Mandatory Watching for First Time Mom's to Be

As I sit here over due and thinking about the (hopefully soon) arrival of Baby S, I can't help but feel nervous.  It is only natural of course - we are first time parents so this is all new.  I particularly find myself worried about screwing up my kid in some non-repairable way.  Visions of therapy and stumped emotional growth dance through my head.  Am I capable of being a good parent? 

I am happy to announce that when I have these fears I have found a sure fire way to curb them...................I watch Toddlers and Tiaras.  In fact, I think this little gem of a show on TLC should in fact be required television for all first time parents to be. 

At this point, I am sure many people are wondering if I have lost my mind.  I mean how can a show about children's beauty pageant's where scenes like this one be related to good parenting.  Let me tell you how - it reassures me that no matter what I can't screw my kid up this badly.

Now now don't get me wrong, I don't hate beauty pageants.  In fact, there are occasionally girls and moms on this show that truly seem to enjoy it and are part of a normal functioning family.  To these families I say keep it up - any thing that a family can enjoy and do together is good.  But sadly this doesn't seem the norm.  Instead we see mom's living through their kids and forcing kids into crazy situations. I mean who waxes their 4 year old?  Or gives their toddler fake teeth so you can't tell their teeth aren't pretty.  In one episode, a mom actually said she thought it was cute that her 2 year old hit her and told her she hates her.  Actually this isn't normal - and you might want to listen when your kid cries as you force her onto a stage and she screams I hate you. 

So to my fellow first time parents, the next time you are up late in the middle of the night wandering what kind of emotional damage your bad parenting may cause your kid, I invite you to find Toddlers and Tiaras either on TV or online.  This is should reassure you about your abilities and help you get back to sleep.

P.S. Apparently I should also add shop on JC Penney's online to the list of must do items for first time parents. Who greenlighted this gem?

Pregnancy Paranoia

I think it is a fairly well established facts that pregnant women are a ball of hormones who can be completely irrational most of the time.  I freely admit that I am frequently irrational on my best non-pregnant days and being pregnant has only made this worse.  I find myself frequently chanting to myself "you are irrational stop, you are irrational stop."  It works about 50% of the time. Today I have found a topic of concern that I just can't stop being irrational about and I wanted to share.

As I have read pregnancy books and message boards or talked to other parents I have realized that it is perfectly normal to worry about your baby's future even if those fears are not always based in reality.  I have started to have these worries about Baby S's future.  But rather than worrying about things like birth defects, car seat safety, SIDS or other more normal concerns for baby - I have a whole other set of fears: international fear due to multi-national debt default.

Now some people reading this will wonder WTH I am talking about, others reading this are going to start laughing hysterically and think that this totally fits.  Either way, my concerns are no less real.  I feel like I am no longer emotionally strong enough to watch the news.  I have nightmares about debt default at night.

But then as I have these fears, I begin to fear that perhaps I will pass them along to Baby S.  Instead of having nightmares about the bogeyman or ghosts am I going to make Baby S fear the US's S&P rating or chaos in the Eurozone.  Is my kid going to get made fun of at school for worrying how the international financial market is going to impact the future of the economy and basic social safety net programs?

You think this is far fetched but I can assure you that I was in fact that kid.  For example at 8 years old, I cried because we had to get a new President.  I became very concerned about disruption in governance and what kind of instability this would bring to the country.  I just didn't understand why if things were ok we needed to change President.  This literally kept me up at night. (As a random aside this is particularly funny because of course the President I was afraid to have leave office was Reagan.)

Being keen to co-parent I have shared my fears with my husband.  He laughed hysterically.  So much for support.

For now I have just decided to stop watching the news and stick to E!, Bravo, and HGTV.

Haven't you always wanted to?

You are at a restaurant and your water glass is empty.  You can see the water pitcher but nothing you do can get the waitress to refill your glass.  Haven't you always wanted to just get up and refill the d$mn glass yourself?

You are at a boring luncheon where rubber chicken in on the menu.  You look longingly at the empty chairs in front of pre-set salads and cheese cake.  Don't you just want to send the nasty chicken back and go eat the extra desserts (or I suppose salads)?

Good news - when you are visible pregnant you totally get to do both of those items and no one blinks.  In fact you are applauded for your assertiveness and stepping up to take care of your body and baby.

The freedom to totally just do and say as you want and blame it on pregnancy, the baby or hormones is a heady kind of freedom and power.  All of those things that you would be judged negatively before or would mortify your long suffering spouse suddenly become acceptable when you are pregnant.  Want to tell someone they are stupid and to stop talking to you?  Go for it - it is no longer rude it is hormones.  Want to demand more bread at dinner?  No worry about being judged as a pig - carbs are "good" for pregnant ladies.  Want a specific seat - people will give it to you.  Need to cut in the bathroom line or use the family one restroom - do it!

I may or may not have done all of the items above and perhaps others - I am going to exercise my 5th Amendment rights and admit nothing.

I have found this the absolute best thing about being pregnant.  All of those things I have always had to hold back on for fear of my mother or husband's judgement, I am now free to do.  I am kind of going to be sad to have this go away.

Of course to get this power you only have to accept with the downsides of pregnancy such as vomiting, retaining water, loss of bladder control, inability to drink, acne, strange rashes, stretch marks, and weight gain.

It is totally worth the trade right? No? Maybe?

The Good, the bad, the ugly?

As someone who is suffering through her third trimester in the summer I have discovered there are some definite perks to being this pregnant when it is this hot (large hot preggos are pitiful) but there are also some unexpected downsides as well.

First, the good - when you are pregnant in the summer no one expects you to wear panty hose! The bad - people still expect you to shave your legs.  Now those of you who have not been pregnant may wonder what this has to do with anything.  Let me enlighten you.  I too was excited when I first realized that all rules about appropriate business attire kind of go out the window when you are in your third trimester, particularly when it meant that I got a pass about wearing panty hose in a business situation (hose are a nasty hateful invention aren't they).  As I have found skirts and dresses much more comfortable I was particularly thrilled about this.

Of course while you get the pass from wearing panty hose you aren't given a pass from basic grooming requirements. This is not something I thought would ever be a problem. That is until I realized about a month ago that I can't lift my leg to shave in the shower anymore.  Nor can I bend over if it is on the shower floor.  Further execrating this issue is that when pregnant the combo of hormones and prenatal vitamins cause your hair to grow like crazy (great for hair on your head and nails not so much for your legs).

This problem really left me stumped for quite awhile.  I mean what am I supposed to do?  It is too uncomfortably hot to wear pants but god my legs looked like an overweight Italian man's.  After much experimentation and debate I think I have found a solution.  Post-shower, I now sit in the tub and shave as much of my leg as I can reach.  Right now this lets me shave to the top of my knee and I figure that s good enough.  I am not sure what I am going to do when I can only shave my ankle.  Give up all attempts at grooming perhaps.........

G

And Baby Makes 3, oops I mean 5

So as many of you know we already have two small four legged children who have been with us for quite awhile. I can't help but wonder how they are going to adjust to having a new sibling. What I do know is that they already keep us on our toes and ensure lots of laugh -see below for an example.

I have really been enjoying the sound sleep of a pregnant woman. As a former insomniac, sleeping all night has been a nice bonus so imagine my surprise when at 7:45 morning the other morning I was rudely woken up. What was truly odd was that what woke me was our bed literally moving across the bedroom floor. Saying many many bad words that I won't list here, I tried to wake up enough to figure out why I was moving. At that point I realized a few items:

1) Hank (our 12 year old Shih Tzu) was sound asleep in the bed snoring loudly despite the fact we were moving.

2) I could hear what sounded like a person choking loudly.

3) A massive thunderstorm was taking place.

Adding these strange pieces of information together my sleepy mind then realize Sophie (our 8 year old Jack) was missing. I realized at this point that I wasn't actually hearing choking but instead was hearing Sophie grunting and crying because she was completely melting down due to the storm. Picture a 20 pound dog having a temper tantrum similar to a toddler. During the course of her tantrum she had managed to:

1) Move Mike's night stand

2) Knock over a pole lamp

3) Move a large under the bed plastic storage container full of bedding and

4) Move our queen size bed about 6 inches

All in an effort to get under our bed and hide from the storm. Clearly an upstairs room under a window is the safest place to go during severe weather (note to self: Sophie is not to instruct Baby S on emergency procedures).

After verifying that Sophie was indeed ok (btw it is no small feat to get on the floor and crawl under the bed at 28 weeks pregnant) I moved the bed back against the wall and crawled back in. It was at this point I realized Hank still hadn't woken up.

I think Auntie B has it correct - all we can do is hope that Baby S inherits Hank's sleeping talents.

Never a dull moment in Sheltonland.

G-

To Blog or Not to Blog

This blog has been inactive for almost two years. After a long wait it appears we finally have something worthwhile to share with the world. Or at least I think we have something worthwhile to share with the world, Mike may disagree.

I'm going to attempt to blog about my last trimester of pregnancy and the arrival of Baby S as a method of keeping folks updated. My hope is that this is easier for me time wise than lots of group emails.

Fair warning - I only speak in sarcasm so expect snakiness and really you shouldn't take anything I write too seriously.

Expect the first snarked filled post soonish.

Cheers - G

Medieval to Mod

Bavaria day three (Rothenburg): funf wurst (five bratwursts)...sadly, that's the last of Bavaria.

Munich (Munchen) is great, and cheap - go there if you can. Since Gena isn't the most practiced bike rider, we didn't do that in this very bike friendly town (or Amsterdam, which may be the Western Hemisphere's bike capitol). Not that we needed to, as Munich is very walkable.

Leaving Munich, we stopped off at Rothenburg o/d Tauber (like Springfield in the USA, Germany has many Rothenburg's so you need some suffixes to make sure you end up in the right one). This Rothenburg is pretty much what you envision when you think of olde timey Europe at Christmas. It was beautiful in the heat of August, so it has to be tremendous with some snow in December.

Then we headed up to Bacharach, a little Rhineland burg. Bacharach is tiny, with good food but not much going on. Using it as a cheap home base, we toured the Rhine's castle-row by boat and hiked the town of St. Goar and it's massive castle remains. This length of the Rhine between Bacharach and St. Goar (about 90 minutes by boat) has (from memory) six castles...physical testiment to Germany's feudal system past.

The Rhine has for centuries been a key trading transportation hub - some say it sees more annual trade traffic than any other river in the world. The castles would be set up (one literally in the middle of the river) to block boats from passing until they paid a fee. Would sorta be like all of Ohio's counties along Lake Erie assessing their own pass-through fee for every boat headed to/from the Upper Great Lakes. Some of the strongest supporters for doing away with feudal principalities in favor of a stronger/larger Germanic nation-state? Would you believe....the merchants who utilized the Rhine?

After this foray into the Rhineland, our train pulled into Amsterdam. We really only had one day - which I thought may be too little time, but now I'm not sure you really need much more than that. First, if you're planning on going there in the next three years, the train station is under heavy construction. So, just kinda follow the crowds for the way out of the station and onto Damrak (the city's main drag). Second, English might as well be the national language. If you were hoping to practice your Dutch, better find another location.

In many ways, Amsterdam is Europe's Las Vegas. Obviously, there is the, ahem, reputation for ill repute in both cities. But in my mind's eye - they are unnatural settings for human existance. Vegas is in the middle of the desert. Amsterdam is in the middle of, well, the ocean. Without tremendous human engineering, neither town would exist. As such, to me, both cities are a little silly, if not preposterous.

A ton of federal and state taxpayer dollars go into keeping Vegas supplied with sufficient water supply. On the opposite end, Amsterdam has to pay dearly to keep their city above water. The buildings are on top of thousands of pilings, that are hundreds of years old. As those pilings fail, the buildings get a shade slanty. Hopefully we can post some pics, because it's like people are living in the Leaning Tower of Pisa all over town. Trouble is, the townhomes are right up against one another...so as one starts to lean...

The buildings are beautiful, but if I lived there, I would definately stay a renter.

Thankfully, the Anne Frank house is not one of the slanty houses. It is, however, one of the saddest homes you would ever hope to visit though. The world owes Anne Frank much. Perhaps because she was a child, when her diary was finally published many readers could identify with her. As a result (and a few other works like Night), it became ok for other publishers to print material from Holocaust victims/survivors. Without the chord that her diary struck across the world, we may not have widely published works from other survivors. Check out Primo Levi if you can.

Gena & I agreed the house itself was larger inside than we had previously imagined, with the steepest stairs we'd encountered. But we were only inside for a couple hours...Anne and her fellow hiders were there for years, of course. Though the house is unfurnished (intentionally), some of her personal effects remain such as the posters she hung on her shared bedroom wall to daydream herself out of the house. Heartbreaking.

Altogether another form of daydreaming can be done at the Van Gogh museum, which is also excentally presented. While it does not currently have Starry Night (perhaps his biggest crowd pleaser), it's collection is stellar. From Potato Eaters to Sunflowers to Wheatfield with Crows, the museum is excentally laid out including his influences, life chronology, and stylistic development. I was previously unaware of how crucial his sister-in-law was to ensuring his works were protected after his death.

I found cruising the canals of the city (more numerous than Venice) underwhelming, though there are worse ways to spend an afternoon. It is a nice view of the city's pretty architecture, but the canals themselves are fairly littered with debris, taking away from the experience.

As for the Red Light district - not as dirty and seedy as I had anticipated, but still pretty sketchy and surreal (especially when we would see a customer duck into a door...or worse, come out). We cleared out before darkness fully fell, though, so it could be a bit ranker then.

But let me tell you about the fully modern hotel room we had in our last night in Europe - best thing ever! Citizen M...trippy cool lights with matching music soundtracks, separate freestanding/circular enclosures for the toilet and shower, and all electronics on a PDA-like remote control. And about 1/3 the cost of a traditional place in Amsterdam, with walking distance to the airport (which we found quite difficult and frustrating to navigate). They have an expansion plan across Europe in the next couple years - so if you're making the jump across the pond, check to see if they're in the city you're planning on going to.