The Worst Day of Her Life

Lucy informed me this morning, between choking sobs and wails, "This is the worst day of my life." And I had to admit, it was looking like a pretty bad day. We sat on the couch at an impasse: I'd told her she was going to wear the shirt and skirt she'd promised to wear the day before, or lose TV for the rest of the day. She'd told me she would wear the shirt under a dress as a jumper, but would NOT wear the skirt.

I picked the wrong battle and I am sick about it. Here's what happened: she explained that she HAD to wear a dress or else. Or else what, I wanted to know. "Or else the girls will make me be a queen or a prince when we play princess — only girls who wear dresses get to be princesses." When I heard this, I dug in. I told her that nobody could tell her what to wear or what to do (except me and Dad), and she had all these new clothes and she'd told Dad yesterday she would wear this outfit today and that was that.

The morning dissolved into hysteria! Threats! Rage! (And this was both of us.) She pleaded, demanded, negotiated and pressed her proposed compromise to wear the new shirt UNDER a dress as a jumper, but I did not budge.

I won, but it was no victory. She went to school, her chest still heaving, wearing the @#$%ing skirt. Poor kid. She tried so hard to find a compromise. I should not have forced her to go to school wearing something that made her feel so miserable or would make things on the playground unnecessarily hard merely because I said so.

How humbling when the little person is the bigger person.

I Don't Think It's Lunch

The first time you feel a baby move inside your body, you think, "Dang, those tacos are acting up on me." The second or third time, you think, "Wait, what was that?" Tapping? Fluttering? Does lunch flutter? Then, there's the first distinctive thump. And you think, "Ohhh," and recall with amusement the previous taco/lunch incidents.

I am pretty sure something is thumping around in there. And even though I have experienced this before, it is still a surprisingly sweet, alien experience.

Birds and the Bees Lesson #2: How to Tell if You're Pregnant

L: "Mom, I know how you found out you were going to have a baby!"
K: "Oh really? How?"
L: "Well, you went outside and got a stick from a tree. And then you peed on it and it turned pink and that's how you knew you were going to have a baby." Pauses, a grossed-out expression crossing her face. Accusingly: "Mom, you peed outside."
K: "I did not pee outside. So who told you all this?"
L: "Janet."
K: "Well, I did pee on a stick, but not the kind from a tree. It was a special plastic stick. And I was in the bathroom."
L: "Oh."

I Have 5 Years to Reach Enlightenment

Today is my friend Liz's 40th birthday. I don't think she will mind me telling you that, but she will be embarrassed by what I am about to say. Oh well.

Liz is my hero, and she has been since I was, oh, about 10 years old. She is deadly funny, a natural storyteller that could make you laugh your ass off while she described something as mundane as the weather. She is an amazing mother — raising with "love and logic" two kids of her own, the hundreds of others that become hers for a few weeks at a time each summer and advising the rest of us along the way. She's a great friend, the just-knows-you're-having-a-bad-day-using-her-powers-of-ESP kind of friend. But those aren't the reasons she's my hero.

Liz is a right person. She approaches the world with humor, humility, compassion and curiosity. When I think about the kind of person I want to be, it's somebody like Liz. Happy birthday, Mrs. G.

A Good Heart

A few weeks ago, I was having some shortness of breath, and went to my OB's office to get it checked out. The nurse took my pulse, then had another nurse come in to take it, then a third nurse, during which I said, "I know I'm not dead, but you guys are scaring me a little." Turns out they were just verifying that they'd all heard some "skipped beats."

They sent me to a cardiologist, who told me the so-called skipped beats were not actually skipped, but premature ventricular contractions, where the ventricle tries to initiate the heartbeat, interrupting the normal rhythm of the heart. He said it was a minor thing —  I could have had it my whole life, or it was stress and pregnancy-induced, or some combination of the three, and recommended I come back for a cardiac echo just to make sure my heart didn't have some underlying structural problem we should know about. He also suggested I relax and cut out caffeine. Ha and ha.

The cardiac echo revealed nothing more than a benign murmur ("Your heart is very strong") and the cardiologist sent me on my way ("See you when you're old, and maybe not even then.")

I am fine, and I am lucky.

Birds and the Bees Lesson #1: Where Babies Don't Come From

Please enjoy the first entry in what I am sure will be a series, to unfold over the coming six months. Warning: contains graphic, scientific and personal content.

So Jason informs me that he and Lucy were having a conversation about whether or not she will like Lemon (this is the name she has given Future Baby since I told her it was "about as big as a lemon").

Jason: "What if you don't like it? Can we put it back?"
Lucy: "NOOO, we can't put it back after it comes out."
Jason: "Why not?"
Lucy: "Because it won't go back in mom's butt."
Jason: "Oh."

Incredulous at the IMMATURITY of this conversation, I ask, "Did you tell her it's not coming out of my butt?!" Jason says, "No!" I say, "No?!" Jason says, "You tell her!"

So I do. Later that night, as I am tucking her into bed...
Me: "Lucy, you know the baby is not coming out of mom's butt, right?"
Lu: "That's where Alex told me it comes from."
Me: "Nope. Do you want to know where it will come from?"
Lu: "Uh huh."
Me: "My vagina."
Lu: "Oh."