Gag me with a Spoon!

7 weeks, 2 days

If it was a beating heart that helped me feel more secure about the outcome of this pregnancy, it's the onslaught of morning sickness that has sealed the deal. Something can always go wrong, of course, but the most common thing would be a 1st trimester miscarriage. And the odds are increasingly in favor of success with every nauseous day that passes. As much as I hate this part, morning sickness is evidence of a healthy pregnancy. That doesn't mean if you don't get sick, your pregnancy isn't healthy; you just have no evidence either way. Sickness screams it from the roof tops. So in that regard, the bug and I are passing with flying colors.

This pregnancy is definitely different from with Wyatt, though. The queasiness and milder symptoms showed up earlier this time, but the all-out morning sickness hit later. (Which is a blessing, because if I'd followed my last pattern to a t, I would have been in the midst of the worst of it over Christmas.) And of course, I have a toddler this time around. That's the funny part, actually. My son is now playing pretend with the sounds of gagging and moaning. I even saw him this morning fake puking into a toy bucket! Holy cow, kid. You're a riot. Ryan's been home a lot over the holidays, so that's been great. But when Ryan's gone, it's pure comedy. When I'm at my worst, my son runs wild while I lay pretty helplessly on the couch. Last night, he found a box of tissues that he emptied all over the living room. Luckily, the hard parts come and go, so when I feel better, I can right at least the worst of the wrongs, ha. But my son is under a little less supervision than usual...

Hello, television nanny. What's up first? Handy Manny or the Backyardigans?

A Beating Heart

For the last few weeks, I've really wanted to blog about our latest news. Wyatt's gonna be a big brother! I've wanted to write down every little thought and feeling and physical change, and share the news on the forefront of my mind. But, thanks to the confidence-rocking miscarriage experience of a year ago, I decided to bite my tongue and wait. And wait. And wait. Every day felt like a week. Our goal: To see a strong heartbeat at our first ultrasound. Well, yesterday we saw just that. A heart rate of 154. Our little bug is thriving, so we're ready to tell the world. It's still early. A lot of people would wait longer. Hit more milestones. But I'm a writer. I need to write about milestones. I need to share, because keeping it inside hurts my head. There's a tiny little being with a beating heart hanging out in there, and I think she (hopeful thinking) is here to stay... well, until August at least. Then she gets to take up residence in the rest of the world.

So, changes. I've lost 8 pounds since I got knocked up. And, no way, I'm not dieting. I think the bod's just working really frickin' hard. I actually thought maybe it was twins, because I hadn't lost weight in the beginning with Wyatt until the morning sickness began. This time, I've only had a few bouts of nausea and sickness so far, but I'm dropping weight pretty fast. Who knows? Maybe it's a girl! Maybe that's the difference. Or maybe we really are having twins, and one was just hiding behind the other one in the ultrasound, haha.

I'm not shy about the fact that I'm hoping for a girl. I know that's not very PC. And I will obviously be madly in love with a little boy, too. But we're not planning on any more pregnancies after this one, so I'd really like to complete the set. Heh. And, while we're not quite ready to share our current name options yet, I have a girl's name I would really like to use. And I want to SHOP for a girl. They're superficial reasons, of course, but reasons nonetheless. And of course, mostly, I just want to experience being the mother of a girl. I want to give my parents their first granddaughter. Yep. A definite preference. Sue me.

I think that's all for now. I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas! God bless us, every one. ;)

Word.

I recently read that at my son's age (19 1/2 mo), he's adding a new word to his vocabulary every 90 minutes. Now, I don't know if that's just waking hours, or averaged based on a 24 hour day. What I do know is that, regardless, that's a lot of new stuff to say. I think it's referred to as the "language explosion". I love hearing him say new things. The only problem is that a lot of those newbies totally throw me for a loop. It took me about a week to realize, for instance, that "awahnee" means "I want it." In case you think he's referring to the famous lodge at Yosemite. And "iman" is not the supermodel from the 80s married to David Bowie. "Iman" means "Come on". Wyattese is a tricky language, but I have a team of translators on the job day and night.

This week has been rough. Wyatt's been great, but I've had a cold. It's hard to be on top of everything when your head is in a vice grip. And so, my kid has a few more freedoms than usual right now. Hey Wyatt, climb down from that 10' ladder. If you fall down, it could take me a while to remember how to dial 9-1-1. We're making it work, though. I thought about calling in sick, but figured leaving Wyatt in his crib all day would be asking for trouble. Out of pure hunger, he'd figure out how to climb out, and then my prison tactics would go the way of the dodo bird. Can't have that.

We're also prepping for more quality one-on-one mommy-kid time. That's glass half full code for single motherhood. Ryan's leaving again for South Dakota on Friday. The good news is that Wyatt and I get to fly out to see him on Tuesday and stay for a couple days for Thanksgiving. So it's only 4 days solo bookended by 2 more days solo. Ryan should be home by next Sunday sometime. And thanks to the same generous benefactor that allows us to use the SD ranch, we'll be flying private, so I won't have to do the airport security thing with a toddler. I'll admit it seriously weirds me out that my son's first flight will be on a private jet. I may need to get pics of him next to the plane in the hanger with sunglasses on, and start calling him Vinnie Chase. (I'm not sure. Is the mommy blog reading demographic the same as the Entourage demographic? Show of hands...) So anyway, the flight should be a lot easier than a typical traveling-with-toddler scenario. But lest you think he's being raised a spoiled brat, I hasten to remind you that he has a built-in humility regulator: i.e. we're raising him in humble Bakersfield. (Apologies to Bakersfield, which is actually a rad place to live. Sadly, a lot of people won't see it that way, because their only real education about Bakersfield has come from its freeway properties and it's non-LAness.)

So, anyway, to summarize: Wyatt talks. I'm sick. South Dakota for Thanksgiving. Bakersfield is rad.

Mommy Meets Judge and Jury

And then it was Fall. I guess this blog is seasonal. So, anyway... The monkey is now almost 19 months old. He's a rascal. Adorable? Heck yeah. But a RASCAL. Ha. He climbs shelves to get to "out of reach" coffee cups. He then drinks said coffee, spilling half of it on himself and the couch. He pulls bottles of wine out of the wine fridge. He pulls outlet covers out of their plugs. Basically, if he can climb it, knock it over, throw it or snatch it, he will. He is an evil genius and an angelic whirlwind. He is a toddler. And as far as I can tell, even with all that, compared to a lot of tykes out there, he's a really good kid.

And, as it turns out, this is also the age by which parents are judged. This is where people watch you intently to see how you'll handle the latest bit of toddler terror. This is where your family is suddenly public property. Discipline is at the forefront of conversation, and even the most gray minded people you know become apostles of the black and white. Their way or the highway. It makes me mad. But I think I just need to let it go.

Here's what I know: I care about the character of my child. I don't want him to be spoiled, nor do I want him to be opressed. I'm pretty sure that it's my job to teach my son about responsibility. About community. About faith. About consequences and rewards. About real life; not bubble life. And I'm going to do that in the way my husband and I have agreed upon, even if it's not in perfect alignment with the world's latest "only way" parenting craze. Child psychology is great. Sure. But the philosophies change with every generation. One guy writes a book and suddenly last year's wisdom is thrown out the window. New is better. It's shiny. I wonder what new study will overshadow everything we know today? I guess we're all kooks to somebody. So, yes. I have strong opinions about raising MY son. I promise not to inflict them on you. Just do me a favor and give me the same respect. It's none of my business whether you use time outs or lollipops or spankings or distractions or a mix of all of the above. I'll save my concern for the truly unwanted. The truly abused. The truly neglected. I'm just glad you love your kid enough to parent. That's pretty awesome.

Thumbs up. You're doing a good job. Ignore the snide look from the know-it-all in the corner. :)

Living on the Surface of the Sun

It's summertime in Bakersfield. This is the time of year when I question the wisdom of moving away from the gorgeous coastal climate of Marina del Rey to oven-baked Bakersfield for love. Then Fall comes along and I forget all about the miseries of summer. I assume this phenomenon is no different than living in the Midwest or Northeast in the winters, though. No one can tell me subzero temperatures are a party. It's the same deal. You stay inside more. You take advantage of artificial climate control. You grit your teeth and bear it because you know it's just a couple uncomfortable months, and it'll be over soon. And there's a reason such a huge percentage of the population of the country live in places that don't have perfect weather all year long. Those places are frickin' expensive! So we sacrifice a couple months of yucky weather for home ownership, low-stress commutes, and some expendable income to visit those perfect climates on demand. I think it's actually a pretty good deal. I just have to give myself the sales pitch a little more frequently when the temps jump past 100 degrees... :)


Wyatt is 15 months old now. Hard to believe. He runs. He climbs. He dances. He speaks Wyattese peppered with English here and there. (His favorite word is "Daddie", which sounds like "Daddy" but actually means "Sadie", our dog. Ha!) He has a sense of humor and plays pretend and has very strong opinions about all sorts of things which show in his myriad of facial expressions. I keep flashing back to the tiny bundle of a being he used to be. I keep remembering how we'd grasp at straws to assign personality to little instinctual baby behaviors. And now here he is, projecting his personality so boldly, there's no mistaking it. He's stubborn and goofy and stubborn and mellow and stubborn and loving and STUBBORN. Tons of fun and frustrating to the core, all at the same time!


Hard right. Next week, we're going camping. But before you get a picture of tents and cooking over an open flame in your head, you should go back and read my "camping" blog from a year ago. Just so we're clear, I'm a spoiled brat in that arena. I grew up going to a beautiful cabin in the Sierras with all the comforts of home. I don't think making life harder and less comfortable on purpose constitutes a vacation. But I think this trip will be a lot of fun. To start, we're going to be camping in Peteluma right on the Russian River. That means wineries and civilization are nearby. Did I mention wineries? Yes, wineries. Also, our friends Travis and Amber are loaning us their motor home for the trip. It's a really nice one, so we'll be far from roughing it. And lastly, our son will be a 15 month old on this trip instead of a 4 month old like he was on the last one. I won't be nursing, something I did not enjoy despite all my attempts to be a good little earth mother, and I won't be trying to decipher different kinds of cries from a squirming blob. Yes, I like having a toddler better than I liked having a baby, even with the occasional tantrums and him getting into everything. Because even with all that frustrating work, I still feel a lot more fulfilled parenting a little person than simply keeping a little blob alive. I know. I know. Everyone has their own opinions on that. But for me, when we have another one, I could just skip to him/her being about a year old, I'd be a happy camper. (Bada bing. Hope you pun-lovers enjoyed that one.)



I'm sure there's more. There has to be, because this is my first blog in like 3 months. But I don't have the energy to tell you about it right now, and you could probably do without several more paragraphs. So, stay tuned. Maybe I'll do a little better at keeping this sucker up to date now. Maybe I won't. :-)~

A Year in the Life...

My son is almost 1 year old. He turns 1 on April 1st, which now seems like a fitting birthday for him, because I think he's already a bit if a jokester. He likes to test limits, yell loudly, and grin from ear to ear even when he knows he's about to get in trouble for whatever sneaky thing he just did in plain view. It's ridiculously cute, and also quite manipulative. Ha. You have to watch him like a hawk, and be prepared to adminster consequences, even to the sweetest face!

In the last month, Wyatt has learned how to walk. He was a cruiser for so long, I almost couldn't believe it when at 11 months old, he decided to take 15 steps in a row, solo. It's been a couple weeks, and he's already moved on to something that resembles a speed-walking/running hybrid. It's so cute, I can barely do it justice. He just goes until his head gets too far ahead of his feet and he falls over. He especially enjoys these little jaunts when Sadie is with him. Standing, he is still taller than Sadie. When he was crawling, she towered over him; I think it made her less appealing. But now, he's the Master. All alpha-male at 1 year old. Look out world. And yesterday, he stood at the door watching Sadie and said, (albeit with some prompting), "Dadie". Loved that.

Basically, my baby is doing what babies do: escaping babyhood in favor of toddlerdome. It's a fun process to witness. Kind of mind-blowing. Finger foods. Sippy cups. Whole milk. Finding treasures all over the house from the rollercoaster of fascination and disinterest associated with toys and papers and boxes and spoons. It's awesome, pure and simple.

In grown-up news, Ryan and I get to go to Hawaii right after Wyatt's 1st birthday party! Ryan's parents blessed us with the use of their timeshare and flight miles. An unreal and generous gift to be sure. We're sooooo excited. Especially because they'll be watching Wyatt. Yep, we get to go munchkin-less. It'll be like a 2nd honeymoon! (Only I won't be wearing a bikini, and we probably will actually have contact with the outside world.) :) Then, at the end of May, I'm taking a whirlwind trip to St. Maarten for Gina's wedding! Dude, somebody is gonna start the summer off with a TAN. Don't think I've had one of those since my honeymoon, either.

Life feels charmed. I feel amazingly blessed right now, and not just because of travel, although that certainly sweetens the deal. It's funny, because I know the world is in a pessimistic place these days. And yet, at the same time, I have an ever-increasing appreciation for things that endure beyond economics. My family. My friends. My faith. Priorities change a lot when you realize you're not in control of the big picture. You start to assess, instead, the character of people. The bonds of parenthood. The nature of belief. And in those things, I think my life will be charmed, even if everything crumbles to the ground. Ryan always teases me about the future when we'll be living in a trailer, farming the ground for our own sustenance, after the economy has finally completely tanked and the government can't find anyone else to borrow from or tax. And while he gets me all riled up, when I really think about it, I feel secure in the important things, no matter how the future unfolds. So, maybe economic systems are really just frosting, anyway. :)

How funny that my blog went from light-hearted to serious in the span of a paragraph. :) Oh, well. Life does that to us all the time, eh? I'm just writing about it. Hey look, I'm writing about it at my finally clean desk... You can't see me? Stinkin' invisibility cloak...

Uh oh, Dada. Catch!

This installment of the blog is dedicated completely to Wyatt. His words, his skills, and his unexpected boo boos. No pesky stories about mommy, unless she's a supporting roll in a Wyatt story. Sometimes you just need something that's all kid.

I'll begin with the words. I mentioned briefly in one of my last blogs that Wyatt says, "Uh oh!". He also says "Mama" and "Dada". I hadn't heard either of the latter two for about a month, but yesterday he decided to play with his whole vocabulary. He said "Dada" all afternoon when Ryan went out of town. When I put him in his play pin thingy for a bit so I could wash dishes, he kept putting his hands out to me and saying "Mama". So I think it's safe to say he has an idea as to what he's saying. And he definitely understands certain words. He know what "No" means, and he's very familiar with the meaning of the phrase "Stay on the carpet". We have natural boundary lines from carpet to tile in our house, and he's not allowed on the tile. We don't have gates up; but so far basic discipline has worked pretty well. It's more work, because it requires consistency and he loves to test us, but since he already understands what "no" means, it's become effective in lots of areas, not just the tile. I have no idea how hard it'll be to maintain it when there's eventually more than one kid, but it seems to be pretty effective and doable with one. (That, or we just have an easy kid. I guess I won't know that for sure until we have another one, too.)

Yesterday, Wyatt and I played catch with his soft blocks. It's pretty amazing how good of an arm he has. He can throw pretty far, and is surprisingly accurate. The very fact that we play catch back and forth is pretty impressive for a 10 month-old. So now I have to decide whether or not to encourage him to be a pitcher or a quarterback. I enjoy watching football much more than baseball. On the other hand, pitchers usually still have the use of their knees when they're 45. So, hmmm.... my entertainment vs. Wyatt's long-term health. Right now it's still a toss-up. ;)

Lastly, there is the topic of boo boos. On Thursday, Wyatt fell off our bed. I was sitting right next to him, but still didn't manage to catch him. Naturally, I feel pretty bad about that part. He face-planted onto the carpet, and now has a rug burn on the side of his nose. At the time, he also cut the inside of his lip with his new teeth and was bleeding a little from his mouth. Yeah, it shook both of us up. He's totally fine. No broken bones or anything like that. But I have a little reminder of how fast things can happen every time I see the slowly healing boo boo on his nose. Such a bummer. :(

The Last Day: I'm Okay

Let me start by saying that I'm okay. I'm sad, and a little thrown for loop, but I'm not breaking down or cursing God or dwelling on what could have been. What I am doing is assessing and then continuing to function. The reason, if it's not obvious, is that I've had a miscarriage. Miscarriage is one of those words that almost seems vulgar to say in a public forum... cold, clinical, and maybe too much information. I said it differently on Facebook. I said, "Shannon thinks Facebook is a fun venue for sharing good news, but a terrible one for bad news. Sadly, she has the latter. She's not pregnant anymore. :(." But Facebook is a different forum, isn't it? It's vastly public, and it's about lots of people, not just about me. Somehow, even though I have an open blog, it seems a lot more right to talk about the experience here; where if someone's reading this, they've made a choice to find out more. They aren't just having the information thrown at them on a news feed.

Without falling into the too-much-information trap, I realized it was very likely I was miscarrying on Sunday morning. I was pretty upset, naturally. Confused. Not quite sure what was happening. Sad. I called an Advice Nurse, who suggested I go into an Urgent Care to make sure I wasn't having an ectopic pregnancy. I didn't go. I wasn't in pain, wasn't light-headed, having chills, or anything suggesting it was anything more than an early miscarriage. So I ignored the advice of the advice nurse. I slept for a big chunk of the day. I sat around. I wondered.

Monday was my birthday. I turned 32. I woke up to decaf coffee one button away from brewed with a note from my husband saying Happy Birthday. He'd done the dishes for me, too, and he'd taken the dog to work with him. I'm sure I've mentioned before that he's a keeper. I spent the morning on the phone with an advice nurse again, this time in order to make an appointment with my doctor for an ultrasound. I dropped Wyatt off with my friend Lesa, (thank you so much for the last-minute help, Lesa!) and met Ryan at the OB's office. The ultrasound showed an empty uterus. No evidence of pregnancy. So I got a blood test to measure my hcg levels. I'll have another blood test on Thursday, just to confirm that my levels are going down, but the doctor said that's it's highly unlikely that I'm still pregnant. Maybe a 5-10% chance at most, and I think that's being generous. I know in my heart that I'm not in that 5-10%. So, I spent the rest of the day having already come to terms with the loss. That evening, Ryan and I went out to eat for my birthday. Then I dragged him to the chickiest chick flick I could find. (Bride Wars. Have I mentioned that he's a keeper?) It was a very pleasant evening, despite the bittersweet tones of the day.

Today is just another day in the Kuhns house. I've had some very nice quality time with the munchkin, and I've already completed 9 out of the 15 things on my To Do list. I'm functioning. I'm peaceful. I'm okay.

Days Two - Five: Proof

It's been just under a week since I found out I'm having another munchkin. For the most part, I've just been walking around in a daze. The very beginning is kind of bizarre. I've been popping prenatal vitamins, cutting way down on caffeine, turning down wine at dinner, and, well, that's it. I haven't been all sick and miserable yet, which is great, but it also means the proof of my pregnancy is the digital display on a test that has already gone blank again. No proof. Well, until yesterday...

Yesterday morning, I went to clean up the first real dog mess since we got the puppy. My preggo nose caught a wiff and that was it. Sick. My husband came home from work for a bit just to clean up the mess and to take the puppy to work with him! He also brought me a decaf Starbucks. That's pretty high up there on the amazing guy scale, I think, eh? He's got how to pamper a preggie down to a science. After that, I went about my day, which included about a million errands. Wyatt was in and out of car seats, strollers and shopping carts all afternoon. One of those stops was to the Lab, where I had my official blood test done for the doc. Got my results back a couple hours later. Positive. Not that there was a question, but it always seems so much more real when the doctor tells you. So now I have my proof.

I'm also turning 32 on Monday, so there are a few little birthday things going on, including a visit from Andrea next weekend, which I'm really excited about! But nothing else related to the bun in the oven. In the 1st trimester, that's probably a good thing. Oh, and yesterday Wyatt learned how to say "Uh oh!". I don't think he actually knows what it means, but he says it all the time, which is pretty stinkin' cute. So that's where we're at. A happy little family with a whole lot to think about these days.

Day One: Again

I'm knocked up. Again. Whoa.

It's not like we didn't know there was a chance, but who in their 30s gets pregnant the very first month off the pill? Who's that stinkin' fertile? Well, evidently I am. I must have been built for another era... I would have been such a catch to some farmer in Arkansas in the 1940s who wanted about 18 kids to help him run the farm. Just imagine my potential, had I started young... Ha!

I told Ryan with a text message. It's not quite as lame as it sounds. I sent a series of pictures. First, a close-up of Wyatt saying, "Dad, I have something to tell you." Then a not-as-close-up picture of him wearing a big brother wife beater saying, "I'm gonna be a big brother!" And lastly, a picture of the Pregnant digital display of the pregnancy test saying, "Yes, that's what it means." He came home with balloons (one "boy", one "girl", which I hope simply say one or the other, and that they aren't an omen for twins, ha ha) and flowers, and we celebrated by going out to dinner. I had Panang Curry and wondered how much longer it'd be before I'd be eating saltine crackers and 7-up. Yum.

Needless to say, we're not really secret-keepers around here. I didn't wait until I started my 2nd trimester to tell everyone. In fact, it's already on my Facebook status, and I just found out today! I know, I know. It's probably smart to hold out for a bit - make sure everything sticks. But I'd die having to wait. And as soon as we can, we'll find out if we're having a boy or a girl, too. At that point, baby "it" will have a correct pronoun and a proper name (because we already have those picked out, too). That's just how we roll.

Yeah, it's a whole new experience the 2nd time around. I'm excited, but also filled with a mild sense of dread. You know, just about certain aspects of pregnancy (the 1st and 3rd trimesters) and certain things about the baby (the birth, the first 6 weeks of his/her existence, nursing again). Yeah, just some minor concerns... :) But then I look at Wyatt. At this little person with his own personality and those big blue eyes. And yeah, I think I can do this.

Again. :)