round 2, 37 weeks

37 weeks, round 1

37 weeks, round 2

Tim says my belly looks bigger this time around but I look skinnier everywhere else. I think that's a fair assessment of this pregnancy. I've gained less weight this time and it's been concentrated in my uterus more so than my first pregnancy. I'm starting to swell and retain fluid elsewhere in my body at this point, but I can still take my wedding ring on and off! I can still wear the same shoes! My face doesn't look super fat! All good things.

As a tangential side note, I hate due dates. I keep thinking of mine now that we are in the month of and it kind of makes me feel like I do when I lose something. The other day a piece to one of Shep's toys went missing and it was really bothering me. Puzzle pieces are the worst to lose because you can't ever forget that it's gone. The due date is a similar mystery. Baby's just going to show up whenever the heck Baby shows up and this number gives you a sense of some timing but it's only a tickle, a tease. I've been suspecting that I'll give birth early based on a couple of things: (a) this pregnancy is totally different from round 1 and round 1 ended after "40 weeks," and (b) I originally estimated my due date for December 5 based on my calculation of LMP and I just can't let go of that number. Eh, what's a couple more weeks at this point, anyway? Soon is soon.

windows

Shep likes to have his window down in the car lately. When he gets bored of being in the car, he takes off his shoes. Once he threw both shoes out the window. It was actually very close to home when he chucked them, but we hadn't seen. We drove around all along the route we had gone, but we couldn't find them because Tim's mom, who lives upstairs, found them first and recovered them. We've tried to keep our eyes out for other littering from the back window since.

The other day I went to Home Depot and left my brother and Shep in the car while I went inside. Later, I realized Shep had removed his shoes. I only found one sitting next to his car seat. I thought the other one might be in some stuff that was on the floor and didn't take the opportunity to search at the time. Two days later, I cleaned out the car and couldn't find it anywhere. I realized the other shoe must have gotten tossed out when we had gone to Home Depot. On the weekend at night, we were sort of driving in the same area, so I decided on a lark to see if the shoe was still there. It was right where Shep left it.

toddler tyranny

Shep seems to have entered into a stage of full-blown two-ness. As cute as he is, I'm actually struggling to be patient with this phase. It's like doing some backcountry snow sport when there's risk of avalanche. It's kind of fun until the avalanche happens and then you're fighting for your life. Except, I derive no thrill from the possibility of tantrums, as I imagine some people derive from the risk of danger. I don't know; bad analogy. The point is, it's really fun to see his personality and language and interests develop. But it's also invariably exhausting, and often infuriating. Tantrums, which up until a few weeks ago seemed to be an occasional anomaly, now seem inevitable if the scenario he's imagined doesn't pan out exactly as he hopes. I'm trying to walk the line between accommodating the terms he sets (as far as I can understand him--limited vocabulary only takes you so far, though) and thereby avoiding anger and frustration, and alternately trying to set limits and help him deal with his big feelings.

Sometimes his feelings are disturbingly big. The other day he had a serious breakdown that seemed to come out of nowhere. After waking from his nap (his nap was quite late that day and his schedule was totally offm so maybe that's why), he started crying and spiraled quickly into a demon-possessed two-year-old. He was so full of rage and anger, screaming and crying, flailing and hitting, refusing to be held, completely unresponsive, and going on for more than a half-hour. I had no idea what to do and I had no idea what was wrong with him.

Luckily most episodes are not this extreme and his anger a bit more short-lived and thus easier to ignore, but I still find myself quite annoyed and exhausted by his wildness. Taking him shopping is such an adventure. Any stair rails are for him monkey bars to hang and swing on. Any time we hold hands is a time for him to jump and hang. Any time he is set down on the ground, it's a time for him to run wherever his whims take him. For him, maybe shopping is a really grand adventure. But for me, not so much. Instead of holding his hand while we walk together in the store, I have to either follow him as he escapes around every corner or try to hold a squirmy thirty-something-pound child, which for my out-of-shape body, is no easy task. Suddenly, the whole purpose for my trip becomes something I  don't care much about getting and can wait until later for.

Yesterday, we were at a store where I found a cute $2 t-shirt for him to wear. When I showed him and asked, "Do you like this shirt?" he got pretty excited about it. The excitement extended to him trying to take off the shirt he was wearing already and put on the one that belonged to the store, demanding I help him accomplish his task. I didn't want to do it, but I put it on. Then he wanted me to take off the tag, and I did that against my will, too. Later at the register, I apologetically gave the tag to the cashier saying "He liked it so much he wanted to wear it immediately!" In the same store, we got strawberries, which he was set on eating immediately as well. He would take one or two bites out of one strawberry, but if he got anywhere near the stem, he handed it to me. And I couldn't just set it back in the container. No, I had to eat it.

In retrospect, these things are mostly amusing, but in the moment I often feel like I'm nearly out of mind trying to figure out how to handle my wild child.

stitches

Apparently there is a reason that rotary cutters have guards on them. They are sharp and should not be left on the floor. Shep found that out by getting a rather deep cut that ended up with us in the Primary Children's emergency room last Saturday because the urgent care clinic doesn't offer any sedation when doing stitches. I felt like I deserved the mother of the year award for being awesome and facilitating the whole incident. So instead of the million other things it seemed like we had planned, we spent the morning with our little trooper in PCMC. But now the stitches are out and the wound is healing fine, and we can finally go swimming again.

antics of our two-year-old

I wanted to document a few of Shepherd's antics lately. He seems kind of like a real person lately, someone I can kind of talk to, but nevertheless someone who is really bad at carrying on a conversation.

• A lot of times he'll do naughty things and my response will be, "Why did you ______, Shep?" He usually looks at me earnestly and seems to proffer a pretty substantial explanation, with his funny hand gestures and facial expressions, but I have no idea what he's saying.

• The other day, we went on a walk in the neighborhood. Shep has developed an attachment to the children in one particular neighborhood family, it seems. Recently, he saw one of them walking up the aisle at church and followed her to sit with their family for a solid portion of the meeting. On this particular walk we were on, we went past their house on the other side of the street. Shep was riding his trike, which we push because he doesn't pedal yet (we got this one for him not too long ago, and he loves it), and suddenly he wanted to stop and get off. I accommodated and he proceeded to run across the street and up a little bit until he got to the right house. Then he knocked on the door. The kids whom he loves were home, luckily, and welcomed him to play with them. The whole thing was just so funny. I had no idea he knew exactly where they live!

• The other day I was working on an editing project in bed after waking up. Shep was hanging out in the bed with me watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. (He's watched so much of that show lately, which I have used as a crutch in order to meet this editing deadline.) He decided he wanted to get up and play, but I stayed in bed editing and didn't follow him. Then a little while later, I heard a faint "mommy" through the window. Realizing he was outside unattended and imagining him running into the street into oncoming traffic (not an unreasonable fear--this kid likes to run into the street a lot), I bolted to get some clothes on and go after him. When I reached the door, he was trying to open it from the other side. Apparently it's time to childproof the door so he can't escape!

ear tube surgery

It's been nearly a month now since Shep had his surgery. It was on April 8 at Primary Children's Medical Center. I was quite nervous about him undergoing general anesthesia, as I had read there were some risks associated with it. Luckily, it was a short procedure and didn't seem to have any lasting effects. The surgery wasn't until the afternoon, so we spent a lot of time waiting. In the morning, we met with the ENT and an audiologist for some testing. We signed up to participate in a study to test an experimental antibiotic gel instead of the standard-issue ear drops. Shep would either get the gel during surgery or a sham, but we don't know which he got. So he's had some extra visits associated with the study. (He did end up getting a round of antibiotic ear drops anyway, though, because he had some drainage on one side, which was a bit of a bummer.)

It was hard because Shep wasn't allowed to eat anything, but he really behaved marvelously, considering. We parted ways when the anesthesiologist wheeled him away to surgery in a little wagon, and then we went into the waiting room. I wonder how he did once we weren't with him anymore. It was weird to part, and I sort of wished I could go to the OR. They called us back as he was waking up in the recovery room. Poor kid was not happy at all, and it was sad to see him so out of sorts. He was very disoriented and quite upset. I'm really glad Tim was able to take the day off work and be there, because he was actually the one who was able to comfort Shep the most as we waited to be discharged.

When we got home, we all took a long nap and Shep has seemed back to normal ever since. We haven't noticed a ton of developments with his expressive language skills, although he is saying "hi," "bye," and "uh-oh" much more often and at more appropriate times. We definitely have noticed that he can hear better and he seems to be understanding more. It's really nice to know that he can hear and not wonder if he's deaf when I talk to him. I'm glad we did it when we did, even though we didn't really know for sure how long he had fluid in his ears. I don't think it would have gone away on its own.

Now we're just trying to deal with getting reimbursed for self-pay and getting insurance billed. The insurance came through after the surgery and it's kind of annoying to jump through all these hoops. Ah well . . .

Zion's

Tim had a week for Spring Break a couple of weeks ago, so we headed to Zion's for two days and one night. It was a quick trip, but I'm glad we went! (Even though Shep is passionately anti road trip.) He did marvelously on our six-hour hike, though. That long hike involved us trying to make it to Kolob Arch, but we only made it about 4 or 5 miles in, about, and the arch is 7 or 8 miles in. It was brutal carrying a very heavy pack (30-pound-baby + water + food), even though we switched off. It took us days to recover.

The day before that, we rode the public transit up Zion's Canyon and did a short hike. Then we camped outside the park in our van. Is it just me, or is sleeping not in a bed always miserable? I always like the idea of camping, but I have a hard time liking it during the night when sleeping is turning out to be hard!