am a total slob so the "You can totally wear jeans again without washing them" rule does not apply to me. Unless I like going to work with peanut butter smears on my ass. Which I honestly wouldn't really care about but that doesn't really project the BOSS image  that I am currently striving for. 

B. How in the holy hell did I end up with so many ugly floral tops? I have perhaps the least feminine normal people wardrobe in existence. Do pregnancy hormones make you lose sight of your taste in fashion? Or all taste in fashion?  Normally, I find pinstripes to be a little on the bold side, preferring to go with no-too-bright solids. So why do I have half a dozen multi-colored flowery shirts? Who let me buy those? Why did not one step in and tell me I looked like my Great Aunt Gertie's muumuu collection?

This leads to a third question. Why ARE there no muumuus? Once you approach orca size, pants are a total hassle and I don't really have any spare dresses lying around to make up the difference. I do have one maternity dress that I bought in a fit of optimism last time that will finally get a second wearing if it fits well enough when my office holiday party rolls around. OR I could try to squeeze into the dress I purchased for the NY trip seeing as how I haven't had any kind of significant weight gain yet (amazingly). I can't tell which deserves it more. The dress I bought at Target for no intended purpose, wore only once and neglected for three subsequent years or the dress I recently spent way too much money on for a good reason and wore only once. Then again, I suppose neither could fit and I could just baste them together into some crazy fat-girl Franken-dress. This look, while striking to the point of absurdity, will hopefully detract from whatever that workday's equivalent of the peanut butter ass smear was.

Gene Genie WARNING: Italics Ahead

Last week I had my meeting with the genetic counselors people. I sincerely doubt this is a common pregnancy practice as I have yet to ever hear of anyone else being made to do this by their doctor. According to mine though it is necessary (not a money grab!) because I am teh oldz. Seriously. I am ancient according to these people. Basically, due to my advanced age, I am in the high risk pool for having a child with Down Syndrome or other chromosomal anomalies and therefor, must be screened. Screening includes an ultrasound to look at some measurement of the spinal column tube in the neck area and some blood tests. According to the genetic counselor lady, I have the genetic probability of a much younger woman. Like, a twenty year old. That may be the nicest thing that has been said to me in ages. This pretty much means that my chances of having a child with any of those disorders is pretty low but, you know since I am wicked elderly, there'll be another blood test later on. Just in case.

Lest you think that telling you you wont have a baby with Down's is all these genetic counselors so, they also draw an extreme quantity of blood in case you would like to test for OTHER scary sounding issues. Like Tay-Sachs, Muscular Dystrophy, Cystic Fibrosis and the mysterious Fragile X. Of course, none of these are guaranteed to be covered by your insurance and the Tay Sachs test need to be done with fresh blood so there's not time to call them and check. Not that that would help me of course. I did call my insurance carrier in the week between the blood draw and the counseling session, armed with the specific details of what would be submitted if I chose to do this, to see what would and wouldn't be covered and they told me they "didn't do codes". Didn't do codes? You mean the standardized medical insurance codes that nearly ALL Carriers use? What the hell, PHCS? It's a good thing I could take my time and decide if I wanted to pay for these tests out of pocket if need be.

Except, oh wait. That Tay Sachs thing. See, episodes of House and CSI have led me to believe that this specific disease is present almost entirely in the Ashkenazi Jewish population. Certainly no one brought it up to me last time so I assumed I'd be in the clear again. Oh ho ho, not so, foolish pregnant lady! Apparently, it is also found to be prevalent in people with French Canadian lineage. Which I have. The nurse who did the blood draw and brought up the fresh blood thing also asked me questions about Bruce's heritage to help me make up my mind. Her: Does he have any French Canadian background as well? Me: Um, he is Canadian? So now, I am getting this test whether insurance will cover it or not. God, I hope it's not ridonk. The tests for the other nasties I mentioned run $700 for the three-pack, which, perhaps this makes me a terrible mother, but it is not in my best interest as a soon-to-be parent to two daycare-going individuals to fork over that much moola at this point in time. Plus, in my near-elderly state, my earning potential must be waaaay down.

So now, here I am. Forced to worry that due to my own selfish and money-hoarding ways, I may potentially have a child with issues that I COULDN'T DO ANYTHING TO FIX EVEN IF I KNEW and not find out about them until said child is actually born. At least I will know for certain if I am going to have a kid that will almost definitely die before age 4. Thanks, genetic counselor for all these new awesome dreams I have been having about the baby from Eraserhead. Then again, if the medical establishment isn't terrifying expectant mothers, they aren't really doing their jobs.

Popped

It's fair to say I look pregnant now. Or at least that I look like I ate a really, really large burrito. Or perhaps I was just a chunker to begin with. I am going with the one where I sound the best. Burrito it is.

I've been sick lately for what it's worth and since my last couple of trips to the doctor have been extremely non-absurd, I've felt it was best to fall asleep immediately after Calder went to bed for the last week or so. I am finally getting rid of some of the pghlemmy-ness and look forward to posting about my date with Calder today if he ever decides to take a nap. Apparently a haircut, children's museum, lunch, toy store and a movie are not enough to wear him down.