Howdy! January 29, 2007

So for the last two weeks now, we’ve been in the process of moving. We moved from our little tiny two-bedroom apartment, to a nice, roomy, three-bedroom apartment. In the process we gained a huge master bedroom, a nursery, a playroom, an actual office for M to study in, AND a second bathroom. We’re no longer on the first floor, so I no longer have to live with the irritation of people peering in my living room window as they walk by. We’re no longer on the floodplain, so I don’t have to deal with the irritation of people ringing my doorbell every damn time it rains hard to warn me that sometimes that apartment floods. And we have this lovely south facing HUGE window that lets in tons of sunlight, so I no longer have to live with my irritation at living in a dank, cave-like mold factory.

It’s good to be the Beege.

My only complaint about our new place is the carpet is lumpy, and because I can’t see my feet, I tend to trip a lot.

Speaking of not being able to see my feet: I’m nearly 29 weeks along. Only 11 more weeks to go. On the one hand, this pregnancy has gone by really fast. And on the other, it seems to have dragged on and on and on, with no end in sight. So it’s like most pregnancies in that regard. 🙂

And, speaking of babies: Nea will be 3 tomorrow. Three years old. I can (vaguely) remember when I was three years old, and it seems strange to me, as I look at her, that I can remember being that age. While unpacking boxes of books this evening I found a photo album from her early days…she was so small! So gorgeous.

And she’s grown into this amazing little girl–she’s not a baby or a toddler. She’s definitely a kid. A kid with her own thoughts and ideas and ways of doing things. She’s stubborn and smart and artistic. She’s incredibly articulate. She cracks up when people belch or fart. When she gets angry at us she announces, “You’re not my best friend any more!” and then turns her little back and crosses her arms across her chest, her fury etched in every line of her body. She’s developed a fairly recent fascination with “VeggieTales” (Dude, I’ve had to watch “Jonah” four times a day some days…that’s a LOT of VeggieTales). She’s still resistant to potty training, and I think it’s just because WE’D like for her to be potty trained and it’s the one thing she can thwart us on. (It’s like when she says her prayers at night, “My kingdom come, my will be done...”) She loves broccoli and mac ‘n cheese. She likes to eat salad because it’s a “helpy” food. She doesn’t like to wait, or hold hands, or walk. She wants to run and run at the front of the pack. She’s tiny, but what she lacks in size she makes up for in sheer personality. She is fearless, except for carwashes. She tries to make people feel better when they feel sad. She tries to dress her cats up as superheros. She wears a swimsuit in Minnesota in January in sub-zero temperatures. She refuses to eat Chinese food with cutlery–give her chopsticks, or forget it. She cannot get to sleep at night without a beat-up monkey that M bought me at SeaTac airport when I was pregnant with her.

She is one of the most amazing people I know, and when I sneak into her room at night to check on her, I marvel that such a one came from me and her dad. I marvel that she looks so much like me, but at the same time: is a girl all her own. And I marvel that as much as she’s grown, when I see her sleeping there in the dim glow of her nightlight: I can still see my newborn baby, same as the day she was born, three years ago tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl. Mama loves you like crazycakes.  

It’s like I live in “City Slickers”… January 10, 2007

…without the cute cow, Norman.

Today is M’s birthday. Just like it is every January 10th.

And do you know what happens every January 10th? Other than the birthday bean dip I make for my husband who dislikes any sort of sweet unless it’s Girl Scout Thin Mints that he steals from his wife?

My mother-in-law calls before we even have a chance to get out of bed or wipe the sleep crust from the corners of our eyes or pee. I have no idea WHY she calls at the azz-crack of dawn. I don’t think that was when M was born. She just does. The conversation never lasts long–less than 5 minutes, and they’ll probably call back tonight to hear about all the festivities. She probably just wants to wish him “Happy Birthday” before anybody else does. That’s kind of a thing with her–to be the first to make people feel “special” and all she does is make them feel uncomfortable because she’s so freaking eager to make them feel “special”.

In-laws can be so bizarre…

He’s like a whole new man January 9, 2007

Today Nea was back in preschool, after the Christmas break (that lasted too long for all of us. At one point, my sweet social butterfly was leaning against the end of our couch wailing, “I want to see people! I want to see people! I want to see peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeople!” I guess old Mum and Dad had lost their lustre…) so M and I took advantage of the fact to run some errands that are just easier to run when you don’t have a nearly-three-year-old in tow.

Because one of our errands took us right past a Babies R Us, I asked if we could stop in to look at their selection of baby albums. I’d looked at Hallmark and dude: their selection SUCKED. Plus, they were like $50–hello? Hallmark? Get over yourself. Another mom recommended I check out BRU and see what they had. Much to my surprise, M was more than willing to stop and he even spent a large amount of time browsing through the different baby items.

Getting him to do anything like that with Linnea was like pulling teeth. He likes to point out that with Linnea he had no idea how much fun being a dad was going to be, or that he was going to be so good at it (and he totally is)–now he knows, and he’s more excited than scared. So we wandered…looked at tiny little girl clothes (of which we need none, because Linnea was the Princess Diana of her generation when it came to number of outfits worn only once), and strollers, and Pack ‘n Plays, and bedding sets, and “storage solutions”, and toys. It was fun. It was relaxed. We totally don’t need any of that stuff, so we can just enjoy this time in a way we didn’t get to with Linnea because we were so consumed with being “ready” for her.

All that being said: I’m 14 weeks away from my due date. That’s it. Three-and-a-half months. We begin a move on Monday, and once we’re in our new place: we can start setting up Sarah’s little room. It feels like I’ve been pregnant for-freaking-ever and I am swiftly approaching the point where I’m ready to be done.

I’m not a woman who enjoys pregnancy. For me, it’s a means to an end. I want a baby, and I have have to be pregnant to do it, so: I get pregnant. There are certainly aspects of it that I enjoy–feeling the baby move, and about the only time I declare a truce with my body image issues is when I’m pregnant. But mostly? I just endure it. The heartburn, the aches, the pains, being held hostage by my hormones, feeling possessed by a tiny little alien. It’s not a wonderous adventure for me, and I sort of wonder if the women who go on and on about how great pregnancy is are secretly high.

I’m ready to hold my baby. Ready to nurse her, and stroke her cheek, and look into her eyes, and feel the way she just melts bonelessly into me when she’s in my arms. I’m ready to see M asleep with her on his chest. I’m ready to have her sweet tiny room ready for her, and a closet filled with sweet tiny girl-clothes. I’m ready for Linnea to finally meet this baby she’s been using my bellybutton to talk to for the last two months. I’m ready to stop being “expectant” and ready to just be a mother of two.

Oh–and in case you’re wondering what sparked this little diatribe: Sal had her baby–go over and offer your congratulations. A sweet, gorgeous, red-headed boy. She and I are negotiating a wedding contract between him and Sarah. (And girl, I’m SO doing you a favor, lining you up a handsome boy with a sexy British accent! Plus a kick-ass mother-in-law in the mix?! You’re a lucky, lucky girl. ;))

After falling off the face of the earth… January 1, 2007

…I’m climbing back on.

Somehow, right around December 8th, life just got crazy. Not sure how or why, but suddenly all time available for blogging was gone. And if the time wasn’t: the energy was.

So: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We celebrated our anniversary on Saturday…seven years. We got married in 1999. I wanted to get married on December 30th, because if Y2K caused the entire world to go to hell in a handbasket (and we were all so sure it would, remember?) I wanted to be firmly married before it happened AND because if Jesus came back (like some were so sure he would) I didn’t want to be whisked up to heaven a virgin.

Here we sit, seven years later, the world still going to hell in a handbasket (though for different reasons) and me mother of 1.5 and firmly de-virginated.

Funny, how fast time can go. I look at M, and I marvel that we’ve only known each other for nine years…and at the same time I marvel that we’ve known one another that long. He is everything I could have asked for in a husband…and then some. And while, sure, the “and then some” includes some annoying habits that I could cheerfully live without I comfort myself with the knowledge that I brought my own annoying “and then somes” to the marriage so it’s not like he’s living in marital bliss with the perfect woman while I make due with him. I actually believe I got the better end of the deal. I don’t like to put away clean laundry, and there’s always a wad of hair in the shower drain after I get done…he doesn’t make me put up with any of that.

So now, it’s a whole new year. It snowed last night, so the world is white and pristine and gorgeous looking, with the faintest bit of sunlight breaking over it. Kids haven’t burst out of doors to go sledding and snowman-building, so  it’s still the perfect blanket, unmarred by mud or tracks or gigantic snowballs with bits of dirt and grass stuck to them. Linnea is sitting on the couch, happily involved with her bowl of breakfast cereal and “Clifford” on PBS, and as I write Sarah is doing lazy barrel rolls in my belly. I can see M out shoveling snow off the walks, his breath clouding the air and his fugly, flourescent fleece facewarmer shining like a beacon against the snow–“Beege, here’s your man!”

I know a little of what 2007 will bring…a new child, hopefully a new job, it will end the first round of M’s grad school requirements and start him off on the next, it will bring more funny Nea moments. I’m sure it will bring news of deaths we don’t want to hear about. But it will also bring a wedding that we so joyously celebrate. In other words, I expect 2007 to be about as much a mixed bag as 2006 was…but what I know beyond anything, is that as long as I travel the next 365 days with the three people God has given me to be my family: I will be just fine.

And now: a Nea funny for Poppy, or other King of the Hill fans who might be reading:

Yesterday, I was doing dishes in the kitchen. M was puttering about in the living room, trying to
avoid being given another chore to do by his suddenly nesting wife, and Nea was playing in her bedroom.
Or so we thought.
What Nea was actually doing was changing her clothes. With a smile of deep delight on her face, she burst into the kitchen
dressed in nothing but her hot pink sweat pants. Holding my bemused gaze, she proceeded to hike the waist band of
said sweatpants up to her armpits, shrug her shoulders, thow her hands in the air and waddle around saying,
“What are you talking about? What are you talking about?”
Yep. I’ve given birth to Bobby Hill.