Yesterday, after spending our afternoon crafting for my sister's wedding, my mom and I were about to head out with Tycho to get some dinner when we got the call. Well, text. Called 911, taking Grandpa to the ER. No other details. Not even which hospital.
We just start driving, and figure out where we are supposed to be going. He had a massive stroke. On top of a million and one other ailments.
I told him he has another great grandchild on the way. He liked that. I hadn't planned to share so early, but you need good news on a night like that.
Things are looking up today. They got him there quick, and he is responding well to treatment. Time will tell what his recovery will look like. My mom says he remembers my news from last night and he is very excited. Okay.
Four weeks today, I guess. I don't know that I can obsess over every little detail of this pregnancy like I did the last one. I can hear Tycho stirring form his nap right now. And by that I mean banging on his bedroom door for me to let him out. So far so good though. Morning sickness can suck a big bag of dicks, but besides that (and the boobs), I feel okay. I still have an appetite, which is nice, and the oppressive fatigue has not yet kicked in. But I really do wish I had more time to day dream.
Belly pictures are back by popular demand (well, my mother's). Here's today:
I'll have to get back into the habit of taking these things, and hopefully make them look not terrible. I'll probably hold off on more pictures until anything start happening, but for now, this is the starting point.
Not even four weeks pregnant (tomorrow!) and morning sickness has hit. Great. I think last round I made it to seven weeks or so without barfing, but I am less than confident I will make it so long this time. Awful.
Mostly good ones. I am completely over the moon excited, grinning like an idiot, can't imagine keeping this a secret for any length of time, already scheduled my first midwife appointment even though it isn't until March because I just can't wait.
I went bananas on baby name research and we went from having no ideas a couple days ago to being pretty sure on a girl name and I love it so much and I want this baby to be a girl so I can use it, the same way I wanted for Tycho to be a boy so we could name him that.
Tycho... won't even listen to us try to explain a baby. It's early, I know, but I want to at least start getting him familiarized with the idea that a baby grows in a mama's belly and then we can eventually extrapolate from there, but he won't hear me on anything. But deep breaths, we have lots of time.
And then we rough-housed and he punched me in my already-sore boobs. And that is how the second pregnancy differs from the first.
It's been a year since I went off birth control. A long, hard, depressing year. A year of really long irregular cycles and fleeting, phantom symptoms, and disappointment. I've been having a hard time. Kyle didn't really understand, because we really hand't be trying very, AHEM, hard, and we took a couple of months off so we made sure we'd be able to fly out to my sister's wedding this summer, but none of that changes that it is a whole year since I decided I wanted a baby and that we completely missed the two to three year window that we originally wanted to space our children and that this stuff is hard and it hurts and WHY ME.
Saturday we went bridesmaid dress shopping for my sister's wedding. I won't lie, I was having a hard time getting excited about it, because I was sure I'd already have a baby at her wedding, and then I was SURE I'd be pregnant, but now I don't even know what to think. I would need to buy a dress that would look good either way, but that's probably impossible.
Saturday morning was cycle day 35. Not surprising lately, though. We've done a better job this month actually trying, but zero symptoms, so I was already bummed. But I had an extra test lying around, and since girls shopping day also was going to involve a lot a day drinking, I peed on a stick.
I have never been shocked by a test before! Every minus I've ever seen I expected, and I knew I was pregnant with Tycho before I could even get a positive result. But this! I thought I might be seeing things, but although faint, that line is unmistakable.
I just... !!!! EMOTIONS! I have been on cloud nine. I tried on a fake belly with the dress I bought and I didn't want to take it off and I can't stop smiling and the crazy ouchy boobs kicked in later that day and OMG OMG OMG!
I have a million more thoughts and feelings about this but for now I'm just a happy pile of goo. You can keep a secret, right, blog?
But this year it was anything but usual. We planned to have dinner on Christmas Eve at my parents house, and then host them for breakfast and present-opening with Tycho the next morning.
It was hectic getting things together on time, because this time of year my work schedule is insane, and our house cleaner no-showed the week of and everything was a disaster. We rescheduled with the agency for a cleaner to come on the evening of the 24th, theoretically to clean while we were at dinner. I felt terrible and planned to give her a gazillion dollar tip. Anyway, it's five pm, I'm wrapping presents before we leave for dinner, and Kyle is showing the new cleaner around the house and the power goes out. On Christmas Eve. ON CHRISTMAS EVE. So, we wait for a few, hoping it will come back on, but it looks like the whole block is out, stoplights and everything, and I have zero faith that anything will be done about it in a timely manner.
Be proud of me; I did not panic. We were in no condition to host in the morning, so I called my dad and told him we were moving Christmas there. In the dark (because obviously we don't own flashlights or candles), by the light of Kyle's phone, we packed up all the presents, some still not wrapped, all of our clothes and toiletries, and all of the groceries for breakfast the next morning, while Tycho was watching Daniel Tiger on my phone to keep him from panicking. And it all went... great? Besides Kyle getting the flu, which I suppose isn't so great, but we moved everything more or less without a hitch, and Tycho had a great Christmas.
"Santa" brought Tycho a train set for Christmas, and I didn't want to be overwhelmed with new toys, I asked friends and family to keep it to additions to his set (or, even better, donate to his school, but people like buying THINGS, it seems). I had less than high hopes, but mostly we got a lot of train stuff, and it all fits together in one box and we have both a happy baby and a happy mama.
Two and a half was just the perfect age for Christmas. He loved opening presents, but didn't go bananas and try to tear through everything and was pleasant and excited and adorable and it was wonderful. And I have graduated to full motherhood, because I did not care one bit what might have been under the tree for me because I was having so much fun experiencing everything through him.
This year I am having a really hard time getting into the holiday spirit. And the sudden ubiquity of terrible Christmas music certainly isn't helping, either. So, here is a list of Christmas song that I hate, because I am a horrible grinchy asshole. I am also the only person in the world who doesn't like A Charlie Brown Christmas. Anyway, enjoy! Or, like, don't.
1. Nat "King" Cole - All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth
This song is terrible in general, but it's even worse when sung by an adult male, who does in fact have all of his teeth, and has not even the faintest hint of a lisp. What the fuck is even the point?
2. Josh Groban - Silent Night
Or really anything by Josh Groban. Self importance and children's choirs. No thank you.
3. The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
OMG this song. It's not even a song. It's a boring first person narrative about a mediocre holiday season set to obnoxious background music. Eight holiday season in retail listening to this song multiple times daily has driven me to the brink of insanity.
4. Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmas Time
This song is just so incredibly stupid. Like I am losing IQ points right now listening to it.
4. Eartha Kitt - Santa Baby
Do I really need to explain why this song is terrible in every possible way? No no no no no.
5. Marvin Gaye - Purple Snowflakes
What the fuck is this I don't even.
6. Jimmy Eat World - Last Christmas
I actually love the original Wham! version of this song with all of it's delightful cheesiness, but this is the worst cover ever. They don't add any personality to the song (and in fact sap out anything that was there in the first place), and DON'T SING ANY OF THE VERSES AND JUST REPEAT THE CHORUS OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I mean really. Were they too lazy to look up the lyrics and just recorded the parts they already knew? What in the actual fuck?
Just any fucking version of this song. I'm still recovering from playing the saxophone part at the winter concert every single year in middle school band. God, this is just the worst.
10. Kay Starr - I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm (STUHR remix)
I don't even have a legitimate reason for hating this song, but it makes me irrationally angry every time I hear it. All day. Every day. Retail, man.
I feel better now that I've gotten that off my chest.
So I suppose I should post some of those pictures I referenced in my last post, huh?
We'll start with Halloween. This was our first year going trick-or-treating with Tycho, and also the first year that you can't just stuff him in a vaguely animal themed onesie and be done with it. Costume was going to be an issue, because he won't wear anything on his head, and 99% of costumes for toddlers involve some sort of hood or hat or head piece, so no. And I didn't want to dress him up as just some random thing, and instead something that he would actually be interested in. But the things he is interested in are trains, fish, and Lightning McQueen, and I'm sorry, but I'm just not creative enough for that. But wait... another thing he likes? Candy! Because candy!
When we were kids my sister was an m&m one year so my mom and I copied that costume (scaled down to Tycho size) pretty much exactly. And it was perfect. Nothing on his head, he could just wear his regular clothes underneath, so no worry about it being weather appropriate, and now that Halloween is over I need to remove the straps and he has two m&m pillows for his room, huzzah!
He was... okay... with trick or treating. We had a really rough day on Halloween so he was in a funky mood when we met friends to go door to door. He wasn't interested in wearing his costume and even though I had tried to explain the concept to him, he didn't really grasp what we were about to do But after a couple houses he figured it out pretty easy and it was all groovy. I don't think he ever once said trick-or-treat, and he insisted on being carried between houses for the entire hour we were out and my arms were sore for days, but he had a really good time, and it's going to be a happy memory. Babydude especially liked all the pumpkins. :)
I have a lot of photo-heavy, low on content stuff to post what with Halloween and Trick or Treating and a trip to the zoo and his big boy haircut and our holiday family pictures, but that is all nothing compared to this.
Tycho talks.
Rocket science! You guys, I was so worried. My stomach was in knots for months as I was waiting and waiting and waiting, first for the language explosion that I was expecting that never came, and then to get him evaluated, and finally to actually get him placed into a program and start doing something. It was an emotional roller coaster, harder than I ever expected parenting to be, and a experience I never would have dreamed I would have.
The months ago Tycho could barely put two words together. He didn't have names for anyone or anything besides mama. He would lose old words every time a new word would appear. And we couldn't communicate effectively and we were all frustrated.
But now. Last night we were eating dinner and Tycho was sitting happily at the table say, "EAT FISH! EAT FISH! MORE FISH! PLEASE FISH!" while he ate. He uses rudimentary sentences. He has names now for Daddy and Arlo and his friend Selby at school and Lighting McQueen and Nemo and Dori and Thomas Train. He has new words every day. He supplies the word "feet" at the appropriate time when I sing him "Part of Your World" at bedtime. (And then he asks for "more song" and I sing him the reprise.) At our more recent trip to the zoo he said "lemur." He knows what a star fish is. I don't think I taught him that.
I am bursting with pride and happiness and gratitude and joy. Really and truly this is amazing and wonderful and I feel like we are able to know so much more of his delightful little personality now that he is able to share with us through his speech. When I think about where we are now and how far we've come I feel like a ball of energy and light. Euphoria. I can't even describe it.
We still have a ways to go but progress is being made and I couldn't be happier.
I suppose I should post something, at least, before it is next week, because for me, next week is the beginning of the end what with the working retail and holiday season and busybusybusy for the next forever or at least until January.
Things are mostly good, but tonight I am feeling especially emo about the baby thing, you know, that we don't have one yet, not even working on it at this point in time, and man, that sucks. I don't really have anything else to say about it. It sucks. I am sad. Pictures of other peoples babies make me weepy.
This is not going according to plan, my timeline is all blown to hell, we didn't want to space our children this far apart but too bad oh well. You cant schedule real life, I guess.
Most of the time I really do think I am a good mom.
Probably not the best mom of all time or anything. I lose patience, sometimes I yell, sometimes we watch Cars twice in a row because I'm exhausted and need a break, sometimes we go through the drive thru and eat french fries because why not. And none of those things make me a bad parent and I know that.
But sometimes I wonder if everything that's wrong is because of me. Not the things I did wrong, but the things I could have done that I didn't. That instead of throwing balls all the time always because that's what he wanted to do I could have been teaching him letters or colors or whatever else it is he is supposed to know by now that all the other kids somehow know by now that no one told me I was supposed to make sure he knew until he was already supposed to know. Why didn't I know? Why didn't I try to teach him even if I didn't? Does everything have to be educational?
WHY IS THIS PARENTING THING SO HARD?
It seriously leaves me feeling more vulnerable than I ever could have imagined being before.
Oh hey, it's been a while. Things have been good, busy, the usual.
Well not the usual because we got Tycho into school so everything is actually completely different.
That first day was really hard. Really, really hard. I was so nervous about day two, but day two was... so much better? I mean, of course it was better, it would be hard to get worse, but it was a lot better, and every day he has been at school has been a lot better than the last and he is getting the routine down much faster than I thought he would.
Still ironing out some kinks, of course. His behavior is still erratic compared to the other kids in his class, and we are maybe switching his classroom so he'll be around kids closer in age or something and blah blah blah, but we're definitely secure in the feeling that this was the right thing to do, and Boyer was the right choice for a center, and that he is going to like school.
It helped that he all at once took interest in the other kids on day three. It helped immensely with transitions that THEY were all going and WHERE are they going and I want to go TOO. Perfect. And then lots of adorable boy-hugs, which usually turn into crashing on the the ground piles of arms and legs, but who doesn't love that.
Tycho is talking up a storm all of the sudden. It's hard to know, really, if a couple weeks of school and therapy are actually making a difference, or if he's just a late bloomer and he would be all chatty right now regardless, but I don't care. It's is wonderful. He's still not like, caught up, or anything, not even close, but more and more I feel like I am actually communicating with him and he is understanding me and he can tell me what he wants and we are once in a while on the same page and it makes everything so much easier and thank goodness for that. He has all these words and he started (finally!) saying "please" instead of signing and "peese" is my favorite thing ever, and he's starting to say rudimentary sentences like "want candy" (waaan cineee) with like, verbs and stuff and omg omg omg.
I was so sure that Tycho was going to love school, and I still think he will, eventually, but he definitely didn't love his first day.
We got to school early to put together his ISFP (Individualized Family Services Plan, like a IEP for the birth to three crowd), and that was fine because there were six of us to pay attention to him and he had a car ineach hand and that was fine. But every single transition after that was a meltdown of epic proportions and he wouldn't help clean up and he wouldn't give up his toys and insisted that every single car in the classroom was MYYYYYYYYYYYYY and stole things from other kids and wouldn't sit still and was generally just as poorly behaved as possible and I know it will get better but it makes me want to never go back.
By the time we left he was so angry that I had to physically hold him down to get him strapped in the car and he screamed 15 minutes of the ride home until he passed out. He took a good long nap, but he has been pretty much screaming hysterically on and off since he woke up. I'm about at that point, too.
I've been having trouble sleeping lately. Actually, that's not true. I've been sleeping just fine, once I actually get to bed. But the getting to bed part has been difficult as of late. There has just been so much going on in my head that I am finding it hard to even wind down and relax enough to realize that I am tired.
It's hard to explain. This whole thing with Tycho and early intervention has done a number on me, but not in the way you might expect.
I'm not sad about him being behind. I mean I am, but not in a way that keeps me up at night. It is what it is and he is who he is and I'm okay with it and I have been okay with it for quite a while now. And even though parenting him might be harder than parenting the average two-year-old because of the difficulties in communication, that is frustrating, yes, but it doesn't weigh on me.
Early intervention itself is scary, though. A whole world of unknown that I never imagined I would need to navigate. We never pictured ourselves as parents to a special needs child. I still don't really think of Tycho that way anyway, but I guess right now he kind of is, as his needs are greater than average right now. Looming over us is the enormity of the responsibility of being his advocate through all of this. Of making sure his is getting the extra he requires in a world that he won't automatically fit into.
Who knows, really, at this point if this is temporary or if its something larger that will last us into his school years. But my one great hope here is that this delay is just a delay and not something bigger and that in a year or three you'd never know the difference and that we won't be dealing with IEPs in high school.
Whatever it is, is of course fine. He is my son and nothing in the world can change that. But I feel so unprepared to be the kind of parent he needs right now, that he might need in the future. I knew that being a mother wasn't going to be easy, but I didn't know it was going to be this hard.
*and then he interrupts my 1am blogpost with a faint wail of "mama" and when I go into check on him he wordlessly hands me his blanket and crawls back into bed so I can tuck him in again and this is all too much and I cry.
Another thing that happened? After yet another 35-day cycle, I got my period. Again. And so we're done trying to make another baby. For now, anyway. We're going to be taking a trip to see my sister in France next summer, so this cycle was the cutoff and now I have to figure out how pregnant I am okay with being when we go and figure out what conception date matches and then we can try again, probably in December or January.
I am NOT HAPPY. I went off birth control back in January, and I never imagined it would take this long for me to get pregnant again. I mean, it's partly the fault of crazy schedules and my cycle being all over the place, and it's not that there's any real underlying problem or anything, but still. It's been nine months. This should be easier.
I am mourning the two to three-year age gap that we were planning on that is now impossible and I am upset that my sister won't get to meet her new niece or nephew until who knows when the next time she will be in the states is and I'm not looking forward to having to use contraception because bleh.
Also if I do get pregnant right when we start trying again I will have the least ideal due date for taking maternity leave while working in retail and I will make my boss hate me. Awesome.
We had Tycho's group evaluation yesterday. God, yesterday seems like a million years ago. Anyway. We took him to the clinic and had Tycho play with an educator and an occupational therapist and a speech language pathologist while they asked us some questions. This was the big one, where they decided whether or not we qualified for services and I was so worried that he had picked up just enough new skills in the couple weeks since our home visit that he would still be behind but just barely not qualifying.
Well not to worry.
When they went over results with us, the therapists all spoke so softly, as if not to break our poor little parental hearts, and I almost had to laugh, because we've known we've had a problem since maybe January and I'd already gone through the whole emotional roller coaster and landed squarely in acceptance. Or so I thought.
But after we got home and I put the babe down for his nap I sat down with his results and cried. Because, I mean, look at those numbers. I knew he was behind and I was okay and I am SO excited that we're finally moving forward to get him help and get him to where he needs to be. But I hadn't really had it all quantified so neatly before me. In five out of seven categories he is in the very bottom percentile and that really shocked me and awoke my angry inner mama bear and... I don't know.
I am feeling very emotionally fragile and weepy coming out of our evaluation. Really, I'm pleased with the results. Not only does he qualify for speech and occupational therapy, but he also will get to participate in their classroom services, which I really think he will love, and I think the structured learning environment will be amazing for him, and I'm so glad we're finally getting started but I also just feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me.
Parenting is hard in a way I could never ever have imagined or prepared for.
How about a lazy and vain blog post? Yes, another one.
My BFF Ashley is re-launching her photography business, and asked me if I wanted to to a mom & me session to help build her portfolio. And then amazing things happened:
She is so talented and my kid is so cute and these are so wonderful and then my heart exploded. The end.
One of the things we were asked at Tycho's assesment last week was if he names any of his favorite playmates or characters (Elmo, Dora, whatever). He definitely says Arlo, but that's it, and they wanted to see at least two, so we scored a "no" on that point. It didn't seem that strange to me, as he doesn't even watch much television, except he asks to watch Cars all day everyday.
It's his best buddy's favorite movie, too, and Arlo is always a good influence. Today he rubbed off on Tycho, and my little dude now says "McQueen"!
Tycho was heartbroken that he couldn't take Arlo's die-cast Lightning McQueen home with him today and I was so proud of him for learning that name that I may have gone a little overboard with the Amazon Prime...
Tycho had his initial assessment this morning. It went well.
I was having stomach-churning anxiety about the whole thing. I mean, not about Tycho. He couldn't mess it up because all he had to do was be himself, but the assessment was a home visit and home visits freak me right the fuck out. I know that they are not there to judge me on whether or not there is cat hair on the couch, but still. But our house was clean and our child as bathed and my hair was pink and I momentarily regretted not waiting until next week so that I could appear to be a responsible adult but our intake nurse was very nice and everything was fine.
Tycho was amazing. I mean, not like, advanced, because he's not and that's the whole point, but he was more or less cooperative with the assessment games. I was pleasantly surprised. There was definitely a significant chance that he would just throw a screaming tantrum throughout the entire process, so any amount of participation from him was delightful. And he didn't spend the entire time pointing at the television begging to watch Cars and making me look like an asshole who sits him in front of the tv all the time as was my fear so that was good.
The verdict? Just as we expected, he is delayed in multiple areas. He is not quite at the 25% delay cutoff for speech, though, but he will hopefully still be able to get therapy for that. We don't know yet. This is a gazillion-step process apparently, so next we take him to the clinic for a group evaluation where all the therapists and whoever see what he can do and then they will make their official recommendations and then we get to deal with the whole insurance coverage hullabaloo, which I already know will be stupid because my insurance only covers speech therapy for children with an autism spectrum disorder and not for regular old run of the mill speech delays apparently so we will get denied and have to go through the state aid process and blah blah blah blah blah.
Anyway. I'm have some emotions about it all right now. Maybe it's the wine talking. I am actually really pleased with today's results, they are pretty much what I expected and wanted to see but the reality of entering THE SYSTEM is settling and ack. But I'm glad to be one step closer to actually doing anything.
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