You can guess how much preparation we’ve done. Although to be fair to us, we have been cleaning. Especially the room and bathroom that my actual mother will be sleeping in/sharing with Noah beginning tonight.

I guess the thing for me is that I’m just not that much of a “random holiday” person. I love my mom and would be just as excited if she were visiting last weekend, or next weekend. And I love this insane parenthood roller-coaster more and more as Noah’s personality continues to emerge. I’m pretty sure that Sunday will not be a peak experience on that front, though.

One thing I do want to acknowledge, in honor of Mother’s Day, is how glad I am to have companionship on this crazy ride.

I don’t know how single moms do it. Without my wonderful wife Jill, Noah and I would be in much worse shape. The idea of him becoming a big brother without having his This Mommy is inconceivable to me.

Thank you, This Mommy. I love you.

While she is the most critical person with whom I’m sharing this wild ride, we are not alone, and I don’t think we could do it, or at least not well, without a lot of other wonderful companions.

How cool is it that my nephew, Maxim, is almost exactly half-way between Noah’s age and Esmerelda’s? I think that especially as our kids get older, having them so close in age will also bring me and my sister Anna closer together.

Other real-life Mom friends, like Erin, Madelaine, and Liz, have been wonderful sanity-savers and reality-checkers, in spite of the hundreds of miles between us.

Local Mom friends, like Emily & Katherine, Lesley & D, my co-workers, and the women of my LLL group, have also been great sources of support and fun.

Last, but certainly not least, I have to thank my friends in the Mommy-blogosphere. I’m afraid of linking, because I’m sure I’m going to forget important people. PLEASE don’t take it personally if I don’t like to you. Eeeee! Noah is awake and running around. No more time to link. You know this world is much larger than just the 4 I’ve linked to already.
Some people I’ve met in real life. Some I have close friendships with based almost or exclusively on reading and commenting on one another’s blogs and other online media. And some…the relationship is probably more like that we have to favorite newspaper columnists. They know “we” are out there reading them, but they no more know that I’m that reader than they would know if I were in line behind them at the grocery store.

Living as far away from family and long-term friends as we do, those mommy-bloggers sometimes provide the human contact, sympathy, empathy, or laughs I need to stay on the right side of the edge of insanity.

Also, this seems like a great time to announce that I’m joining a new group of many of those moms I’ve only read until now! The amazing group, Silicon Valley Moms, is about to launch DeepSouthMoms.com. Look for an official announcement here in the next few weeks!!!

This afternoon, at work, she kicked a spot about 4 inches to the left of my navel, and slightly below. Three times in a row! I could see them, just looking at my belly. I think I actually saw it in my peripheral vision just before I really looked, and that’s what made me look down.

And this evening, while I was resting and hoping that Noah was not going to get up again, she gave a few more thwacks to a spot about an inch closer to my navel.

How much fun is that? I think watching the baby move inside my belly is my favorite thing about being pregnant.

No, it doesn’t make me think about the movie Aliens. Thanks for asking.

In other news, I’ve been doing really well on the fruit & veg front. Yesterday, I had about 2 cups of fresh fruit salad for lunch, and a bunch of roasted carrots & cauliflower for dinner.

Today I had another cup of the carrots & cauliflower, some amazing bread with dried cranberries, walnuts, and orange zest. I’ll probably have an apple or a banana before bed.

I went out to a late lunch with a co-worker and a former co-worker, both big Science Fiction fans; indeed, people with specific roles and responsibilities at Dragon*Con, the largest science fiction convention in the world.

Current co-worker doesn’t actually look like Meat Loaf, but you can’t really describe him without making reference to the musician. Imagine a dark skinned Meat Loaf with black hair that goes half-way down his back, normally seen in public wearing all black, including a black leather trench coat.

Former co-worker is also a big beefy dude, with a shaved head and scruffy goatee.

In the parking lot after lunch, we were giggling about a bumper sticker near our cars. Actually, a combination of stickers:

Yes, My Tits Are Real: So Is My Penis

Right above a commemorative license plate acknowledging the car owner’s status as a Veteran of the United States Army.

And then a bumper sticker reading:

Jesus, Save Me From Your Followers

As it turns out, my co-worker has a podcast in which he mostly interviews people with unusual kinky sexual interests.

He decided to leave a note, asking the car owner for an interview.

While we were standing around in the parking lot, another car pulled up next to us. I noticed the high end car seat in the back before I noticed the man getting out — until he said, in a voice full of concern, “Liza?”

It was a dad from our old day care, the father of Noah’s friend Maggie. We really like him and his wife, and their daughter is a sweetheart. But they do make us feel really old — we don’t know for sure, but we think the age difference is more than 10 years, could be 14.

“Oh! Hi Chris! How’re you? How’s Maggie?”

“Is everything ok here?”

I suddenly saw the scene from the outside:

Pregnant suburban soccer mom in a pink floral dress standing around in a parking lot with Meat Loaf and his similarly intimidating-looking friend.

“Were you in a car accident? Do you need a ride?”

“Oh no — everything is fine! These are my co-workers, Dave & Kevin. We were just having lunch. Did you see these bumper stickers?”

We had a few more moments of reassuring conversation while Meat Loaf finished his note to the other car, then all parted ways. (And did I mention that I’m absolutely charmed by Chris’s chivalry?)

Meat Loaf and I got back in his car, and he asked, “What was that guy’s deal?”

In that moment, I also saw what I’ve always loved about hardcore geeks, and why so many of my closest friends in high school were the teenage versions of these co-workers.

Hardcore geeks might be skeptical when they first meet someone who looks like me, but when they see that I read the same books they do, share a quirky and intelligent (if unusual) sense of humor, and speak at least a dialect of their language, that becomes who they see. Not the appearance of the pregnant suburban soccer mom, or in high school, the preppie upper-middle class girl.

In high school, I refused to see anything odd in the way it looked when I ran around, usually alone with group of scruffy guys in army surplus or leather jackets. God forbid that you should have described me as preppie. My head would have exploded, and I’d probably ripped yours off in the process. Ignore the fact that I was wearing a turtleneck or button-down and a nice wool sweater approximately 75% of weather appropriate days. Or one of my mom’s suits on debate meet days.

What’s nice is to have the perspective, now, that I can no more change my ordinary and comfortable way of presenting myself than I can change my quirky sense of humor, intelligence, or enjoyment of science fiction/fantasy reading material.

He told me no less than 10 times, “Mommy! We got to watch where we’re going!”

Definitely channeling Jill.

For example, especially around the eyes and nose, Noah looks just like me. And he’s every bit as conversational as I am. He’s a better dancer, but we know the donor was musical, and although Jill is also a great dancer, she doesn’t dance much around the house.
Now that Noah has started expressing himself with sentences and concepts that he generates, Jill’s influence is shining through loud and clear.

For example: On Saturday, as we were driving into our neighborhood, we saw the mail delivery truck. It was pausing at every mailbox, as they do, instead of driving or stopping like a regular car. Noah announced from the backseat, “He needs to watch where he’s going!”

Sunday, we drove separately to church. (Jill & Noah went to Sunday school; I skipped everything but the annual block party after services. Sometimes you just need alone time.) When he and I got into my car to come home, Noah announced, “You need to clean up your car, Mommy!”

I actually asked him if This Mommy taught him how to say that. That question, unfortunately, was just a little too subtle. And coming from a boy who has recently begun hurling objects to register his extreme displeasure, somewhat ironic. But that’s being two, nature, but not in the context of this discussion.

While I don’t think this is nature or nurture either, it is hilarious. Jill has taught Noah a knock-knock joke. We are 99% sure he doesn’t actually get it, but he laughs uproariously while they tell it together. When they told it to me over dinner last night, I fell in love with both of them even more than I had been. Which I did not know was possible.

And speaking of nature — and possibly a little nurture — you know you’re pregnant when bacon cheeseburger hamburger helper sounds like a good idea. (Need I even add that it no longer sounds like a good idea?)

In other news, some of the really fun pregnancy symptoms kicked in this weekend, like round ligament pain and waking up 2-3x/night to pee.

Fruit & Veg Count, 5/4: 1 cup mixed roasted veggies (carrots, asparagus, broccoli), 1/3 cup collard greens, 1/3 cup sweet corn, 1 cup fresh strawberries.

My weight is up 10 lbs so far, which is — shockingly — on the low end of the normal range at this stage of pregnancy. Proof positive that no 2 pregnancies are the same!

Odds are that I will gain about another 15 or so lbs, roughly a pound/week but tapering off at the end. That puts me again towards the low end of that 25-35 lb weight gain range most of the books and docs recommend. Will wonders never cease? That’s HALF the total amount of weight I gained with Noah.

I also told the midwife about the extremely irritating conversation I had with the insurance company’s well baby program nurse.

They interrogate pregos about all their health habits and try to “encourage” us to take care of ourselves and go to our prenatal appointments. A fine idea, with room for improvement in the execution. So she calls and goes through her list of questions. At that point, I was up 7 lbs, which made Insurance Nurse very happy. She liked most of my eating habits, but told me that I should cut back from having sugary treats from “a few times per week” to more like just once/week.

My initial reaction was, which I didn’t say out loud on the phone, was “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” I mean really. I’ve given up alcohol, lunch meat, and soft cheese. My caffeine is down at least 50% from pre-pregnancy levels (1-2 cups of coffee/day). My weight gain is fabulous. I’m eating fruit and vegetables. You don’t want me to have any fucking SUGAR???

I am pretty sure I ate candy, cookies, or ice cream every day for the week after I talked to her, and every single time, I had the thought, “I’m eating sugar! I’m eating sugar! Fuck you BCBS!”

Anyway, I told Calming Older Midwife this story, with fewer details. Before I even got to my own cursing, she shook her head and said, “Fuck that. You aren’t doing crack cocaine!”

And she agreed that she probably would have done the same thing, with regard to defiantly eating sugar.

The we discussed the actual plan for having this baby. She generally agreed that a scheduled c/s was probably the best bet for me, but I got the feeling that she was more open to the idea of a VBAC than Young Midwife had been. We talked dates, and she basically said, “one week before EDD.” Apparently that’s the ACOG and other medical professional’s standard — earlier than that and you risk the baby’s lungs being too immature.

That’s the Tuesday after Labor Day, and now apparently, the last day I’m likely to have this little one. Of course she might take it upon herself to make an appearance earlier.

Speaking of the anticipated baby!

Little Blur, who I have begun calling Esmerelda Freugenspeigel in my mind, is also doing very well. She’s moving around frequently, if still invisibly outside of my body. And she’s measuring right on track, with a healthy heartbeat.

(Esmerelda Freugenspeigel is a joke character my dad used to tease my sister and I with when we were kids. But it suits better than Blur, I think.)

Jill and I are still actively vetoing most of each other’s name suggestions. I think that Esmerelda, like Noah, will not have a name until pretty shortly before she comes out into the world. Also like her big brother, we won’t be disclosing the name to anyone at all until she’s here.

So tell me, how did you figure out this whole baby name thing?

Fruit & Veg Count, 5/1: 1 large banana

• Noah has decided that he will only eat coffee yogurt. This would be fine, that’s my favorite flavor too, except that for some reason none of the grocery stores in my area ever have enough. They have between none and yesterday, 7 cups. Over the weekend, I found 5. For a 2-3 yogurt/day toddler, plus his pregnant mommy, that’s a 2 day supply!
• Every evening after dinner, if the weather is nice, Noah gleefully runs outside to “play soccer” with me for 10 minutes. For some uniquely toddler-logical reason, the soccer field of choice is one particular neighbor’s driveway. Noah may be the most charming soccer player in history — every time I retrieve the ball from a shrub or under another neighbor’s car, Noah says “Thank you Mommy!” And every time he retrieves it, he pauses and says, “Ready. Set. Go!” before kicking it “back into play.”
• The only thing more sweet and adorable than Noah kissing the baby sister in my tummy and then insisting “I have baby sister in MY belly button!” is his newfound love for hugging both mommies at the same time.

This morning, I woke up to find him snoring on the floor in front of the gate at his bedroom door.

Incidentally, while the whole broken arm and split lip thing take their toll on parental confidence, seeing your child prostrate on the floor in the “I came looking for you, Mommy, and you weren’t there” position has a uniquely heart-wrenching impact on one’s sense of parenting ability.

Has he been there for the last 6 hours? Or only the last 1? I have no idea.

Fruit & Veg Count, 4/28: 1/2 of a large banana, 3/4 cup of carrots.

Because I left my computer here.

Worse?

I came back to pick it up, instead picking up leftovers for lunch and some mail I need to send out. When I badged back into my building, I realized I still didn’t have my computer.

So I am home again, eating those leftovers and blogging. I’ve hung my computer bag on the doorknob, so that hopefully I can’t forget it again.

Friday night, Jill and I got a babysitter and went to see Bruce Springsteen in concert. The show itself was great, high energy and fun.

But we were sitting in a peculiar section made from temporary aluminum risers.

They wiggled.

It was like being on a boat.

Between the reverb from the music, the constant, irregular shaking of the seats, and the stale beer and wine fumes, all my motion-sickness-combating strategies worked for about an hour. I went home and overpaid the babysitter due to miscommunication with Jill about what we were supposed to pay her. Jill and her friend Rob stayed and tried to do some band-stalking after the show, without success.

Saturday morning, Noah fell and split his lip at music class. He cut the inside of his lip against his teeth, falling against a low ledge. In case you were wondering, lip wounds bleed like you would not believe.

We were scheduled to get Noah a haircut after class, and while he seemed to be perking up and ok after about 15 or 20 minutes, I couldn’t face taking him alone, especially in my blood-soaked shirt.

Naturally when I called Jill, she was in the shower. By the time I actually reached her, I was the hysterical one, not Noah.

Still, the 3 of us went to the haircut place anyway, and had Noah’s usual drama-filled haircut, with much crying and clutching of Mommies.

Then it was time for home and lunch and a nap. We learned beyond a doubt that Noah, who will happily eat 3 full-sized containers of yogurt in one sitting, will reject them out of hand the moment he encounters any “stuff” in the yogurt. Like a piece of strawberry, for example.

I was totally drained by the morning and needed a nap too.

Initially, Noah went down willingly. Jill left to run some errands, and approximately 2 minutes later, 20 minutes into nap-time, Noah got up with a poopy diaper. He had a second one 5 minutes after that. And a 3rd major disturbance that I don’t remember the details of, about half an hour after that.

I woke up from my nap around 5:15 pm. Noah was still sleeping. Normally he wakes up around 3 pm.

We got him up, much to his irritation.

It was around this time that Jill had her delayed reaction freak-out over Noah’s busted lip. It was pretty badly swollen, with a nasty laceration inside his mouth. And although it hadn’t been actively bleeding since shortly after it happened, there were a few patches of blood-tinged drool stains on Noah’s sheets.

The evening was blessedly uneventful, with Noah eating 3 cartons of smooth yogurt for dinner.

We put him to bed half an hour or so late. From 8:30 pm to 12:30 am, Noah got up out of bed crying at intervals between 5 and 60 minutes.

At 12:30 am, Jill got up and took him downstairs for a snack and to try to burn off some of his wakeful energy.

She reached the end of her rope at 1:15 am and handed him off to me.

When he declared at 3:15 am that he wanted to play baseball, I realized I was close to losing it too. No baseball, and in spite of vigorous protests, I restarted the usual bedtime routine. Minus This Mommy’s ordinary role, which also added to Noah’s agitation.

Three stories later, Noah willingly went to bed, and slept until 7:30 am.

I had to teach Sunday School yesterday, and took Noah in early with me.

Unfortunately, our new paid caregiver agency blew it’s last chance to keep our contract by sending only 1 person, not 3. And she was late. Our preschool coordinator was out of town, so no one had the agency’s phone number to get hysterical at them. Also, no one had unlocked the doors to 4 of the 5 rooms. The only unlocked door was to the room with what I can only describe as peculiar and sensitive lighting. When I arrived, the coordinator’s 4 year old daughter and her mother in law were sitting in the one well-light corner of the room, behind a curtain, wondering what to do.

I left Noah with them and went to deal with all that, plus set up my room and get ready to teach.

Did I mention that up to this point, I also hadn’t eaten anything? BAD idea for a pregnant lady.

Eventually, we got the doors unlocked, combined the preschool and pre-K classes, got the paid staffer and her 6 year old daughter set up in the baby room, and had Sunday School.

I even made it to “big church” (aka the regular service) on time, having gotten the extended care volunteers settled in and able to identify all the 2-4 year olds.

It was Youth Day. All 4 high school seniors active in the youth group got to deliver sermons.

In the middle of Sermon #3, one of the extended care volunteers appeared at my elbow. “Noah is crying hysterically. We haven’t been able to distract or calm him down for 10 minutes,” she whispered.

Jill had driven separately to church, in case that isn’t obvious from all the above. I turned to her and whispered, “I’ll go get him and take him home. See you later.”

Indeed, he was still hysterical, sprawled on the floor and sobbing when I arrived.

Eventually Noah calmed down, although he had a relapse when I abandoned him in his car seat to get in the driver’s seat of the car without him. Fortunately, my stash of Fig Newtons helped quiet the situation.

When we got home, I took him directly upstairs for a nap.

Hah!

Although Noah did play quietly in his room for about an hour, there was no napping. He and I finally dozed off in front of the tv — some totally unfamiliar baby boomer cartoon program involving racing to Hackensack — around 3:30.

Again, we woke him up close to 5 pm, because we had dinner plans with the 3 other families with whom we are splitting season tickets to the new Atlanta WNBA team.

Fortunately, the other kids in those families are 3, 3, and 5, so no one wanted a late evening. And the hosts had a train table, so Noah played happily the entire time we were there. He paused for less than 5 minutes to inhale a hot dog, and was diverted for another 5-7 minutes by a cool trampoline with handlebars and buttons that played music.

Bedtime went almost as badly as it had gone on Saturday.

Finally, I just curled up with Noah on the mattress next to his bed. We snuggled quietly for almost 45 minutes, with him patting my face, arms, or neck almost the entire time. Finally he was willing to get back in his Thomas bed alone, where he fell asleep quickly.

I went to bed about 10 minutes later.

In the background to all of this, and on a good note, Blur has been kicking up a storm. I’m pretty sure she gave me a solid head-butt yesterday as I got into the shower.