Category Archives: Family/Parenting

Because there is more than just Stella.

Sick day.

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Today we are having a sick day – Stella and I. Maybe it was the persistent smokers hack she has developed, or the fact that her nose is running like a rocky mountain stream of snot, or the fact that she hasn’t eaten more than three and a half bites of food in the last 36 hours, but my finely tuned maternal instincts honed right in on her needs and here we are.

When she is sick it is a strange juxtaposition of feelings because I don’t ever, Ever, EVER want her to have to suffer like this but oddly, the change in her demeanor – to sweet and helpless – causes me to briefly consider keeping her in this incapacitated state forever. Her ability to be this cuddly and needy is a brief glimpse into how the other people live. This morning she clung to me like a baby koala and it couldn’t have been anymore endearing.

Being that she currently refuses to eat more than 1 bite of anything offered to her, I thought I could sway her into consuming a larger quantity if we made it a project-based event. A quick scan of the kitchen, and I decided we had all the ingredients to make banana-nut muffins. She seemed on board with it, so we hauled her box of Kleenex into the kitchen and managed to make one of the largest messes on record. She repeatedly coughed and sneezed directly into the batter, insisted that she (with the accuracy and precision of, well, a two year old) get to stir the ingredients, and demanded that part of the recipe required that we fill two of the paper muffin cups with chopped pecans. From an outsider’s perspective, it pretty much looked like we had stood across the room and thrown the ingredients at the bowl. We somehow managed to get the batter into the cups and the whole mess went into the oven for 20 minutes – basically, just long enough to lose the momentum of what the whole event was supposed to be about: getting her to eat. By the time the muffins were out of the oven and ready to consume, she feigned interest long enough for me to get her to eat roughly a bite and a half.

Up next, getting her to sleep somewhere besides on my person.

Reassuring words from your mother.

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Well kid, we are at (t – 4 weeks). I will be very interested to see if a.) you decide to arrive when the medical professionals and various sonogram machines say you will, b.) if you are able to exit my body in under 10 hours, and c.) whether or not you will go home from the hospital in gender-appropriate clothing.

I’m not sure why, but lately it seems that you have been testing the logistics of busting out of my uterus through the top of my stomach. I regularly feel you wedge your shoulder firmly against my hip-bone and push up with your feet with enough force to make me feel like I am going to re-enact that scene from the movie Alien. I don’t know who gave you this brilliant idea, but I want you to stop haning out with them this instant. And as for all these new stretch marks you are giving me – you will be grounded for this later.

We have been busily preparing for your arrival by, well, um, by – Okay! I admit it! We haven’t done anything other than spend our time trying to make sure that your big sister is aware of the implications of your arrival. (The importance of this will become obvious to you soon enough.) And speaking of your big sister…

I think now is also the time we need to have a talk about that incessant jabbering you hear all the time. That would be your big sister, Stella. I’m not really sure where to begin on this one. There are some things you’ll want to know about her right off the bat: She picks her nose. A lot. Don’t be too grossed out when she tries to pick yours. She’d just as soon smother you in kisses as she would just plain smother you. Don’t take this personally. She regularly has to be reprimanded for sitting on the other little kids at day dare. Also, she’s a biter. We are showing good progress in this area and hope to have it under control by the time you arrive – but we can’t promise anything. Mostly, what you need to know is that she has done you a great service by breaking us in. We have expended much of our freakish and obsessive parenting behavior on her and are hopefully going to be a little better at it this time around. Again, no promises, but we are optimistic.

So, my sweet little lump of baby, I guess what I am trying to say is: I hope you are born with one wicked sense of humor. You’re gonna need it.

Her Highness

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The conversation goes like this:

Me: “Stella! Nooooo! Why are you taking all of your clothes off again?!?”
Stella: “My have to!”
Me: “Why?”
Stella: “Princesses don’t wear clothes!”
Me to Steve: “How do you argue with this?”
Steve: “You can’t.”

(I would have posted the picture of Stella in nothing but a crown, a pair of high heels, a wand and a pink irridescent necklace, but am getting concerned that these types of photos will start turning up on a creepy google search somewhere.)