Kids like that

A couple weeks ago when Jacob performed one of his many haircuts I was sure to tell a certain friend about it because the younger of her two girls is that kind of kid too. I warned her to start keeping the scissors up high. It's a never-ending on-you-toes kind of feeling to have kids like that, the ones who get into everything, continually surprising you with their baby MacGuiver moves. It's funny comparing stories with other parents of those kids.

Last night Jacob was using one of the dogs' leashes as a jump rope. He was upstairs waiting for his turn in the shower and I took advantage of the brief interlude to sit on the bed and close my eyes. Jacob was right there in the room with me and his continual thumping was my assurance that he was a-ok. Then he got quiet and instinctually my eyes popped open. Right before me stood Jacob with the leash tightly wrapped around his neck three times and lopped over both his wrists.

I would have thought that he'd be over that stage by now. But no, he stills does the occasional plastic bag over his head, lets himself out of the house at will and without permission, ties other kinds of shit around his neck. It's never the things you'd think they would get hurt on. Jacob's never fallen down the stairs, he was never one to put little things in his mouth, accidentally choking on them. No, the dangers with my child are things he's purposely done. He's stealthy and quiet, and those are the times - when my guard is down - that he's most likely to get into life threatening situations.

Last summer I was sitting by the pool at my mom's and Jacob was swimming with swimmies on. I was no more than six feet away from him, looking up from my book every twenty seconds to check on his status. One time I looked up and there he was, bobbing up and down below the surface of the water with no swimmies on. He'd taken them off right in front of me, silently, and decided to try out the pool sans safety equipment.

Then there's all the things he did when he was two, before I even started this blog. There was the time that he decided to cook his playdoh creation in the microwave - in a metal pot and almost set the house on fire. Then there was the time when I walked around the corner only to find him on top of the hutch in the dining room with an heirloom chine tea cup in his hand. My gasp of surprise was so loud that it startled him into throwing the cup across the room at the wall whereupon it shattered into tiny pieces.

Baby locks and other safety devices of the kind are of little help to parents like me. Jacob mastered the tricks to opening the cupboards and closets a long time ago. Amazingly though, the one thing he has not figured out is the annoying door knob cover on the front door. When people come over and can't get out of the house, in an effort to suggest I should take it off already they ask, "Does this really keep him from going out the door?" I tell them that oh yes, it has saved his life innumerable times.

I have no really useful advice to offer others of my kind. The best I can say is just stay on your feet, don't believe a safety buckle will keep them in the stroller/high chair/baby swing. Don't even think you can have nice things in your house. Never fall asleep before they do. And be wary of the quiet child...

I'll be damned

Today was the perfect day. The kind of day with beautiful weather that almost makes you sad to experience because you know not all days can be this perfect. Zach has been painting again - 12 hours a day - and since it's a holiday weekend, not many other people are around to keep Jacob and me entertained. But we've been getting by, spending the days mostly outside doing productive and peaceful things. Jacob has been by my side, eager to help with every little chore. He is such a worker bee, and it's great because with the baby coming, having a little helper like that will really be handy.

So this morning started with hanging clothes on the line, Jacob loves this. He hands me clothes pins so I don't have to bend over and sometimes even pins them on himself while I hold them up. Later on we weeded for a couple hours. He fills his Tonka truck with the weeds and dumps it into the compost pile. After that we worked on the fire pit, weeding that, edging it out and actually having a fire to burn up the rest of the leaves in the yard. Again, the Tonka truck came in handy as Jacob gathered load after load of leaves.

Really there wasn't much else he could have done to make the day more perfect. Or at least I thought. Jacob was so excited to keep working that he took it upon himself, with no prompting from me, to go inside, get an empty bag, come back out, grab the poop shovel and set about picking up all the dog poops in the yard. I sat there with my jaw to the ground. He is obviously a different breed of kid. What more could a parent ask for?

Spent

I'm done. I'm done with this being pregnant. I can't wait to start losing weight. I am tired and bitchy all the time now. I'm getting sick of the questions. Zach's really starting to be nice to me now and spoil me, I think he has in mind to keep the baby in there as long as possible. He's in the middle of a big painting job and has a couple more things lined up before he'll be ready for the baby. When the baby is born, he will have two weeks off from work, and more than having him here to help out, what it means to me is that some of our household projects will get done. That will be my reward for giving birth. A new deck off the back of our new addition.

Some of the stuff that is starting to piss me off: The people who ask what I'm having. Mostly I just tell them I don't know and try to say something polite, but sometimes I just feel like being snarky. I'm kind of a stickler for proper grammar and literal meaning of things. So lately when someone asks me what I'm having (as opposed to are you having a boy or girl?) I've started to say, "Well, we're keeping our fingers crossed, but we're pretty sure it's going to be a human!" I also take issue with the fact that they assume we know what we're having, as if everyone in the world finds out the sex ahead of time just because they can.

Then there's the questions directed at Jacob. "Oh, are you going to be a big brother soon?" He's mostly sick of these questions now so he'll ignore the person and I'm left to say something in response. The other day I was very close to telling the woman, "No, actually he's not, I'm just doing this for the cash -- I'm a surrogate!" It's getting so tempting to say outrageous stuff like that. But it's pretty fun killing time by thinking up what other random things I can come up with like that.

A few times recently acquaintances have asked me if I'm having a home birth. I really appreciate this because another thing I don't like is presumptiveness. I don't like it when people assume you're going to have your child in a hospital. If I weren't such a chicken about the pain then I totally would have a home birth. I'm that kind of person, and I appreciate that people get that about me. So whenever I ask someone something like that I always say "Where are you having your baby?" Not "What hospital are you having your baby at?"

Well, we're home for the next few days because it's a holiday weekend and I can't go anywhere. There's nothing left to do here but housework and yard work. I mowed the lawn today in the hopes that the vibrations would shake the baby out. No luck with that yet.

She's something else

The phone rang a little while ago. Jacob answered it. From his end of the conversation I could tell it was someone calling to ask about the baby status. Yup, those calls are starting to happen. Or maybe it's not the actual purpose of the call, but it's the first thing the caller wants to know when we answer.

Anyway, it was Stella. "Did you git your baby?" She quipped.

"What?"

"Did you go git your baby?"

"Huh?"

"I saw you go out late the other night in the green car. I said to myself I bet they're going to git the baby!" I guess she thought I was in labor and that we were headed to the hospital to 'get the baby'. So, what...we go to the hospital to meet the stork who presents us with our new child? Just like that?

She'd been spying on us again and saw the car leave late one night, but she can't remember what night and didn't know exactly what time it was. The best I can figure is it was the night (Monday?) that I sent Zach out to get fudgsicles. He must have taken the Civic for some reason. Either that or Stella is hallucinating.

A typically atypical day

Zach went in for a physical a couple weeks ago and based on some symptoms he's been having the doctor ordered an echocardiogram and a stress test for Zach. He had to go in for each of these on separate days this week. Everything turned out fine, but it's good to have the baseline results for the future.

Yesterday was the stress test which involved Zach 'running' on a treadmill. They had him go for ten minutes on a treadmill at nothing faster than a meager jog. That was nothing for a former marathoner but the real stress was the part where they shaved his chest (dry), sandpapered it (I don't know why) and then applied some chemical that stung to high hell and then attached the thingamajigs that did the reading. Zach said the shave was bad enough but then when the lady used the sandpaper he started getting really uncomfortable. He goes, "This really sucks," and she just looked at him, said "Sandpaper," then she started laughing.

I never actually checked to see if it was ok to post this picture, but he let me take it so I think by now it is understood that whatever pictures I take may someday end up on this blog. I made it as small as I could incase harry chests gross you out...haha.

Anyway, when he came home he was all weepy and needed babying. He was really hungry and had a headache because he couldn't have caffeine at all before the test, so he wanted a treat in the form of pizza. That was fine with me since standing at the counter cooking for an hour is not the most comfortable position these days.

We went to our favorite place and decided to just have the pizza there so we could go to the grocery store across the street afterwards. We'd just gotten a six cut but after Zach had three slices and Jacob had two (huge appetite lately by the way). Zach looked like he wanted more so I encouraged him to get a single slice and he said that if he did that he wouldn't be able to resist getting a soda too because there was a guy next to us drinking one and it looked good. Now I don't allow soda in the house and as far as Jacob is concerned it's something only for adults, like alcohol. But that doesn't mean that I don't like it. That and my recent discovery that soda helps the heartburn (Kevin's doctor's advice be damned) made it kind of hard for me to argue that he shouldn't get a soda.

Zach went up to the counter and ordered the pizza, then he pulled two options out of the case. "Stace, this or Pepsi," he called across the pizza place. I gave him a wide eyed look meant to shush him and then I looked away like it wasn't me he was talking to. This is how I am, I am such a health freak that even when I do want something junky I'm afraid to admit it to people and I get embarrassed to be seen buying it.

When the girl brought Zach's slice over to the table she offered to take the pizza box away. "No thanks," I quickly answered. When she walked away Zach just looked at me and insisted, "We are not carrying an empty pizza box out of here!"

He knew just what I was thinking but I tried to play it off. "What? I just want to use if for a craft with Jacob."

"Yeah right," he replied.

"OK, fine. I'll make a deal with you. You go up there and ask the girl if they recycle their boxes and no matter what the answer I will let you hand it over to her."

Zach said, "I'm sure they recycle them."

"I highly, highly doubt they recycle their pizza boxes."

"I don't care, I don't want people to see us carrying an empty pizza box."

"Hey doofus, once we close the box they won't know it's empty."

So then Jacob finished eating and started wandering up to the counter. I thought he was just being coy and flirty with the girl at the counter so I let him go and hang out. After a couple minutes I went up to see what he was doing. he shyly told me he wanted to ask he a question. I told him to go ahead so then he said, "Do you recycle your boxes?" Ha! I didn't even see that coming. She said they didn't and I just gave Zach a look. Somehow when I wasn't looking though the box got thrown out anyway and I scolded Zach for it. He tried to play it off like he fulfilled his part of the deal and that it was ok that it got thrown out, but I reminded him that is was he who was supposed to ask and Jacob had done it for him so that was cheating.

We left the pizza place, gazed across the street to the store and all decided we were too tired to go grocery shopping afterall. We decided to go up to the the site of the house my mom and Jamie are going to build to check out the pond. The bulldozer had just been there to level off the land surrounding the pond that was dug a few months ago and it looked really good. Then on the way home we swung by my mom's house to say hi and pick up a bottle of aloe vera that I knew was in the bathroom closet. I completely forgot the aloe for Zach's 'wounds' but we ended up staying for thirty minutes because a random smattering of my extended family was also there. I can't describe the craziness that entailed, there's no words for it.

We finally got Jacob to agree to leave (with a bribe of course - fudgsicles - which ironically we had to stop by the grocery store to pick up). It has been raining on and off all day long for two days, so on our way out of the grocery store parking lot we noticed a giant rainbow that stretched from one side of the sky to the other. I dropped the boys at home, grabbed my camera and drove down the road to take a picture. A year ago Zach would have hassled me about this, but I think he's finally learning to appreciate my inability to let a moment of life go without capturing it in a picture. The rainbow was too huge that I could only get a fraction of it at once, but here's one of the shots.


Back at home we all sat around the couch in exhaustion and that's the way we fell asleep. Sometimes we exhibit such spectacular parenting skills that it's astounding. *note the sarcasm*

Papaya enzyme = Magic hearburn killer

I really shouldn't be raving about this until after I've had the baby, lest the karma Gods take away the magic of the papaya enzyme, but this is too good to keep to myself. If I can help even one suffering person with this post, then the risk is worth it. I told the midwife the other day that if I could take away just one pregnancy symptom, it would be the heartburn. It sucks so much. I told her I'd just read about aloe vera juice as a solution to heartburn and what did she think about that. She said that would be fine to for me to take but her recommended remedy is papaya enzyme chewables.

So I bought them and they work like magic. They are tiny, taste, you know, not like you are chewing a stick of chalk (Tums) and the effect is lasting, dare I say even cumulative? Anyway, if you have heartburn, try them.

The Big Weekend

So we got to go to Camp one last time before the baby. Zach took a day off of work in order for us to be able to leave Thursday afternoon. Our plan was to drive to the mall and finally buy the damn video camera already. I'd decided on one and figured we just needed to get it already and nevermind ordering it cheaper from somewhere online. Well we didn't get to leave the house until 7:30pm so by that point we decided we'd just better haul ass to Camp so we could get there before it turned to Friday.

Jacob took a good three hour nap in the car, which made the drive much easier, but then when we got to Camp around 11:15 he was raring to go. We unpacked, got settled and then put in a DVD of the Gilmore Girls which we'd brought along since there are two channels up there and one of them is the French channel. I fell asleep on the couch, Zach in a chair with Jacob on his lap. Every time I woke up for a minute Jacob was still awake, watching the show. Finally at 3am he conked out.

The next morning we went to the nearby park and the boys played. Friday afternoon we were joined by my mom, Jamie, my sister and Marisa. This was a bold move voluntarily spending the weekend with my sister, but somehow we made it through without killing each other.

The black flies were just starting to come out, but not yet in full force so it was bearable being outside, which is where we spent most of the time there. This past winter packed a lot of ice storms so there were branches down all over the place which needed cleaning up. Thankfully the no-burn ban had been lifted since we were last there so we were able to burn the branches in the fire pit, and that's basically what we did all weekend long for like 10 hours a day.

Jacob was all into helping out with the branches. One might think it is irresponsible to let a four year old use a real saw all by himself, but you've never seen a kid so coordinated and clearly a natural at using tools of all kinds. So Jacob used the bow saw to cut up the branches, and he actually did a fair amount of the job all by himself.

On Sunday morning I woke up and cooked breakfast. At some point I think someone said 'Happy Mothers' Day' to me, and that was about it. So much for that. But I guess it gives me a little leverage at home now, as in But you didn't do anything for mothers' day and didn't say a peep about it! I did, however, get something unforgettable from Jacob. He gave me a broken nose, as in my own.

Zach was out back throwing the baseball around with the kids and I went out to have a turn. Marisa was using my glove and had it on the wrong hand, so I figured that it couldn't be that important to her. While I was distracted fighting with a five year old, Jacob went to throw the ball to Zach, who was a good 15 feet away from me. Jacob does this stupid side-arm throw sometimes that irritates the crap out of us, and he decided to do it right then. So instead of throwing the ball to Zach who was at 12 o'clock, it zooms right to my face, which is at more like 4 o'clock. It hit me smack in the bridge of my nose, where incidentally I have had three prior bone breaks.

The first time was actually with a softball in 7th grade and my nose got so smashed up that I had to have surgery. The times after that it was kind of like, oh, a broken nose? Yeah, whatever... so I never got it fixed but a later x-ray showed that the bone was indeed broken. That's why I can't breathe out of one side of my nose. So this time I just thought it hurt really, really bad. But now that it's a week later and I still have daily headaches, and this one tiny spot hurts wicked bad and I can actually move a part of the bone, I've decided that it must be messed up.

Anyway, it was a great weekend and we're looking forward to going back. Now the waiting...

Fern baby

The newly crafted dock

Safety first
(notice Jacob with his hands on hips being the boss)

Baby's first helmet

8 months

Earlier in the week I officially turned eight months pregnant. I now have a legitimate reason for being as big as a cow and I can say "next month" in response to someone's query about when I'm due without their eyes growing large and the supplemental comment of "My God you must be having twins!" I consider this the final stretch.

I may have gained a ton of weight, but I think I'm doing pretty good for myself. I mowed the whole lawn this week, the moms and I took the kids for an hour and half long hike the other day, I've been throwing around the baseball with Jacob and Zach, lifting weights and today I did a cartwheel just to see if I could still do it. Sure, I saw stars for a while afterwards, but I landed on my feet. I haven't tested my ability to do pushups yet, but last time I tried (when I turned 7 months) I could still do 10 real ones.

I took this picture while we were at camp

last weekend.

This is a picture of me in the same window as
the one above, just about a year earlier.

I just have to keep reminding myself that I
used to be not-fat, and that I'll be that way
again and able to do normal things again,
and it will make this last month a lot
easier to stomach.

S'mores, in macro

We went to Camp again last weekend. That'll be my last excursion out of town for quite a while so I took advantage of all the photo opportunities and I took a lot of detailed pictures with my macro lens so I can remember things clearly. I'm being very melodramatic about it. Two months (or more) away from there in the prime season might just about kill me. I'm still not sure if I'm using the macro lens the right way, I think I am, I really like the effect. See for yourself:

"You-know-what"

I'm sure every household with kids has one of these, and ours is no different. We mostly eat very healthy and I am uber-conscious of the foods I allow into the house, but no one can be perfect all of the time. Our favorite treat apparently is ice cream because it's the thing for which is so common these days, we must have a coded name. Long gone are the days of I-C-E...we used that one waaay too much and Jacob caught on probably before he could even say the words 'ice cream'.

Being pregnant has greatly reduced my willpower, plus it's one of those rare foods that helps the heartburn. So we end up with ice cream much more than we should. But if Zach and I are considering it, we have to sneak off to another room and then one of us usually whines, "I feel like you-know-what..." Then from the other room, Jacob yells "I want ice cream!" First off I don't know how he even hears us, but if we didn't already know how much we like ice cream, his interpretation of you-know-what would be a dead give-away.

So does your house have a you-know-what?

Photogenic

More pregnancy fun

There are some advantages of this pregnancy thing. One of them being that I have a nifty new shelf upon which to place things I need to keep close at hand. This new feature of my body is particularly exciting because I can no longer do the bending over thing that humans are designed for. Without my little four year old ankle biter accompanying me everywhere I go I would have no one to pick up dropped items off the ground for me. Anyway, the most useful way 'the shelf' has served me thus far is that is provides an excellent book holder. At night when I am tired and can no longer sit upright, but still want to read, I just plop the book atop my stomach and it is the perfect distance from my face. I don't have a picture of the 'book shelf' mode yet, but here is a random example (from two different angles).


Here's another example of what it's like being eight months pregnant: The heartburn is so bad round the clock now that I travel everywhere I go with a bottle of Tums. Last week I just had my little emergency pack in the car and I'd already downed most of it, save for one. We'd just gotten to the mall where I had a couple quick errands, so with my LAST Tums in hand, I was trying to hurriedly get Jacob out of his car seat. In the process, I dropped my last Tums on the ground - the mall parking lot. I watched it falling in slow motion and let it sit there for a few seconds before deciding what to do. But the heartburn was too bad to let my last Tums go, so I picked it up, brushed it off and ate it anyway.

The pictures that follow this last account are a bit graphic and may not be suitable for young eyes, but if you have a husband who doesn't believe how hard the baby kicks you, then these pictures would be a good example to show him so he will believe you.

Lastly, I have to share about the painful baby movements at night. The baby moves all day long and like crazy, which I know is a good thing, but when I was at my midwife appointment the other day she told me that I was having a contraction, just a Braxton-Hicks, but that makes sense. Maybe that is what is happening at night that makes me so unbelievably uncomfortable. Why it feels like the baby is moving in eight different places at once and I am doubled over in pain. Maybe it is, I'll have to ask around to some of my mom friends. I'm not sure though, I'm still willing to bet money on my own little theory. Here is what I theorize is getting ready to happen to my body:

Blacklisted

For every good doctor visit, I guess there has to be a bad one. At my prenatal visit two weeks ago I was seeing someone other than my regular midwife and it didn't go so well. See, I'm in a different hospital than I was when I had Jacob and I'm looking at this whole birth thing in quite a different way as well. I'm seeing a midwife specifically because I want to have more control over my experience.

At my first visit to this new office I arrived armed with a magazine that had an article written by someone who had one of those lovely, natural births for which she made the decisions. This woman talked about how they didn't weigh her at her prenatal visits, they could tell just fine the baby was growing by measuring her stomach thank you very much. Wow. That thought had never occurred to me, that maybe I didn't have to be weighed. I hate being weighed. I haven't weighed myself in years and it's one of those self-preservation things. There used to be a time in my life when the numbers on the scale dictated whether or not I allowed myself to eat that day. So it's much healthier for me to be blissfully unaware.

When I was pregnant with Jacob I turned around on the scale and warned them not to tell me the number. But I let them do it nonetheless because it just never occurred to me to say I didn't want to be weighed all together. But one time I had a different nurse and she slipped and told me the number. That was not a good day for me, and it probably wasn't a good day for Jacob because suddenly I had the weight issue on my mind and not the issue of what was best for my growing baby. That's a dangerous situation to be in if you're a fetus.

So when I went to this new office and told the nurse I didn't want to be weighed she just looked at me like I was an ignorant. "We have to weigh you so we know the baby is growing, dumbhead." I added the italics part, but I could see her thinking it. So when I got to see the midwife a few minutes later I brought it up with her. She's new to the office so she wasn't sure how they'd feel about it there, but she totally understood my point and was in agreement with me. She said she'd check in about it at their next staff meeting.

When she told me at the next visit that she crossed off the line with the weight on my chart and patted me sweetly on the shoulder I started to cry and wanted to hug her. It really means that much to me. It just represents something I can't explain.

For the next visit the nurse led me right on by the scale and I was so happy. The the next visit I was seeing a different midwife. It took 45 minutes at the start of rush hour to get to the hospital,which made me 15 minutes late. Jacob fell asleep and I had to schlep him over my shoulder and carry his butt across the giant parking lot in the 80 degree heat and into the office. When I got up to the counter they told me they might not be able to take me since I was late. I'd never heard of that, and the thought of having to turn around and do the whole thing over again the next day almost made me cry. So they told me to wait while they decided if they were going to be bastards, or take pity on me and my sorry self.

That's when Jacob decided to wake up. He's ordinarily very good in public, except he was hot, tired and apparently hungry. How did I know he was hungry? Well, he told the entire office staff and waiting room in a very loud cry (over and over again) that he was hungry. He cried all the way down the hall when they came to get me, he cried while I was standing at the scale arguing with the nurse that I didn't have to be weighed. I guess this other midwife was against me not being weighed and without Kelly there to defend me they just kept getting snappier. I was beginning to make a scene repeating that I didn't have to be weighed, I had tangible evidence, Kelly wrote it on my chart. Chart shmart they decided. "Please get on the scale." the nurse demanded through gritted teeth. I was hot, tired and needed to attend to my now screaming child so I finally obliged, but to me it felt like such a violation.

I honestly didn't know if I was being a baby or if I had a real case. I couldn't process it then. Looking back on it I kinda feel like no one should be forced to do anything against their will and that I was not in the wrong.

So I got on the scale and that's when I finally burst into tears. And I just kept on crying because of the whole of the situation. I got my visit over with real quick and with Jacob still crying I crept out of the office with my tail between my legs.

So when I was there the other day for my 34 week visit Kelly was back and she'd heard about my last visit. She mostly acted normal through the visit but was really 'careful' with me. My case had come up at a staff meeting, which she said was a good thing because it forced them to talk about the issue of weight, or choice or whatever. She explained to the others that she feels in my case it's in the best interest of the baby for me to not be weighed. I had to make a compromise in order to not be weighed in the future. And at the end of my visit she whispered to me, "I know you wanted to meet the other midwives before you deliver, but you should probably just make the rest of your appointments with me." Oh my God. I keep replaying that in my head. Does it mean she has a soft spot for me, or does it mean that everyone knows about the crazy, crying, scene-making lady and that they've all refused to see me?

Am I on my way to being blacklisted by all the area midwives?

They're BAAaack...

We've been on the national Do Not Call Registry for a few years now...it's been great, no more telemarketers, only the occasional survey and whatnot. Well last month Zach filed for his DBA (do business as) for his painting/landscaping business. Since he doesn't have his own cell phone (yet) he listed our home telephone number on the papers. So now we're getting the telemarketing calls again. About a dozen a day.

I've got it nailed down to approximately 8-10 in the morning and then the mid-afternoon. That's when they call. And that's when I don't answer the phone. If you call here and you get the machine, leave a message because chances are I'm just standing there waiting to hear the click so I can get all angry about another one of the calls.

I recently got a forward from someone saying that those calls you get where you hear the click as soon as you answer is a machine calling your house and tracking the times of day that your household answers the phone. This way they can have an actual human call back at the most likely times of day for a person to answer your phone. I didn't believe it at first because I always thought that they just dialed a bunch of people at the same time and then whoever answered first was the lucky winner of the telemarketing call and the other people just got hung up on. The forward is starting to make sense now though since they are calling at the same time of day.

Do you know how freaking frustrating it is to be 8 months pregnant and fat, just having settled on the couch for the first time all day, then the phone rings? You have to jump up fast (not an easy feat at this stage in the game), run around the house looking for the cordless phone which you can never find anymore because your house goes in a circle since the addition last year, then you finally grab it at the last ring, breathlessly answer the phone, only to hear a "click." AHHHHHHH!! I want to scream. And I usually do. It feels like such a violation of your freedom. It feels like I'm in the book 1984 and Big Brother is playing tricks on me or something. These calls piss me off because there you are, anger raging through your blood stream and there is no one to unleash it on.

The only kind of calls that are possibly more frustrating than the auto hang-up ones, are the ones where a human actually speaks back. They ask for Zach like he's their buddy, I question them, they ask for him again, I question again, and then realizing they're not going to get anywhere with you, THEY hang up on you! HOW DARE THEY!! I'm the one who is supposed to hang up on them. This is worse than the auto hang-ups because now you have the knowledge that there is a human out there who cares so little about the fact that you are pregnant and tired and that it causes you physical pain to get up and answer the phone, that they feel they can just hang up on you when you are no longer useful to them. There's no where you put your anger when they hang up on you.

These calls are particularly offensive and frustrating because we are on the do not call registry. It's not my name that's on the registry, it's our phone number. So it doesn't matter that Zach just added a business to our number, they shouldn't be calling anyway. These people are supposed to get fined if they call a number that is on the registry. Now it is my personal mission to get each and every one of them fined for their indiscretion. They call and I ask for the company name or the phone number and I am supposed to (by law) be able to get a damn answer out of them so I can call the Do Not Call Registry and report their asses. But then they hang up on you before you can get an answer. Or they hang up when you ask them for the name of their company. NO! That is not the way it is supposed to work. I'm going crazy trying to get these numbers. I really, truly am going to go mad.

So out of self-preservation I am screening calls. But there's still all that anger...what to do with it? Erg. Gee, can you tell I must be in a particular phase of pregnancy-induced hormonal rage?

The Dentist Appointment

I just got back from my dentist appointment which I'd been putting off for a while because we don't have dental insurance, so I didn't really want to shell out the $112. Jacob came with me, he comes with me to most of my appointments because he's such a good kid. It's not like I had to wait very long once we got there (I was early, by the way), I guess they're just very attentive at this place. We got there at 10:30 and the clock read 11:59 when we were getting into the car to leave. For an entire hour and a half Jacob occupied himself with the activities we'd packed, munched on crackers, or just quietly watched what was going on.

He is such a good boy! I can't get over how awesome he can be in public at times. The hygienist couldn't get over it either and kept saying how good Jacob is. But I'd better watch it with the raving about my kid or else the Gods will send me a kid with the complete opposite temperament...

That's the risk you take

You know how I have that pile of stuff of Jacob's that I want to get rid of? I keep the pile on the back corner of the counter in the kitchen, it houses all the random crap he won't let me throw out. Any given object makes its way into the pile and stays there up to a few months until I decide Jacob has sufficiently forgotten about the item.

Many, many months ago one of the items was a cheap, freebie piggy bank. It was in the actual shape of a pig, pink to be exact. Then we acquired one of those little mailbox banks that they sell in the post office. Then someone gave Jacob a truck shaped bank as a gift and I decided that three banks was too many. The piggy went into the corner and didn't come out until more recently. I sent it off with my mom one day, disguised in a bag, with the instructions to bring it to the church thrift shop.

That was a few months ago and everything has been fine. Well tonight I was flipping through the local advertising newspaper that comes weekly in the mailbox. There's an ad in it, I don't even know what for, that features a small piggy bank in black and white. I don't know how it is kids always focus on the thing you don't want them to see, but Jacob saw it. Then he questioned where his piggy bank went. This was so long ago I'd almost forgotten about it, how could Jacob remember?

But remember he did. I played dumb for a minute, but he's too smart for that. So then I just had to be vague and pretend that 'we' casually, and as a voluntary act of his, got rid of it one day, don't you remember? He's not really buying the fact that he had anything to do with getting rid of the beloved piggy bank.

You know how in my April post I said that Jacob has these tantrums where he repeats a littel mantra? Well he's just finished up from 20 minutes of wailing "Piggggyyy bannnkkkk!" over and over again. He's currently (finally) winding down from having a shit attack about the whole ordeal...and I'm thinking if he can get that upset about something like that I should be nervous about what else he might remember because I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff this way.

How's that for mental health?

My insurance company sort of 'outsources' to another company for their mental health stuff. Not sure if that's the way to put it, but whatever. So I receive mental health services through this company and that means I'm on another new mailing list. Yippee.

I got a big ole packet in the mail the other day, all about depression, etc, etc. It was like 30 pages. I don't need all that, I know all this stuff already. The letter enclosed said I'd be receiving a follow-up packet in 4-6 weeks. Oh joy. At the bottom of the letter it gave a number to call if you'd like to be taken off of the mailing list. I don't really feel the need for them to waste another 30 pages of paper that I'm just going to put directly into the recycling, so I called the number.

Thirty minutes later I slammed down the phone and screamed out loud. I know it was that long because I put a taped episode of Caillou on for Jacob so I could make the call in peace. The show was over before I was off the phone. I'd just spent that long on the phone being shifted around from person to person because no one knew what they were doing. The letter said to call this number if you wish to no longer receive mailings. Why didn't that number yield those results?

After the 7th human being I decided to call it quits. Every single person told me they didn't know how to take me off the mailing list, that's not their department, then they'd put me on hold for four or five minutes before another person who couldn't even find me in the system got on. But you know you stay on the phone and don't give up because you've already invested so much time in waiting on the phone for any form of intelligent life. If you hang up then those 10, 20, 30 minutes will all have been in vain.

I left the experience with two more phone numbers to try, but really I have little hope for what lies on the other end of those numbers. So here I am, coming down from a scream session, jaw clenched, blood pressure sky high and there's no one to yell at about it. Tell me now, you call that mental health???

Dear Jacob: April 2008

Dear Jacob,

This morning I woke up and realized that it's May. Geeze it came fast! I can't believe how fast this year, and this pregnancy, have gone by so far. As with the rapid pace of passing time, your development has also become too fast.

This past month was full of extremes, and I see your personality coming out more and more with these alternating polar moods. You're just about the most polite kid I know, offering up pleases and thank yous unprovoked. And a minute later you're having a tantrum about something. the tantrums at this age are really great because being a four year old, you've mastered the ability to continue on with one train of thought for hours at a time. This is evidenced by the little mantras you repeat in tune with the tantrum. Whatever it was the injustice committed against you was, well you pick a few words to describe the situation and just keep on repeating it. I'm getting better and better at ignoring these times, but sometimes it gets the better of me and I just start laughing at you. That doesn't usually help the situation.

These days you're sleeping hard, working hard, eating hard, and growing hard. I think you've had a spurt in height lately, that and all the hard work in the yard with Daddy account for your huge appetite of late. It seems like you're really taking life for all it's worth, coming out of your shell, approaching experiences with gusto. You're like an adult answering the phone the way you do and helping Daddy. All winter long you talked in circles about the 'projects' you had in mind, now finally you and Daddy are getting out there and getting things done. I swear it's absolutely incredible the way you can spend an entire day outside doing yard work.

A lot of the moms in our regular group have been commenting that you seem to have come out of your shell more lately. You seem more outgoing when you're around your friends, being a bit more of a leader. But you still need your alone time. It's funny to see you off to the side in your own world when there are many different kid activities going on. It's nice to know that you are able to self-regulate like that though. I'm that way, needing a lot of alone time to put things in perspective, and I can see you taking after me in that regard.

The public side of your personality is really coming to the surface as well. At times we'll be doing some random shopping or something and you get in front of me and start "hugging the baby" and giving me kisses. You'll say how much you love me and how much you love Daddy and just gush about life. And there's times when you can be really outspoken too. Just last week you were in Target with MamMa, waiting in a very slow line and you stood up in the cart, announcing to everyone, "I'm pissed!" How to-the-point. Something you like to do that really pisses me off is when yell out the window at passing strangers. Since we live on a main road there are always people walking by. A lot of the time they can't hear you, but a couple weeks ago you got particularly miffed when you saw a lady and her son walking on the road. "That's not safe!!" you yelled out the window and she totally turned around to see who was yelling at her. Red faced and jaw to the ground, I whisked you away from the window and delivered my admonishment to you.

I've recently discovered that if I say something in an accent or a funny voice that I can get you to do most anything. I suppose this would be considered a manner of pretend play, and getting one of your parents to PLAY PRETEND WITH YOU is the ultimate activity. I had a previous discovery when you were younger that if I pretended I was a momma animal and you were the baby, I could get you to do most anything - even let me close my eyes for a few minutes.


So much of your personality is maturing and coming to the surface, but the one thing that hasn't changed is that you are a nature boy to the core. There's nowhere you're happier than in the outdoors. And clearly your favorite place to be is Camp. You can occupy yourself with something as simple as sticks, in fact you always want to take them home from whatever place we are visiting. Just about every departure we make includes you finding a stick from the ground and declaring it yours to take home. You also collect garbage everywhere we go. You want to rid the world of litter. At home is a different story though. We still have to be ever so careful about what we throw out, rather what we let you see us throw out. Most every day you find something discarded in our garbage, pull it out and tape it to the wall. There are crappy business cards, old brochures, random pictures, you name it, it decorates our walls. You're such a crazy, quirky kid always doing something out of the ordinary, but if it means having you in my life, then I'm willing to put up with any kind of crap you decide to furnish our lives with.

Cheesy smile (above); Running around almost
naked in the back yard during a rain shower in
the 40 degree weather (below).

May Day

So far a nice start to May. The day turned out sunny and nice and we got to have a nice gathering with friends at someone's house, hiked in the woods, and visited with their 30+ chickens. Two very exciting and very much anticipated things happened today.

I called Zach at work to tell him the news on our end and he delivered good news of his own. Stella came home and had just been visiting us. Zach had just checked his bank account and the "free money" from Dubya came in.

So yes, Stella came home. We had known it was imminent because her son had been by a couple times in the last week to prep things for the homecoming. Then yesterday she showed up in our driveway. Jacob was freaking out excited. He was doing the Marlon Brando impersonation thing out the window to summon her, and then there she was, like a mirage of Jacob's, at our doorstep. We sat on the front porch for a few minutes chatting before she had to get back to getting "the yard in shape."

In the first minute of her arrival she started in on the "Is he in school yet?" line of questioning. Actually, now she directs the questions at Jacob because she knows I am a lost cause. If you don't know what I am talking about, I've previously written about the fact that Stella does not approve of my plans to homeschool Jacob. Why she cares is beyond me. So now instead of directing her assaults at me, she quietly works on Jacob while she thinks I'm just out of earshot. "Don't you want to go to school and play with all the other kids?" she goads him. I've asked her to stop making these comments to Jacob, but what can you do?

In the second minute of being in our presence she informed me that the leaves which Zach put on the side of the road across the street from her house (where she'd previously told us to put them to be picked up by the town) weren't going to be picked up because they weren't in bags. Apparently she'd waived down the town truck earlier that day and inquired about their policy. They only pick up loose leaves in the fall. So what to do with our leaves that fall on the ground after the snow has already started? Anyway, she didn't miss a beat, "They're starting to blow in my yard and are making more work for me" (not true at all - they are weighted down by the fact that they're half decomposed from being under snow all winter and not blowing anywhere).

In the third minute of her visit she was quick to list off three 'jobs' she had for Zach to do. 1) Cut down a huge limb that had fallen; 2) Cut down a tree; 3) "Take care of that hill" (whatever that means). Some problems I see with this are 1) Why is she telling me this? 2) Why does she expect these free services out of my husband? 3) If she wants us to cater to her needs, shouldn't she be a little nicer?

Anyway...I was trying to think of something wise to say here. I will come up with it one of these days. Maybe mayday would have been a more appropriate title?