Thanksgiving

Includes:

Naps

Fishing

Trips to the Park

Family Photo

Beer Tasting

TV Watching

Tea Party

The Invasion of Normandy

Seriously, the planning required to place the table, set the seats, assign the seats and organize who gets which chair is like staging the freekin invasion of Normandy!

A seed has been planted.

After 11 months and many weeknights at the studio watching and learning and practicing. I am now a certified Hatha Yoga instructor. When we graduated we were given many things, the most symbolic of which is this seed. It’s a Rudraksha seed and it represents, well, it represents beautiful things. The light of the universe. The start of a journey. Because although the process of becoming certified is finished, so many things have just begun.

It’s just a step in a much larger journey for me. A journey that is somewhat on hold while I gestate and then deliver my final sweet baby. I will teach yoga, to anyone who wants to learn. I will live well. I will use the lessons of yoga in childbirth and new motherhood. I will benefit, and hopefully, others will too!

Sheer Simple Brilliance

My neighbor down the street has 4 kids and keeps a mostly Martha house. That means she is known to channel Martha Stewart when it comes to organization and cleanliness. Six people in a 2,000 sq ft townhouse leads to some creative organizing.

Regardless of the number of people in the house and the size of the house there is one place that drives me nuts.

The coat closet.

When I was growing up, everything was just piled on the shelf. This lead to many a wollie avalanche, ah memories. I’ve tried bins and boxes for hats and gloves. But I still find that I spend a lot of time digging around for what I need. In the summer I can never find the chalk or the bubble stuff which leads to buying more and more when I don’t need to.

Now my problems are solved. For 10 bucks!

Sunglasses, hats, gloves, sidewalk chalk, umbrellas. Finally they’re all right there!! There appears to be room to grow, which is most important!

The Yoga Paradox

Every pregnancy is different.

For realz.

With Jack I gained something like 70 pounds. From 135 to 206 when I checked into labor and delivery for my destined-to-fail induction. I exercised a lot in the first 20 weeks and not at all in the subsequent 20.

With Henry I walked and did what I can safely describe as kick-ass yoga all the way to the end. I had a freakin’ awesome VBAC.

I imagined my third and final pregnancy to build on the lessons and successes of the previous two. Not so, says my body.

My umbilical hernia is back. My core strength is tragic. My balance is comical and dangerous. My yoga is not so … hot.

Now, for the last 11 months they (my yoga teachers) have been telling me that you can work hard and feel the burn in a class at any level. But I haven’t felt that it be true, because I’ve always been pushing myself to the next level. More extension, more flexibility. This baby has forced me to embrace the “take it easy” route. And while taking it easy I’ve been trying to scale back my yoga class level. Not so much a 2/3 or 3 but more of a 2 or a prenatal.

You know what?? It’s still hard. Not just because my body is kinda betraying me and derailing my plans for awesome prenatal yoga photos, but because if you apply the Universal Principals of Alignment yoga at any level can make you feel the burn.

So- although I’m taking it easy and being gentle and (mostly) kind to my body, yoga isn’t easy. Even if it is gentile. It’s easy, and it’s hard. It’s a paradox.

Yoga, the paradox. Who knew?!

This weekend I graduate from my 200 hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training program. This weekend I attend my first John Friend workshop. This weekend I attend my first Chuck E Cheese birthday party in 20 years. It’s gonna be big!

Chopsticks

Moo Goo Gai Jack

The Shed

In case you have been skimming the blog lately, I’ll let you in on a not-so secret: We’re having another baby- in about 20 weeks. So although our townhouse is generously sized compared to my cousin’s trendy condo in Queens (where they are raising 2 kids in 700 sq feet) I felt that more and better storage would be prudent.

It was a dark and stormy Saturday…


Matt disassembled our shabby, rusted (don’t ask me how because most of it is made of aluminum) shed. The shed was okay, but at 5 feet tall it was just a cavern of items we would toss in and hope not to crush anything important. I dreamed of bigger, more airy things.

After the ground dried our from the untimely demolition rainstorm we managed to dig the holes for the concrete footings and put in the joists for our new (insulated) shed floor.

When it comes to storage, we believe that bigger is actually better. I mean, seriously, if the Husband gets into trouble this place would be nicer than a Motel 6. Right?!

Points if you can find Waldo in this picture.

You see, what happened was we intended to fully assemble the roof (tar paper, shingles and all before we lifted it into place) but some quick math calculating weight told us that this was a terrible idea, unless we planned to rent a crane. So instead we installed the roof in-place.

If you have sympathy claustrophobia, you might want to skip this little story:

I have roofing experience: thanks, Dad. Now spring break 1996 doesn’t seem so lame! So between my roofing experience and my smaller size (despite being 20 weeks pregnant) I was lucky enough to draw the short straw and shimmied myself up between the joists of the deck to install the roof. In order to move between the joist bays I needed to exhale fully, turn my head to the side, and scooch back and forth till I was in the right place.

On one occasion, near the end of the day-long project I hit a wall. Whether from exhaustion or actually getting stuck I did at one point start to panic and hyperventilate. Now, in my defense I was shimmying down the one joist bay that was not 16 inches on-center this bay was only 10 inches wide. (Damn you deck-construction-guys!) As I was crawling into place my shirt was getting pulled further and further down my front. Which meant the back of the neck of the shirt was tightening down…. kinda like a noose. My shoulders barely fit, my knees certainly couldn’t bend and now I couldn’t lift my head because my shirt was trying to pin me to the ground. I may have whimpered, but before I started screaming “Grab the circular saw! Cut a hole in the deck!” I was able to get control of my breathing and calm down. Thank God for yoga!

Seriously, if this baby weren’t measuring 1-2 standard deviations smaller than the other two kids I wouldn’t have been able to do this project at all! Thanks, Hitch, for being teeny tiny!

This was my work space.

It’s starting to take shape!

I had a regularly scheduled midwife visit and can officially confirm that Hitch was not squished in the making of this shed. Yay!

Yesterday

Yesterday, has been renamed “the day I just barely survived.”

If stress could kill, I might be dead.

Yesterday started out great! We had our BIG ultrasound. We successfully learned three important things: 1. Drinking a cup of coffee before an ultrasound leads to a very busy baby. 2. Jack maintains his certitude that it’s a boy. 3. I can’t read an ultrasound. There were a few times that the tech scanned past the groin area and each time I though I saw something different. Leading me to the conclusion that I’m more uncertain and confused than ever about this baby’s gender.

So the morning was good.

Jack went to preschool. Also good.

I had to interrupt my sacred school/nap time brake to repeatedly help the husband pump and empty the brake lines. Which then lead to both confusion and delay when picking Jack up at school. We were running late and someone (not me) looked like they were starring in Grease.

We then went to our local home improvement store to get 658 things we need to build the shed. Okay, so it was 70 2x4s, 5 sheets of ply, 16 sheets of foam board, and 10 panels of exterior wall board… Oh, yes, and we can’t forget the bag of grass seed (more on that later).

So by the time we get home it’s 4:45 and a 10 year old from the neighborhood comes to play with the kids so we can focus on the load after load after load of stuff that needs to be carried around from the rented truck. Hey, hon, let’s drive the truck around back to make this easier. I say.

“But don’t drive in the neighbors yards, cause its rude and it’s really wet right… ” squish.

Well now it’s 5:50 and dark, and our truck which is rented by the hour is stuck in the mud in our neighbor’s yard. I’m trying not to kill my husband with my thoughts. Trying really hard….

Next time I’m going to say, DON’T dig up a bag of money when you’re working in the back yard and wait to see what happens. Then this way when he does the exact opposite of what I say at least some good will come of it.

I digress. So we’re stuck in the mud and I go searching for help. Apparently our whole neighborhood decided to run away, smartly. Except for our hero baby sitter’s family. So her dad, who is our good friend, comes to save our marriage, or my sanity, or maybe just the truck. After 10 minutes of squealing wheels and flinging mud I finally drive the car to freedom, and I don’t stop till I make it to the street- literally.

So we quickly put away the remaining essentials and load the kids back into the car to return the rental truck. Now it’s 6:30 and we’re back at the store, and the rental guy informs us the truck needs to be washed before it can be returned. Because the car is completely covered in what used to be our neighbors lawn.

At this point I’m ready to call it a night and give up entirely, which is a clear sign I need a vacation or more sleep or both…

By 7 the truck is washed and returned and a bag of grass seed has been purchased. It seems the least we can do is try to fix the problem. The kids finally ate dinner at about 7:40. I was supposed to be at yoga at 8:00 but after all the carrying and loading and lifiting and cooking and what-not I was basically unconscious on my couch at about 8:30.

So despite the stress and insanity of the day we all survived, including our healthy half baked fetus. Behold I am the American dream with my 2.5 kids. Now let’s grow all the way to a nice and healthy 3 kids so we can be done with the baby gestating phase of life and move on to the exclusively child-raising phase. Bring it on!

Dear Family,

I have already used up (or you have already syphoned) all the sanity I had allotted for the day. I have officially checked out for the evening. If you need anything you are more than welcome to speak to me, but you should know I’m probably not listening. See you tomorrow. Sane and well-rested. Until then, good luck!

Henry wasn’t learning to talk, and it was all my* fault.

Let me preface this post by saying a few things: 1. I believe most of the time, if your child has some kinds of delay it had absolutely nothing to do with what the parents are or aren’t doing. 2. *I don’t actually feel guilty for Henry’s delay, and my husband and Jack are also partially at fault, but I don’t mind take most of the blame.

Let me set the stage-

We take Henry in for his 18 month visit. He’s the same height Jack was, give or take half an inch and he’s easily 1lb lighter. The pediatrician asks me about his language, “So, he’s making animal sounds?”

“Nope”

“He says Ma-Ma?”

“No, he says Ma. He’s not joining syllables.”

“How are his motor skills?”

“He colors with a regular-sized crayon. He walks down the stairs facing forward. He uses a spoon, fork and cup….. and he climbs on the dining room table.”

“Here is the number for the county’s early intervention program. You should call them so they can come evaluate him for speech and language, to see if he really does have a speech delay, because we would really like him to be saying more.”

“Can they fix his climbing problem while they are at it?”

“Probably not.”

Fast forward to meeting with our assigned specialist. (These people usually have a masters degree in Special Education with a focus in pre-K. This program is no joke.) So in comes Jen; she comes directly to our home. I offered to find Jack a play date and she says no, it would be better to see Henry’s normal morning. She asks me questions for about 5 minutes. Plays with Henry, and Jack, who is a bit of an attention hog (he is 3) for about 30 minutes and then tells me what she thinks and what I need to do for 10 minutes. 45 minutes total for the visit.

“His older brother talks A LOT. He gestures to communicates his needs and uses complicated combinations of syllables to babble. He has all the tools for language, but…. you talk to him like he’s a three year old. His comprehension is great because he understands you, but he’s going to have a hard time learning words when your sentences have 7-10 words in them.”

“You’re not wrong….”

“So next time say to him ‘Henry, do you need mommy to get you some juice?’ and then say ‘Mommy. Juice. Mah-mee. Joooce.’ Those are the words that you want him to repeat.”

“I can do that.”

“Also, try to get Jack to take turns talking to you, be quiet sometimes, and give Henry a turn.”

“Um, how?” Okay, maybe I didn’t actually say that last part, but I was totally thinking it.

So just to prove how crap of a mother I am- here is a comparison of the words Henry was saying before our intervention 2 weeks ago and today:

Two Weeks Ago:
Mah- mommy
Dah- daddy
Car
Bah- ball

Today:
MaMa
DaDa
Jah- Jack
Ball
Car
More
Moon
Cat
Dog
Plane
Go
Some
Mine- I could have done without this one
No
Brea- bread
Boo Boo
Book
Apple
Spoon
Cup
Night-Night
Up
Down
Green
Blue
Boat
Hot
Cold
One Two Three- which are always said together as he tries to/pretends to count
And as of last night, Pa-Pa

Bit of a change, isn’t it?

There is really only one thing to say…. Oops!