observation

I have one child who was really difficult to get here. I couldn’t get pregnant for a long time. Then when I started getting pregnant, I couldn’t sustain a pregnancy. I struggled with infertility for several years. I had four miscarriages. When I finally got pregnant I was too frightened to be happy. The pregnancy was a nightmare, as all HG pregnancies are. The baby came two weeks early, was tiny, jaundiced and born right before a major holiday in the middle of a very stressful season in both our professional and personal lives. The baby struggled to gain weight, never quite made the growth chart, and didn’t sleep for more than 2-3 hours in a row for over a year. That child has a severe allergy, was a difficult, high-needs baby, and is still a very demanding little human being. I have another child who was not difficult at all to get here. I had only barely begun to think about having another baby and had pretty much decided not to do so, due to some professional opportunities that were about to come my way. That pregnancy, also an HG pregnancy, was also a nightmare and seemed in many ways worse than the other one because I was already exhausted due to having to mother one child already. But the labor was short (4 hours) and the baby was healthy. Only slightly jaundiced, not even enough to warrant multiple heel sticks, this baby was much heavier and gained weight much faster. This baby did have significant reflux issues, but they were solved with a common prescription for Zantac. This child is laid-back and easy-going. This child sleeps (although when teething, this child is notably a non-sleeper). This child has no discernable allergies and aside from a terrible bout of RSV at 9 months and Scarlet Fever at 14 months, health issues have not been a problem for this child. This child is a lot less “work” for me as a mother.

So, the child I worked very hard for continues to make me work very hard. The child I didn’t work hard for at all is very little trouble for me. I wonder if that will continue to be the case as they grow into full childhood and then as youths and young adults.

Halloween

I don’t know what it is about the bumble bee costume that we have, but it strikes absolute terror in the hearts of our children. It’s a cute costume. Fuzzy, yellow and black striped, has a little hood with antennae on it. You’ve probably seen it in stores. My parents’ neighbors gave it to us as a hand-me-down for K when they moved several years ago. It is an 18 month old size, which was perfect for K for her second Halloween as she was 22 months old but very tiny. E is exactly 18 months old and average size, so it was perfect for him, too. The bargain hunter in me was so pleased. I mean, what are the odds that a free costume would fit two children born at different times during the year (so differing sizes at different seasons) of two genders?! Nevertheless when we put it on K two years ago, she pretty much melted down. I tried the outfit on her several times, always to many tears. Eventually she did wear the thing to a couple of events and I have the cutest pictures of her in it. She never would put the hood up, though. For this year, I decided to leave the costume out in E’s room for several weeks (I had done that with K, but it didn’t help). I tried it on him last Saturday. oh the weeping, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth! You’d have thought I was torturing the poor soul. Pulling the soft fuzzy material over his head only sparked shrieks. My good-natured child was turned into a big blob of tears, and I could even feel his little heart just pounding. Well, life’s too short to make your child be something for Halloween when they just aren’t into it. So, I just took the costume to the MOMS Club party we had yesterady and let E wear regular clothes. I offered a couple of times to put the costume on him, but all my overtures were met with decidedly negative responses. Today, as he was supposed to dress up for Kindermusik, I put him in a onesie that had baseballs and bats on it, pulled on some sports-striped shorts and put a baseball cap on his head that said “little leaguer.” Done. One Halloween costume guaranteed not to cause heart failure in my toddler.