The Second Time Around

Now that I’m just a few weeks away from having baby #2, everyone asks if it’s easier the second time around.  I usually give a polite answer, shrugging it off and saying that we’re more confident as parents, but more aware of all the potential problems, too.  So it’s a wash.

That’s basically true, but deeper underneath lurks my real answer.  This time is so much harder because I’m grappling with my regrets from the first time around.

 

Helpless

Jimdear is quick to point out that this is the third downturn since he’s been a transactional attorney.  Business is cyclical, and he tends to work on win big/lose big types of transactions with lots of risk.

But never before have I felt so helpless in the face of economic uncertainty, and in some ways, it doesn’t make any sense.

 

The Job Search

Yes, I’m expecting a baby in just three weeks.  No, I don’t think this is really a reasonable time to send out resumes, because if I did manage to land an interview, who is prepared to do one a few days – or even weeks – post-partum?  In any case, our daughter can’t start childcare until the first week of January, so it’s all pointless until then.

But I keep watching the news.  Jimdear practices law for a living, and he works with big financial companies, including – yup – Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

My least favorite thing about forgoing my income is the very real possibility that Jimdear will lose his job and our household income won’t just be cut, but will go to zero.

 

Why Four Year Olds Shouldn’t Shop

We’ve been to the mall in search of Move It, Move It shoes and came home empty handed.  Er, barefoot.

 

The Move It Move It Shoes

On a rainy day at nursery school, Kyd recently watched Madagascar.  If you haven’t seen this particular flick, it’s one of many that features animated talking creatures and a soundtrack of mainstream recording artists.  The upshot?  My child – and all of his classmates – came home singing “I like to move it, move it.”

If it ended there, I’d have moved on.  But this has spawned the need for “move it, move it” shoes.

 

Trapped

I’m stuck in my office.

Yeah, okay – that’s a fate suffered by many.  But I particularly loathe this type of being trapped.

There are, at the moment, at least two people working in the house.  I cannot leave.  And because they’re working on the steps to the main level, I’m trying to not even need to go upstairs.

It’s me and the laptop, baby, when all I really want is to crash out on the couch for an hour, preferably with a snack.

Do they take a lunch break?  I can’t remember.  I hope they do.

 

Three Weeks Left and Counting

I’m exhausted.

New parents are warned about sleepless nights.  Unless you’ve worked in very specific job situations, I don’t think any of us really understand the impact of sleeplessness.  It’s a form of torture, don’t you know?  

Mercifully, most of our children will eventually sleep for five, six, eight hours and then sometimes even twelve.  Before you know it, you’re trying to rouse your uncooperative teenager so he doesn’t miss homeroom.

What I never expected was the fatigue of pregnancy – not the crushing, first trimester kind, and definitely not the can’t-get-comfortable, up-at-3-to-pee fatigue.  If I could just get eight hours – even six uninterrupted – I’d be right as rain.  But I can’t.  And so add to the aches and discomforts of carrying around an extra thirty pounds – some of it inclined to kick – the slow grind of going without rest.

I can feel the impact already.  I forget things.  Yesterday, I stood in front of Whole Foods wondering why I was there.  (I’d actually driven to another store in the shopping plaza – with list in hand – but assumed that merely walking a few storefronts to Whole Foods would jog my memory.  It didn’t.)  Spatial reasoning – always a weak skill set – can almost move me to tears as I try to focus and measure.  And writing – writing, my salvation, the link to sanity and hopefully gainful employment – eludes me.  I can do it, but it’s like running after an injury.  There’s an inescapable awareness that grace is not mine.

Despite all of this, I’m incredibly excited to meet our daughter.  It feels easier this time to be excited – with my son, there was an edge of panic to our preparations.  Now it’s just joy.

If I can only keep my eyes open long enough to feel it.

 

The Skinny

For years, I had a firm policy about Not Paying Attention to My Weight.  This was sanity-saving, and for the most part, I stayed somewhere in the size 12 range.  Since I wasn’t weighing in, I can’t tell you what that meant in pounds, but I’m thinking I hovered right around 160.  At 5′4, it was over the recommended guidelines, but I carried it well.

Then I got pregnant with Kyd.

 

I’m a Pepper, But You?

Yeah, so here I am obsessing about Kyd’s discovery of drinkable yogurt festooned with Dora the Explorer, to say nothing of my ongoing “How much juice is too much juice?” debate.  And then this morning, when Kyd and I unpacked the contents of Stripey (his tiger-shaped lunchbox) at nursery school, I found this:

Yes, that’s a can of Dr. Pepper.  And no, it didn’t belong to a teacher.  (Their Diet Coke is stashed on the door in a separate place.)  It was labeled with a familiar set of Kyd’s classmates’ initials, matching up with other items clearly meant to approximate a lunch.

Does the fact that some parents are feeding their 4 y.o.s 12 ounces of liquid sugar, packed with 41 milligrams of caffeine, ease my guilt over Juicy Juice and liquid Yoplait?

No.  Not really.  

But it does make my eyes pop out of their sockets, all animated cat-like.  And I can only imagine what the teachers will think when they realize they’re dosing their students up on something designed to make him or her bounce off the walls.

The mind reels.

 

Dora’s On It, It Must Be Good

Earlier today, I set out to tour the maternity ward at the hospital where I’ll deliver baby #2 in just a few short weeks.  While I was checking out the white walls and jotting down notes about visiting hours, Jimdear took Kyd to the grocery store.

I’m grateful that my husband runs errands, with toddler in tow.  But sometimes I wonder:  how does our 3 y.o. know that Daddy won’t say no?