Sounds fair to her

Lily goes through phases where she hits. Every couple of months, she'll hit her sister when she gets angry with her. Then the behavior will disappear for a while. We've tried everything we can think of to stop it completely - time-outs, loss of privileges, loss of cherished items - but nothing has really worked.

Lily also has this funny way of talking that we call her "mafiosa voice." I don't think she's aware that she's doing it, but once in a while she'll say something in this low, gravely, vodka-and-cigarettes voice that just cracks us up.

The girls and I picked my mom, knittergran, up at the airport on Saturday and then we all headed to a birthday party for one of the girls' friends. Along the way, Lily socked Ella.

I told Lily that when we got to the party, she had to spend three minutes in time-out instead of joining in the fun right away. At that point, my mother suggested that maybe every time Lily hit Ella, Ella would get to hit her back. Ella giggled a bit at the thought.

Then Lily said, in her best mafiosa voice, "That sounds fair to me."

Nonspecific virus

That's what Campbell has - a nonspecific virus with a fever and a rash. I love when the doctor can't provide a clear diagnosis.


Thursday afternoon Campbell was out of sorts with the world and only wanted to be in my lap, which is growing smaller by the day. As I was holding his hands and playing our silly clapping game, I noticed that his hands felt warm. I took his temperature - 103.3. Eeek. I felt like the worst mother for not noticing earlier that he was feverish.


I gave him tylenol and a cup of watered-down Gatorade, which he downed in about three gulps. Once the tylenol kicked in, he was back to his usual self, jumping on the sofa and crashing his trike into the furniture on purpose. Four hours later, though, he cratered again when his fever went back up.


He woke up twice in the night fussing, and each time his fever had spiked again. Every time I took Campbell's temperature, he fussed at my touching his ears to use the thermometer. Usually, he loves having his temperature taken - if he finds the earscan thermometer lying around, he'll bring it to me so that I can pretend to check his ears. Because of this, I assumed that he was starting an ear infection.


I called the doctor's office first thing yesterday morning and they told me to come in at 11:00. The receptionist, who has worked there for as long as we've been patients there, was out on vacation, and boy did her absence show. Forty-five minutes after we arrived, we finally saw the doctor.


Campbell's ears are just fine, but I felt like a terrible mom again when the doc asked me how long Campbell had had the rash on his back. I had noticed the red bumps but had assumed they were heat rash rather than a sign of something more serious. Oy.


The doc did a strep test because Campbell's throat was slightly red, but that came back negative. I was a bit disappointed at that news. The girls* have both had strep, and I know from experience that 24 hours after starting antibiotics, they have both been on the mend.


But no, Campbell has a nonspecific virus that just has to run its course. The poor little guy is just so miserable. He's been asleep for two hours, and I hope he stays asleep a while longer. It can only help.

Last night his fever spiked to 104 at midnight. I sat with him in my lap and a cool cloth on his head while I waited for the tylenol to do its job. Fortunately, he woke up this morning relatively fever-free. But he still had to miss going to the airport to pick up my mother, who is visiting for the weekend, and a birthday party for one of his big-boy heroes.

I'm hoping we've turned the corner at this point and that no one else gets it. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

*A funny story about Ella's strep - 24 hours after she was diagnosed and began taking antibiotics, she broke out in a rash of tiny, red bumps. I looked it up in Dr. Spock, and discovered that the rash matched the description of scarlet fever. I called the on-call doctor in a panic. She explained that some forms of strep also cause the scarletina rash, or scarlet fever. I started crying into the phone, "But Beth in Little Women DIED of scarlet fever. And Mary in the Little House on the Prairie books went BLIND from it." The doctor, who was obviously trying not to laugh out loud, said, "Mrs. Gardner, that was in the days before antibiotics. I promise Ella isn't going to die or go blind." And she was right, so far Ella hasn't.

Three is not the magic number

My girls have hit the wonderful ages where having one of their friends over for a playdate makes my life easier. The girl and her friend disappear into a bedroom, emerging only to request snacks. I've been importing friends for Ella on the mornings when Lily is at preschool just to keep Ella out of my hair while I work.

Ella had a playdate recently, though, that didn't go well. We've had this particular friend, Q, over many times, and Ella has gone to her house many times, all without problems. This time, however, no such luck.

I think the the complicating factor with this most recent visit was that Lily was in the house and wanted to play with the big girls. Q is a very sweet girl and very tolerant of Lily's wanting to tag along. So when Lily suggested that they all play "fairy princess mermaid dress-up," Q joined right in. The problem is that Ella has never been a fan of playing dress-up (unless she's dressing as Hermione Granger), and she HATES mermaids - only because Lily loves them.

So Ella got upset that HER friend was playing what Lily wanted to play. She ended up hiding in the bathroom and pouting until I lured her out. I redirected playtime to a board game, but Q and Lily got bored with that once the accompanying snack of brownies and milk was gone. They went back to playing dress-up, and Ella went back to pouting.

I tried to stay out of it, wanting to let them all work it out themselves, but when Ella looked at Q and said, "I want her to go home now," I decided I needed to step in.

I got them cooperating on a very large art project - making a "life-sized" Sorry board so they could play the game on a grand scale. But then Lily got upset that Ella and Q weren't including her in the project because math was involved. I tried to distract Lily with the new American Girl Doll catalog, but it didn't have many options for Bitty Babies, so she got bored quickly.

I decided it was time for further intervention.

Fortunately, popsicles in the front yard was popular with everyone. Then the little boy from across the street and the kids from next door joined us, and there were enough friends to go around. We managed to spend the remaining hour before I had to return Q home without any pouting or tears.

The next time I invite Q over, I'll make sure Lily isn't home. I don't think I can take another afternoon like that.

Picture Wednesday, Part II

Lily loves going to the lake, she just doesn't like getting in the lake. She managed to go on two inner tube rides behind the boat without ever getting in the water. Late in the day on the 4th, we had a sudden sunshower that lasted for about 10 minutes. All the kids thought getting to swim in the rain was THE BEST THING EVER. Instead of getting in the water, Lily was content to dance on the diving board in the rain. It was the first time she'd gotten wet all day.

Picture Wednesday

Ella has always been leery of fireworks of any kind. She won't touch sparklers, and if B sets off any sort of ground pyrotechnics, Ella climbs the nearest tree or street sign for safety.

On our way to the lake on Friday for the 4th, B stopped and got a bunch of fireworks to set off. The girls loved helping him pick out everything. But when it came down to it, Ella didn't want anything to do with setting them off.

B bought a couple of boxes of the little doodads that pop when you throw them on a hard surface, and he handed them out to all the kids who were there. Ella took refuge in the grass so that no one could throw them at her feet.

On my soapbox

So on Sunday I wrote a post about how I kind of keep forgetting I'm pregnant. I was honest about my still being a bit in denial about the whole fourth child thing and how my life is so chaotic that I forget about the one child who isn't pulling on me or screaming for help with something.

Since I announced this surprise pregnancy, back on April Fools Day, I've been open about how this pregnancy was not planned, about how we were fine with three kids, and about how we've been adjusting to the change in direction that our lives are taking. I've also talked a bit about how pregnancy and I don't agree with each other much.

And the response to all of this has been overwhelmingly supportive. I've taken great comfort and reassurance from everyone who has commented and e-mailed, telling me to hang in there or thanking me for putting my true feelings out there. All of these messages have helped me tremendously; I've made some great bloggy friends over the past months, and I'm extremely grateful.

But then yesterday I got a flaming comment about Sunday's post. The comment, left by an anonymous poster, said (sic all):

THATS VERY, VERY SAD.. FOR THE BABY.THE KID DID NOT ASK FOR ITS PARENTS TO BE IRRESPONSIBLE AND CONCEIVE AN UNWANTED CHILD. VERY SAD INDEED.

At first I wasn't going to respond to this yelling, but then I decided to post a reply to the comment. I said:

So, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, is every woman who finds herself pregnant supposed to be all rainbows and sunshine and bluebirds of happiness every moment of the pregnancy? Are women not allowed to not be excited about being pregnant and having another child? If you truly stood by your comments, you'd be brave enough to leave your name.

I was going to leave it at that, but the more I thought about it, the angrier I got, especially while I was lying awake at 3:00 this morning with a migraine that wouldn't quit. I realized three things about Anonymous's post made me angry.

First, the assumption that unexpected automatically means unwanted. No, we did not plan to have a fourth baby, but that doesn't mean that we don't want the baby now that I'm pregnant. I never, ever, not for a moment considered not having the child. Despite my qualms about how I'm going to handle four kids, I know as surely as I know my own name, that I will love and adore this child just like I do my other three.

Second, we are far from irresponsible parents. While we aren't wealthy, between the two of us, we earn enough to give our kids a safe and comfortable - if a bit crowded - house. I made the decision five years ago to switch to freelance work, despite the financial hit in terms of salary and benefits, so that I could be home with my kids. We also manage to let the girls take part in activities they love - rock climbing and ballet and the like. I am not a welfare mother having babies with random men and then looking for public handouts (and I know that's a wild generalization about welfare mothers, don't send me angry e-mails, I'm just trying to make a point).

Third, I'm upset at Anonymous's seeming belief that just because a pregnant woman discusses qualms about having the baby or ambivalence toward being pregnant, it means she doesn't want the baby. Pregnancy isn't all rainbows and rosebuds and lollipops. A lot of the time, at least for me, pregnancy isn't a lot of fun. And I ought to be allowed to say so.

I also know that the first 6-8 weeks of having a new baby are so hard. I am not a religious person, by any means, but I believe that babies are absolute miracles. It amazes me how tiny and perfect they are. But I also remember the sleep deprivation, sore breasts, constant stickiness, constant diaper changes, and zillions of loads of laundry that go along with a new baby. I will never romanticize motherhood.

So Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, suck it.

Rock Star

Ella, my older daughter, is a climber. It's in her very nature; she's been climbing since she knew she had legs. When she was 2 1/2, I came home from an evening out to discover that B had taught Ella how to shinny up the door frames. I'm the only one I know who footprints on the ceilings.

Our neighbor is a rock climber, and when Ella and his son were almost four, he got a child-sized harness and took them out to Reimers Ranch, a local climbing mecca, to see what they did. Ella went up 20 feet in a flash. I think she was too little to know to be scared, but the rock climber in her was born.

Ella's favorite retreat is the magnolia tree in our front yard. The tree is not healthy and really needs to come down in favor of something more suited to this climate. But Ella would be devastated if "her" tree were to disappear, so there it stays, dropping leaves year round and refusing to bloom.

Last summer, in an effort to get her climbing in a safe, constructive environment, I signed Ella up for camp at Austin Rock Gym. She loved every minute of her week there. I'd arrive at the end of each morning's session and have to pull Ella off the walls to get her into the car. During the fall she did a few sessions of Saturday classes for kids, but the gym had a hard time filling the sessions, so they tapered off. All spring Ella has asked me how long until rock climbing camp starts.

Today she started the second of her three sessions of camp, and she was so thrilled to be there that I thought her head was going to explode. Ella is even more excited that she will be old enough in the fall to join the gym's junior rock climbing team. It'll mean a huge commitment for me - the gym that the team meets at is way down south - but it will be worth it for Ella to do what she loves so much.

Oh yeah, that

I kind of keep forgetting that I'm pregnant. I think it's partially due to denial and partially due to the daily chaos of my life.

I am still in denial about this whole fourth child thing - I've found that if I think about it too much, I end up spending most of the day crying. Early on I reassured myself that once I could feel the baby kick, I'd get excited about it. Baby Bee has been kicking away furiously for weeks, and instead of being excited, all I can think is "Knock it off kid, I'm trying to sleep." I also thought I'd get more excited when I had my 20-week ultrasound. It was neat to see the baby, but I definitely didn't get all teary like I did with the other ones. I had more fun watching Ella watch the whole thing.

Because I'm not excited, I tend to not handle the jokes people make very well. Instead of laughing along when the clerk at Michael's looks at my three kids and my belly and says, "Goodness, four kids! You think you'd have figured babies out by now!" I grit my teeth and give her the death glare. What I really want to do is punch her in the face, but that's not the best example to show my kids.

When I'm not glaring at clerks in the store, I really don't think about being pregnant - to the point where it catches me off guard when I happen to see a reflection of myself in a mirror or in a store window. It really surprises me that a. I'm pregnant, and b. I'm far enough along to have a noticeable belly sticking out. I wore my usual bikini to the pool twice last week, and it took me a while to figure out why people were giving me odd looks.

My lack of paying attention is frustrating Ella a bit. She likes to keep track of how big Baby Bee is and what its doing developmentally. With all of my other pregnancies, I knew what was going on. With this one, I don't have a clue. When Ella asks me, I shrug and say we'll look it up online. But then something or someone in the house explodes and I get distracted.

A friend asked me last week how far along I was, and when I stopped to count the week, I was astonished to figure out that I'm 22 weeks' pregnant. I guess the good thing is that by paying so little attention to this pregnancy it will go faster. Maybe.

One down, one to go

I finished the first of my "sherbert" socks with the Flat Feet yarn, and I lurv the colors. I'm not all that fond of the sock pattern itself, but it is the first time I've had one of my socks actually fit these flippers I call feet. I've already started the cuff on the second, but I discovered that it's hard to knit at the lake, which is where we spent the 4th.

My little guy

Campbell never snuggles like this with me. He'll give me what we call "drive-by huggings," where he climbs in my lap, gives me a hug and a kiss and takes off again. Because this is so rare, I made B take a picture, even though I'm still in my pajamas.