potty adventures

nate might finally be heading in the direction of the potty. we have been talking about it a whole lot lately.

with him it seems to be small steps. he would go when he was running around naked all the time. but now that it is cold he doesn't want to be naked.

for the longest time he didn't want to wear pull-ups or underwear. we finally have him convinced that pull-ups are like diapers but easier to pull up and down in case he does want to go on the potty. now we just have to convince him to tell us when he has to go so he can GO on the potty.

we've tried to tell him that diapers are for babies. and that big boys go on the potty. since we are having a baby in a few months we thought that would have some sway. no sale. i've even tried to tell him that many of his playmates who are younger than him go on the potty. still no sale.

but we are still talking about it all. an on-going conversation that i'm afraid will be never ending. oh, i know, he'll do it one of these days. but i'd rather it be sooner rather than later.

Wrap-Up

we are now a couple of days past christmas. thank goodness. i'm so glad that this holiday only comes around once a year!

nate woke up at his usual time on christmas morning. came to bed with us to snuggle. he had no clue it was christmas morning. mostly because we had not made a big deal out of christmas eve or what that meant. he was crazy enough without it. finally, when we were ready to get up we asked him what day he thought it was. "i don't know." it's christmas day. after that, it was all we could do to keep him from running at full tilt to the living room.

we had set up the thomas and friends carnival--complete with it's orange, spiral ramp--the night before. that was from santa. nate immediately started playing with it. the "swirly ramp" is still a big hit. it only took about 10 or 15 minutes before it occurred to him that he could now open all of the presents that had been under the tree for the last few days. so we spent the next 2 hours opening about 10 presents and our stockings. by the end of the day everything was unwrapped but several things were still in their boxes. those were opened the next morning.

i spaced on cameras so we have no pictures of nate's excitement or playing or the like. i'm a bit sad that i didn't think of it because his reaction to at least one gift was "just what i wanted!" though he had no clue it even existed.

we had a few guests (a friend from work, his wife and their baby) for dinner. ham, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potato souffle, mashed potatoes. pretty table set with candles and the rare occasion to be able to use nice placemats and cloth napkins.

the next day was christmas for us again. the package from mama D and papa D arrived from the postman/santa. after nate's nap we opened the box and then opened the gifts inside. i will do my best to describe nate's reaction to some of the presents my parents sent. one of the things he got was a leap frog clickstart computer. when he unwrapped it, he immediately started jumping up and down with his arms in the air. "YAY! it's a leap frog computer!!!! YAY!" he had nearly the same reaction to the kidzoom camera.

so now a few days out he has maxed out the memory on his camera (it holds somewhere around 300 pictures). pictures of the floor and our legs and backs and the cat's foot. pictures that are overexposed and too close to see anything and ones that are completely blurry. we are working on him standing the right distance from the subject. and holding the camera still until after the flash is done. he's working on it, slowly.

he has spent oodles of time on his computer, or at least that's what it feels like to papa and i. he's actually really good on that little computer. we are working on holding the mouse correctly, but beyond that he's able to navigate and play the games. he's growing up so fast. my baby is learning to spell. i don't think reading is too far behind for him. not too much longer and we won't be able to spell out the things we don't want him to hear! eek!

maybe after i figure out how, i can get some of the pictures he's taken posted on here for you all to see.

i hope your christmas was as joyful as ours was. it was wonderful to see the magic of christmas though his eyes. hopefully next year i'll remember the camera.

wishes

just writing to wish everyone a warm, peaceful, loving holiday season. christmas is tomorrow, so we get to play santa tonight. but first we have to clean, clean, clean, so that the house is presentable to a few dinner guests.

The Hair

there is an item in our house so vital to the survival of the 3 year old that it warrants mentioning here. it is called "the hair," and that's exactly what it is. more specifically, it is my hair.

from a very early age Nate was very attached to my hair, as you can see in the picture above--he was 6 mos old. anytime he got anywhere near me he would reach for my hair. it was comfort for him. he played with it while nursing and eventually the two just went hand-in-hand. i even cut it off once thinking "out of sight out of mind." it didn't work. i ended up bent way over so that he could still play with it while nursing. not particularly comfortable for me, but if i didn't bend over he would keep reaching for it.

i didn't so much mind him being attached to me or playing with my hair. it was all of the incidental, light touching of my shoulders, neck and face that drove me insane. i got officially, "touched out."

but, it was the one thing, other than nursing, that would help him fall asleep. even after he stopped nursing, i would end up laying in bed with him for 30 or more minutes so he could play with my hair to put himself to sleep.

the one time i did get my hair cut, i at least had the forethought to keep the lock of hair that was cut off. it was held together with a rubber band, dried out completely. i just had to find something that would hold it all together. a rubberband wasn't going to cut it, obviously. i mean nate could get pretty rough with my hair, so it had to stand up to his brand of love.

we had tried to get him to attach to a fake piece of hair before. but he would have nothing to do with it. he knew it wasn't mama's hair. no sale.

so finally we decided that epoxy was the stuff to hold it all together. something strong, that could be somehow pushed or mushed into the end to hold each individual hair. so that's what we used. and it worked. we've had to redo the epoxy once because it fell apart in chunks, but it seems to be holding up well.

we didn't try to get him to take the hair until he was about 2 years old. at first, nate wouldn't have anything to do with it. but it occurred to me that it is my hair so he wouldn't be able to tell the difference in the dark. this was the test. was it the hair or mama that he needed? the first night i sort of blended the hair in with my hair. he grabbed onto it without much thought. i slipped my hair out and was able to leave the room. i did the same thing the next night. after that i didn't have to blend it in. i just gave him the hair and left the room.

we had found the key to getting him to go to sleep without crying. THE HAIR. i'm pretty proud of the fact that we never "had" to let him cry it out. i am a firm believer that it is really just a matter of finding the key to your child. and that too many parents are simply not willing to take the time to do that. but that is just my opinion. and who knows maybe the next baby won't be so easily pacified.

we've gotten rid of the binky at night. he gets it at nap time, but not at night. eventually, we'll drop it at naptime too. but i don't care about the hair. it isn't affecting his mouth like the binky can. he can have the hair until he's 50 for all i care.

i will say that there is a significant panic in our house if the hair goes missing, which it has, several times. we've always managed to find it again, but not without some anger involved for having lost it in the first place.

it goes everywhere with us. and is his constant companion. i think it is cute.

the care of the hair? i wash it and condition it and dry it just like my own hair. not too hard. speaking of which the hair needs a bath.

i will also say that we get some pretty strange looks from people when they see it in his hand. they usually get a brief description that he was very attached to my hair, so i cut some off for him and that they are looking at the result. the hair. most people think it is brilliant. "why didn't i think of that?" clearly hair is a popular lovey among babies.

and it makes sense really. how much more attached can you get to mom? if you have her hair, the rest of her can't be that far away. i'm not sure that if we had tried to get him to take it earlier it would have been so easy. i know that early on it really was me he wanted, my hair was just something to play with. only when he got older was it less me and more my hair that was the comfort.

who knows how long we'll have to deal with the hair, but i don't really care. i love my nate-o.

another, finally

it has been a while since i posted, but i can finally report that we are pregnant again. after about 16 months of trying. my fifth pregnancy. my last pregnancy.

we had done clomid and a trigger shot the cycle we got pregnant. i took an HPT at 8 dpo, just to see if the trigger shot was still hanging around. very faint positive, so i knew that it was. couldn't get my bloodtest until 11 dpo at the earliest. so sunday morning i pee'd on a stick. 10 dpo. every other HPT i'd taken at 10 dpo after a trigger shot was stark white negative. this one had a very, very, very faint line. it showed up after the time limit. i debated if it was an "evap line." but both jeff and i agreed that it was definitely a pink line. ok, so we wait and test again the next day. i called my doctor in between taking the test and the line showing up. "i'm not pregnant, again. we're sad. and getting very, very discouraged." we were discouraged. on the verge of calling it done--for good. can't take much more of this. she said, it's still early. asked if we wanted a bloodtest. we said, we'll test again tomorrow and call then.

so i took another test on monday morning. this time the line was darker. this time it was pink without a doubt. this time it showed up within the time limit. this time i was sure it was positive. but somehow still doubted it. so we called to order the bloodtest.

HPT and bloodtest on tuesday both said positive. it's official. we got pregnant! dr. C was thrilled to tell me i was wrong.

i was so happy i could hardly contain it. i had already called my parents on sunday or monday and told them that we had a "tentative positive." jeff wanted to wait to tell people, but as usual, i can't seem to wait. he's cautious, i'm excited. so i started slowly telling people close to me.

we had our first ultrasound on October 10th. it showed that we were having twins. panic was my close friend for about 24 hours. so many BIG changes. we were ready? what exactly did it all mean? a bigger car. more stuff. more concerns about how nate would react. more concerns about nate basically losing his mom for a long time in order for her to care for two babies. not to mention, pregnancy and health concerns. and having to pick an actual doctor now. but not just any doctor. a doctor who could understand the complexities of the situation and not want to automatically cut me open just because there are two babies. i was stressed out, to say the least.

we had a second ultrasound on October 19th. it showed that we were once again having only one baby. i think the first words out of my mouth were "oh, thank god." so much stress was instantly gone. but it was replaced by another nagging feeling.

since we are having to inject 100 mg of progesterone in my butt every other day, we would have no idea if something went wrong. as demonstrated by the vanishing twin. that's why we did the first ultrasound. and after the second ultrasound is when i really started to worry that we would not, in the end, be bringing home a baby. again.

i ordered, and have already received, our rental doppler. it arrived a few days before the 10 wk mark. i was able to find Nate's heartbeat at 10 wks, so i was hopeful but still reserved about this baby. keeping in mind that because of the twins my uterus got bigger faster than it normally would. but now that we are back to only one baby, it would seem logical that that growth would sort of plateau for a while. plus, the remaining twin is actually the lower of the two. i tried to find heart tones one night but couldn't actually hear anything. the doppler seemed to pic something up, but i simply couldn't hear what it was reading. so we decided to wait a few more days to look again.

we had our first "official" prenatal appointment with SP, our midwife, on November 1st. we had a really laid back appointment. do you want to weigh? do you want to pee in a cup? do you want a blood pressure? yes, no, yes. we did a GBS swab--better to know the answer on that early so we can deal with it. and we were actually able to hear a heartbeat. at exactly 10 weeks. i was surprised, happy, and relieved. now i know that things seem to be going ok. and now i can check whenever i want to without resorting to an ultrasound and regardless of the injections. and that's the whole point of the doppler. to make me comfortable.

we also had a consult on November 1st with a family practice doctor who we were hoping would be willing to "follow along" this time. i really don't want to get to that 40 week mark and have to scramble around looking for a doctor who is willing to take my case. Dr. F was great. very laid back. we told her that things had changed--originally we had made the consult appointment when we were having twins. we weren't having twins anymore, we were returning to our midwife for care and planning a homebirth. but we also expained Jesper's death and the plan with Nate. we told her we would be seeing a perinatologist, as usual. and that the plan would probably be similar to that with Nate. 2 level II's in mid and late pregnancy, BPP's at the end, and induction at 40 weeks. she's on board. says, "oh, we do that all the time." ok, news to me. she said we don't have to see her until 34 weeks because we already have so much care involved. so that is done. and i'm relieved.

and now we can fall into the miraculously mundane days of a normal pregnancy. happy.

testing . . . can you see those lines?

another one??

it finally happened! i have finally met another person named . . . HALO. seriously. ok, well, i didn't really meet the person, but i met her mom.

apparently, the mom was nicknamed "Halo" in school in the 50's because of something to do with her hair. yup, called Halo because of the shampoo! so when the mom got married some years later, her husband said they would name their first daughter Halo. so they did. the daughter is apparently about 33 years old.

so there you go. another person actually named Halo. i never thought i'd see the day. but apparently, i was wrong!

Failure

why is it that even after 4 years i still feel like such a failure when it comes to Jesper. i've failed myself, Jeff, Jesper, and even Nate. i still feel guilty over something that, intellectually, i know i could not have changed. and i still feel like a complete failure.

this year might be worse because we are trying to get pregnant again. and i seem to be failing at that month after month after month.

and it doesn't seem to matter how much Jeff tells me i didn't fail. there is still that part of me that screams "FAILURE!"

i think this is the thing people really don't understand. they can understand the sadness and the pain, but those should fade with time and other events. they do not get the overwhelming sense of guilt and failure. they don't see it. they can't understand it at all. why would i feel guilty over something that wasn't a result of anything i did or didn't do? why would i feel like a failure when it was so clearly out of my control?

why? because he was inside **my** body at the time of his death. i was the one person on this earth who was charged with nurturing him, giving him what he needed, protecting him. i should have known something was wrong, i should have been able to do something about it. plus, i did know that something wasn't right, but i didn't know what. i didn't know what the things i felt—or didn't feel—meant. i should have. i should have done more research. i should have been doing kick counts. i should have made my concerns more clear. i should have shouted from the rooftop in order to be heard. but i didn't. i sat back and let it happen. worried about labor. didn't worry enough when he was so quiet.

even Jeff doesn't understand. but he didn't carry our son in his body.

so there you go. i'm a failure. i failed everyone. and i don't really care if anyone understands it or not. it is almost impossible to explain it so that others can understand. so i don't try. i just keep it to myself. but it is always there. just like the tears.

this and that #1

so, i called the hospital to complain. they are in the process of making excuses and passing me from person to person. i don't expect anything to change. ever. but at least i said something.


on friday my eggie was ready to go, so we did the trigger shot again. though after that i have no idea when i actually ovulated. i expected two things: ovulation on saturday without the shot and major ovulation pain with the shot. i don't know if i ovulated saturday, i suspect so, but since i missed my alarm on sunday morning i will never know for sure. and i didn't get any ovulation pain that i remember, so if it was there it wasn't much. now, i've asked and the o-pain is not a phenomenon for everyone all the time. so it could just be this time that i didn't have it. who knows. at any rate it was another unsuccessful month.

beyond that i have nothing profound to say tonight, and the laundry is calling me.

ah, hospitals . . .

within the last few years LAMC has changed to a for-profit business. more specifically, it was bought by a private owner company. since then they have become money-grubbing.

in the last 2 months i've had several blood draws there trying to figure out the old fertility issues. they called today "as a courtesy" on a bill that i got in the mail saturday.

her: did you want to set up a payment schedule?
me: i haven't even had the bill in my hands 7 days and it is only $68.
her: but you have 3 accounts open right now.
me: so what? and don't ever call me as a courtesy again.

she made it sound like there was something WRONG. like i hadn't paid a bill from 6 months ago.

in addition to the waking-from-my-nap phone call they've done other things that piss me off.

1. they make you sign a million and one forms now and that is annoying just to have blood drawn. lately they've included asking you to sign a form stating that you know the dangers of smoking! can you say COVER YOUR ASS? the person at registration has to evaluate your mobility risk (you know slip/trip/fall likelyhood). are they really qualified to assess that?

2. you now have to tell everyone who so much as breathes on you why you are there. no kidding. you have to show your orders to the lady who takes your name so that you can sit and wait for someone at registration. all she needs to know is my name and the time i got there. not why i'm there.

well, there are at least a couple other places where i can get my blood drawn in town. i think the hospital will be losing my business.

have you been drinking?

new mexico is well known for having lots of drunk drivers that do devastating work, as it were.

tonight in los alamos, i was passed through my very first DWI checkpoint. it was dark. their lights were flashing (annoyingly bright). i rolled down my window.

they asked, "has anyone had anything to drink tonight?"
"no," my reply.
"okay, proceed on through behind this car ahead of you."

what?!? you are only going to stop me if i admit to it? what if i said, my passenger had been drinking. and what difference does it make if my passenger has been drinking? he isn't driving!

oh sure, i get it. he assessed my drinking status in my answer and my demeanor. if i had slurred my speech or looked intoxicated in any other way, he would have gladly pulled me over.

on the road again. we joke, "no officer we haven't been drinking, but our two-year-old put away a 5th not that long ago. it was the only way we could get him to be quiet for a little while."

where was the checkpoint? on the road by the catholic church which was, coincidentally, having a St. Patrick's Day Dance. my guess is they will get no one for DWI and will once again get cudoos for it!