It’s been a rough week, and it’s only Wednesday. Discussions with my school about next year have been difficult. A neighbor is angry with us for something that we didn’t do, and has had no response to an email explaining that it wasn’t us. Plus an assortment of other ups and downs and sleep deprivation. So Teddy’s discovery of clapping, and his delight with his newfound skill could not have come at a better time. Witness…

(Can’t get video to embed.  Don’t know why.  But hopefully following the link won’t be too strenuous for you.)

Teddy has been congested for most of the winter.  Possibly just something to be expected, given the timing of his birth and the fact that he has an older sister who goes to school three mornings a week.  Going with the congestion has been wheezing of varying severity–sometimes just something to watch, sometimes requiring breathing treatments.  He has had one ear infection.  Possibly it’s just unfortunate luck and will clear up once we emerge from the worst of cold season.

However, he also has reflux and has been on prevacid since November.  Recently it seems to be getting worse, resulting in miserable nights of constant nursing and screaming, and an increase in spitting up, which he’d practically stopped doing with the addition of prevacid.  Possibly he’s just outgrown his dose of prevacid (he is a BIG baby), so we’ve increased that, and it’s too soon to tell if that’s all it is, but often kids have outgrown reflux problems by this age, which makes us wonder a bit.

Since starting solids, he’s had frequent rashes on his face.  It seems possibly to be connected to eating wheat, but after being off wheat for a bit, it’s back on his cheeks today.  Sensitive skin?  Copious drool?  Something else?  Who knows.  He’s also been somewhat constipated since starting solids, which could be normal or could be something else.

Though there are possible explanations for each of these things, the combination of factors makes us wonder if there’s some sort of food allergy or sensitivity going on.  It’s been suggested to us several times that Jen could consider giving up dairy to see if that helped, and we’re seriously considering finally trying that.  But we’re also wondering if we’re going to that effort, if wheat should be removed, given that Teddy seems to react to it, and Jen had a sensitivity/allergy to it as a child.  If so, should they be removed simultaneously and added back in individually to see if they trigger reactions?  Or should they be run as completely separate experiments?  It seems to us that doing elimination of both and then testing them individually makes the most sense, but we’ve never had to do this before, so don’t really know. And some people say that most problems are resolved just by removing dairy, so is it worth it to take it a step farther?

And, if Jen does eliminate both, what DOES she eat, given that we are also vegetarian?  We also need things that are easy, quick, and cheap.

Our final hearing for the second parent adoption was today. As of sometime around 10 am, Teddy legally has two moms. While still annoyed that the hoops must be jumped through, we are very glad that it’s done and that we were able to do it. Mostly glad that it’s done.

Yesterday Natalie turned three.  Three.  It boggles the mind.  She’s in the midst of an exhausting phase of testing limits, pushing boundaries, and generally doing everything she can to make things work the way SHE wants them to.  At the same time, she is heart-meltingly sweet and loving both to her moms and her brother.  There is nothing more amazing than being greeted with an unprompted “I love you, Mama.”  Except, possibly, hearing her try to get Teddy’s attention when he’s fussing so that she can make a face or shake a toy to make him smile again.

She’s growing and learning and changing so quickly…

We adore you, wonderful girl.

Teddy’s Social Security card arrived in today’s mail – April 13. Thank God.

Can you guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow night?

I just finally bought a baby book for Teddy.  We’ve only done a mediocre job of filling Natalie’s out, but it seemed only fair to try to do one for him too.  I don’t ever want him to feel like he’s less loved because he’s the second child, or the only male in the family, or any other reason that he might come up with.  And I know that even careful planning won’t necessarily change what he feels about himself or his family as he grows up, but still.  What little I can control, I will.  So.  For Natalie we used the Todd Parr one.  It’s colorful, funny, simple, and most importantly for us, it doesn’t assume that the child has both a mom and a dad.  It’s also out of print.  And now sold for a small fortune (OK, 60 bucks or so, but for a fairly simple book, and a very broke family, that’s a lot.)  There are a few options if you don’t want to go through the entire book crossing out and correcting references to mom and dad, but certainly not the vast assortment of styles and price ranges available to the “standard” family.  For the most part, if you’re gay, single, or otherwise don’t fit the mold, and you want your baby book to fit you, you pays extra.  It’s a little thing.  There are ways around it, and certainly not every baby even has a baby book.  It’s not THAT big a deal.  But still.  Sometimes little things make a difference.  And today I found a copy of the Todd Parr baby book, new, for a little more than $10 including shipping.  It makes me happy that when Natalie pulls her book off the shelf to look through it (as she often does), Teddy will have one as well.  And that both books will fit their family without taking white out or a sharpie to them.

I’m in a place right now, emotionally, where little things DO affect me differently.  Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation.  Or the fact that I have less adult conversation these days, so I’m more likely to analyze the hell out of it.  And this weekend, it’s a little thing from a friend’s baby shower that has my brain turning.

My friend T is expecting her second child in a few weeks.  We have worked together for years, and she has a child only a few months older than Natalie, so we have shared a lot of motherhood stuff since they were born.  Yesterday, some friends had a shower for her.  As part of it, our friend R led an activity that we did for T before her first child was born, and that we in turn did for R before she gave birth to her daughter.  Each person chooses a bead, holds it, writes some wish for the mother-to-be regarding labor, birth, early days with new child, etc.  Then each person shares her thought as the bead is added to a necklace that travels with the mother-to-be and reminds her of our love and wishes during labor, birth, whatever.  As we were beginning to write, a friend that hadn’t been there for the previous rounds of this activity asked if it needed to focus specifically on labor/birth, because since she’d had an emergency c-section she didn’t feel like she had anything useful to say about that.  R responded that, no, it didn’t have to be specific to the birth at all, that we’d be doing this, “even if T was adopting or having a child in some other way.”

I froze for a second before the cynical voice in my head took over.  Then that voice was shoved aside and insecurity/self doubt began making itself at home.  Because they didn’t do this for me.  Even though R&T have known each other only a year longer than I’ve known the two of them.  Even though my children were born during the same period of time as their children, and they were part of celebrations before Natalie’s birth.  (There were none for Teddy– a fact that I’d attributed to his being born right after summer vacation.)  And really, I don’t care that it wasn’t done for me.  And there are any number of reasons why it wasn’t.  But I keep coming back to R’s one sentence and wondering where that leaves me.  And, while I’ve always been somewhat painfully uncool, I think the answer really is that, once again, I don’t fit the mold.  While my motherhood has never been questioned by this group of friends, I am still the non-bio mom.  And as such, I will never really fit with people who grew their babies inside their bodies.  But I’m not a dad.  And though I adopted Natalie and will (barring catastrophe) adopt Teddy, I don’t necessarily fit with adoptive parents either.  And in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal, because I AM their Mama.  It’s just one of those little things…

I’m getting a wide array of gifts for my birthday, including 1) a visit from the social worker, 2) the strong probability of a photo-generated speeding ticket from my commute this morning (new camera! who knew!), 3) the bad Daylight Savings Time and 4) um. Something good. Hmm. I think it says something about my psyche that I had this post planned out with the four things I wanted to list, one of which was good and THAT is the one I can’t recall….

[Pause to call wife and check with her. In which 1) I call my OWN cell phone first and then 2) when I eventually do get her, SHE can't remember either. Clearly, one thing we are not getting for my birthday is much sleep or capacity for clear thinking.]

So, as I was saying, as if the social worker weren’t enough (she cancelled yesterday due to an emergency court appearance – we had the option to reschedule for later but did NOT want to have to scour the house top to bottom yet again, so opted for the special fun birthday visit), I think I garnered a speeding ticket on my way in due to the telltale flash as I went down the hill. Shortly thereafter NPR informed me that it is DST this weekend. Now I don’t know about you, but I hate DST for so many reasons, not the least of which is that I don’t %$^&*^@# understand it. I can never remember which way the clocks go, and worse than that, even when told which way to move the clock I still have a hard time figuring out what that MEANS. More sleep? Less sleep? Huh? The sleep thing is pretty irrelevant now that we have kids, which just makes it even more frustrating and annoying because THEIR clocks don’t reset. But I believe this is the iteration of DST that people without children consider the “bad” one because they lose an hour of sleep. We’re having a brunch on Sunday and certain childless people (ahem! brother! cough!) were already muttering about the early start time. With added DST fun, I don’t think we’ll be seeing them till tea time.

Anyway, despite all this grousing, I am getting or have already gotten some truly good material things, too (namely a Wii Fit, which came early and is a blast, and an absurdly expensive but beautiful laundry hamper from the Container Store… yes, I am at that sad age when a really boring and utilitarian household item is a great and much-wanted gift) but what is making this birthday really worthwhile is my family.

I’ve been on this earth for 38 years now (!!) and it’s only been the last three that I’ve had kids, of course. These have been the richest and most rewarding three years of my life. The days are full – full of madness, full of fun, full of stress, full of laundry/bills/snotty noses/dishes/clutter/goddamn nursery school glitter but also full of joy and wonder. I can barely remember my life before them, and I don’t miss it. For the second year in a row, I got a homemade birthday card from Natalie (and the concomitant early spilling of the beans last night with the stage whispered, “Mama? Can we give Mommy the card we made?” when I arrived home from work).

And I have a real Coke from Ireland with sugar (not corn syrup) to celebrate with.

Social worker, parking ticket, DST be damned. Who could ask for anything more?

In the past couple of weeks, Teddy has eaten yogurt and applesauce, and gummed on a cucumber slice and some naan. None of it was planned, nor imbued with any pomp or circumstance, and none of it was photographed. Oh, the poor second child! All of it was greatly enjoyed by the boy, and the moms did indeed focus a great deal of attention on him in the moment, but it’s a far cry from the way the first food was handled with the elder child.

While I was pregnant with Teddy, my mom gave me a book about second children (Your Second Child, by Joan Weiss). I read it with curiosity, disdain, and mounting anger, for it described the ways that parents treat children differently by birth order, claims I’d seen in passing elsewhere, but which were given full-length treatment (albeit in most dated fashion, as it was originally written in 1981 and only superficially updated since, most recently in the ’90s). As soon as possible after finishing the book, I sold it at a yard sale. Or gave it away. Or took it to Value Village. I can’t recall exactly how, but I disposed of it, with righteous glee.

And now I wish I hadn’t. For the things it described, which horrified me during my pregnancy, are happening without a doubt in our family. I think reading it now would be a very different experience than before Teddy arrived. For one thing, we don’t do all the things the book assured me we’d do, but more to the point, we do treat him differently AND IT’S OKAY. He gets less hovering, but more space to be himself. He often doesn’t get our full attention, but when he does, we’re really reveling in him, and he also has the added benefit of his sister’s attention and antics. The grin on his face when she talks to him and plays with him is delightful and electric.

One thing that has surprised me about raising a second child, however, is the difference in how *I* experience the milestones. When Natalie got a tooth, or tasted her first food, or any of the countless firsts we celebrated, we were thrilled beyond belief. In these past months as Teddy has chalked up new developmental achievements, I’ve discovered that there’s a tinge of melancholy this time. It’s more than likely that he’s our last baby, so while it’s delightful to see HIM develop, grow, and change, it’s also a little bittersweet to see him move past the sweet, tiny baby phase and think we may never experience gummy grins again.

Thank God the toothy grins are meltingly adorable. Not to mention the other reality of two kids: we don’t have a helluva lot of time to sit around being blue!

Convenience got the best of my frugality today and I added the 300 text message plan to each of our phones. (Well, I guess it’s more accurate to say that different frugal strategies were warring and paying less for a strictly unnecessary feature won out over avoiding the expense by not texting at all.)

In celebration, I sent Cait a text saying Text away, baby!

Only I have her phone in my bag. Mine too.

So I am texting myself. At least it’s not costing me $.20 a pop anymore.

We could use another bedroom, and more storage… elbow room in general. Unfortunately, we won’t be getting them anytime in the foreseeable future, but if we can’t, at least the kids can. We’re giving Natalie a dollhouse for her birthday, but don’t have room for a traditional one (see above). After seeing a suggestion for making a collapsible house from foamcore in a magazine, we decided to do a sturdier version using plywood. I’d write more, but Teddy has other ideas, so I’ll let the photos tell the story.

Measuring

Using those junior high shop* skills

*only they called it “Industrial Arts” !

Mocking up wallpaper

"Installing" wood flooring

And kitchen tile

Aerial view

Bathroom

The BEST part: It stores flat...

...like THIS!

Photos of the finished version will have to wait a bit.

The only thing we don’t like about it is that it is weeks and weeks until her birthday!