LizaWasHere

Today was another day of successful toothbrushing! I think here at Day 1 of Week 16, I may be done with my worst ‘morning sickness’ symptom.

And on another happy note, I found a pair of really comfortable jeans in the stack of maternitywear Erin sent! They’re from Liz Lange at Target, which means they look more like normal clothes and have no "belly panel" of t-shirt material in the front.

On a more brillig note (to stay with the title theme), I had a not-fabu medical visit yesterday. The lovely midwife Wendy says that the baby is fine, but I had some mildly funky test results and they want to run an ickier and more invasive test in two weeks.

Naturally I consulted my kitchen cabinet of medical advisors, and got completely contradictory recommendations. My friend the family doctor said "don’t worry, the odds are overwhelming that you can wait and get this checked out after the baby comes." And my aunt the OB said "you must get this checked out immediately although it will probably be nothing, because if it isn’t, you need to know asap." And she has a friend who just moved to Atlanta who is a big national expert on the funky test results.

Of course I like my friend’s answer better, but my First Time Parent Paranoia (TM) means I will probably go with Aunt Karen’s recommendation.

At least they both agree that the chances of this being dangerous for the baby or having any impact on delivery is extremely low.

This morning, I got to do my favorite pre-parenting thing other than getting an ultrasound. I went to a local Montessori pre-school that accepts children as young as 6 weeks.

It was awesome!

The school is set up in three different little buildings, one just for infants and toddlers, and two for children aged 3-6. They also have two small playgrounds, one for the younger children and one for the older ones, and a beautiful garden.

In contrast to the other pre-school we looked at and liked, this school was very quiet and calm. The children seemed very focused on the different tasks they were working on, and in the older children’s rooms, some of the "big kids" were helping the "little kids" or the "little kids" watched the "big kids"  do something — with great interest.

The rooms were much less colorful and filled with toys than at the other school, and the tour guide explained that especially with the small children and infants, they bring out a few different toys each day, so as to avoid overwhelming the children. The infants looked like they were very happy, mostly playing by themselves. The older children clustered in groups of two or three, mostly, with one little girl very busily taking one long block at a time and moving it from a disorganized heap on one side of the room to a row in-order-by-length on the other side of the room. A slightly younger girl watched her, wide-eyed.

At this school, they also promote the children to the next classroom in a gradual, individual way. Starting around 12 months, the infants visit the toddler classroom and begin to play outside with them. Depending on their individual development, an infant will begin spending more time with the toddlers and then fully transition to the toddler class between 14-18 months. The other school admits and promotes everyone from classroom to classroom, either in June or September, and we were already #49 on the June 2006 waiting list for the 8 infant slots.

I have to admit, I’m biased towards Montessori education.

I was lucky enough to go to a very diverse Montessori preschool myself, and I remember having a great time. I could also read and do basic arithmatic before I started kindergarten in my local public school. And I loved playing with the Cylinder Block — watching the little boy in the Montessori video figure it out gave me a huge flashback. But my favorite memories are of trying new things, like coconut milk fresh from the coconut, and going for walks where *everyone* got to push the walk signal button on the traffic pole.

I want that love, freedom, and sense of adventure in learning for Lil Smudge.

Is it weird to already want that even though Lil Smudge won’t even be born yet for almost 6 months? Too bad.

Whine!

Ok, as problems with pregnancy go, this one is probably not so bad. But today it is making me miserable.

I am having the worst heartburn of my life, including during law school when my reflux was so bad that they were concerned I was going to do permanent damage to my throat.

And I didn’t even eat anything too bad — for dinner, I had fresh figs,
some fresh mozzerella, and a whole wheat roll. If I eat more than a
couple of bites of chocolate or anything involving tomato sauce, I know
what’s coming. But I’ve been GOOD. Whine.

Thankfully, I see my health care providers this week, and hopefully they will have some good strategic recommendations. Cuz eating tums like candy, with acid inhibitors as the appetizer, is starting to suck.

</whine>