Just Scream Dance 2

I’m 37 weeks pregnant today which means “full-term.” Which means I could deliver at any moment. Well, I’m sure there’ll be a little notice. I went into labor with Henry two days before his due date and he was born very early the morning before. The doctor says this is a good thing, that my internal clock is accurate. Look out August 14 then.

Henry was in camp this week so I tried to spend my mornings knocking things off my to-do list. Monday was very productive. Tuesday through Friday I think I added more things to the list than took off. I hope Front Loader hasn’t heard how many times I’ve said “the worst timing” in describing his arrival. We are excited, just ill-planned.

There are moments when Henry is being the bestest boy – splashing in the water at Lake George in his Thomas the Tank Engine swim trunks, the sun reflecting in his brown with yellow specks eyes – and I think, This next one is going to be so much easier. I’ll just throw on the sling and tuck in FL and we can come to the lake and enjoy the rippling water that laps at my legs while Henry walks on his hands, making a tunnel through my legs. Then there are moments where 45minutes into trying to get Henry to take a nap – “I’m not a nap boy, Momma.” – where I think What have I done?? How does anyone ever have more than one child?? And yet plenty of people have. When we found out we were having another boy, I started counting all the friends I know who have two boys. A surprising number. And they are all incredibly, impressive mothers (or fathers). I got this, I’ll think. And then Henry will yell “Poop!”

I’m at the point in my pregnancy where the belly is peaking out below even my maternity shirts and people feel comfortable approaching me in public about the impending arrival. Most conversations begin with “When are you due?,” contain a story about their child(ren) and end with “Enjoy it because it goes so fast. Good luck.” It’s a strange thing for strangers to know this about you. No one knew when I was going through a divorce or got a new job or had a fight with my parents. Yet, just by looking at me, they know at some point soon I will be in a hospital with near-strangers between my legs helping me push out a mini-human. Doesn’t that seem extremely personal? Is that what warrants the conversations? It’s like, Well, we know all know this about you and some of us have been through this before so we might as well just address the Front Loader in the room. A public connection too strong not to acknowledge.

And I suppose this is why Mommy Groups are so popular. Motherhood can be so polarizing and isolating. It’s easy to drop into the mind-sucking quicksand of poop and feedings and lack of sleep. To forget that millions of parents around the world are experiencing (or have experienced) the same thing night after night, year after year. What’s surprised me the most is when I feel less than, it’s my mom telling me how occasionally she’d have to go in another room and do a scream dance just to make it through a moment when we were young. It’s probably because I consider her a model mother that her itty-bitty-breakdowns are so meaningful to me. It tells me it’s okay to need to scream dance in another room. My child can still feel loved and I won’t win Crazy Mother of the Year.

With two children, I may need to hear more stories from my mother.

A Year and A Month

Tomorrow, I will have lived in Maine for a year.

Today, Front Loader is one month away from his due date.

Today, Jared and I will go for the final ultrasound to see this boy who feels like he’s already a 10lb gymnast and they will look at the chambers of his heart and ask me if he’s moving and if my feet are swelling and am I sure I want to do a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Then we will go meet with the anesthesiologist at the hospital because everyone is freaked out about VBACs and he wants to know I’m allergic to penicillin before I’m moaning through another labor.

 

After these appointments, we will drive to a coworker’s “camp” and meet with several other coworkers over a mish-mashed potluck discussing our plans to improve the boarding program at MCI. We’ve been meeting for months and our three-hour long meetings are so inspiring and motivating that I don’t even mind we’ve been sitting inside an un-air-conditioned house while the heat and humidity threaten to melt me. Over pulled pork and guacamole and homemade ice-cream sandwiches (not in the same dish), we’ve been hashing away at a system that will allow students to earn privileges, deciding their own fates. Thrilling stuff. Seriously.

Tomorrow, Henry and I will probably go swimming at Grammie’s house and I will marvel, again, at how he can now walk down to the bottom step in the pool with his long, big-boy legs whereas a year ago his stubby stems sat on the top step with his adorably pudgy hands slapping at the water.

 

 

August 2012

 

Next week, he goes back to camp (this time Polar Bears and Penguins themed) and starts swim lessons at night. And wherever he goes he picks up words and concepts and his language, no matter how long he’s been talking and how many times it surprises me, continues to knock me over with his sharp insights and sense of humor. His face, in a constant state of expression even in sleep, paints compassion and frustration and glee and anger and surprise and understanding and confusion – sometimes  

July 2013

all within five minutes.

While I still long for San Diego Mexican food and seeing old pictures of Henry at the Zoo bring about a sense of mourning, our life is here. Walking down the street to Big Bill’s for ice cream. Eating hamburgers and fruit on Nona and Bumpie’s deck, listening for loons. Watching cousins pull Henry around Grammie and Grampie’s pool in the blue, floaty, netted inner tube. Having friends over for Taco Tuesdays. Lots of driving. Living in a dorm full of girls with my house full of boys.

The hardest thing about moving to Maine was the actual moving. Despite the weather changes, more remote location, new jobs and all our new “neighbors,” being here has been like changing an outfit. I still own my San Diego clothes, the skin I was born with. But right now, this Maine wardrobe fits pretty great.

Front Loader's #1

33 weeks along (which means there’s 7 left) and we haven’t picked out a name yet. Front Loader is getting closer and closer to the front runner. We have plenty of suggestions. And plenty names we don’t hate. But Henry Oscar came so easily to us. Within a month of finding out I was pregnant last time. I’m struggling with the maybe impossible balance of recognizable name (aka, people can spell it) without the overwhelming popularity. I’m also looking for a name that, when I share it with my brother, he doesn’t text back “Seriously?” and then “That makes me think of a large, slow man. Like Lenny from Of Mice and Men.” Eh, it will come to us.

Meanwhile, Henry went to pre-school summer camp last week. Every day I dropped him off, he ran off with a “Bye, Mommy. See you later.” and picked up the trains before I could answer. The first day was waaaaaay harder on me than him. On Monday, he did gymnastics. Tuesday, he made a monkey paper bag puppet. Wednesday, he complimented the teacher on using her words. Thursday, he was cuddling with two little girls when I picked him up. Friday, he brought home a picture of himself wearing gianormous red glasses, in a frame made of popsicle sticks and tissue paper flowers, where his resemblance to Elton John prompts us to sing Henry and the Jets. This week we’re hanging out at home, but next week he’ll return for Pirate Camp.

It’s strange to have a baby kicking inside and an almost three-year-old on the outside (sometimes, also kicking). As Front Loader (henceforth known as FL) gets ready to escape, newly independent Henry also wants to conjoin. He’ll climb into bed with me in the mornings and get so close it’s like he’s trying to crawl back inside, his knees pressed against my belly and head sweating on my shoulder. “I missed you, Mama,” he says when I return from a quick trip to the store (or the other room). And today at the beach, after playing with other kids in the water, he’d run over to me just to touch my shirt before heading back out to splash. FL rolls and turns like a big cat pacing. Two boys already with different energy.

As we’ve gotten baby clothes, I can’t imagine a child fitting in these tiny pieces of soft cloth. “Was Henry ever that small?” I keep asking people around me. As my boy-child loses his baby pudge, his body leaning and stretching, his stomach no longer round, FL will spend the next seven-ish weeks gaining fat. Here is Henry, the child I could never conjure, but also the inevitable boy, so himself from before he was pulled out. My mind is separated into before Henry and after, a benchmark for events. And FL will emerge with his own personality and dark hair, alike but completely different like when I scramble my letters in Scrabble; the same components spelling a distinctive face and hands and sense of humor. And what name will fit him…