Luca Has 2 Mommies: November 2008

Sunday afternoon

Luca woke up devoid of fever, so we decided it was time for a public outing. We had planned on doing some holiday shopping at an arts festival that was going on, but they were rained out.

So - we broke out the umbrellas and Luca's rain gear and took a walk downtown to find some lunch. And some puddles.

I made fun of Lori's umbrella. You would have too.

Luca had fun splashing around and waving to the tourists on passing trolleys.

After a bite to eat at a local seafood place, we walked over to our favorite coffee shop.

It's a cool old building that started out as a silversmith's shop, and dates back to the 1700's.

Ida proved her love for Luca by letting him lick the fresh whipped cream off of her Americano.

It was a nice mid-day respite. Otherwise - it's been tantrum central today. He's testing us A LOT lately. Pushing limits, acting out and being much more difficult than usual. It has me worried, but a part of me knows that it's just his was of dealing with a baby on the way. I know we'll all get over this hump, but it leaves us emotionally and physically exhausted by the end of the day. Now that he's feeling better, I plan on getting us outside a lot this week. Fresh air, vitamin D and exercise will do us both some good.

The Day After

Luca's fever shot up to 104.9 on Thanksgiving night, so we stuck close to home on Friday.

He woke up fever-free and spent some time in the backyard, wandering around aimlessly in someone else's Crocs.

Then he retired to the sickie sofa and watched more episodes of Caillou and Dragon Tales than I care to admit.

He had a great Friday.

Turkey Day

We woke up and whipped up a couple of pies. Pumpkin. And, the usual, chocolate tofu.

We also made a sweet potato/pecan/brown sugar/maple syrup casserole. Big on calories AND yumminess.

Jr. still had a fever, but it was getting lower and staying that way for longer periods. We dosed him with Motrin just as we left for dinner at Lori and Ida's.

Dinner was just coming out of the oven when we arrived.

It was "serve yourself" this year.

And, the weather was nice enough to eat outside.

Debbie ate her annual bite of turkey. She's been a vegetarian for the past eight years or so - but has one bite of turkey every Thanksgiving. Always a momentous event.

After dinner, there were various attempts at digesting...

...including a tickle-fest with Lori's brother Mike and his kids...

...followed by mass zoning out, in front of the television.

I swear, if they had asked - Luca would have gone home with Mike and his family.

He started getting warm towards the end of the evening, which was our signal to head home. His fever flared that night, but he was happy that we went. So were we.

Word

Never, ever go back for Thanksgiving seconds if you are eight and a half months pregnant. Ouch.

Gobble, gobble.

Luca is on the fourth day of a fever. I hate these things. He recovers with motrin or tylenol for a bit - but, after three days straight, I am almost more of afraid of giving him too many meds than I am of the fever. We're on the sixth hour of this morning's dose and it's climbing again - but we are going to try to hold off for a bit and let the fever do it's job. In the late afternoon and the middle of the night, it climbs to 104.5 plus. We were all up at 3am this morning - a lukewarm bath, cold drinks and cool compresses. We let him watch an episode of Dragon Tales in the middle of it all - so he and I ate popcorn and watched his show while I plied him with liquids and damp wash cloths in the middle of the night. Hope he doesn't remember that one.

We debated about going to Lori and Ida's today - but we are going to go for it. We've been homebound for the last three days and we all need to get out. We've packed a bag with his sickie accessories - his stuffed jaguar, jammies, a few toys, movies, thermometer, motrin and cold drink concoctions. I don't think this thing is contagious and, once we dose him again, he's fine for quite a long stretch. I hope we are making the right decision.

My First Time Tagged

I've been tagged by my friend Susanna at I Find Myself a Mother.

Here's what I have to do...
1) Choose the 4th picture folder on my computer
2) Choose the 4th picture
3) Explain the picture
4) Tag 4 other people

I have a Mac - so I am going into my fourth "events" folder in iPhoto.

Pre-Luca, I worked pretty consistently with a wonderful company - Banyan Productions. I was with them for the better part of ten years as a location and studio producer for several different shows they produced. In this shot, I am on the set of The Travel Channel's Epicurious. That's the host - Chef Michael Lomonaco - in the background (presumably about to shake hands with the segment guest). It was the Hawaii show, I am pretty sure. I think this may have been a coffee segment, or a drink segment, or something. That's me, plugging stuff into the secret outlets behind the kitchen island on set. I was very pregnant with Luca at the time and I had just come back from shooting in Puerto Rico where an unfriendly flight attendant accused me of going into labor because I got up so many times to use the bathroom.

Okay - so - I tag...

Melissa from Vegas Baby - Oh, And A Toddler, Too.
Bleu from Soulbliss
Steph from All For the Love of You
Cecily from Uppercase Woman

Playground Monday

We got to the park really early this morning. At first, Luca was upset that his friends weren't there yet - but he changed his tune when he realized he would have the slide all to himself for awhile...

The Weekend

We took it easy a lot of the weekend. Debbie and Luca went to birthday party on Saturday. I stayed home to nest. In the evening, Deb and I went to dinner and a movie - The Secret Life of Bees - with friends.

We decided to stick close to home on Sunday and bag any major plans. It was a good decision.

We hung around the house.

Roasted some root veggies.

And spent some time outside.

But, mostly, we relaxed to prepare for the busy week ahead.

Max

My nephew - Max - enjoying the first flurries in Philly this week.

Nesting?

I want to give away / throw away / donate / toss everything we own.
Then I want to dust bust.

I need a nap

Busy week. Appointments, errands and lots of general running around. We're trying to get a move on with all of the baby prep. Debbie took today off to put some furniture together and make some small repairs. Our "to-do" list is getting smaller, which makes me happy - but there's still lots of stuff and oh so little time.

Luca's been a bit of a handful this week. (Um, unlike other weeks??) He has a charming new habit of totally acting out whenever I get on the phone. That's been a lot of fun. The other day I had to juggle a conversation with a lactation consultant AND his crazy and illogical - yet typical of a three year old - tantrum. And he's had four potty accidents in the last three days. He had been pretty much accident-free for months before this week, so I'm chalking it up to the baby being on the way. We talked about it a bit - but I am going to ignore it for the most part and let him work it out on his own. He's testing boundaries left and right (running into the street, hitting Debbie, trying to control our every move and randomly losing his shit). I know that this is "three" and I know that he knows a huge change is underway. I totally get it. But, man - I'm tired.

We have a pretty good weekend planned. A birthday party tomorrow and the state fair on Sunday, if the mood strikes us. We're also planning to cook a nice meal together on Sunday evening. We'll see how it all works out. Next week is full of dinners and potlucks and Thanksgiving at Lori and Ida's. Much of our time in the beginning of the week will be dedicated to pie-making. Friday, however, will be dedicated to doing nothing at all. Photos to come.

Tuesday's Play Date

It was at our house.

About fifteen kids. Their moms, too.

Equal amounts of chaos and cuteness.

Lots of cleanup.

But, totally worth it.

Today...

This morning started out with some sticker fun. I set out paper, crayons and stickers for an early morning art project.

But - instead of decorating his paper, Luca decided to decorate himself.

Then it was time for the Slowest. Eater. Ever. to consume his breakfast....

After few grapes, a half of a piece of toast and about seventeen hours, we met up with Marisol and Elli at the park.

It was a beautiful fall day - perfect for the park. After playing and snacking, we all took the short walk to the library. After potty breaks, coloring pages, and the book and video choices for the week - it was time to go. The whole morning had gone pretty smoothly up until this point. Then - as I was checking out with our books, Luca decided to show off for his friends and make a run for it. Out the door, into the sunshine - he made a beeline for the park gates. He just took off. I dropped whatever was in my hands, with no word to the librarian who was checking me out, and ran after him. I did my best to, anyway. The kid can run. And - being eight months pregnant - running is not one of my strong points. As I ran/lumbered after him, I called for him to stop - but to no avail. The more I ran, the more it felt like my uterus was about to fall out of my vagina. Finally - not being able to catch him - I yelled. Really loud. I think I startled him because he stopped in his tracks. I broke out the Alpha Voice and demanded that he come back to me. Thankfully, he did. We finished up in the library, ran a quick errand and, when we got home, he served his sentence - a pretty lengthy timeout (while I got his lunch ready). I was angry and he knew it. Nothing scares me more than the image of him darting away, into the street - or just losing track of him in general. After lunch, we both napped and the late afternoon was much better. I think he knew he had used up all of his "get out of jail free" cards for the day.

Just a note...

Had a dream last night that the baby was born early morning, December 15th.

Nothing to see here

We've been lax with the pics lately - mostly because we've been busy and sick and not very interesting. Debbie was away for about half the week on business, I came down with a nasty head cold, we had appointments galore and we spent most of our free time getting ready for today's yard sale (purge! purge! purge!).

One thing of note this week was Luca's OT evaluation. When we visited with his teacher awhile back, she mentioned to us that she noticed Luca seemed a little behind on some fine motor stuff, balance and coordination and that he didn't voluntarily "cross his midline". We had no idea what that meant, of course - but after consulting Dr. Google and my sister - we decided to call the pediatrician about a referral. Basically, we assumed that Luca - a seeming Lefty - was a bit ambidextrous. What we came to understand - after doing some reading and observing him more closely - was that he did, in fact, have trouble "crossing his midline". Instead of reaching from right to left or left to right when drawing or eating or playing - he stopped in the middle and switched hands.

Crossing the midline, which relies on good bilateral coordination, means using part of one side of the body in the space of the other part. Some examples of crossing the midline include sitting cross-legged on the floor or drawing a horizontal line from one side of the paper to the other without switching the pencil to the other hand.

Why is bilateral coordination and crossing midline important?
Having efficient bilateral coordination enables both feet or both hands to work together. This allows you to play and work with fluid body movements. Bilateral coordination and crossing the body’s midline also support a child’s development of fine motor skills, ability to use tools, and ability to visually track a moving object.

We were already aware of some of his fine motor issues (pencil grasp, pincher grasp) but we assumed that - with a little extra work on our parts - it would come in time. As it turns out, all of the issues that we noticed and that his teacher mentioned are related. So - off to an OT eval we went. The good news is - there are no major issues and he is on target with most things. The other news is - he's very behind on certain fine motor skills. Crossing the midline didn't seem to be as big of a problem that we thought it might be - but he is definitely lacking in that area, as well. So - he'll be seeing Julie the Occupational Therapist two days a week until the baby comes and then we'll cut back to once a week after that. She'll also give us some things to do at home. Julie thinks she can have him working up to his age level in a relatively short amount of time. We'll keep you posted.

In other news - our yard sale this morning went well. I was worried that Luca would be upset when he saw all of the (useless) kid stuff we were getting rid of, but he was more interested in people watching, muffin-eating and having much more screen time than usual. A neighbor across the street came over and gave him a bunch of old VHS tapes that had belonged to her grandchildren (decent ones, too - Little Bear, Berenstein Bears and an older one with a Carly Simon soundtrack). So - he was loving life while he ate his snacks in his little chair and watched his new videos.

We made over two hundred dollars AND got rid of a ton of stuff. Anything that was left over got driven straight to Goodwill - leaving us much lighter than we were a day ago. I love that.

Otherwise - we are still slowly getting things prepared for the baby. The yard sale / donation purge is a part of that, as well as our weekly birthing class at the birthing center. Now we're facing the task of switching some furniture around, moving new bureaus (thanks, Dad!) and book shelves (thanks, Mom!) into place and getting the baby's room ready. I've made an appointment to get the carpets cleaned, Debbie has a bit more painting to do and then we'll be just about there. I've already sorted all of Luca's old clothes and my sister has sent a huge box of Max's things - so they'll all get washed and put away once all of the furniture is in place.

Suddenly it seems like this baby is going to be here VERY soon. And he will be. But, I think we'll have everything done in time. At least, I hope we will.

Quote of the Day

From inside the bathroom (as I waited outside and gave him his privacy)...
"Mama is the oldest, I am the youngest and you're...Italian".

Camping

Luca and friends went on their first camping trip this weekend - at a nearby state park to celebrate Grace's fourth birthday. The kids had a blast and the adults had a pretty good time, too.

We ate meals cooked over an open fire and snacked on Florida citrus and roasted marshmallows.

The kids went on a bat walk, did a little bird-watching, almost maimed each other with rocks and studied ants and local tree nuts.

There was fishing...

And canoeing...

Their twenty-four hour adventure ended with some wading near the boat ramp and quick romp in the mud...

Luca had such a great time that he fell asleep on the ride home and took an hour an a half nap in his car seat (in the driveway) while we unpacked and put away our gear.

And, when he woke up - he wanted to know when we could do it again.

Today is a great day

A mid-afternoon nap

For awhile now, Luca has only been taking a nap every other day or so - sometimes even skipping several days in a row. When he does nap - he'll sleep for up to two to three hours if we let him, but then it takes him forever to fall sleep at night. When he doesn't nap, he goes to bed at a very decent hour, but he's often a total nutcase by the time dinner rolls around. He's at an in-between stage that is appropriate for his age - but sometimes what I think is the right thing (to nap or not to nap) on any given day, backfires.

We went to get his haircut today at 3pm.