June Catch-Up

Now that I got all the pregnancy fear thoughts off my chest, can we talk about June?  Because, really folks, it did happen.  And I have a few pictures  I have to force you to look at share with you so that one day I can still call this blog my virtual scrapbook and be able to acknowledge just how much PDG grew.

Especially his hair.  Thank heavens!

First off, he started walking.  It happened over the course of about three days that he went from slyly doing two steps here or there, to five in a row, to straight up saying "peace out, ma" and making so many of my photos now be of his backside as he darts away.

He discovered headphones.  Which, like any rectangular object he deems a 'phone,' do not have to make any noise for him to enjoy dancing to/babbling into. 

 He also has continued his streak of loving food (though veggies are slowly but surely losing their appeal...) Father's day was all about crab legs at Whitlows - my two boys, eating until their bellies popped.

 Speaking of two boys, we had a great trip to the 'burbs with our BFFs and what gets cuter than two toddlers sharing a radio flyer wagon stroll on a Sunday afternoon?  They got less scared and more into it once we got rolling.  Pun obviously intended.

 PDG finally stepped up and tried out the rocking chairs out at Mama and Papa H's house.  Which he loved.  Now he thinks any chair his size is a rocking chair, and he makes the movements regardless of the chair's ability to shake with him.

 

And if you're reading this, then you know Big Sis got married.  Everyone was happy to celebrate her and her own "J-Man." (we'll get him a nickname of his own soon) PDG got fully in on the action, running in nearly constant circles around and around the dance floor.  Crowded?  No big deal, he could weave.  Empty?  More room for his circles. It's perfectly appropriate this photo is fuzzy, that's how on the move this new walker/runner was.

 As for his pregnant and still quite sick (though trying to hold it together) mama?  Can you see the makeup?  This one day I had on more makeup than cumulative from the entire previous year.  They AIRBRUSHED me!!!  I was kinda hormonal about it, assuming it meant I must be so hideous they had to hide the real me under all that makeup, but looking back, it looked pretty so I guess it wasn't some sort of conspiracy.  Though, asking for just little blush and eyeshadow was clearly not a language the makeup technician understood!

 

It was so hot in "the rock" as Big Sis calls it, that we made our first trip to a splash park.  We actually hit up two in one day.  These were at the first, where PDG was genuinely terrified, and gradually warmed up to tolerant of the experience.  By the second one, there were smiles and laughter.  You know PDG, everything in his own time, after he's thought it through very carefully.

As for his 15 month check up - he weighed 25lb 12 oz (87%) and measured 32" (80%) so one solid little man.  And we've tried peanut butter now, so no food allergies on any fronts.  Unless it's to something funky we haven't given him because we G's don't eat it ourselves.

July 4th stories and photos to come.

A mess

Ok, friends, I'm a mess.

I'll be the first to admit it.  I'm a tired, pregnant, hormonal, self-doubting mess.

If I remember correctly, these feelings start to settle in the second trimester.  At least, that's what I'm choosing to remember.  Just this week I fell asleep watching The Daily Show.  And no, I don't mean the new one that comes on at 11pm, I mean the night before's episode that comes on at 7:30pm that we often watch just after putting PDG to bed and finishing up a little dinner together. At some point J-Man convinced me to relocate from the couch to the bed, but otherwise I was out until 5am! Clearly I'm exhausted.

Plus, my ears have decided to do the thing where they don't pop again.  But rather than starting in the 3rd trimester, here I am, 9 weeks along, with 31 to go, and I have to tell my kiddos to speak up when they read their homework aloud because I feel half deaf.

AND, my adorable, sweet, PDG just won't walk.  Which makes me feel like the world's worst mama, even though I know he's still in the normal range and he stands by himself all the time and shows every competency of being able to.  But when other ladies at the park are like "oh he's 13 months?  and not walking? hmmm..." my usual confidence is shot by doubts of maternal capacity and oh-my-goodness-if-I'm-screwing-up-with-PDG-how-can-I-have-a-second????

A mess, right?

Here, right now, after having napped when he napped this morning, and having had a good long cry with J-Man this week, I feel good.  Together even.  I can type about this nutty catastrophe that is my inner monologue and know everything is gonna be just fine.

But goodness gracious, I can be one crazy and insecure mess after a half-deaf day with teenagers, not enough sleep, and too many googled non-verified medical facts in the back of my brain.

Here's hoping these next three weeks pass quickly and that 2nd trimester brings some assurance with it.

Chimpanzee

I like to read articles about motherhood.  I read that when babies are this little they can sleep through just about anything, including movies.  I also read that a theater is a great place to practice nursing in public.

Put those two together and I had a pretty fabulous outing when PDG was 7 weeks old.  After dropping off his West Coast Grandma at the airport, we strolled around the Reston Town Center by J-Man's work.  The stores weren't our style, but the weather was, and who could pass up a chance to have lunch as a family?  We fit right in with other SAHMs with strollers meeting sharp-looking men in ties.

The nearby theater boasted $6 admission on Tuesdays and had a 1pm showing of Chimpanzee.

I'm not really a nature girl, and despite my good friend having just completed a major graduate project on an orangutan, I still don't know the difference between monkeys and apes.  But Jane Goodall had caught my attention, the movie would be short, and I had nothing else on the books for the day.

The theater was under construction so we had to maneuver through a work zone to get to the elevator, only to find a theater full of five senior citizens.  Yep, just those five and us.

Nursing publicly was a breeze in the dark without fear of accidentally flashing anyone.  To be honest, with that crowd, I'm not sure their vision would have seen much even without the dimmed lighting.  The noise only got to be too much during the heated territory battles, and otherwise PDG was perfectly content to sleep and eat his way through the film, much as he does through life.

The only time it was apparent I was a brand new mom was when my hormones (that I thought would've been calmer by seven weeks) made me cry like my pregnant self as Oscar searched hopelessly for his fallen mother.  Where could she be?  How could he go on without her?  What is life without one's mother when you need her just to eat and survive?

How would my PDG fare if that happened to me?  Would he search endlessly?  Would there be a constant hole, even if an alpha male was there to let him ride on his back and crack open his dinner in the nut grove?

Yes, I definitely cried.  I held my PDG close and said a silent prayer that by the time I leave my baby behind, he won't be a baby anymore and he will be strong and able.

My tears aside, it was a great film.  And a great experience.  And maybe when he's old enough to have a clue what is happening on screens, I'll show it to him again, and tell him stories about when he needed me like Oscar needed his mama.