Posts from — June 2008

If you had your average Schmo-on-the-street name the Top 100 Totally Awesome Things to Do This Summer, I’m guessing that “10-Hour Road Trip With a Three Year Old While Five Months Pregnant” wouldn’t make the cut. Probably.

And, ok, it wouldn’t make my top ten, or twenty five, or…fifty either, but it just might be fifty ONE.

That’s right, my kid and I had so much fun on our car trip that I would choose only FIFTY other things to do instead of that. And really, it’s #51 because of the ass-numbness more than anything. And also the state troopers in Virginia. (Lorso still maintains that I should have whipped out the tears and played the “Pregnant with a three year old in the car since 8:15 AM this morning and just barely keeping my shit together” card, but I was ready enough to be there that I didn’t even apologize to the officer for my speeding. I was all, “Yeah. I know. Here’s my license. Pretzel goldfish?” I think I made him nervous.) Oh, and maybe also the QUESTIONS ABOUT DEATH. Geez LOUISE that kid has gone all afterlife on me recently.

Other than that? The trip was So. Much. Fun. We made up stories, we sang songs, we played the rhyming game (“My turn Mama! What rhymes with CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG?”), we talked about what and who we would see on our trip, we shared M&Ms from our gas station stops. And then at our three overnight stops we were roommates and sleeping buddies. Bug would wake me up each morning by rubbing my back and saying “Mommy. I love you Mommy.” Which was totally sweet, but the KICKER was that then he would ask me to come with him while he used the bathroom and then he would GET BACK IN BED WITH ME AND LET ME SLEEP LONGER. I wasn’t aware that he had a setting that allowed him to operate that way. Where has THAT button been his whole life? Apparently it’s only operational along Interstate 81.

And once we reached our destination, our friends’ house on the grounds of a camp in northern Virginia, there were things like this:

And this:

Which meant there was tractor sitting! And frog catching! And cherry tasting! And rock collecting! And baby cow watching! Basically everything a little boy could ask for.

PLUS.

Eleven college-aged summer counselors in the middle of staff training primed and ready to heap some of their fresh shiny young energy and attention on the one and only child on camp grounds. Long live the game of Chase! CAR RACING FOREVER! I tried to get one of them to come back with us and be our Manny, but he had college to go to later or something. Jerk.

But now we’re back, and normal tractor-free life is resuming, and I’m realizing that our mom/son car trip was probably the last chance we’ll get to do something like that for a long long time. My tailbone has put me on notice that if I plan on driving more than two hours from this point onward in the pregnancy that I’ve been adequately warned. YOU WILL PAY, says my tail.

So I’m really grateful I got the opportunity to hit the road with my best boy and see some of the world with him while we still had the chance. It will always be a special memory that I can file away in the “Before There Were Two” file. And I hope he will have some memories of the trip, too, when he’s older. Because it was a blast. All of it.

Except for maybe the state trooper part.

Hours to drive today: four
Hours to drive tomorrow: six
Age of kid in car: three
Number of parents in car: one
Number of books in backseat for entertainment: 427
Calories in snacks we will consume along the way: approximately one quadrillion
Fun we’ll have: COMPLETE

This is Racher signing off. 10-4. Over and out.

I’m going out of town tomorrow, which means that posting will be light this week. I didn’t necessarily mean for it to be light today. But it is. My bad.

I would just like to say that iron pills taste like ass. Seriously, it is like swallowing solid blood. Or sucking on a rusty pipe. But apparently my commitment to cheeseburgers was not solid enough, and having enough iron is like a DEAL when you’re growing a baby or something. So pipe sucking it is!

Bug and I went to the pool today, which sounds fun and not like a big deal, but going to the pool totally is a big deal for two reasons. One, I have to wear a bathing suit, and two, Bug has to touch water. Until today, every time I suggested going to the pool he acted like I was asking him to go get a tetanus shot or jump into a pit of poisonous vipers. But LO. He not only touched the water, he splashed! He jumped! He fell under and did not disintegrate or lose his eyeballs! So basically, it was a success. The bathing suit, not so much.

In short I would like to point out that I sacrifice greatly for my children: I lick rusty pipes, I wear a bathing suit. Can sainthood be far behind?

I think NOT.

So, I’m having a girl.

SHE is moving around a lot now. We bought a couple of things for HER. Bug is excited about his SISTER.

I’m practicing.

I kind of have to practice, because it still feels weird to call HER a HER. I discovered on Wednesday at the ultrasound appointment that I had been thinking about this baby as a boy since the minute the pee hit the stick. Mind you, I never had a feeling or a hunch that it actually WAS a boy, but in my mind and my future, I saw a boy. I guess I just know that kind of pregnancy and that kind of baby.

But SHE’s a GIRL.

I kind of don’t know what to do with that info.

She’s healthy, and we’re so glad SHE’s coming, but I still pause before every pronoun that references…HER. I’m just not used to it yet.

I went to Target right after the ultrasound appointment to buy something for a little girl, thinking that that would make it seem real, and therefore make more sense, but WOW was that not a good idea. I felt like I was going to break out in hives. Dresses, skirts, capris, sweater sets, shorts, pants, tights, PINK, PINK, PINK – I didn’t know where to look or what she would need or where to start. It was a tiny wee bit overwhelming.

So I bought a crib skirt. Which we already have.

I do think that it will get easier, and I also think I will be better at the girl outfitting than I fear at this point, but the HER info is still kind of fresh and requires a little processing. So I’m going to do some of that first, and then get back to the pinky- pink-dressy-skirty-(OMG hairbows I forgot about those) of it all.

Bug said to me at one point while we were standing amidst the fuschiosity of that little girls section – “Mom, the baby is gonna wear pink, just like your favorite color is pink!” And I remembered that he had been saying all along that he thought the baby was a girl. When I would ask him why, he’d just say, “Because of you.” I can’t imagine what he could have said that would have made me feel better than that.

So I’m getting ready for HER and focusing on the GIRL sections of the baby name books now and picturing our lives later on this year: Me, Lorso, Bug, and our GIRL.

Our girl.

He’s like Edward Norton in Primal Fear, that one.

More things to say and stories to tell about the SHE who is to come another day…