People Who Get It

Since the arrival of the wonder preemies, the Dotytron has been saying that the people least equipped to handle stuff like babies in their friends' lives are some of his single, ne'er-do-well musician friends.  They just don't get it.  Maybe because they're not required to live grown-up lives as yet?  Who knows. Either way, they don't seem to understand basic social niceties or interactions - like, having babies to them is as incidental (probably more incidental) than like, getting a new pick up for your guitar or something.

To put it in perspective, Jim, the guy who is building our deck for us (because OF COURSE our deck build was scheduled to start the day after I gave birth!), was a) one of the first people to find out about the arrival of the babies (since I had to coordinate the delivery of the lumber AND give life to two separate souls); and b) GOT US A PRESENT FOR THE BABIES.  That's right: Jim, who is listed in my phone contacts as "Jim the Fence Guy" got me two sleepers and hats and they were size/seasonally appropriate and individually wrapped in tissue paper in a baby-themed gift bag.  Meanwhile, some of the Dotytron's oldest friends - people he's known for almost 20 years?  Maaaaaybe a "congratulations." Maybe.

We are feeling pretty discouraged 'round here.  It's only been 12 days, but we're already at the point where we're seething with resentment whenever we see parents bringing a car seat into the NICU.  Car seat test = getting ready to go home.  The parents across the way from us were being prepped by the nurse that they might start to transition out of the NICU to the paediatrics wing, where you stay in a room with your baby and sleep there and get them established on the bottle or breast and then you can go home.  The parents were strangely resistant - like, "You mean there won't be a nurse doing everything for us?"  "What do you mean we'll have to be there overnight?"  We were like, GOD, GUYS, WHY DON'T YOU BE LESS INTERESTED IN GETTING YOUR BABIES HOME!?!?

Anyway, both babies have been losing weight - they're still spitting up.  L is spitting up every feed and Q is spitting up every now and then.  They've got Q on some kind of caloric supplement to help him bulk up (which appears to be working, he gained an ounce between last night and this morning).  L is on this thing that slows down the delivery of the feed so it happens over the course of an hour.  Then they took him off my milk and have him on this hypoallergenic formula - which according to our paediatrician, is going to make us very unhappy if we have to take him home on it, because it's apparently super-expensive.  They think he might be reacting poorly to dairy in my diet, so I have to lay off dairy for 14 days.  Fourteen days!  Do you know what I have in the fridge right now?  White chocolate oatmeal cookie dough, a cheesecake tart, Balderson cheddar, three litres of whipping cream...the list goes on and on.  All of it, gone.

We showed up at the hospital today and L is still losing weight.  It's just disheartening.  I don't know why, but I had no idea that having the babies in the NICU was going to be this hard.  It goes without saying, but we just want them to do well and come home.  We come home to sleep, and then we show up at 9am thinking we're going to have some good news and then we find out that L is still losing weight and barfing after every feed.  It just sucks.  Going home with them seems so far away.  A giant downer.  Then I feel like maybe it's my fault - like I'm poisoning him with my rotten breast milk.  We're finding it a little hard to stay positive.  Trying to remember that last week on this day, we were dealing with them on the CPAP and having spells and now it's just on to the next hurdle.  If he can't keep down this hypoallergenic stuff, then it's on to maybe making him drink something that will make his insides glow so they can see if there's something wrong with his mechanics.  I don't want him to have another x-ray. I don't want them to make his insides glow.  I don't want there to be something wrong with his gut.  It's the pits.  But I'm trying to remember that there will hopefully come a time when this time in the NICU is a distant memory and also, that there are people who are dealing with issues with their babies that are much more challenging than what we have to deal with.

It doesn't need to be said, but I will do anything (including giving up butter, whipping cream, and ice cream) for these little bubbas:

I think it's really hard for other people as well - we keep getting offers of help, but when we're in this weird in between stage while the NICU nurses are doing most of the heavy lifting with the twerps, we don't need that much help, so we're turning it down.  Right now, our main priority is maintaining the Big Yam's schedule while we can and we can do that with what the NICU expects from us at the moment.  Once we get to the point where we get moved the paediatric rooms or when I'm breastfeeding exclusively, then we're going to need all hands on deck.  We're going to go back to living at the hospital and that's going to be really hard for the Big Yam.  As Dr. Rei said, it's like the babies are here but not here.

On top of all this, the Big Yam has been a holy terror.  Last night we had an epic, drag-out, throw down, tantrum episode.  Like, him screaming himself hoarse type of tantrum.  He didn't want the bath, he does want the bath.  He was hitting me, refusing to put his diaper on, super-sad and angry and it got to the point where I could do nothing but withdraw and silently put his jammies on and put him to bed without any of the usual good stuff - no hugs and stories and songs.  He was screaming for the Dotytron (who was doing the 9pm hospital shift) and it just made me feel guilty and rotten and like we have been doing something wrong with our end of the parenting.  It sucks and I know it's totally related to us being gone every night and to the twerps being around, in addition to him being almost 3.  There is NO SUCH THING as the terrible twos.  It's three.  Three is an unholy age.  We had a debrief about it last night and we're going to try some new techniques:

1) lowered voices, instead of raised, elevated voices.  We're going to try to remember to stay calm, and emotionless.

2) if he hits another kid, not giving the aggressor attention, but focusing attention on the hurt party.

3) trying to give him choices and distracting him.  The idea being that apparently kids tantrum when they feel powerless and like they don't have agency, so allegedly, when you give them options instead of just telling them what to do all the time, they feel like they have some control over their own fates.

4) more fireside chats? (This technique is something I've come up with, that hasn't been corroborated by anything I've read from experts).

5) giving him the words to express his emotions.

I'll report back.

Fin.

Tales from the NICU

The twerps are almost a week old and it's been a series of ups and downs.  They had been doing amazingly, up until last Tuesday.  We showed up at the hospital on Tuesday in the morning to find that L was under the jaundice lights and both of them were hooked up to oxygen.  So I was like, "What happened?" and this Irie NICU nurse was like, "Those babies had me hopping last night!"  Apparently they were having "spells" which means they stopped breathing and started turning blue and had to be resuscitated and they had to be put on oxygen.  They were taking turns having these spells and had the nurse running around like crazy.

The paediatrician who had been on call was just going off duty and she came up to us and gave us the rundown.  She said that they had stopped breathing repeatedly throughout the night and they were going to give them a medicated dose of caffeine to help them breathe.  She said when preemies have these spells they start looking to see if they have an infection - but they'd both been on antibiotics since birth so she was going to be running them through blood work.  She said if they didn't pick up anything from the blood work then they were going to be sent for chest and stomach x-rays because if they continued to have these non-breathing "spells" that it could be necrotizing enterocolitis, which happens in preemies where parts of their gut start to undergo tissue death (with an attendant high morbidity rate).  A word you never want to hear in relation to your health - NECROTIZING.  Then she said if it wasn't that then they'd have to look at other reasons why they might be spelling and she was consulting with Sick Kids to rule out any other potential causes.  She delivered all this information in a very curt, matter-of-fact, bare bones way and I immediately started crying my eyes out and being super-scared and worried and wondering if I had done something wrong or if I hadn't washed my hands long enough or something.

I found out later from my midwife that day 3 or 4 postpartum is when your hormones are at their hinkiest - they're fluctuating like crazy and she said that I would likely be crying even if they weren't on the CPAP to help them breathe.  The paediatrician who had actually been present at their delivery, Dr. A., showed up to check in and the midwife spoke to her and relayed that according to Dr. A, the twerps were doing beautifully.  I updated my sister and she sent me an article on apnea of prematurity, which is REALLY COMMON in preemies.

Here's the thing: I'm not an irrational person.  If the first paediatrician had just told me that 30-40% of premature infants display apnea of prematurity, then I would have been like, okay, that makes sense to me.  But being inundated with all these worst case scenarios and having their little bodies taken for 2 sets of x-rays and then ultrasounds and having that information relayed to me without the benefit of a bedside manner, when I'm already hormonally overwhelmed, was really, really jarring.  It doesn't help that this is the hospital where Poppa D passed away, which is also probably the last time we had a medical professional giving us information in the exact same manner.  It was also really scary because I think we had been lulled into a false sense of security by how well they had been doing up until that point.  The nurses and paediatricians were all pretty surprised that they came out of the womb and were just on room air for the first 3 or 4 days of their lives - they had seemed to be thriving and so this setback took us especially hard.

Anyway, Q stopped having spells on the Wednesday and they took him off of the CPAP after he had gone 24 hours, spell-free.  L stopped having spells on Thursday or Friday and now they're both on what's known as "room air."  They're still in the incubators but are both off of their IV foods and are being fed my breast milk through a gastro tube in their noses.  However, lately they've been spitting up a lot, which means that they're not really tolerating the feeds.  So they have to rule out everything (and guess what rears its' ugly head?  NECROTIZING ENTEROCOLITIS!) before they come to the point where they determine that the spitting up is likely due to their immaturity (e.g. faulty acid reflux valve thing, or their esophageal muscles not being able to properly coordinate swallowing).

I'm learning through this process that it seems like it's going to be one step forward and two steps back with these guys.  I'm also learning to temper my expectations by reminding myself that they're not supposed to be out in the world yet.  They were 34 weeks adjusted gestational age as of yesterday.  They weren't supposed to come out for another 3 weeks yet.  They're learning how to do all this stuff that they weren't supposed to have to learn so soon, so I'm trying to be patient and cut them and myself some slack.

The earliest they would be released is 35 weeks and that's if they start feeding well and are gaining well.  We go to the NICU three times a day.  It has actually been a pretty nice transition period so far.  Even as I desperately want them to be home with us, it's been nice that we can drop the Big Yam off at daycare, go to the hospital, come home and do some baby prep, and then pick up the Big Yam, have dinner together as a family, put him to bed, and then either the Dotytron or myself will go back at 9pm for some more time with them.

The Big Yam has been acting up.  As my sister said, this age (almost 3) is a really challenging one.  My sister: "You should be allowed to hate your kids sometimes - I think."  LOL!    He's a d**k a lot of the time - lots of hitting and he was throwing toys at his cousin all weekend.  It doesn't help that the twerps are at the BEST POSSIBLE AGE because their only job in life is to be soft little velveteen bunnies who make you want to cuddle them and kiss their downy little heads times a billion.

The Dotytron and I had a big talk about our discipline methodology vis-a-vis the Big Yam this afternoon, based on my reading this article in Slate about toddler temper tantrums.  I'm trying to be mindful of the fact that the Big Yam can sense our anxiety about the twerps' welfare and also that his schedule has been destabilized and he's experiencing a lot of displacement and doesn't have the language to properly express how he's feeling.  This past weekend my sister came up to help with the babies and so the Big Yam slept away from home and I think in combination with everything else, it was hard on him.  Last night, after a day filled with time outs and hitting his cousin and whining, he got a bath and the Dotytron went to the hospital and I put the Big Yam to bed.  We read a story under the covers and then I told him we had to have a talk about his behavior today.  So we pulled the sheet up over our head and I said that I noticed he hit his cousin a lot, and it wasn't very nice, and that tomorrow I wanted him to try to whine less.  Then we had lots of hugs and "kiss face" and he kind of repeated it back to me: "Tomorrow, no whining" and we read more stories and had more cuddles and talked about how much we loved each other and he went to bed.  He woke up this morning in a stellar mood.  I don't know if it was the talk or just having me around to put him to bed, but there was definitely a noticeable shift.

Sometimes I worry that we're too hard on him and we expect too much out of him, so I'm hoping to balance the disciplinary measures with an acknowledgement (from us) of the lack of capacity for impulse control and night time talks couched in a lot of love and kisses and hugs.  I'm a big believer in the fireside chat decompression.  We'll see how it works out.

The twerps look really different from each other right now.  They've been spitting up a lot, so they're being monitored for NEC (the gut-rot condition I talked about earlier), but it's more likely that they just have an immature digestive system and faulty acid reflux valves that will hopefully mature as they age.  They're still gaining weight so that's good.

Here are some newer photos.  This is L, who I can't get enough of.  Look at his little goofball face!  He looks like an old Chinese man (those baggy eyes!  Those jowls!) crossed with a turtle.  His eyes are super googly which makes for a lot of hilarious expressions and moments:

Q, on the other hand, is just so sweet.  When his eyes are open it looks like he's just anointing you with his benevolence.  It's like having the Dalai Lama look at you or something.  There's something very calm and placid about his expression:

I love them so darned much.

Fin.

A Tale of Two Twerps

Last Thursday morning was a day like any other.  I woke up, struggled to get the Big Yam ready to go to daycare, went to pee before leaving the house, and then noticed something...odd...in my drawers.  I paged my midwife and she said that I should go and get checked out.  She asked if I was supposed to go to Sunnybrook or my TEGH.

FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK, MIDWIFE.  Why, just the DAY BEFORE, I had met with my regular OB (not the Sunnybrook one) and had inquired of her, "So, on the off-chance I go into labour in the new few weeks, do I go to Sunnybrook or TEGH?" She very blithely responded, "Oh, you're at 32 weeks, so we [TEGH] would keep you. But I don't think you'll be going early.  You know, everyone says twins come early, but all my twins go to term." FORESHADOWING ALERT!

Earlier last week, I had also asked my friend at work, G, "What do Braxton Hicks feel like?" because I had been feeling a tightening in my belly that wasn't uncomfortable, but was definitely a something.  On Wednesday, I stopped at the fish store to scope out their soft shelled crabs and walked TWO AND A HALF KILOMETRES home, moving verrrrrrry slowly, because my gut was belly was so tight.  FORESHADOWING ALERT!

So I went to TEGH and was admitted to maternal triage.  They hooked me up to a bunch of different monitors, and lo and behold, I was having contractions every 5 minutes.  The OB on duty came and took a look at me, and said, well, this is early, we'll see if we can keep you steady at this rate for 24 hours, but you won't be going back to work.  Me: "Today?" Her: "Uhhh, no, until these babies are born."  Me: "But I sit all day at work," Her: "Well, you'll be on bed rest."  Me: "But I can still go for walks and stuff right?" Dotytron (who had come to be with me on his way to work) and her, in unison: "YOU'RE NOT LISTENING. BED REST MEANS DOING NOTHING, BECAUSE WE WANT THESE BABIES IN AS LONG AS POSSIBLE."  Me: "I don't think I'm processing this well."

Then she checked me and clucked in regret, "Oh, you're not going anywhere, you're 2-3cm dilated.  We'll hope that we can keep these babies in you for the next 24 hours, but you're here."  So I called my midwife who said that I was basically in TEGH jail.  The roomie also said that they would set a series of goals for me - like, if I make it through the next 24 hours, then they'd hope for 48, then maybe a week, then maybe two weeks.  Either way, I wouldn't be allowed to go home, in case I delivered there.

I got the whole epidural lecture again - and this OB's hands were BIG.  The Dotytron after the fact was like, Dr. M is pure rural animal birthing styles.  She just looks like her natural environment is birthing cows on a farm.  I said I would think about it.  I got moved to a labour and delivery room, and my midwife told me to page her when I reached 5-6 cm dilation.  My contractions were coming every 4 minutes, but on the pain scale of 1-10, I was like, they were maybe a 1 or 2?  Maybe?  So I hung out with the Dotytron and wrapped things up at work, emailed my manager, etc., etc.,

It came time to make the epidural decision.  I didn't want to have one.  I was in active labour at that point - 5-6 cm dilated and again, not really feeling the contractions at all.  I called my midwife and was like, "Hey S! What's up?" And she was like, "Don't ask what's up with me!  What's up with you?"  Me: "Well, I am 5-6 cm dilated and you wanted me to call you?"  Her: "You're in active labour and you're asking me how I'm doing? You are crazy."

The anesthetist came and talked to me and gave me the whole "informed consent" talk about the procedure, outlining how it's done and the risks.  This was probably the 2nd most freaked out point of this whole birth story.  I was FREAKED.  Um, nicking a nerve and then me having a splitting headache for 6 weeks?  Potential (I mean, 1 in 4 million, but still!) paralysis?  Not my bag, sons.  I think the issue is that by the time most women want the epidural, they're like the woman down the hall, who was apparently SCREAMING for one.  They don't care about the risks..  The fact that I was listening calmly wasn't doing me any favours.  I was pretty scared.  The anesthetist was also like, it would be more preferable if you could feel the contractions more, so that we would be able to know for sure the epidural was working, but what can you do?  My pain tolerance/threshold is what it is.  I ended up getting one because the high change of an emergency section for Twin B meant that it would have been getting knocked out, general anesthesia styles if it came to that, which is less ideal than if they can just bump up the meds and I'm conscious.

The midwife shows up (in a birthing support capacity) and the Roomie showed up (in an awesome friend/birthing support capacity) and then I kind of laboured until around midnight.  The OB came and checked me and said that I was around 8-9cm dilated, but she didn't want to stretch me to 10cm dilation because if I didn't hit 10 naturally, there was a chance that I would close up again for Twin B and then we'd have to wait, which is less ideal.  In the course of checking me, she broke my water and got doused, and then it was GO TIME.  They wheeled me into the OR.

I pushed maybe 3 times, but twerp A made his way out on his own, basically.  He started crying right away and then the pediatrician and her team took him away to do the Apgar-y stuff.  Then it was B's turn.  Unfortunately, in the course of getting A, the OB had broken B's water sac.  The way the midwife explained it is that it's harder to grab a hold of the babies if the water breaks, because you don't have the air/water balloon to help you move them around and figure out what you're grabbing.  It's also jarring for the baby...the Roomie likened it to getting your head pushed under water repeatedly.  So you can take a breath, but then you're struggling and it's stressful. The next five minutes were intense.  Dr. M was ELBOW DEEP in my nethers and was like, "I can't get the feet, that's a hand, no, I can't reach the feet, call the anesthetist, we've got to section."  The whole room got really quiet and intense and I was scared and I know the Dotytron was scared.  The anesthetist was basically walking in with the syringes all prepped when Dr. M said, "I've got the feet!" and pulled B out by his legs.  He was obviously kind of shocked and scored really low on his initial Apgar.  They kind of showed him to me and then whisked him away.

And that, was that.  The midwife, the Roomie, and I stayed in the OR and checked out my placenta (which was pretty cool, if you're into that kind of thing - you could see the dividing membrane between the two amniotic sacs!) and the Dotytron went to the NICU to be with the twerps and check them out.

We named them the next day, after going to the NICU and taking a good, long look at them.  That's Lennox on the left and Quincy on the right.

Look at Q vamping for the camera!  So cute!  L got banged up on the way out. 

  

We are totally, completely, utterly in love.  Guys, I have THREE sons, now.  

Fin.

After All These Years...

On the weekend we went to visit my Poh Poh at the home (super depressing - we walked in when they were doing "karaoke" in the main area) and then went for lunch at Phoenix.  The Dotytron made us order like, 5 dishes (which still only cost $37) so we would have leftovers to take for lunch.  So we have leftover Malaysian beef curry and this Korean stone pot rice left and I'm getting containers from the waitstaff and the Dotytron seems to be getting tense.  I say, "So one of us will take the curry and the other person can take the Korean rice," and he's all like, "Well, why don't we split it so we get half of each one?" I'm against it because I don't like the two flavours mixing.  I'm packing things up and then I say, "That makes no sense - we're going to get small tastes of each one" and he bursts out, "FINE! I'LL TAKE THE KOREAN RICE!" and I'm like, "Wait - I want the Korean rice" and he's like "Oh well then, okay, I wanted the curry, anyway."

Here's the thing: 2013 marks the TWELFTH year of us being together.  You would think that after 12 years together, your partner would feel okay just telling you which of the leftovers he wants for lunch, instead of doing this whole, song-and-dance around the issue, wouldn't you?  

For some reason, I found this hilarious.  I also found it hilarious when later, that evening, hanging with Dr. Rei and Hanbo, the Dotytron said, "Ummm...I have Don Henley's body."  LOL!!!  (We were talking about how musicians like D'Angelo categorically can't maintain their level of peak hotness because they burn out.  We were trying to find other examples of people who have maintained).  

We had a pretty low-key weekend.  Friday we were going to go to the Fun Fair near our school but instead opted to stay in and do a movie night.  We watched My Neighbour Totoro again, which the Big Yam loves and which also meets our standards.  It's like pure fantasy.  I love Miyazaki films because very often, they reflect a very small portion of life - there's no big "journey" or "event" or "adventure" - it's just a little peek into the daily world of some kids.  Usually the kids have some kind of parental trauma/distance happening - in this case, they've moved to a new house and their mom is in the hospital - that serves as a springboard into their imaginary life where they meet characters like Totoro.  It reminds me very much of the British children's books I devoured as a kid - Enid Blyton, Edith Nesbit, The Secret Garden and the like.  I especially like that the Big Yam pronounces Totoro "To-Oh-Ro" - it's pretty cute.  

Saturday was all about visiting with my Poh Poh and then selling this vintage steamer trunk to some dude off Kijiji.  *Cue: Terminator 2 "easy money" scene* and then visits with Dr. Rei and Hanbo.

Sunday the Dotytron spent preparing for his friends to come over and jam at our house.  It was supposed to be a test run for "Guitarbecue" and he spent SO MUCH TIME cleaning up the back yard only to have the weather refuse to cooperate.  My job was to keep the Big Yam out of his hair, so we went on a long walk and had some one-on-one time, featuring - joy of joys! - a street car ride home (after walking 2km) and a bacon sandwich from Rashers.  We served the Dotytron's band of musician friends a feast, considering they're all bachelor/musician types - grilled chicken thighs, tuna macaroni salad, broccoli salad with bacon and almonds, and a strawberry-raspberry pavlova for dessert.  Proof that Lil' Ugmo isn't so lil' - we had a drum kit, an upright bass, a guitar, and a saxaphone all in our living room.  They jammed for about 4-5 hours with breaks in between.  We had one neighbour from one street over come knocking on our door...to ask if they could turn the music up.  OH SNAP!  The Dotytron loooooooved throwing that in my face, LOL!  It was pretty cute.  If you're going to terrorize a family-oriented residential neighbourhood with a four piece band involving a drum kit - then I suppose jazz is a good genre to be playing around in.  

It was pretty cute and I was happy that the Dotytron could make it happen.  I know how important playing is to him and how he seldom gets time to hang with his musician friends so it made me happy that I could facilitate that in some capacity - even if it did mean that I ended up cooking for his friends (only because I didn't want our household misrepresented in the culinary realm).  

So yeah, it was a busy, but fun-filled weekend.  

Here are some photos of what we ate:

Grasshopper pie.  Courtesy of this Martha Stewart recipe - goosed up with a bit of spearmint extract (1/4 tsp or so) and no creme de menthe.  Also, the recipe in my book called for 1 1/2 cups of milk in the custard instead of cream.  I actually found the taste of the filling a little too "milky" - so maybe I'll try it with all cream instead.  This was nice and cool, but not my favorite.  The crust was a little too firm.  Definitely needs some rejigging if I'm going to revisit it.

The pavlova I served to the boys.  A touch too much sugar in the meringue, but otherwise, delicious!  I love crispy meringues with macerated fruit and whipped cream.  Can't help myself.

A blurry photo of us from the May 2/4 fireworks in the park.  The Big Yam was hiding his face in terror.

Finally, here are some shots of the Big Yam's big room.  I worked pretty hard on it and feel pretty pleased with how my vision materialized.  Some of the photos are blurry, unfortunately, but you get the drift.  We love it in there so much - especially because it's a new room and everything has its place and there hasn't been a chance for it to collect clutter - we want to trade rooms with him sometimes.

Bed: Ikea Mandal.  Mattress: 10" memory foam from Costco.  It's sooo plush.  A little softer than our mattress but we love being able to lie down with him in between us and read stories and sing songs with him before bed.  It's cute.  The accent wall paint color is Benjamin Moore's Old Navy.

Dresser: Mandal dresser from Ikea.  The birch and white ended up looking pretty sharp with the white walls and the navy - the whole room has this Scandinavian modern vibe.

Storage bins: "Down to the Wire" bins from Land of Nod.  Lack shelf from Ikea.  Chalkboard from Ikea. 

The FLOR carpet design I did myself - including cutting the triangles and piecing it all together.

Found the perfect throw pillow cover fabric from Ikea.  It's a thicker material - almost like bark cloth.

The Neil deGrasse Tyson I paid entirely too much for on Etsy.  The industrial light fixture that I bought custom off of Etsy, held up with an IKEA $2.00 shelf bracket.

Ex Astris, Scientia ("From the Stars, Knowledge") chalkboard print I bought for $5.00 and had printed at Staples.  The white little shelf/table is something I pulled from the garbage and repainted ages ago..it's been sitting in the basement waiting for a room.

Even though Lil' Ugmo is lil' - there's still a good amount of floor space for him to play in the middle of the room, and when he outgrows the chalkboard, we can set up a desk there and a small bookshelf (assuming kids of the future have any use for storage spaces for paper books).  

I'm not gonna lie, folks...kinda feel like this space is Apartment Therapy worthy (assuming I can stop with the heroin hands and get some unblurry shots).  

Fin.

Baking Bread...

in my sandals.  Full on cankles in effect.  My feet looks like the tree stumps of an elderly Portuguese woman in a house dress and head kerchief walking haltingly up and down the sidewalk with suspicious eyes.  At this point, the twerps' combined weight is more than what the Big Yam weighed when he emerged from betwixt my loins.  AND I STILL HAVE ALMOST FIVE WEEKS TO GO.

Oy vey.  Scratch the lowest gestational moment recounted Wednesday.  Each day allows me to plumb new depths.  To wit: on Wednesday night, I turned to the Dotytron and lifted up my (read: his) shirt (and not a shirt from recent times, when t-shirts have tended towards the more slim cut for men - a t-shirt leftover from the late 90s ravey XXL boxy hip hop days), exposing my belly, and feeling gingerly below the roughly equatorial line implied by my belly button to inquire, "Is that a hernia or a stretch mark?"  (Jury is still out, for the record).

I had a tough morning with the Big Yam, yesterday.  He wasn't being a team player, per se.  Each morning consists of longer and more fraught episodes of what the Dotytron calls "reverse rape" (where you're struggling to get your child INTO clothes), and then endless combinations of threats/taking things away/time outs in order to achieve the most cursory tooth brushing and potty going so that we can get out the door.  Thursday morning was pretty terrible and resulted in the Big Yam asking me, when we finally got outside and I was unfolding the umbrella stroller, "Mama, are you still mad at me?"  At which point, I felt like the most horrible person on the planet.  Like, way worse than the Hitler-lookalike tea-kettle must feel, being an inanimate object that's now inextricably linked to one of history's greatest villains:

Ugh.  I felt SO guilty.  At the time, I put the stroller aside, sat down, took him onto my lap, and explained that I wasn't mad, and that it's hard for me when he's not being a team player.  We talked about what he needs to do in the morning and how we all have to go to work, and we talked about how he would try better tomorrow.  We ended with lots of kisses and hugs, but the Big Yam's question reverberated with me all day. We had a better night that night, but it still sticks with me.  I wasn't my "best self" with him yesterday morning, as Oprah would say (remember Oprah? I don't!)

Another parenting-related issue that I'm grappling with - the whole, if you give your kid one thing in front of other kids, then you have to have enough for all of them, scenario.  To wit: on Wednesday night, as we were winding down from the post-dinner outside play, I offered the Big Yam one of my homemade popsicles as a "special treat" (it's a banana-mango-coconut one).  I brought it out, and these two kids were immediately all up in my grill asking, "What's that?" and "Can I have one?" and I was all like, "Errr..." because I only had 1 other one in the freezer and quite frankly, I wanted it for myself.  But I wasn't sure what the politics/ethics were behind the issue so I put it to the masses on Facebook.  

The responses were mixed - 

"Screw the other kids"

"You don't want to be that lady"

"You can't offer kids food without asking their parents first because of allergies, etc."

"If the kids are playing at YOUR house then yes, you have to have one for everyone, but if it's just a street free-for-all, then no."

and so on and so forth.  

To be honest, I hadn't even considered the allergies dimension of the whole issue - my concerns were wholly (and selfishly) predicated on not wanting to waste my homemade popsicles on the neighbourhood kids, just because they happen to be enjoying public space at the same time as my kid.  And also: the logistics of having to make 10 popsicles each time.  

One of my neighbours weighed in and said that yes, I should have enough for everyone.  And that if her daughter gets a treat and there isn't enough for everyone, she has that treat inside before going out to play.  This to me, seems slightly ludicrous and a sign of the extreme lengths modern, urban, liberal parenting has gone to in the name of "fairness" and "sharing."  

Here are my issues:

1) When the other kids get popsicles, they're like, those frozen, ready-made Mott's juice ones or like, Kisko kids.  Often times, I don't let the Big Yam have one of those, because quite frankly, I consider them disgusting, and I limit his sugar to "special treats."  I don't think it's a big deal for him to experience NOT getting something when "everyone else" is.  To me, that's life in a world with unequally distributed resources.  As I've said before, there's lots of stuff that we have regularly (dessert, alcohol, etc.) that he doesn't get.  That's just life.

2) There's a difference between those popsicles and my popsicles - the labour that goes into mine is more and I don't see why I can't distribute the fruits of my labour as I see fit.  Also, I find it weird to have my interactions in public space policed thus.  So like, if we're eating dinner on the front stoop, we have to make sure there's enough dinner for everyone?  When the Dotytron brings his beer outside while he's watching the kids, he has to offer everyone a beer?  That makes no sense to me.  There is a line between politeness and fostering this weird sense of "everyone gets everything."  That's not the world we live in, people!  As my colleague said when I presented the situation to her: "It can't always be a potluck!"

3) I think the popsicle thing is an extension of the "Mr. Frosty" politics and tension.  Mr. Frosty is the name of the ice cream truck that comes by our street.  When Mr. Frosty comes by, there's always this like, moment when the parents are kind of eyeing each other to see who's going to cave and get something.  If nobody does, then it's easy to say to your kid, "No one is getting Mr. Frosty tonight!" If the majority are getting something, then you hit this tipping point and it seems like everyone acquiesces and gets something.  Then there are the weird, in between times, when I want a wagon wheel and the Dotytron wants his iceberg (which is a magical combination of slushy and vanilla soft serve) and we're the only ones getting and then we have to eat our treats in front of the other kids.  Frankly, I'm fine with this.  IT'S MY G-D MONEY!  I'm not going to self-police my Mr. Frosty consumption based on what other people are doing!  This isn't North Korea, for goodness' sake!  But it's definitely not behavior that you just do.  As we're buying our stuff, we are very aware for a minute or two that we're making things awkward for the other parents and their kids.

Anyway, is it a d**k move for me to give my own kid a homemade popsicle and have like a box of Mott's for the other kids?  Like, why do we have to do our popsicle eating inside on the off-chance that a neighbourhood kid is going to want one?  I don't like the selectiveness of it.  Like, if I was eating tripe stew outside, I don't have to make sure I have enough tripe stew.  It's only because kids are greedy little turds and want the "good" stuff only.  Also, for the record, I OFFERED last summer some of my homemade popsicles and the kids didn't like them.  Also, for the record, there are other times, when I've made a batch of cookies or something, that I bring out a plate of cookies for the street.  Or if everyone is hanging and we're having a snack, then I bring out crackers and cream cheese or baby carrots for everyone or whatever.  It's not like I'm ALWAYS bogarting stuff only for the Yam, it's more like when there's scarcity involved.

I also get asking the parents if their kids have allergies to make sure you don't like, inadvertently kill someone.  But am I not supposed to EVER bring out anything to share if it has nuts or whatever in them?  Isn't it the kid's responsibility to know that the world can't kow-tow to your (probably) made up food intolerances?  I think asking is totally fine to make sure you don't kill someone, but I also know parents of kids with allergies where it's like, you're demonized for having a jar of Jiffy in your home, even if it never sees the light of day.

I'm balking because I feel like it should be my prerogative.  Further, I actually think it's hella rude for some kid to be all like, "Can I have one?" I never did that as a kid.  Like, NEVER, EVER, EVER would I ask a grown-up for something they were eating or distributing.  I always waited until I was offered.  Then again, I never, ever, ever would have screamed the first name of a grown-up as a form of greeting, which I routinely get on my street.  I think the neighbour kids and neighbour parents think it's wack that I make the Big Yam refer to the adults as "Mr. So and So" or "Miss So and So" and some of them have given me the whole, "Ugh, don't call me 'Mr.' - it reminds me of my dad" line.  But I feel like adults are not my kid's peers.  I also think that it's a fine line between referring to adults by their first name and then you end up being Justin Bieber meeting the PM in a pair of denim overalls.  You can't wonder why that happens when you make kids rule the roost, guys.

Last night's dinner - roasted potato, roasted asparagus, bagna cauda, fried haloumi and poached egg salad.

Tonight's dinner: clam linguine with a raw kale ceasar salad.

Fin.