Karen Chatters » Uncategorized

My girl

Karen — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:00:55 +0000

My dearest girl,

Yesterday marked a big day in your short but wonderful life. It was your first day of school, all on your own. The first time I’d leave you in the company of strangers. It was terrifying.

On your first day, I had to wake you up. Your dad and I took that as a sign of the next 18 years of our lives.

As we sat and ate breakfast, I really watched you. We sat together, you in your pajamas with your bedhead and your new sneakers, ready for the day. Or at least your cereal. You have gone from a tiny human to a little girl in such a short period of time, how did that happen? I watched you as you took your strawberries from your plate, put them into your cereal and then ate them with your spoon. I also watched as you’d take this huge spoonful of food out and say, “big bite” and then spill half of it down your front. “Oh no” you’d say and then attempt to clean it up with a napkin. When you were done, you picked up your cup of milk, “both hands” you said, while intently drinking your milk as I hovered next to you, as though I could catch it when it falls.

It’s amazing to me how much you’ve changed in such a short period of time. You’re quite the little talker and you’re no longer a baby, even though I still call you that all the time. You say, “here you go” and “thank you.” I love the thank yous, I could listen to you say that all day. Apparently I say, “here you go, baby” quite often because that’s what you say as well. And you almost always say those things in the proper context. I washed an outfit for your soon-to-be sibling the other day and the entire little body suit was smaller than your shirt. I can’t believe you were once that small, I was really thinking there was something wrong with the babies outfit to be so small.

As we sat and talked, I told you about the teachers and the kids in your class and the things you were going to do. I talked about what a big girl you are and how much fun you’d have. When we got there and I went to drop you off, you cried and clung to my neck as though your life depended on it. It was all I could do not to burst into tears on the spot but to tell you that you were going to have a great time and I loved you as I looked pleadingly at the teacher to help remove you from my body. But make no mistake my love, I cried as I got into my car and drove away from that school, I wish I’d had someone to hold on to.

You are still a couple of months from 2, which seems hugely gigantically old to me. As your sibling grows ever larger and takes over my body, I’d like to slow time as it pertains to you, it just goes so fast. I want to capture you at this age, not forget a minute of it. I want to remember you always with your goofy, playful walk as you stomp around the house in your big girl sneakers, your arms out to the sides and your head tilted. I want to remember you as we sit at the table, tilting our heads in opposite directions, with our mouths gaping open and then laughing at one another. I don’t want to forget the times we have sat and you say, “Silly mommy. Silly baby.” over and over.

People don’t tell you what being a parent is all about, they can’t, there aren’t words for it. It is the greatest source of joy (as well as frustration and heartache) one can experience. So thank you, my sweetest girl, for bringing me such happiness and hope for our future, it’s going to go too quickly and I will do my best to be as wonderful for you as you are for me.

Love,

Mommy

Six weeks, give or take

Karen — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:00:09 +0000

I went to the OB last week for my regularly scheduled appointment. I sat around for an hour plus, waiting, only to get actual OB face time of 5 minutes. Maybe even 4 minutes. It was your fairly typical appointment. The doctor said I was measuring exactly where I should be, despite the fact that I feel as large as a double wide with the front porch extension. I also feel as though I’m going to give birth to an octopus but I was assured that wouldn’t happen. Do they really know that? I was hoping to get an ultrasound at my appointment but she said perhaps closer to 36-37 weeks. In the meantime, I’ll just go with the assumption that my baby has in fact grown more limbs and will be more alien-octopus than gentle human who loves his or her mommy.

I have a little less than 6 weeks to go until my due date. And only 41 days to my scheduled c-section date, which I may change. I went ahead and scheduled the c-section for 10/19, which is only 1 day past my due date. I feel like maybe that isn’t enough time to cook a baby, I don’t know. Courtney was no where near ready when her due date arrived (based on the lack of dilation and other medical indicators), I wonder if Segundo will be in the same boat. Or uterus. The OB doesn’t really want me to schedule much past a week so I’m hoping to get it moved back by 3 or 4 days. We’ll see what they say.

I’m pretty uncomfortable and my bladder appears to be as large as a thimble. I spend the majority of my day either peeing or thinking about peeing, that’s always fun. I’m sleeping like crap and have been taking a Unisom once or twice a week so that I can at least try and catch up on some much needed zzzz’s. As they say, sleep now because once that baby gets here, there’s no more sleep for me.

There are days when I feel like there’s no way I’m going to make it to 10/18 and other days when I think I’ll go way past 10/18. I know Segundo will come when he/she’s damn well good and ready or the doctor decides he/she’s ready. It’s not at all lost on me that if I went ahead and scheduled the c-section date a week or so prior to the due date, it could potentially be MUCH easier when it comes to our new home and the timing of it all. Or worse, really. If we don’t end up closing on our new place until 10/15 (which we’re hoping won’t happen) but we can’t make the closing because we’re in labor and delivery, that could potentially be an issue. But most importantly, the health and development of Segundo is what’s most important so we’ll let him continue to cook and crush my diaphragm until he/she decides to work his/her way out.

We still don’t have names picked out. I said something to Paul about having the boys name already, he didn’t seem to think that was the case. He also didn’t have any suggestions to trump the name I’ve already chosen. I have a list that I add names to, and a couple of girls names that I really like, but we’ve agreed/decided on nothing. It’s still a, “what do you think of Gertrude?” kind of question only to be met with a shoulder shrug and “eh.” Or a flat out “no.” But there aren’t any serious discussions going on here, we have way too many other things to be discussing. Like counter tops for the new home. Poor Segundo.

Update on house closing: We didn’t close yesterday and at the time I’m writing this, our new close date is this Friday. We shall see, I’m certainly not going to hold my breath.

The end of summer with some geeks

Karen — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:00:49 +0000

This weekend was SO beautiful. The temperature has dropped to the “lovely” stage and someone sucked the humidity out with a straw. I know there will be more nastiness to come, as happens in the south, but I am LOVING these days (even 10 degrees lower would be ideal for my pregnant-furnace of a body).

We took Courtney to her first ever nerds and geeks parade, also known as DragonCon. It was quite entertaining for the adults, I have to wonder what Courtney thought of it. I can say that she hasn’t been exposed to much any science fiction so it had to be a little odd for her. Or not. But Courtney did get into it and seemed to find it all quite fascinating. Of course, the fountain she played in before the parade and all the babies she saw during the event were equally as fascinating to her and we probably could have just gone to the park or something. Then we wouldn’t have seen things like this:

Our pool went from bath tub water icky warm to frigid in the matter of 2 weeks or so. Courtney still can’t get enough pool but she definitely prefers not to get her face wet. I mean, she will, but there’s a lot of eye rubbing and hair swiping when she comes up.

Update: Our closing didn’t happen. Or isn’t happening. I don’t know what the deal is. Maybe Thursday or Friday? WTF people.

Today we close on our current home, it won’t be ours anymore as of 1:00 today. It’s kind of sad. We’re super excited for our new place and can’t wait to get it fixed up and start the next chapter. Despite the rodents and the damn driveway, this house has been good to us and this is where we have started our family. I’ll be sad when we leave. The incredibly fabulous news is that the buyer has offered us the opportunity to rent back a little bit longer, which is SUCH a HUGE relief. We were looking at potentially having a few weeks of living in my SIL’s basement with a toddler and a newborn. We were even talking about after living in the basement for a week or two, living in their lake house for another week or two (we hadn’t actually discussed this with them) so we could have a roof over our heads. When the buyer was here the other day and said we could stay longer, it took everything I had not to burst out into tears of relief on the spot. Literally. I’m sure all the young, single guy needed was some hysterically pregnant and blubbering lady in his soon to be kitchen to make him change his mind. Of course, in celebration of renting our own house, the dog barfed on the carpet, twice. At 7am of different days. Maybe I shouldn’t even be talking about this, I hate to jinx us. Fingers crossed!

Ramblings

Karen — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:21:38 +0000

This week has been long and tiring and busy and full of laughter and maybe even some tears and I am SO glad to be home.

The first day of preschool went really well. Granted, I never left the building but she was on her own for a while in the classroom. OK, not really on her own as much as with her teacher and her classmates but still, no me. She did a great job but we all know that next week is a totally different week, a totally different day. She looked so big in her class, I actually think she’s the oldest one there, but in so many ways she seemed like such a big girl. She may not have cried but I did.

We’re trying to tackle the items on our fix it list for the guy who’s buying our house. Somehow the 7th has snuck up on us and we hadn’t really done much from our list. The buyer is coming by this morning, or this afternoon, to make sure we’ve done what we said we would, I think we just made it. It will be really weird living here next week not as homeowners but as renters.

I feel like I should be packing and organizing and getting us ready to move, somewhere in a month. It feels so overwhelming. I have managed to sell a couple of things on Craigslist and I’m desperately trying to offload a broken TV, which a lot of people are interested in. I’m just not sure any one’s actually going to come and pick up the behemoth. I did manage to go through the Tupperware cabinet and pitched all the bottoms with no tops and tops with no bottoms… I’m thinking that’s not going to be enough to get us packed and moved. I did go and get a zillion paint samples and while fun and I’m VERY excited, that also won’t get us moved.

I’m going in this morning for my 32 week appointment, about a week late. I’m anxious to see how I’m measuring, if I’m still big. I feel like I’m still big. Huge. I guess we’ll see what the medical professional has to say.

Learning to fly – or jump from Karen Chatters on Vimeo.

Wordless Wednesday

Karen — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:00:35 +0000

We’re home. Finally. And our trip was really good.

I have sooo much to do for the rest of this week.

And today is the first day of school for Courtney. I’m beside myself. We’ll meet the teacher and I’ll be there for the morning. Next week is when I stop, drop and run. Either way, how’d we get to this point?