Overheard this evening:
Zee, striding into the playroom, speaking in an impressively gravely monster voice: "Who do I eat first?"
Em, immediately: "Hebs!"
It reminds me of the way my mother tried to convince us to sleep next to the big, dark "crack".
(To understand the situation, let me explain our sleeping arrangement: We had a modified bunk bed, but instead of a single bed on the bottom, there was a double bed. The top bunk wasn't tall enough to allow sleeping on the full double bed when it was pushed under, so to sleep on the bottom bunk, the bed had to be pulled out from under the top bunk, trundle-style. Every night, the three of us older girls would fight over who had to sleep in the middle, next to the dark underside of the bunk.)
So my mother told us a story: If the boogeyman came into our room at night, he would grab whichever girl was on the edges--so the middle spot was the safest spot of all! The middle (and other edge) girl would hear the screams of the first girl, and we could get away! (I'm not joking. She really told us this. And because we got different bunkbeds when I was in first grade, this means she told a pre-SIX-YEAR-OLD this.)
We didn't believe her. Everyone knew that the boogeyman would come from under the bed, so of course he would grab the middle girl first. Duh.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Because geologists are so wealthy!
(I just wrote and erased an entire post, because it was whining, and I got bored even writing, much less reading it. Goodness, can't I do anything but whine right now? Long story short: Em has another ear infection; she did not poke her ear, it was the start of the infection. And, despite five days of antibiotics, I still have a sinus headache. Doctor said it could last up to three weeks. Loverly.)
So let's talk about my fabulous new idea for a book: I'm going to write a geology guidebook for the Lord of the Rings movie locations!
It will be terribly profitable, I'm telling you. As soon as this post gets published, I expect to be contacted by innumerable publishers offering me advances to write this book for them. The subset of Lord of the Rings fans and geologists surely is vast and wealthy, right?
Seriously, though, I think I will see if something like this has been done. Or could be done (although as a series of blog posts, not as a book). I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I adore the movies (and their extras, too!), and I love geology. So, really, why not?
So let's talk about my fabulous new idea for a book: I'm going to write a geology guidebook for the Lord of the Rings movie locations!
It will be terribly profitable, I'm telling you. As soon as this post gets published, I expect to be contacted by innumerable publishers offering me advances to write this book for them. The subset of Lord of the Rings fans and geologists surely is vast and wealthy, right?
Seriously, though, I think I will see if something like this has been done. Or could be done (although as a series of blog posts, not as a book). I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I adore the movies (and their extras, too!), and I love geology. So, really, why not?
Friday, March 5, 2010
Movers and Shakers
There's not much about pregnancy that I love, much less like. Yes, it's nice to have the excuse to eat just about anything I want (especially since, here at week 18-19?, I'm still at ten pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight), but the constant nausea and heartburn kinda puts a damper on that particular fun. It's glorious to know that we're going to have another baby, but I hate pregnancy, and just about everything involved with it. Except one thing.
Feeling the baby move.
I remember the first time I knew I was feeling Zee move, and not just imagining it (or mistaking gas for baby movement). It was at the ultrasound, and I felt it as the image of the baby kicked out those wee little skeleton legs. I cherished every movement, even when he sat on a nerve. It made the pregnancy feel real, made the baby feel real.
I've felt that way with each of my pregnancies--when the baby starts to really move, then it starts to be an exciting event, not quite as much a burden. Gee's movements were especially precious to me, because he was so extremely active, and we didn't know what the future held for his mobility. (I remember, even while feeling black-and-blue inside, loving every kick.)
All of this is to say: Ralphette is moving nowadays. I felt her move very early on (14-15 weeks), but only late at night, when I would shift from one side to the other, and she would readjust. But now I'm starting to feel her move more often.
And it is such a joy.
Feeling the baby move.
I remember the first time I knew I was feeling Zee move, and not just imagining it (or mistaking gas for baby movement). It was at the ultrasound, and I felt it as the image of the baby kicked out those wee little skeleton legs. I cherished every movement, even when he sat on a nerve. It made the pregnancy feel real, made the baby feel real.
I've felt that way with each of my pregnancies--when the baby starts to really move, then it starts to be an exciting event, not quite as much a burden. Gee's movements were especially precious to me, because he was so extremely active, and we didn't know what the future held for his mobility. (I remember, even while feeling black-and-blue inside, loving every kick.)
All of this is to say: Ralphette is moving nowadays. I felt her move very early on (14-15 weeks), but only late at night, when I would shift from one side to the other, and she would readjust. But now I'm starting to feel her move more often.
And it is such a joy.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Missing: Patience (or, A Fine Whine)
(The title to this post was originally "Lost: Patience", but then I decided that looked too much like I was discussing the latest Lost episode, and I'm two weeks behind on Lost. So no spoilers!)
I'm on day 22 of being sick (in addition to being pregnant-sick), and my patience is completely, utterly, 100% gone. This particular brand of sickness has been a bad upper-respiratory infection, complete with cough, sore throat, aches, headache, drainage--you know, the normal late winter cold. The cold turned into a sinus infection, and I hate taking antibiotics, so I was just hoping it would take care of itself. But a two-week headache just can't be borne much longer.
All in the family got the cold, and most managed to get over it in a week (a miserable week, but a week all the same). Em got an ear infection, so she was on antibiotics for 10 days. She loves the bright pink amoxicillin, and was very very sad when the last dose was taken on Tuesday night.
On Wednesday morning, as I was preparing to get to the doctor (yes, I'm finally on antibiotics), Em complained that her ear hurt. I chalked it up to wanting more medicine, and told her she was fine. But she kept at it all day long. At one point, I walked into the play room, and she was lying lethargically on the floor, cradling her ear and looking very sad indeed. So I called the doctor and we went in.
Apparently her ear infection is cleared up, but there is a bruise on the ear drum. The doctor thinks she put something in her ear and hurt it. She says she didn't, and I didn't see her do anything, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. It's not permanent damage, and it should heal in the next two days. I'm supposed to give her
ibuprofen for the pain.
I have no idea how much she hurts, but she be-bops around, playing and laughing and being a four-year-old, and then suddenly she's whining and crying (loudly) about how bad her ears hurts. I'm trying to have patience, but I'm thinking that I may or may not go crazy before two days are over.
I'm on day 22 of being sick (in addition to being pregnant-sick), and my patience is completely, utterly, 100% gone. This particular brand of sickness has been a bad upper-respiratory infection, complete with cough, sore throat, aches, headache, drainage--you know, the normal late winter cold. The cold turned into a sinus infection, and I hate taking antibiotics, so I was just hoping it would take care of itself. But a two-week headache just can't be borne much longer.
All in the family got the cold, and most managed to get over it in a week (a miserable week, but a week all the same). Em got an ear infection, so she was on antibiotics for 10 days. She loves the bright pink amoxicillin, and was very very sad when the last dose was taken on Tuesday night.
On Wednesday morning, as I was preparing to get to the doctor (yes, I'm finally on antibiotics), Em complained that her ear hurt. I chalked it up to wanting more medicine, and told her she was fine. But she kept at it all day long. At one point, I walked into the play room, and she was lying lethargically on the floor, cradling her ear and looking very sad indeed. So I called the doctor and we went in.
Apparently her ear infection is cleared up, but there is a bruise on the ear drum. The doctor thinks she put something in her ear and hurt it. She says she didn't, and I didn't see her do anything, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. It's not permanent damage, and it should heal in the next two days. I'm supposed to give her
ibuprofen for the pain.
I have no idea how much she hurts, but she be-bops around, playing and laughing and being a four-year-old, and then suddenly she's whining and crying (loudly) about how bad her ears hurts. I'm trying to have patience, but I'm thinking that I may or may not go crazy before two days are over.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Naming
Bradley and I are really, really slow at choosing names for our children. (Not as slow as some, like the mother and baby I visited a week after he was born. "What is his name?" "Oh, we haven't chosen yet.") But my brothers and sisters tend to pick out names as soon as the sex of the baby is known, and we spent the entire last half of the pregnancy talking about baby B. or baby K. or whatever.
Not in my little family. From the beginning, with Zee, we decided that we wouldn't tell anyone our baby's name until AFTER he was named. This way, nobody can mock the name, because the baby is already named. (It works, too. Well, nobody can mock the name to our faces, which is all that matters.)
Instead, we gave our babies womb names. Zee was Kronk (after the lovably stupid bad/good guy in The Emperor's New Groove); Em was Yzma (after the marvelously over-the-top bad lady in the same Disney movie); Gee was Dulé (after the actor Dulé Hill, from the West Wing and more recently Psych); and Hebs was Baby Awesome (after Captain Awesome from Chuck). And of course Ralphette, who is named after the fact that Bradley wants to name a baby Ralph and Keryn won't let him.
Bradley came into the marriage with some fairly strict criteria for baby names. They have to be unusual (nothing in the top 200 most popular baby names--the Baby Name Wizard is a really fun site to play with!), pronounceable (as my name is not), and spellable (as my name is not). That meant no fiddling with the spelling to make it unique, which wiped out most of my adolescent choices. (Which is okay. Some of them...shiver.) We didn't mean to embark on a "theme", but after we named our first three, we feel sort of obliged to keep it going. (Don't worry, they don't all start with J or H or M or something like that. Not that kind of theme.)
Oh! And we wanted their names to mean something--to be named after someone great and good, or some other kind of meaning.
We didn't settle on Zee's name until about three hours before he was born. We took the baby name book into the hospital with us, and spent some of the time between blissful epidural and actual birth deciding on his name.
Em's name took us the longest. She was born really really fast (45 minutes after we arrived at the hospital), and we weren't expecting her for a few more days. She was 12-18 hours old before she actually got named.
Gee's name was picked out seven days before his arrival. For logical (although somewhat grim) reasons, I wanted to know what his name was going to be before I went into labor. If he needed an emergency blessing or something, right after birth, he needed a name, by golly. So he is the baby with the most lead time on his name.
Hebs was named about three hours after he was born. We had two names, we liked both of them a lot, and finally Bradley had me choose the one I liked best.
Ralphette? I have some ideas, but it's hard to try to decide on a girl's name when you are more than half convinced that it is a boy. It's going to be a fun couple of months. (This is why we have to know if it is a girl or a boy. Otherwise, our children would be nameless for four to six months after birth!)
Whatever it is, you can be sure that we won't tell you beforehand. (Or technically, afterward, either, since we are all about the child-anonymity on this blog. Sorry.)
Not in my little family. From the beginning, with Zee, we decided that we wouldn't tell anyone our baby's name until AFTER he was named. This way, nobody can mock the name, because the baby is already named. (It works, too. Well, nobody can mock the name to our faces, which is all that matters.)
Instead, we gave our babies womb names. Zee was Kronk (after the lovably stupid bad/good guy in The Emperor's New Groove); Em was Yzma (after the marvelously over-the-top bad lady in the same Disney movie); Gee was Dulé (after the actor Dulé Hill, from the West Wing and more recently Psych); and Hebs was Baby Awesome (after Captain Awesome from Chuck). And of course Ralphette, who is named after the fact that Bradley wants to name a baby Ralph and Keryn won't let him.
Bradley came into the marriage with some fairly strict criteria for baby names. They have to be unusual (nothing in the top 200 most popular baby names--the Baby Name Wizard is a really fun site to play with!), pronounceable (as my name is not), and spellable (as my name is not). That meant no fiddling with the spelling to make it unique, which wiped out most of my adolescent choices. (Which is okay. Some of them...shiver.) We didn't mean to embark on a "theme", but after we named our first three, we feel sort of obliged to keep it going. (Don't worry, they don't all start with J or H or M or something like that. Not that kind of theme.)
Oh! And we wanted their names to mean something--to be named after someone great and good, or some other kind of meaning.
We didn't settle on Zee's name until about three hours before he was born. We took the baby name book into the hospital with us, and spent some of the time between blissful epidural and actual birth deciding on his name.
Em's name took us the longest. She was born really really fast (45 minutes after we arrived at the hospital), and we weren't expecting her for a few more days. She was 12-18 hours old before she actually got named.
Gee's name was picked out seven days before his arrival. For logical (although somewhat grim) reasons, I wanted to know what his name was going to be before I went into labor. If he needed an emergency blessing or something, right after birth, he needed a name, by golly. So he is the baby with the most lead time on his name.
Hebs was named about three hours after he was born. We had two names, we liked both of them a lot, and finally Bradley had me choose the one I liked best.
Ralphette? I have some ideas, but it's hard to try to decide on a girl's name when you are more than half convinced that it is a boy. It's going to be a fun couple of months. (This is why we have to know if it is a girl or a boy. Otherwise, our children would be nameless for four to six months after birth!)
Whatever it is, you can be sure that we won't tell you beforehand. (Or technically, afterward, either, since we are all about the child-anonymity on this blog. Sorry.)
Monday, March 1, 2010
Details on Ralphette's Ultrasound
(It's okay if you want to skip this post. It's full of boring details that are probably exactly like every other ultrasound every other person has ever had.)
I was so nervous waiting for the ultrasound technician to call us back. I mostly dealt with it by talking about anything and everything that came to mind, which I'm sure was fun for Bradley. But fortunately Jay was right on schedule, so the babbling only lasted eight minutes or so.
Jay was just as abrupt and non-communicative as I remembered from the beginning of Gee's ultrasound. But when I mentioned the spina bifida in our family, and how he was the one who had discovered it, it was like he was a different person. He apologized for having had to give us bad news those three years ago, and we chatted about Gee's progress and good health. After that, he was totally warm and personable. It's funny, but I remember the same switch when we discovered Gee's spina bifida. Maybe he does so many ultrasounds, he's a little bored of them. But anything a little different (not that he looks forward to this or anything dark like that), and he sort of wakes up. Who knows?
Nearly the first thing he did was take a quick look at the brain. "I'll just tell you this: I don't see anything to worry about here. I'll bet the first sign I had last time was in the brain." And that is true: he totally saw something in Gee's brain before we even got to the spine. The "lemon sign" ("The lemon sign refers to an abnormally shaped fetal head seen at antenatal US performed during the second trimester...a marker for open spina bifida") is apparently quite obvious, and so was the placement of the cerebellum. So, first deep breath.
Then he went down to Ralphette's spine. She spent most of the ultrasound curled up in the fetal position (what a surprise, given her essential fetal-ness), and turning her back on us, so while everything else was hard to get at and measure, the spine was exposed in all its well-formed glory. It got to be a running joke during the scan: Jay would go to measure something or want a picture of something, and there would be Ralphette's spine again. It was like she was saying, "Here you go, Momma and Daddy. Nothing to worry about here!"
Jay counted her little back vertebrae, pointed out several times (because we saw them so often) all the correct placement and colors, and reassured us time and again that there was nothing to be concerned about. I get a little teary just thinking about it. I know that anything can happen, but to get over this hurdle has been such a relief.
Because of her contrary nature, Jay had quite the time getting al the other measurements. He'd work on her arms and hands for a little while, and then she'd pull them back behind her head. He'd try to get a look at her lips, checking for a cleft, and she'd hide behind her hands. He'd try to peek between her legs, and she was as modest as any mother of a teenage girl could want. (Not so much what the mother of the fetus, eagerly awaiting the verdict on girl or boy, wants, but still.) She'd uncross her legs, but whip that little hand down there to modestly cover all her parts. I spent most of the ultrasound convinced that we weren't going to get an answer on sex at all.
At one point, Jay thought maybe he'd gotten a glimpse, but it wasn't enough to really tell, so he moved on to the abdomen. Up till now, he'd mostly referred to the baby as it, although I was shifting between "he" and "she". At the abdomen, he referred to the baby as "he" twice. Aha! I thought to myself. He saw enough to convince him it's a boy, no big surprise there, and he slipped into using the proper pronoun. (Later, Bradley told me the same thing had occurred to him.)
But then he came back, and said, "Oh, now I've got you!" and paused the picture. There was the evidence, although (this being an ultrasound) I didn't really know what I was looking at. I thought to myself, "Well, um...is that like Em or like the others? I think it's like Em, I think, I think..." And then he said, "It's a girl!" And we cheered. Throughout the rest of the ultrasound, whenever he'd get a glimpse, he'd show us again. So, pretty dang 99% sure this one's a girlie.
I am SO excited. I love love love my boys, but, as Alicia wrote in a comment on the post announcing the sex, "Every little girl needs a sister." My sisters are so important to me, I love the idea of my Em having a sister, too.
Bradley is thrilled, too. We are excited to have broken the "Ross Curse" of so few girls, and to almost even up the Tobler side of the family, too (10 boys, 8 girls now). And all those adorable girl baby clothes...yay!!
The relief (healthy baby!) and the joy (baby girl!) are pretty strong. I've got a terrible sinus infection, and yet I've been on cloud nine all day. I feel very blessed and very lucky and very, very happy.
I was so nervous waiting for the ultrasound technician to call us back. I mostly dealt with it by talking about anything and everything that came to mind, which I'm sure was fun for Bradley. But fortunately Jay was right on schedule, so the babbling only lasted eight minutes or so.
Jay was just as abrupt and non-communicative as I remembered from the beginning of Gee's ultrasound. But when I mentioned the spina bifida in our family, and how he was the one who had discovered it, it was like he was a different person. He apologized for having had to give us bad news those three years ago, and we chatted about Gee's progress and good health. After that, he was totally warm and personable. It's funny, but I remember the same switch when we discovered Gee's spina bifida. Maybe he does so many ultrasounds, he's a little bored of them. But anything a little different (not that he looks forward to this or anything dark like that), and he sort of wakes up. Who knows?
Nearly the first thing he did was take a quick look at the brain. "I'll just tell you this: I don't see anything to worry about here. I'll bet the first sign I had last time was in the brain." And that is true: he totally saw something in Gee's brain before we even got to the spine. The "lemon sign" ("The lemon sign refers to an abnormally shaped fetal head seen at antenatal US performed during the second trimester...a marker for open spina bifida") is apparently quite obvious, and so was the placement of the cerebellum. So, first deep breath.
Then he went down to Ralphette's spine. She spent most of the ultrasound curled up in the fetal position (what a surprise, given her essential fetal-ness), and turning her back on us, so while everything else was hard to get at and measure, the spine was exposed in all its well-formed glory. It got to be a running joke during the scan: Jay would go to measure something or want a picture of something, and there would be Ralphette's spine again. It was like she was saying, "Here you go, Momma and Daddy. Nothing to worry about here!"
Jay counted her little back vertebrae, pointed out several times (because we saw them so often) all the correct placement and colors, and reassured us time and again that there was nothing to be concerned about. I get a little teary just thinking about it. I know that anything can happen, but to get over this hurdle has been such a relief.
Because of her contrary nature, Jay had quite the time getting al the other measurements. He'd work on her arms and hands for a little while, and then she'd pull them back behind her head. He'd try to get a look at her lips, checking for a cleft, and she'd hide behind her hands. He'd try to peek between her legs, and she was as modest as any mother of a teenage girl could want. (Not so much what the mother of the fetus, eagerly awaiting the verdict on girl or boy, wants, but still.) She'd uncross her legs, but whip that little hand down there to modestly cover all her parts. I spent most of the ultrasound convinced that we weren't going to get an answer on sex at all.
At one point, Jay thought maybe he'd gotten a glimpse, but it wasn't enough to really tell, so he moved on to the abdomen. Up till now, he'd mostly referred to the baby as it, although I was shifting between "he" and "she". At the abdomen, he referred to the baby as "he" twice. Aha! I thought to myself. He saw enough to convince him it's a boy, no big surprise there, and he slipped into using the proper pronoun. (Later, Bradley told me the same thing had occurred to him.)
But then he came back, and said, "Oh, now I've got you!" and paused the picture. There was the evidence, although (this being an ultrasound) I didn't really know what I was looking at. I thought to myself, "Well, um...is that like Em or like the others? I think it's like Em, I think, I think..." And then he said, "It's a girl!" And we cheered. Throughout the rest of the ultrasound, whenever he'd get a glimpse, he'd show us again. So, pretty dang 99% sure this one's a girlie.
I am SO excited. I love love love my boys, but, as Alicia wrote in a comment on the post announcing the sex, "Every little girl needs a sister." My sisters are so important to me, I love the idea of my Em having a sister, too.
Bradley is thrilled, too. We are excited to have broken the "Ross Curse" of so few girls, and to almost even up the Tobler side of the family, too (10 boys, 8 girls now). And all those adorable girl baby clothes...yay!!
The relief (healthy baby!) and the joy (baby girl!) are pretty strong. I've got a terrible sinus infection, and yet I've been on cloud nine all day. I feel very blessed and very lucky and very, very happy.
The Answer
Drumroll please...
Baby Ralphette is perfectly HEALTHY, perfectly beautiful, measuring a week small (consistent with the earlier ultrasound, which means (bummer) change of due date probably to beginning of August), and...
A GIRL.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have officially broken the Ross record of only one girl per family (or less!). Bradley's oldest two siblings have one girl and three boys each, his next two sisters have one girl and four boys, and four boys, respectively, and then there was us, with one girl and three boys and a fetus. And now we know, the fetus is a GIRL.
(I have to admit: As much as I wanted a girl, I was about 60% sure that it was a boy. Just because I wanted a girl so much.)
Yay Ralphette! Welcome to the family, little sister. (Em is curiously unexcited. I think she thought this baby was a girl all along, so why are we making a big deal of it right now?)
I am so relieved that there is no sign of birth defects--the ultrasound tech knew the family history and was very thorough. He was able to reassure us right off the top that all looked well, and then he spent a lot of time measuring and rechecking, just to be positive. (Of course, anything can happen with any pregnancy, but so far really really good.)
Thanks for voting on my silly little poll, everyone. It helped distract me in the last few days of nervousness. The final results:
Baby Ralphette is perfectly HEALTHY, perfectly beautiful, measuring a week small (consistent with the earlier ultrasound, which means (bummer) change of due date probably to beginning of August), and...
A GIRL.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have officially broken the Ross record of only one girl per family (or less!). Bradley's oldest two siblings have one girl and three boys each, his next two sisters have one girl and four boys, and four boys, respectively, and then there was us, with one girl and three boys and a fetus. And now we know, the fetus is a GIRL.
(I have to admit: As much as I wanted a girl, I was about 60% sure that it was a boy. Just because I wanted a girl so much.)
Yay Ralphette! Welcome to the family, little sister. (Em is curiously unexcited. I think she thought this baby was a girl all along, so why are we making a big deal of it right now?)
I am so relieved that there is no sign of birth defects--the ultrasound tech knew the family history and was very thorough. He was able to reassure us right off the top that all looked well, and then he spent a lot of time measuring and rechecking, just to be positive. (Of course, anything can happen with any pregnancy, but so far really really good.)
Thanks for voting on my silly little poll, everyone. It helped distract me in the last few days of nervousness. The final results:
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