Still Waiting...

Much of life consists of waiting. We make a decision about something important, get ready and then... wait. I'm sure that someone somewhere has tallied how much time we simply spend waiting at stoplights. Pregnancy is one of those waiting games. A husband and wife decide to add another beloved child to their family, and then everyone waits for nine and a half more months until that child makes its appearance. Like most things, the most excruciating waiting period is right at the end. We can wait 40 weeks, but the last fews days are sheer torture.

When I was pregnant with Kathleen, I was optimistic. Perhaps I could buck my genetic trend and actually have a child without oxytocin, and early, too. Kathleen was induced a week late, with my body just realizing that it might be time to kick her out. It seems that I'm just so hospitable that nobody wants to leave.

This time with Sophia I knew better. My due date was May 14, so I expected to be induced a week late, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that with my history, I could get induced on my due date. Which is today. And we don't own a laptop. And I'm not at the hospital. This time it's not physiology to blame, it's scheduling. Who knew that May 14th would be such a popular date to schedule an induction?

So, here I am, again, still pregnant. And will most likely be until Sunday, when I'm going to kick my ox into the mire and be induced. Perhaps I'll take my friend Natalie's offer and go jump on her trampoline for awhile after dinner.

Differing Parenting Styles

When two people marry, the thought of differences is inconceivable; that, after all, is why two people marry - they are absolutely perfect for each other. And perfection implies agreement in everything. Until they marry, then live somewhere, have to pick out furniture, and set up housekeeping. And that's just the beginning; wait until children come along.

Thursday afternoon, in a fit of housecleaning that only seems to occur when a child is about to be born, Brandon, Kathleen and I were in the backyard. I was cleaning the jog stroller, and he was scrubbing out the trashcan, which had grown a fine layer of black mold in the bottom during the winter. My excuse was that it was too cold to clean anything outside, so the mold got to stay.

Kathleen, being a small child, has a fascination with water, and if the water has bubbles in it, so much the better. If a sponge also comes with the deal, life is perfect. She started out somewhat innocuously (compared to later), by scooping out the bubbles to place upon her head. Then came the splashing. But the piece de resistance, grounds for disagreement between Brandon and myself, was when she started drinking the soapy, moldy, trashcan water out of the sponge.

He was revolted. I ran and got the video camera.

The Mexi-Mobile Rides Again

While on our way home from Portland, Brandon, Kathleen and I decided to stop in La Grande, Oregon. None of us had ever been to La Grande, and we heard that there was a nice place for sandwiches, organically shade-grown coffee, and strange college students, called Highway 30. It was a lovely, sunny day, warm but not too warm, and we enjoyed a nice walk around the historic downtown.

During our stop for luncheon, we decided to get the car fixed as long as we were in La Grande. It was making a scraping noise that only stopped when Brandon took a walk along the Interstate and found some spare parts that he was able to (once again) rig up the detached muffler pipe with. The patch from the previous repair job was holding just fine; a section a few inches down was now causing the trouble.

So if any of you are in La Grande, and need a muffler repair while having lunch, we highly recommend The Muffler Shop, on Madison Ave right behind the railroad tracks.

Why There are Three Types of Vacations

After being married awhile, Brandon and I started talking about vacations. Vacations, I insisted did not include children. Brandon countered that they did. After some discussions, we came up with three types.

1. Trip. On a trip, one takes family and visits family.
2. Vacation. On a vacation, one takes family, but does not visit family.
3. Getaway. On a getaway, no family is involved other than one and one's spouse.

While planning our trip to Portland, I decided that Brandon and I needed a getaway to celebrate our anniversary. After some arranging the surprise, we went to the coast and stayed at a wonderful bed and breakfast for two nights while Kathleen got abandoned at her Aunt Laura's house. Contrary to typical coastal weather, the sun started shining as we pulled into town and was fairly sunny our entire stay. Not that it mattered much; we simply enjoyed eating entirely too much food, sleeping as long as we wanted, and reading a book together with no interruptions. There were a few walks interspersed between eating and napping.

It is now my definite opinion, now proved, that getaways are the key to parental/marital sanity.

A Much-Needed Road Trip

A while ago, Brandon and I decided to take a trip. Kathleen was included in the trip, but had no part in the planning because she's not even two and can't say her own name. Her opinion wasn't consulted. When I told my father (who is an OB/GYN) that we were going to Portland, Oregon (a 12-hour drive away), he asked how far along I would be. 37 weeks, I sheepishly admitted. After that, he didn't want to hear any details.

For those of you who are wondering, Sophia is still safely inside and I had no blood clots, heart problems, or anything else that might be associated with long-distance car travel while terminally pregnant. Just some irritability and a moratorium on twisting around to reach the back seat for the next several months.

As with all trips, expected problems turned out worse and better than we had hoped. And we certainly have learned some lessons to store away in the parental consciousness so we can pass it on to our children who will promptly ignore it.

1. Children sleep less than one would think they should in the car, and inevitably stay up past their bedtime when you most want them to be quiet and go to sleep. Softly played Primary songs don't help. Although this principle was obnoxious enough on the trip to Portland where we arrived around 7, it became even more painfully so on our return trip, where we didn't arrive until 11. Kathleen managed to finally fall asleep right around Salt Lake.

2. When placed in a situation with new toys and new compatriots, children suddenly become aware of nothing else. We stayed for several nights with Brandon's sister, Alissa and her family which included three cousins, the oldest being 4 1/2. Who knew that pushing around a toy walking car could provide hours of amusement to someone who can already walk?

3. On vacation, nutrition goes out the window. We began the week well, with a healthy whole-wheat couscous salad and dried fruit. Mid-week, Kathleen was feasting on Easy-Mac for several meals. By our trip home, her last meal was a hamburger patty (just the patty) and french fries.

4. Tiring out a child will help them sleep anywhere (as long as it isn't the car). For the other portion of our week, Brandon and I stayed with my sister Laura and her husband Ben in their studio apartment on the eight floor of a downtown tower. Despite being in the same room as four talking adults, Kathleen had no problem falling asleep. The only problem was when she woke up around 6 and there was no door to keep out her babblings.

5. Siblings, despite any difficulties growing up, are wonderful to visit. Despite our invasion of their studio, Laura and Ben seemed very happy to see us, happy enough to take Kathleen off our hands for a few days while Brandon and I went to the coast. We had a great time walking around Portland with them, and seeing their new apartment and where Laura works. Seeing Jeff and Alyssa was just as fun, and we got to watch their kids for them and give them a date night. We stayed up entirely too late the night before we left playing Settlers of Catan. Despite improved sibling relations, however, you're never too old to still be upset by games. No one threw any tantrums or pieces to the game, though.

The Persistence of Children

Once, (seemingly) long ago, I was told by a well-meaning former pre-school teacher that children have short attention spans. Your nursery lessons should be short, she counseled me, counting on a minute for each year in the child's age. According to her formula, the longest lessons we should plan for would be three minutes. Never having had children, I decided to ignore her advice and do what I wanted.

Now having had a child for over a year and a half, I wonder whose children she was speaking of having short attention spans. Theoretically, if a child had a short attention span, they would be endlessly entertained, moving from activity to activity to activity and then back again because by the time they got done emptying out all of the cupboards and drawers in the house, they would have forgotten about having done it once, and then do it all over again.

I say theoretically because I have yet to see Kathleen exhibit this behavior. Instead of wandering off after 90 seconds of Bill and Pete, or worse yet, Mother Goose, she sticks around for the whole story and would have me read it to her until, well, I don't know. I've never seen how long; her patience is longer than mine. And Mother Goose is over 100 pages long. I know; I've read the whole thing to her more than once.

With the advent of warmer weather, Kathleen has discovered The Park. And more importantly, she has learned that The Park contains every child's favorite mindless contraption: The Swings. One afternoon, I decided to see who would give up first, her or me. She finally gave up after an hour. But that was just the swings. I had to drag her kicking and screaming home, otherwise she would have stayed for at least another two hours. If I had known, I would have brought a book.

Her most recent obsession that is more easily reached than the park is The Blanket, or alternately The Laundry Bag. Unfortunately her Uncle Nick introduced her to the idea of being swung back and forth inside a blanket. It sounds simple, it even sounds like fun for all involved, but it soon grows old after 10 or 15 minutes for those that have to do the swinging. But don't worry, she'll accept substitutes - Brandon has been obliged to carry her around the house inside a blanket or one of our laundry bags for an entire afternoon. And if her favorite activity is interrupted, she howls like she's just been told she's going to be sold into slavery. This morning, while getting ready for church, I finally put the blanket out of her reach because she was following us around the house with it, asking to be swung (not with words, just with an insistent uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh). She just went and found another one. Whoever says children have short attention spans clearly has never done anything with them that they enjoy.

Has Anyone Seen Spring?

This was the view out of our front window Thursday morning. I wasn't very happy. And neither was Kathleen.

Ideals versus Reality

As a fairly new parent, I am still coming up against every parent's daily struggle of ideals versus reality. The first source of ideals comes from parenting books and magazines. There are enough ideals stuffed into such sources to make any mother feel as if their child will grow up to be a mass murderer because they weren't read to in utero and had at least 3 hours of concentrated play-time and parental interaction. Thankfully, I learned to ignore those sources early on; I had enough guilt without needing a well-designed layout to increase it.

However, the second source of ideals is harder to ignore: the ones we create ourselves. Those ideals we hold because we think that they are an intrinsically good idea or principle, not just because a slick magazine layout told us they were so.

The first ideal that got discarded was 'I'll never yell at my darling child;' it lasted about 3 weeks until Kathleen wouldn't stop crying in the middle of the night and all I wanted was sleep. Somehow children should know to stop crying when you yell instead of simply crying more. And ever since, they've been dropping by the wayside.

Ideal: My child will always eat healthy food and no desserts. Reality: Macaroni and cheese is perfectly nutritious, and cheerios are a great distraction
Ideal: My child will never eat treats in church. Reality: At the height of snack-dom we had three different types of treats (cheese, cheerios and cocoa crunchies).
Ideal: I will enrich my child's mind with daily activities and reading. Reality: Daily activities definitely include sitting on my lap while I surf the internet. And Noisy Nora can certainly enrich any child's mind.

With the coming of Kathleen's 18-month birthday, another ideal bit the dust. Despite being perfectly happy with her first week of nursery, Kathleen was not nearly as happy with her second and third weeks. I have never heard a child scream the way she did while being left in nursery. So, despite my resolution never to sit with my child in nursery, that's exactly what Brandon and and I have been doing for the last three weeks in church. On his week, Brandon got to enjoy a full two hours of play time, snack, lesson, and coloring. We'll have her trained just in time for Sophia to arrive and start disrupting the peace again.

Date Night

Last Saturday was Date Night. For those who don't have children, date night may perhaps not be the sacrosanct event that it is for us who are tied down after 6 p.m. However, once Kathleen is in bed at the appointed hour, either Brandon can leave the house or I can leave the house, but to leave the house together requires a third party (who is usually paid). And last Saturday was an especially special date night, the kind that doesn't involve separate seating during the movie; we usually only manage that kind on our one night out a month.

In anticipation of seeing an earlier movie, we grilled at home, pretending that it is actually warm enough this time of year to grill outside. And seeing as this was Date Night, a special time where Brandon and I can sit down, talk, and discuss the deepest matters of our soul, the phone rang. So I enjoyed a delicious dinner while Brandon tried to eat around being harangued the entire meal by a well-meaning caller.

But no matter. We could still lovingly hold hands while being surrounded by teenaged girls at the dollar movie showing of Enchanted. I liked it, and well, it was better than anything else offered. Afterwards, we decided to splurge and go to Coldstone for ice cream. Obviously we hadn't been out on a Saturday night for some time, because we weren't aware of the 45-minute wait time for someone to mix your ice cream up on a cold piece of marble. At both stores in Provo. So instead we went grocery shopping. Aren't onions romantic?

On the way home, our rumbling motor emitted a clunk followed by an ominous scraping sound. Our poor car had chosen that moment to break a pipe on University Parkway. So, to finish off our date night, Brandon crawled under the car and rigged up a license plate with string to hold us over until we got home. Anyone who says that married life isn't romantic obviously hasn't watched their Henry Higgins turn into McGuyver.

Lowered Expectations

As a tender youth in the Young Women's program, we were always told 'never lower your standards or expectations!' I took that advice to heart, always looking for what I could expect more from. Friday night date? Dinner and a movie were so overdone. Just dinner itself? Don't even think of taking me to something like Applebees - they get all of their food from Sysco! Vacations? The more remote and related to the Caribbean the better. I once dated a young man whose highest desire from life was to sit in his library at home and read books. Who'd ever want to marry someone like that?

Growing up in North Carolina, I had definite ideas about climate. Anything less than 85 degrees is cool, and anything less than 50 is downright cold. And below freezing? We don't talk about places like that out of respect for the mental deficiencies of the people living there.

However, this winter has been only the worst in a long string of cold winters; I was just grateful to stay home and not walk to class in the miserable weather. Spring has finally decided to show its face around here, and the snow has almost melted. The weather has been gorgeous. Kathleen and I have gone running in reduced winter gear (only one blanket for her, and one jacket and pair of running tights for me, sometimes ever stripping down to no jacket at all). After all 30 degree mornings are quite balmy compared to 20 degree ones. And those ones are better than 10 degree mornings. This afternoon, charmed by the sun, Kathleen and I even shed our coats and I donned flip-flops. And who wouldn't on a balmy, 55-degree day? Despite the warnings of my long-ago leaders, I have come to embrace lowered expectations. Being happy is so much easier when one doesn't expect much.