Monkey See, Monkey Do

It amazes me the things that Rhi will pick up on. This morning as my husband was flipping through a Science magazine, she quickly pointed to a picture and said "Jupiter!" - correctly identifying the planet though neither of us have tried teaching her the planet names yet. (While writing this a thought occurred to me and it checks out. She has a PowerTouch system (By Fisher Price. I'd link the website, but it uses pop-ups and flash intros. I'm sure you can look it up yourself if you are that intrigued.) and one of the books we got her was Blue's School. A page in the story is about space and there is a drawing of Jupiter on the page.)

Something else she did this morning was put me to bed. As I was standing in the kitchen, she came up, grabbed the drawstring on my pajama pants, and tugged me to my bedroom. Upon reaching the room, she turned on the light, then tugged me around the bed to my side where she ordered me to sit down. She went back to the doorway, turned off the light, said "Now go to sleep!" and shut the door.

I keep thinking that I should have started crying and begging for one more story, a glass of water, or to cuddle.

Pretty Princess

Whew - it's Tuesday and I'm now finally able to start recovering from the weekend. It started Friday with my outpatient procedure that I was supposed to have the previous Monday. I got into the OR an hour later than I was scheduled and the spinal took about 2.5 hours longer to wear off than they expected. We got home late, I was sore, tired, and hungry - the day was totally shot for housework.

Saturday was a beautiful day, but I was still a bit sore plus I had to spend most of the day indoors cleaning the house. Luckily, the hubinator took the rugrat outside with him to do yardwork, so I didn't have to worry about her demands for attention or wanting to "help" me (which always makes a task last 3-4 times longer, but she's so cute I just can't resist letting her help). Still, I managed to get most of the house ready for The Big Event on Sunday - Rhi's 3rd birthday party.

Then she started coughing and sniffling. She woke up from her nap with her voice a bit hoarse. We feared that she would be too sick for the party and we'd have to cancel, so we called around to at least give people a head's up about it.

Sunday morning she awoke with no voice, but high spirits. Over night I had hung up large colorful foam butterflies and dragon flies on the walls. When she saw them she started bouncing up and down and clapping her hands. She was so excited and other than the lost voice didn't seem in bad shape, so the party was a go! That meant some last-minute cleaning before getting the food ready.

Now, I never claim to be a "normal" person. My husband, as much as he'd like to try, really can't convincingly make that claim either. We like medieval fantasy-type stuff. We make and play fantasy games. Our livingroom is decorated with gargoyles and dragons. So of course, this is reflected in our daughter as well. One of the gifts from my aunt and uncle was a little toy tiara and lei-style necklace all in white and iridescent sparkly stuff. So of course, Rhi spent then entire afternoon playing Cinderella. To add to it, my brother took sidewalk chalk and drew big dragons all over our concrete patio. She loved it!

Her actual birthday was Monday, so when I took her out to lunch I told her she could wear her crown and necklace. She was quite the hit at the coffee house (her favorite restaurant) and the post office.



With a smile like that, though, it was all worth it!

That's My Girl!

A few days ago I got Rhi up from bed and was changing her. As I did so, she pointed out the stars that are glued to her ceiling, so I started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her. In between each line she would interject a "RAWR!" My husband, still in bed in our room down the hall, chuckled and called out "That's my girl!"

But today I got confirmation that she is just as much mine.

I got her up from bed, got her changed, and we went out to the kitchen. She right away got into the fridge and pulled out a small bottle of orange juice, bringing it to me to open. Then I ask her what she wants for breakfast. I named some suggestions. "Do you want bacon and eggs? Do you want pancakes?" She looked at me for a moment with a thoughtful expression before replying.

"No, I think I'll just have chocolate."


That's my girl!

Haven't we been here before?

It seems I've found myself once again in The Waiting Place. After going through the nervousness, the "don't eat or drink anything after midnight", and the tossing and turning because I was unable to sleep the night before going to the hospital... We get there and are told that they are overloaded with work and short-staffed and so they have to reschedule me.

*sigh*

I understand that there really isn't anything they can do about it. I understand that my procedure isn't an emergency situation. Heck, they were also rescheduling women who were supposed to go in and have labor induced they were that busy. So I'm certainly not faulting them for having to put me on hold until Friday.

But I find myself once again just waiting.

And worrying.

And waiting.

Twenty-twenty-twenty-four hours to go...

Ok - maybe a little more than that at this writing - but not much more thanks to Daylight Savings Time. It's already technically Sunday morning as I write this. This evening we take the rugrat to spend the night with Grandma. Then bright and early Monday morning we head to the hospital.

It's called Incompetent Cervix and what it means is that my body just can't support the weight of a pregnancy. It's impossible to detect or predict until it happens, but once it does happen, it will happen again. It's how I lost my twins 26 weeks into my first pregnancy. But the good news is that there is a very simple, quick procedure to prevent losing subsequent pregnancies. And that is what I'm counting down to now.

I must confess to a bit of nervousness about this. While the procedure takes less than 5 minutes, the prep for it can be pretty uncomfortable and so they need to give me anesthesia. And... since I'm pregnant, the best choice for anesthesia is a spinal block. I've had it done twice before as well as an epidural when I went into labor with the rugrat. But still, the thought of someone jabbing a needle into my spine and injecting drugs is a bit unsettling.

But even with the nervousness I'm so incredibly eager to have it done. I view it as a turning point - where I can stop worrying about losing the baby and enjoy the miracle of it all.

The net effect of the eagerness and nerves - and loss of sleep thanks to DST - is that I'm one big ball of emotions. Pity my husband - he has to live with it.