Labor project finished. . .

As you may have remembered from the very, very long list of things that Alayna posted earlier, one of our "small" projects was to install screen doors. We found a fabulous storm door that converted to a screen door for our front room that is going to be installed. (I think we talked about that lovely trip earlier). And we ended up buying a screen door to install ourselves for the back door as a "labor project."

Last week, our good friends Michael and Diana came over and helped us cut one part of the screen door. We needed either a miter box (something that makes an exact 90 degree angle cut) or a power miter saw. We didn't have either, and neither did they, but Michael is a wizard with saws and actually cut a straighter line than was cut in the original screen. Go Michael!



We still had the rest of the door to cut and install and decided to wait till this weekend to work on it. Today Alayna and I worked most of the morning on installing the rest of the door, and were fairly close to hanging it by 11am. We only had one melt down! Yes, this is an improvement, and is to be expected in home improvement jobs. (I thought that maybe with the Ik*a dresser we had a break through, but this was an exceptionally difficult project for us. . . one that never would have happened a few years ago!) With much reluctance, Alayna, Mateo and I went outside for a needed break and relaxation in the sun.

Then, fifteen minutes later, we got back to work!



Then, our friends Caroline and Sheila (who are going to watch Mateo so we can have a date on Monday - thank you, thank you, thank you) came over to have some Mateo time prior to Monday. With their wonderful assistance, we finished our labor project. Yah.


I, of course, had lots of fun with the power drill, even though neither Alayna nor Caroline would let me stand on a chair to do any of the up high drilling, and I couldn't really lean down to do the drilling at the bottom edge.




Now we have a lovely screen door for our back porch, and can open the doors without letting in insects and especially mosquitos all summer long, or worrying about lead paint in the window sills.

As for this being a "labor project," I guess it needs to be renamed as a pre-labor project! No news yet, but I'm feeling good and when the time comes, the time comes!

Surprise baby shower!

At school, my forty students had a surprise baby shower for me on Wednesday! I didn't suspect a thing until the beginning of the day Wednesday, when I saw kids running through the book room. This is the one room that is completely off limits to students, and of course the principal happened to be walking by as a student was sprinting behind me through the room. . . so I went to shoo the student away, and saw some party things.



Now, that combined with Alayna suddenly deciding that I hadn't taken any pictures of my students from the first day of school, and that my partner teacher was estatic when I had to take half of the students to a celebration (our class brought the most canned food for the food drive), the fact that over half the class was at school 30 minutes early and that only four kids went out to recess all had me a bit suspicious.



But, until Wednesday, I didn't suspect a thing. And even then, I was totally surprised by how much time, thought and energy they put into the shower. I can't post too many pictures, because most of them have students in them, but here are a few.

I would like to point out that I was the first to play the pin the binky on the baby game (created by one of the students on the games committee), and actually got the binky in her mouth! Yah.

38 week appointment

We just got back from Sacha's 38-week appointment. For those of you following along at home, here are her most recent stats:

Cervix is very soft, "like an earlobe," according to the nurse practitioner. There's an image for ya.

No dilation, no effacement, but the kiddo has dropped! That would explain all the pressure S has been feeling.

She is doing great and is just such a rockstar at pregnancy. She's still playing on the floor with Mateo and holding him on her lap (such as it is) and just generally doing a great job.

Her partner teacher and their classes threw her a baby shower today at work and she brought home two boxes of gifts and some delicious sugary cake. Yummm. She took a bunch of photos (I was in on the surprise and snuck our camera into her purse this morning) but we can't post them because of school privacy stuff.

Instead of photos, I offer up this image: Sacha tells me that she won the pin-the-binky-on-the-baby game. She said she quietly went and scoped out the dimensions of the cardboard baby before the game started, so that she would know exactly where to put the paper binky! Competitive much? She did us proud, binky-pinning champ that she is :)

That's where we are right now. Stay tuned!

38 weeks!

Now, by all different accounts, I am officially full-term. Some places count you as full term at 37 weeks, other places 37 weeks and 6 days, other places 38 weeks. Anyway, no matter how you count it, I am full term.

The stats would say that I have a 90% chance of going into labor in the next 3 weeks. It sounds like with the new dating, I have less than a two percent chance of actually having to wait a full four weeks, or a 98% chance of us having the baby within four weeks. If I hit that point, I think that induction is the name of the game. (Hopefully that won't happen. . . for all sorts of reasons.)

I was looking back on when Alayna was 37 or 38 weeks, and that weekend we finished cooking 30 freezer meals. Wow. We aren't doing that these days, but we also didn't have our love Mateo running us around the house, getting us up at 5:45am!

What we did today, though, was get screen doors. Mateo had quite the time while we were shopping (Alayna described him as crazed. We were the parents of the child you didn't want to be near, child wailing on the floor, running up and down the aisles, with the assistant who had only worked for three months and had to place the order two times, call over the manager to learn how to work the computer etc. You get the idea. Add the that that as Alayna was chasing Mateo the sales rep didn't realize we were related and he started going off about how some people just don't have control of their children bla bla bla. He clearly had never had children and Mateo was actually not that bad. If it hadn't taken him over thirty minutes to place the silly order, things never would have gotten that bad!)

We are having a storm door put in the front of the house. It will be air tight, so as to not have the nasty draft we currently have during the winter. And the glass pops out and turns into a screen door during the summer. For the back of the house we bought a sliding screen door that we are going to attempt to install.

We had been looking for a labor project. I wasn't too into baking a cake, so how about installing a screen door? Good labor project? Ha. Ha. We will see. Hopefully we finish it before I go into labor.

Here is another picture from 38 weeks.

Mateo's daily routine prior to his baby sister's birth

We thought it might be interesting to write down Mateo's daily routine before the birth of his sister . . . who will undoubtedly shake things up a bit! This is also for Grammy, who will be staying with him while we are at the hospital. Good luck!

5:15- 5:30am: Mateo tries to wake up for the day. One of us goes in and reminds him that it is still night night time. We normally spend thirty seconds in his room and don't pick him up. We all attempt to go back to sleep, and he normally goes back down within five minutes or so.

5:45am or later: Mateo wakes up for real, waking us up with him. He usually has some Mama's milk, goes potty and reads a few books on the potty. Then Mama goes back to bed and he has Mommy time until 6:45am.

6:45am: We all get up and have breakfast. His favorite breakfast these days is cheerios, yogurt, milk and some kind of fruit. He then goes potty again, after eating, and reads a few more books. He loves books!

7:30am: Mommy leaves for work. Mateo and Mama wave bye bye and start their day. Usually Mama has breakfast now and has her customary bagel and hot cocoa and Mateo sneaks some of the bagel. LOL.

8:00am: Mama and Mateo spend time cleaning the house. He "helps" put things away.

9:00am: Some sort of morning activity is usually underway by this point. Some days it's a play date, other days a trip to the park, and other days, out running errands. Some days we get out of the house at 7:30 to babysit or go to Mommy's school.

10:30am: Snack time! He loves fruit bars, crackers and cheese or anything else that strikes his fancy. We usually try to go for something with protein and fat, a fruit or vegetable, and finger food. He then sits on the potty.

11 - 12am: Sometime around here he goes down for a nap. He nurses off to sleep and then Mama gets a little time off. It has been very little recently, because after 20-30 minutes in his crib he wants to sleep on Mama's lap, while she reads a book!

1-2pm: Kiddo is up and sits on the potty. Need we mention that he reads more books? Mommy is usually home by this time and we have lunch together. Lunch is whatever we have in the house, from enchiladas to tamales to sandwiches to nachos to soup.

2-4pm: Mommy takes a third trimester nap. (In previous trimesters she took first trimester and second trimester naps. She needs her naps.) Now that she is on the verge of giving birth and no longer tutoring in the afternoons she has more time to play with Mateo and rest. Mama and Mateo take another outing of some sort: park, zoo, walk, play date, garden etc. They have a snack while out or after getting back.

5pm: Mommy and Mateo play and if he is having a tough day, we might watch some Baby Signing Time. We make dinner.

6pm: Dinner time.

6:45pm: Time to get ready for bed. Sit on the potty, get on jammies, have vitamins, brush teeth, have fluoride, read a book (in this order). Have some Mama's milk and go to sleep.

First wake up of the night: Mateo has some Mama's milk and goes back to sleep. If Mama is not around, he has some bottled milk and then gets put back to sleep after some cuddles.

Second, third and other wake-ups: Someone goes in and reminds Mateo that it is still night night time. We don't pick him up, but do pet him and talk soothingly to him for a few minutes. He usually goes back to sleep in less than 10 minutes. (It can be ten loud minutes.) If he seems overly upset, we go in and cuddle him until he is asleep and put him back down or see if he is in teething pain and needs Motrin.

Ah, the joys of a routine that will soon be gone!

Hair cuts and other pictures

Today, we all went to get our hair cut. Alayna participated in the hair cut by getting Mateo's hair all over her while holding him! Thank you. I thought I wanted to have my hair a bit shorter before the birth, but not so short that I couldn't pull it back. We were also thinking that it could be a long time till Mateo gets his next trim. . . so we decided to do it today. They trimmed him a little bit shorter than usual, so it will last longer.

Mateo's new trim.

Sacha and Mateo hanging out in the rocking chair before bedtime.

Also, we have a lot of new baby things that people have lent us. Mateo has become fascinated with the baby bouncy chair, in particular. Notice how it practically rests on the ground. I don't think it is meant to hold a 22 lb child!

By the way

We're going to need a new name for this blog. Three girls and one boy isn't really going to do it. Anyone have any suggestions? Titles normally just come to me but I'm drawing a blank on this one...

18-month check-up

Rather belatedly, M had his 18-month well-child visit this afternoon. Having just met our new pediatrician for the new baby (who will be on Sacha's insurance, which is different from my insurance, hence the different doc), I love Mateo's pediatrician and her nurse just that much more.

The new doctor seems like she will be fine, but I just think we hit the doctor jackpot with Mateo's provider. Even though she must have seven million patients in her practice, she always seems excited to see him and she has a great bedside manner and she is reassuring without being patronizing. I think it probably helps that she has three kids herself. Her nurse is just as great, despite having a job that must really suck sometimes. Having to be the one to give all the shots has got to be awful.

Anyway, now that I'm finished with my little ode, I can report that the appointment went great. M has actually gained weight! For the first time in probably nine months, the scale did not say 20 pounds when all was said and done. Or 21. It said 22 pounds, 4 ounces. Wahoo! This means that our little guy is now a proud occupant of the 10th percentile for weight, up from the seventh. I am just thrilled that he's actually tracking a curve. He's been eating a ton lately and I guess he's added a little meat to his bones.

Other stats: He's 32 and 3/4 inches tall, which is the 70th percentile, and his head is actually in the 50th, which is the highest it's ever been.

The doc seemed happy with his development and impressed with his talking. She kept saying "he talks like a two-year-old!" - especially after he commented that Dr. M was washing her hands. She also talked me into finally giving him his MMR shot, as well as the chickenpox vaccine. We had been holding off on the first until he got a little bigger and very ambivalent on the second...but with a new baby coming along, we decided now was the time to give him, and her, a little protection.

He was very sad and acted betrayed when he got his shots, but perked up pretty fast when the nurse gave him two stickers. Stickers! Of a digger and its driver! When we got home and I went to get him out of his car seat, I realized I should not have left him alone with the stickers, as he had consumed most of one of them. Yummy diggers.

We had a good rest of the day, although he was very clingy and didn't seem to be very comfortable, even with the ibuprofen. He felt pretty warm when he finally fell asleep and we're really hoping he feels better in the morning.

Milestones

Today, we hit a two-mom-family milestone of sorts. This morning, by pure, random coincidence, M and I managed to meet our first two-dad family at the park. As one might surmise from our photos, our neighborhood park is often rather deserted. It's usually just us playing on the play structure (or just us and ALL our neighbors - like this weekend or after school, when baseball or kickball games are going on and everyone's family and brothers and sisters and cousins are out playing). Most of the time, though, we're the only ones there when we go. This mystifies me, as there are many, many stay-at-home parents with kids around.

That just made it all the more random that we met these people this morning. M and I were hanging around the house waiting for the carpet cleaner guy to get here. (Just as an aside, can you say CHECK? Another item off the list, baby!) He arrived and got started and politely suggested we go do something else, as M was getting very interested in the proceedings and was soon to be underfoot. As half our furniture was piled in the uncarpeted half of our house, there was nowhere to go but out, so we walked to the park.

As we were sitting there and M was playing on his stroller, up walked this group of two men, one woman, and a little boy. I started to think that the men were probably the kid's dads right away, but that's not such an easy thing to come out and ask. Eventually, the woman and I started chatting about Mateo and I just happened to mention that he's going to be a big brother soon, as my partner is pregnant. That pretty much opened the floodgates and I learned that the woman was their friend and the two guys were the kid's dads (although the friend just had to tell me that the blond guy was the boy's real dad - like the other one wasn't because he hadn't contributed any genetic material) and that they share him with another couple, who are his moms. And all sorts of other things.

It turned out that they don't live around here, but used to live in the neighborhood and just stopped in to have breakfast at a nearby cafe. We've been hoping to find some two-dad families to be friends with and haven't been too successful thus far, so this at least gave me hope. Maybe next we'll stumble upon some local gay dads!

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Also, the carpets are now clean and one of the cars is serviced. We ordered a washer on Monday. All our baby clothes are washed and folded and sorted and in their places. We're chugging along!

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Last, but not least, M is in the middle of a three hour nap. He's been acting a little bit like his tummy feels yucky and he never sleeps this long...so I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping he's not sick. Hopefully he's just tired and catching up on some sleep?

Chatting and other weekend events

Mateo watched this morning as his moms, tired of Lucy clawing the (carefully and painstakingly repainted) paint away from our window frames, clipped her nails. I mean, we do clip her nails regularly, but she always manages to wreak destruction on the windows in the days between when we realize she needs clipping to when we actually do it.

We explained to him that she was meowing because she didn't want her claws clipped, but that she was really just fine. It must have made an impression, because he was still talking about it hours later. Like so:

M: Lucy nails clip!

Mama: Yeah, we clipped Lucy's nails this morning.

M: Lucy mowing [meowing].

Mama: Mmm hmmm.

M: She mowing a LOT!


I just about died of the cuteness. That was a real little conversation!

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Despite the crazy 90 to 100 degree heat here, we've had a lovely weekend. We said goodbye to Rachel and Joaquin, who have been visiting for a couple of weeks in one form or another, and had dinner with them on their last night in town. It was just like old times - they cooked a fabulous meal and we all ate it! Thanks, guys! Mateo also had a wonderful time. He loves his Auntie Rachel and Amakeen, as he has taken to calling Joaquin.

After they left yesterday morning, we had breakfast with Grammy and our friend Joanie at a perfectly lovely cafe close to us. M hung in there for a good long time and explored the flowerbeds outside the restaurant at length.

Then, after nap time, we braved the heat to celebrate one of Mateo's friends' first birthdays. It was hot but a good time was had by all and it was fun to see all the little ones running around together. And the pregnant women! Wow! There were two others plus Sacha and I was so impressed with them all. It made me remember this trip we took to Tijuana when Mateo was cooking. Hot, hot, hot.

We got home from the party and filled up our wading pool in the backyard. After some copious splashing (a snippet of dialogue emanating from our backyard: "NOT TOWARDS MAMA, MATEO! Anywhere else but NOT TOWARDS MAMA!") and playing, we had all cooled off a lot. That, plus the resurrection of our window air conditioning unit, gave us a reasonably cool evening and night.

So, now we're at today and I am all bright-eyed because I slept in until 8:30 this morning. Wow. I was asleep in our new bedroom while Sacha and Mateo played in the rest of the house. We always talk about our new room being more quiet and I think it really is. We do weekends so that one of us sleeps in every day - Sacha is Saturday and I am Sunday. This is the best thing we've ever done. It rocks.

We're planning to go shopping for our new washer this afternoon and then just relax and get ready for the week. We just talked to Apa on the phone, who is in NY getting his stuff all packed up to move out. He apparently just escaped a massive multi-car pile-up on the highway yesterday and we are just so glad he's okay. Apparently he changed lanes to exit the freeway and heard and felt a huge BOOM from behind. He looked in the rearview mirror to see that a pile of cars (including an 18-wheeler) that had just collided had just slid into his bumper, as he had pulled into the exit lane just ahead of the accident.

He said his first instinct was to brake but then he realized he should step on it, so he did and avoided any injury or damage to his car. Sounds like the whole thing was pretty traumatic, but everyone was okay in the end. Freaky! That reminded me of when he came out to visit us for the first time after M was born and his plane almost slid off the runway when he touched back down in NY. Maybe something's trying to tell him that the west coast is the best coast! We're really glad you're okay, Z.

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Last, but certainly not least: Today is 37 weeks. Full term. Amazing. My wife is a rock star. We are so excited to meet our daughter. We fully realize that it will be three to five weeks until that happens, most likely, but still. Full term. Wow.

More last time

Mateo has started saying something that I think is just too cute, "More last time." Like today, we were playing on the exercise ball (I was rolling him on the ball while he was on his back or stomach), which he just loved. After a few minutes, I would let him come back to the ground, and he would say, with sign language, "more, more, please." Well, first he would say, "more, more" and I would remind him about the please half of the times.

We played, played, played and then I needed to go and make lunch in the kitchen, so I told him this is the last time, after which he said, "more last time!" He has been saying this about a lot of things, and I thought it would be the type of thing that we wouldn't remember in a few months. . . especially when we are sleep deprived!

18-month letter

Dear Mateo,
You arrived at 18 months about two weeks ago, and, as usual, we can't believe it. A year and a half seems like such a long time, although, of course, also like such a short time. A year ago, you were six months old and on the verge of crawling. Now you're running around and talking up a storm and have become quite an active participant in our world.

I was just reading over your 16-month letter (we seem to have skipped 17 months!) and was struck by how much more you're talking now than you were then. You are such a verbal little guy and clearly delight in expressing yourself. You've started to pronounce words so that they sound correct - such as saying "phone" instead of "fote." In addition, you're putting together several words at a time consistently now.


You love to repeat after us and everyone else - you're our little parrot! However, you are also saying things spontaneously more and more. Today, we were at a friend's house and you wanted to know where their cat was, so you walked into the kitchen and said "find kitty." When the phone rings, you'll say "phone ringing." You can not only fill in words in your favorite books, but you can repeat simple sentences and sometimes whole pages of some of them. Birthday Monsters is a big favorite right now.

You're also starting to spontaneously tell us things, like "kitty hiding" or "need more pushes!" (on the swings at the park). Ever since we celebrated Auntie Edlyn's birthday in California, you've been saying "happy birthday Auntie Edlyn!" Tonight, we celebrated Uncle Galen's birthday, so I'm sure you'll be adding that to your repertoire, too. You really love to talk. People always seem amazed at how much you can say, and frankly, we are, too! We can't claim any credit for it, but we sure do love chatting with you.


You seem to enjoy getting together with your little friends more and more. We go to a weekly playgroup as well as often having several playdates on other days, and one of your favorite things to do is list all the kids you know. Sometimes you'll get particularly infatuated with one or another kid and go around asking for more more so-and-so.

We've been spending one morning a week hanging out with your friend D, who is a year older than you are, and then he and his mama watch you for a morning a week, as well. This is just a temporary thing to help out with a gap in their childcare, but we all have been enjoying it. You and your buddy love to play together and it's good for me to practice managing two toddlers at the same time!


I'm trying to think of some of your favorite things these days. You love flowers and have enjoyed inspecting (and trying to sniff) the flowers your Apa arranged for our shower last weekend. You'll say "pretty flowers!" and want me to bring down a vase so you can look at them all. I think you like all the colors, as well as the idea of sniffing them. You're also pretty excited about lawnmowers and trucks of all kinds. You still love our kitty cat, all of your grandparents, going to the park, and, of course, going to a coffee shop for a cookie and water with Apa!


You've been showing a lot more awareness of where Mommy is when she's not with us. When she leaves in the mornings, you'll sometimes say some combination of "Mommy work, drive car," and you've also learned the concept of "right back," as in Mommy or Mama will be right back. You and Mommy have spent some really nice time together lately, which has been great for both of you. Here you are cuddling your sister in Mommy's tummy:


Mateo, it's pretty likely your sister will be out of Mommy's tummy by the time your next letter rolls around. I know it will be a big change for all of us, but I'm really excited to see you become a big brother and for us all to learn to be a family of four! We love you more than we ever thought possible and that will never, ever change.

With all our love and lots of kisses,
Mama and Mommy

People get ready

Move our bedroom into Sacha's office and make a playroom for the kids in our old bedroom?
Check. Thanks to Apa, Eric, and Cathe!

Get our windshield replaced after driving around with it cracked for two years? Check.

Call to get both cars serviced? Check.

Set up the infant co-sleeper next to the bed and begin to teach your toddler that he can't just climb up and jump off over the side? Check.

Set up baby monitor so that you can hear said toddler from your new location across the house from him? Check.

Learn that you can use the baby monitor to communicate with your wife in another part of the house while nursing your son in his room? Check. (Wish it hadn't taken us a year and a half to think of that one...)

Wash and sort the avalanche of pink clothes that has washed into our house? Check, check, check!

Somehow have an amazing set of parents and a grandmother who band together to give you a new washing machine for Mother's Day? Check! Thanks for the amazing surprise, guys!!

I have to say, we are getting there. There's still some stuff to do, but we're done with the most urgent things. Oh, and I bought a watch. I'm all ready to start timing whenever it might become necessary...

Mother's Day

Just wanted to say Happy Mother's Day and a big happy 36 weeks to my sweetie! You are doing an amazing job with everything (being a mommy and wife, pregnancy, work, etc) and Mateo and I are so lucky to be your family :)

Here's a photo from last summer that I just found:


Also, Happy Mother's Day to our moms and grandmas and aunts and all the other fabulous mamas in our lives. You guys rock!

Respectable

We did it. We got legal. Again. Let's look back at our timeline, shall we?

2000: We met at the very end of the year. I was 22 and Sacha was just barely 23.

2002 (I think): We registered as domestic partners in California, which is a pretty sweet deal as these things go.

October 2003: We got married on our own terms.

February 2004: We got married on the state's terms, when California started handing out marriage licenses. Then, we moved to Oregon and entered legal limbo.

Sometime in 2005: All the California marriage licenses got revoked, leaving us as legal domestic partners in our former state and as nothing legally in our new state.

2006 and 2007: Time passes without any further legal recognition or de-recognition of our relationship.

2008: Domestic partners again, this time in Oregon!

I want to lie down just thinking about it all. We have an amazing life and I'm not complaining. At the same time, I hope someday we can just get married and have it stick legally.

Anyway, we did our thing at the courthouse. Actually, first we went to the bank to get cash to pay for it ("CASH ONLY. NO PERSONAL CHECKS. NO REFUNDS." screamed the instructions), then to the county building to get the form, then back to the bank to get our signatures notarized, and then back to the county building again to stand in line.

After the people in front of us finally finished up (an unbalanced woman with literally hundreds of unpaid property tax bills, for what appeared to be parking spaces, of all things, and an innocent looking 21-year-old couple getting their marriage license), we were up. We had a brief hiccup when the clerk realized we had the same last name (we both thought he was going to ask if we were sisters, but he just seemed confused about whether we thought we could change our last names at the same time. No, that would be different forms! More forms! Luckily, we've already done that little dance.)

And then, suddenly, we were legal. We had to laugh in line at what we must look like - an very pregnant woman and her significant other - so we decided to call it our shotgun domestic partnership.

Here's our commemorative photo, taken by a very enthusiastic security guard as we were leaving. I have to say, everyone we saw congratulated us and we felt very celebratory by the end!

Check, check, check

We're slowly checking off items from our huge list. After I posted a few things here last week, we decided to make a real list on our way out to the coast. I have to say, the list is a bit daunting. We may love to plan, but we tend to put off actually doing things that seem overwhelming or difficult to start. Unfortunately, now we have lots of things like that to tackle.

However, I'm pleased to report that we are making some progress. We think we know which screen/storm doors we're going to order and we've picked out and purchased the baby monitor we need in order to move our bedroom across the house. We're hopefully going to be registering as domestic partners this afternoon, so that's another thing that we'll get to check off!

We also had a tour of the hospital last night. The birth center there is brand new and very nice. They have a policy of keeping the baby with her parents at all times, even if Sacha were to have a c-section. The baby would go into the recovery room with her. We like that. It seems like most people we know elected to send their baby to the nursery for the nights when they were in the hospital, but that is not our thing. Just like with Mateo, we want #2 with us, and so she will be!

We figured out a decently fast way to get there (it's not exactly close by) and now know all the ins and outs of getting admitted. There were just two weird things. One: only the laboring woman is allowed to use the bathroom in the room. No one else is. Same thing in the post-partum room. They said this is to prevent infection. What?? I mean, I get it after the birth if the woman has a lot of damage down there...but overall, it just doesn't make sense. I wasn't in exactly great shape after Mateo came out and everyone and their mother used the toilet in our hospital room right along with me. Just saying. It's weird.

Secondly, we're allowed to take photos or video at any time throughout our hospital stay, with one exception. No photos are allowed when the baby is crowning. Again, what?? The tour guide said it was about liability, which makes no sense to me. How do they decide when the exact moment of crowning is anyway? Ridiculous.

The rest of it was fine and good. Apparently this hospital is one of a few nationwide rated as "baby-friendly," so hopefully it will be that way for us.

Ok, off to work on clearing out Sacha's office so it can become our new bedroom...

Stellar

The past two days have been wonderful. Fulfilling, uplifting, refreshing, and lots of other adjectives. We are so lucky!


Yesterday, we had a lovely shower for our growing family. It was at our house and hosted by my family. My parents flew up from California and took care of all the details, large and small. Thanks, Mom and Dad!


We all had fun setting up together yesterday morning and got a fun surprise when Sacha's mom walked in mid-morning! We had originally gotten our dates confused and thought she and Sacha's dad wouldn't be able to make it. Little did we know that Cathe was determined to make it and she did, even though she had to get up at 5:30 am to drive down here, and then even earlier than that this morning to make it home. It meant so much to us to have her here.


Thanks to my parents' planning and generosity, and Apa's gift with flowers, and all our friends' love and support, we had a great, great party. Many of our friends know each other by this point, so it seemed like people enjoyed catching up and eating the delicious food. It means so much to us to have such a group of friends and family. Thanks, everybody! We have tons of photos, but I'm not sure who's okay with being on the internet and who's not, so I'm just posting a few...


Today was the icing on the cake. For months, Sacha and I have been trying to figure out a way to spend some time together before baby #2 arrives. We took a week-long 'babymoon' before M was born and are so glad we did. It was a nice memory to have in the early days of sleep deprivation (wait, I don't think they've actually ended) and even now.

Since M still gets up in the night, we decided a day trip was about as much as we could hope for this time, and my parents agreed to stay an extra day in town to hang out with him. They showed up early this morning and M was so happy to see them that he barely noticed when we left. They went to the coffee shop down the street, to the park twice, did some flips with Grandpa, read some books and napped with Grammy, and generally had a big old time.

Oh, and what did we do? We went to the beach! Some friends let us use their beach house as a home base, so we drove about an hour and a half to get there and spent some relaxing time in their lovely cottage. Then, we drove into town and had a yummy lunch of fish and chips and then a brownie and a chai across the street.


After that, we hit the beach, which turned out to be absolutely freezing with massive wind. It was perfectly nice in town, so this was perplexing, but we persisted. We wanted to do what we did before Mateo was born - write the new baby's name in the sand as a little welcome note :) We'll post a photo after her birthday happens! In the meantime, this will have to do. Doesn't she look beautiful?


We have a good friend in town who's been trying to wrangle Mateo into giving up the name secret for months now, so we just wanted to let her know that if she can find the right beach, all she has to do is drive out there to find out the name. Might be good to do it before the tide comes in. It's down there somewhere...


Anyway, we had a lovely day and capped it off with a long nap back at the cottage before hitting the road for home. We haven't spent that much time alone together since before Mateo was born and we had the best time. We still have such a good time together. It was a day of connecting and recharging and storing up some good memories for the long nights to come!

3 broken glasses, Next year's job and Drama teacher

So, I have three different updates for today. First, we have had a massive smashing of glass these past two days. This reminds me of our wedding, where over the course of two days we managed to drop or break all sorts of glass things, from a mayonnaise jar (full) to a hand-blown glass. The wedding was amazing, so hopefully this is a good omen for the birth.

1. The dishwasher broke one of our glasses. I'm sure we just put it in the dishwasher incorrectly or something like that.
   
2. The cat woke me up this morning (or I think she did) by trying to drink out of our large juice glasses, and instead knocked it onto the ground, shattering.
3. Mateo found another large glass on the floor (opps) and decided that he really wanted to give it to mama. . . but it didn't quite get there.

No one was hurt, just lots of noise, and fewer glasses to drink out of.

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Next year's job update. One Tuesday I got a call from my principal while I was teaching saying that, after all of this, they actually have a job for me at my same school. YAH!!!

On Wednesday of this week, a memo was sent to everyone saying that I would be coming back 0.5 next year teaching basic reading skills!

On Friday I was told, well actually there is someone who has more seniority than me, who was unassigned, and actually has first dibs on the job. . . so I don't really have the job unless this other person says no to the job. (Why am I no longer shocked?)

Today my principal called and said that she did say no, so I have the job back. At this point, I will believe it when I sign a contract from the district.

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On the same call, I found out that I might just become the school's drama teacher for the rest of the year. Ha ha. No, I will be teaching math and reading, but on the stage in the cafeteria. Potentially for who knows how long, because they are going to move some other teacher into my room, because her room has leaks.

Yes, I will be teaching while other students have lunch.

No, there is no screen or anything else to block sound from the cafeteria.

There is no blackboard, computer, or any other type of teaching supplies that I might need.

And I, 8.5 months pregnant, am supposed to move everything and start teaching there on Monday! LOL. Crazy! Actually, I'm not even going to be at work on Monday, so hopefully my sub will have fun moving with my students!

Everything I need

Sacha just wrote her impressions of our labor rehearsal today and I wanted to add mine, too. It was an intense experience. We practiced a little bit for M's birth, but it was nothing like this. I'm really liking the Bradley method so far. It's very hands on and practical. We've been slowly building up to today for the past ten classes and today we all felt like we had accomplished something. We practiced in several different places in our teacher's house, and since our doula was with us, we all got to get used to working as a team. Sacha and I are both big planners and so having a dress rehearsal of sorts was right up our alley.

Anyway, we both feel way more prepared going into baby #2's birth than we did with baby #1. We just had no idea what to expect last time - and wow, what we got was way over the top. When our teacher was reading off the symptoms of transition (the last several centimeters before full dilation) today, we realized again that I was effectively going through transition at 3 cm when I was in labor. I had the self-doubt, agonizing multi-peak contractions, and the vomiting. The memory of that has us both hoping to avoid pitocin this time around.

Speaking of planning, I realized when our teacher asked us what else we needed to do before the baby comes that we still have a lot to do! We need to pick a pediatrician, get a stopwatch (to time the contractions, although you can actually do that on the internet these days), get screen doors for our house (so we can have some airflow in our house this summer while minimizing the opening and shutting of our leaded windows), register as domestic partners (so my name will automatically go on the birth certificate, among other things), move our bedroom from one room to another one, and a bunch of other things. I know we'll get it all done, but I hope Sacha manages to not go into labor for awhile!

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This week has been up and down for me. Some parts of it have been tough. I came back from our weekend trip feeling tired and kind of run down. Don't get me wrong - we had a wonderful, wonderful time with my family. It made me so happy to see M playing with his grandparents and auntie and uncle. He loves them all and they love him and it's a great thing to witness. He woke up from his nap the other day, heard kids playing basketball in the alley next to our house, and said "Auntie Edlyn! Uncle Galen! Basketball!", because they had played with a basketball and a baseball together.

So, it was a great weekend but the transition back to home is always a little rocky. M is still waking up at night and I am usually dead tired by the end of the day. Things that wouldn't seem like a big deal if I was fully rested, like taking on things Sacha usually does when not pregnant, sometimes feel overwhelming. This week Sacha and I had a couple of talks - ok, more like breakdowns on my part - because it just seemed impossible to think of summoning up enough energy to get through a long labor if that's what is in store for us.

Luckily, my wife is amazing and after listening to me, she helped us do some problem-solving. What we really need, we decided, is for me to catch up on my sleep. Since I can't seem to nap during the day even if M is sleeping, and she usually gets up in the mornings with him anyway, she's going to try taking him from when he gets up until when she's ready to leave for work. Instead of us all getting up to have breakfast together, I'll get to sleep a little bit more and start the day on a better note. She'll still have the nights and her afternoon naps to make sure she's getting enough rest, and she and M will get more time together, which will be nice, too. We tried it this morning and it worked really well.

Other parts of the week have been great. M and I had a social week! More so than we have in awhile. Most days we had several things planned and the week just flew by. We saw friends and tried some new things, including a new community center and a soaking pool at a popular local place. We even met another lesbian mom there! We had gone with friends and were chatting with a woman and her son who had also come to the pool. She mentioned that she was expecting another child in October and that her partner was pregnant. I was like, "SO IS MINE!" It was very exciting. That doesn't happen too often.

Maybe it was something about our social week, but I'm starting to have that same feeling I had right after Mateo was born, when it seemed like our community really came together. It feels like it's happening again. We have developed or deepened satisfying friendships with a variety of people - in our neighborhood, with kids M's age, other families with two moms, people we knew before M came along, our families, and so on - and it feels good. I know these things are always shifting, but things are feeling pretty solid right now.

Add to that that I am madly in love with my wife and son and that we're expecting our little girl in a matter of weeks...well, I don't think it gets any better than that. It's like one of my favorite Melissa Ferrick songs: everything I need is right here in my hands.

Labor rehearsal

Today, we had our 10th birth class! Yah. We just have one more to go. The actual number of classes maybe has been less than 10, because some weeks we put together two different classes, but we are officially on our tenth class!

Today, the big focus was doing a 30 minute labor rehearsal. During the rehearsal Alayna and Rachael, our fabulous doula, helped coach me through practice contractions. For the first 5 minutes we practiced with me walking around the house. For the next 5 minutes we practiced with me sitting (clothed) on the toilet. For the next 10 minutes we practiced with me on the ground and for the rest of the time, I was using the birth ball.

Our teacher had a video that would say when the contraction started, and they were a minute long with two minutes between contractions. For those of you that have not heard of labor math, that does not mean 2 + 1 = 3. That means 2 - 1 = 1. As in, I received one minute of break (or 45 seconds, or 30 seconds for a longer contraction) between contractions.

Alayna and Rachael did an amazing job of helping me in all sorts of different positions, helping me get relaxed, working with my breathing etc. I think the labor rehearsal was really neat and all of these things make me feel more relaxed and confident about the birth in general.

This was actually the second time that all three of us had tried a labor rehearsal. We tried a mini one with just 2-3 contractions at home a few weeks ago, but it was much better to do it at the birth class today. I didn't feel so self-conscious about it, probably because it was the second time all three of us had done a rehearsal together.

On a different note, I've been having lots of braxton-hicks. Sometimes they are achy in my back and sometimes I feel pressure, but they are normally fairly fine. I get them frequently when I stand up and walk, but sometimes when I am sitting up in bed too. I've been sitting a lot more at school!

I am excited to meet our daughter, but I am happy to wait till she is a bit more ready. Our HMO said that by 35 weeks they won't stop labor if it starts. I'm sure, though, that my body is just practicing and getting warmed up. It's good, though, to practice my relaxation and breathing techniques!