What I am Missing

With less than two weeks left before my due date,

I have moved in with my mother in Andover.

I decided to move to Andover so that we could deliver 

Baby Number Two in the same place that we had Orin:

the North Shore Birth Center.

Because if you have to be in labor,

you might as well get to be in a huge tub next to 

a door that opens so you can hear the birds singing

and smell the sweet breeze of springtime

in your state of otherwise utter and total misery.

 Although I am glad to finally be here because

it has ended my anxiety about not being able to make it

to the birth center in time if I went into labor early

(with Boston and its unpredictable traffic looming right

 in the middle of the commute from the Cape),

I am a bit sad that I am missing some important things back home.

For example, T-Ball has started. 

 The video on our camera didn't work during practice number one

so Casey took these pictures to help me feel

slightly less left-out:

The team (or part of it, anyway):

 

Orin practicing his base running:

His catching:

His batting and running to first:

 And his looking adorable in a batting helmet:

If Baby arrives on time, 

I might be able to catch the final practice of the season.

In the meantime, I am with much less interesting company

 Paley: the queen of sulking

and Atlas,

the king of shedding.

When she is not working,

I also get to hang with my mother who keeps me sane

and, of course, Baby Number 2

who is trying to drive me crazy by continuing to

flip into breech position

despite the fact that I cannot actually deliver her like that

and I am very close to my due date.

Likely, there will be more on this issue to come

as I have just scheduled an appointment to 

try to have an acupuncturist turn her

with a procedure called moxibustion

so that I can avoid the dreaded external cephalic version...

a procedure which I narrowly escaped last week

and will be on the table again if she is not head down

for my next exam on Wednesday.

Wish us luck.

Better Late than Never

Today I weeded my garden with a spoon.

This spoon.

 

 Why? Because I had it in my hand when I noticed that

the garden needed to be weeded. 

It was, after all, the big day for planting. 

Don't even bother asking why I haven't planted the garden yet.

It is a combination of bad weather, lots of other things to do,

and my scatter-brained nature 

which is also responsible for my setting out to weed 

four enormous raised beds with a soup spoon.

Once the beds were weeded it was time for the spoon

to head to the dishwasher

while I headed to the kitchen table to determine

what to plant and where to plant it.

(I find this process is enhanced by making a huge mess).

 

 Next it was back outside to turn the soil.

This can be done in several different ways,

but I always choose to do it the most labor-intensive way

i.e. using a shovel and a rake

(hey, it is an improvement from the spoon!)

Once the soil was turned, I amended it with one of my favorite

composts: Coast of Maine Lobster Compost

(and yes, it actually is made from lobsters)

Then it was time to plant:

mostly I am doing direct-sow crops this year

but I also planted some strawberries

after the dogs decided to uproot all of my plants from last year.

 And the best discovery while I was out there was this:

 My asparagus made it through its first winter!

Only a couple years to go and 

I will actually get to harvest some.

So there you have it, 

the crops are in.

Better late than never.

And in my defense,

I have been growing some things for a while.

Here is our hydroponic set-up in the kitchen

where we are growing lettuce, kale, chard, and basil.

Term

Today I officially hit "term"

That means that if I go into labor on my own now

it will be because the baby and my body have agreed

that she is officially done cooking 

(notice that I said "my body" because the rest of me 

has been ready for her to be done for a while).

So how am I feeling?

Not great.

Mostly, I would just appreciate the opportunity to sleep.

I think that sleep becomes so difficult at the end of pregnancy

as an evolutionary adaptation to ensure that you appreciate

the additional hours of sleep you get after your baby is born

(even if that sums to 1/10 of the sleep you got before pregnancy).

Why am I not sleeping well, you ask.

Well, first of all, I can't sleep on my back, or my stomach, 

or my right side and my left side has a pinched nerve 

which acts up after a couple hours.

From there on out, I "sleep" sitting up.

But now there is a new menace in the game... contractions.

Two nights ago I had so many contractions that I barely slept at all.

Every time I would start to fall asleep I would be rudely awakened

by the tense muscle tightening and difficultly breathing 

that comes along with the contraction.

So yesterday I consulted some pregnancy books

and found out that these contractions could be minimized

by flooding my system with water.

So last night, I drank two or three huge glasses of water before bed

which meant that instead of being rudely awakened by 

the sensation of a contraction,

instead I was rudely awakened by my bladder announcing that

it was full... again.

Have I mentioned that I am ready to be done?

 And because I don't have pictures that go along

with any if the things I have just complained about,

instead I give you Orin in a box,

because you know I wouldn't

deprive you of pictures for an entire post.

The Nest

The last couple of weeks I have been experiencing "nesting syndrome."

For those of you who don't know about this, it is the period before

a woman goes into labor when she frantically starts preparing

for the arrival of her little one.

For the woman it seems that there are suddenly 1,000 

VERY IMPORTANT things to do

while to the rest of the world,

she just seems totally crazy.

I manage somehow to see both sides...

To be one minute obsessively washing and 

organizing every piece of clothing

including her impossibly small socks,

while the next laughing hysterically at myself

and how hormones can drive even someone like me

(who Casey believes has never actually put the cereal away

after breakfast once in her life)

to care this much about things 

like the organization of baby socks.

But I haven't exactly stopped there. 

The nesting period has gone beyond just cleaning and organizing.

I am still sewing.

Frantically. 

Here is one of the 5 pairs of overalls I have made in the last 2 weeks.

Because every child needs at least 5 pairs of overalls

before they are even born.

And I have started knitting another blanket

because the last one I made was thick and rainbow colored

and this one is thin and purple

(see how she obviously needs both).

I have also been doing a little last minute shopping

focusing on some things that are important...

like disposable diapers for her to wear until she is big enough 

to fit into her cloth ones,

and an infant bath tub.

While other things just seemed important at the time,

like these slipper shoes,

because every baby needs slipper shoes 

10-12 months before they can walk.

My nesting behavior has not just stayed in the nursery, either.

All of a sudden I felt the overwhelming urge to build a fence

around the garden, edge the front beds, seed the lawn, build a

stone path out to the chicken coop, and add rodent-proof fencing

around the coop 

all with the help of my lovely husband

who is likely wondering the same thing that I am by this point...

When will it end?

I have no idea 

but I am guessing it might not be until I am putting those

impossibly small socks

on some impossibly small feet.

I can't wait!

Orin's T-Ball

This spring Orin is signed up to begin Tot T-Ball.

To prepare for his newest sport

(he is still playing soccer once a week,

now in both the 3.5- 5 year old class and the 6-8 year old class)

he has been practicing every day, 

or as often as he can convince his daddy to take him to the local ball field.

Last weekend I went with them to film some of Orin's new skills.

We accidentally forgot the T-ball tee,

but as it turned out, that was not a problem.

As you can see from the video, the only problem that 

came up during the practice was that Casey really needs a helmet.

Enjoy.

Back to the Beach

It has been a particularly long, cold spring this year, 

but the other day it finally hit 70 degrees

which prompted an afternoon trip to the beach.

It was hard to tell who was happier to be back by the water,

Orin who instantly started drawing himself 

(and his name) in the sand

 or the dogs, who are only allowed a small window of 

warm weather beach time each year before they are banished

by laws created for the massive influx of tourists

that will begin to arrive shortly.

And speaking of beach, 

here I am with a beach ball under my shirt...

or wait, that is not a beach ball. 

Beach balls don't wiggle or kick

or get the hiccups at 3am.

Four weeks to go.

I can't wait!

Casey up a Tree

Every once in a while I am greeted by a moment

where the first thing that crosses my mind is

"I am going to need to write a post about this."

This morning I had one of those moments.

It started with this:

"What is that?" you might be wondering.

It is Casey's solution to a problem we have had in the backyard

for the last couple months:

A limb that cracked during one of the blizzards this winter

was dangling precariously over an area of

the yard that we walk under regularly.

To reach the offending branch, Casey created this saw-on-a-stick.

 

 The only problem with the contraption was that it ended up

being about 5 feet shorter than it would need to be to reach the branch.

So instead, he decided to climb up the tree and cut it by hand,

a process which took a painfully long time.

But, in the end, the branch came down.

So the lesson learned is when innovation fails you

there is nothing like brute force and a bit of crazy

to solve the problems of the day.