Rockin' the Minivan

About a month ago, we bought a used, Toyota Sienna minivan.  I have been wanting one for a while, and now that we have one, I love it!!  I love the wide, automatic side doors.  I love that I don't have to bend over to strap Jack into his car seat.  I love that our dog can jump in the back instead of my having to strap her into the front seat.  I love the gas mileage - almost as good as my Altima - and the fact that it handles more like a car than a big ol' truck.  I can't see why anyone with kids and dogs wouldn't want one. 
I've gotten several knowing looks and ambiguous comments from friends:  "So you sold out and bought a minivan," or "Why wouldn't you just get an suv?"  Well, I'm not sure who I'm supposedly selling out to, for one thing.  And the reason I wouldn't get an suv is because I don't like the way they handle, due to their being built on truck chassis.  I don't like their low gas mileage, AND they don't have the awesome huge sliding doors my minivan has.  You do not know how fabulous those doors are until you've tried to cram a wiggly toddler into a car seat in the back of a subcompact and hit your head on the door frame as you try to back yourself out of the space.  I'm pretty sure they're going to save me big bucks in back therapy in the long run, especially now that we have kiddo number two on the way.
My mom asked me several years ago what my generation had against minivans, and I couldn't come up with anything substantive for her.  It's just a stigma:  the minivan-driving soccer mom who bakes fabulous zucchini bread and hasn't another thought in her brain besides the nagging underlying feeling that she's not really fulfilled and happy.  This is part of my generation's denegration of the stay-at-home mom - part of our idea that you cannot possibly be intellectually fulfilled if you stay home with children, and if you are, you are a simpleton.  While it's true it can be challenging to feel your needs for mental challenge are being met while you play "let's make Thomas the Train wreck and put him back together" for the eighty-ninth time, parenthood is not without it's intellectual challenges if you're really committed to doing a good job of it.  Any parent who has come up with yet another creative solution to getting her child to brush teeth, put on pajamas and get in bed without a fight certainly feels she's met a challenge.  And if you do feel you need more stimulus, you find intellectual pursuits in your "spare time" like write this blog.
At any rate, I'm glad I have the intellectual independence to eschew the negative stereotype of the minivan in favor of owning a vehicle that serves our family needs beautifully.  (Did I mention the huge sliding doors?)  The car industry has yet to come up with a better family vehicle, and the minivan is a vast improvement over the station wagon, with it's rear-facing rumble seat or the full-sized custom van that barely fits in a standard garage.  And maybe some day when Jack is older, he'll do like I did with my parents' minivan.  He and his high school friends will drive it to concerts so they can all ride together or take it on Spring Break trips where they can all hang out in the back and....  wait, I'm beginning to have second thoughts on this minivan thing. 

P.S.  I actually DO make fabulous zucchini bread.

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's Super Chilled Momma!

I swore I was going to use my blog as a way to journal this pregnancy on a regular basis.  When I was pregnant with Jack, I wrote religiously in a paper journal once a week, recording how I felt physically and emotionally, how much I weighed, and such.  This time around, now that I'm feeling better, I tend to forget I'm pregnant at times.  I have kept up with some things.  I take pictures of my growing belly once a month, just like I did with Jack.  I don't want this baby look back at his or her baby memorabilia and feel slighted, but it is damned hard to be as psycho into pregnancy as I was the first time.  With Jack, I read more than a few books on pregnancy and child birth.  I read details on line every day about his growth in utero.  We took child birth classes and breast feeding classes.  I thought about being pregnant ALL THE TIME.  Now I'll periodically run into a friend of acquaintance who is bubbling over with congratulations for "my news," and it takes me a few seconds to figure out what they're talking about.
It's not that I'm any less excited about this baby.  I've started to feel some little movements now, and it always makes me smile and feel warm and fuzzy.  When I hear the baby's heartbeat at the doctor's office, as I did today, it still moves me to near tears. It's such a wonderful, life-filled, reassuring sound.  And I do like to look at my baby bump profile in the mirror.  It's just that I am a lot busier and a lot less nervous than I was the first time around.  I don't comb the internet to reassure myself that my symptoms are perfectly normal.  I don't worry that every little thing I put in my mouth is going to give the baby a second head.  We've been through the labor and delivery thing once before.  I know how it goes, and I know I have very little control over it.  And I'm a little busy answering all Jack's toddler questions - "What that, Momma?"  and "cuz why?" and playing "soccer ball" in the back yard - a game Jack invented that involves throwing his pint-sized soccer ball across the yard, running in circles and falling down.  Actually, when I think about it, this baby has the slight advantage over Jack in that it has a much more relaxed momma.  So, while I do want to be sure this one doesn't feel second fiddle, (I'll be sure to take the same ridiculous amount of photos when he/she is born)  I don't think I'll feel guilty about spending less time going nuts over this pregnancy.  It's kind of nice that it seems to be flying by, as opposed the slow creep of my pregnancy with Jack.  It's relaxing to refrain from cracking a book and reading about all the potentially horrible things that can go wrong during child birth - things I can't control and thus only serve to make me feel worried.  Jack got hyper-informed momma; this next one gets super chilled momma.  By the time they're two and five, I figure it ought to even out.

P.S.  On a side note, my doctor noted I've gained four pounds since my last visit three weeks ago.  He gently mentioned that I may want to watch my weight a bit, as the baby doesn't weigh very much at this point.  I nodded and smiled and fully intend to eat as many cupcakes as I want for my birthday on Saturday.  I love what pregnancy does for my weight attitude.

I'm Pregnant!

I haven't published anything to my blog in a while, but this time it's not the standard rash of weak excuses.  About eight weeks ago, Jason and I found out I'm pregnant with our second kiddo.  So, I've been exhausted and nauseated and using every spare minute to nap instead of write (or clean, or make dinner, or do laundry.)  The other thing is this:  I did sit down and start to write a few times, but all I could think about was being pregnant.  That's what I felt compelled to write about, and we were not yet telling the world since I was just in the first trimester.  Now that I'm around thirteen weeks and we've seen a very active little one on ultrasound, we are letting the proverbial cat out of the bag.
Our decision not to tell anyone was not just your garden variety err on the side of caution.  Before we had Jack, I had four first trimester miscarriages.  I won't get into the details, but I had a uterine abnormality that was corrected, allowing Jack to be carried to term.  Then, right before last Christmas, I had another miscarriage, for no particular reason that could be determined (like most.)  So you see, we guarded our enthusiasm for this pregnancy with good reason.  I used to feel sorry for myself because I couldn't let myself feel the excitement that many other women revel in when they get that positive pregnancy test.  I felt envious of friends who announced with beaming faces, "I'm pregnant," when they were only five weeks along.  I have realized, though, that it could be worse.  I could have trouble getting pregnant (which I don't AT ALL) on top of the miscarriages.  I could have any number of other maladies that would prevent me from having children at all.  The tendency to miscarry and the anxiety that goes with it is just my particular row to hoe.  Everyone has troubles and challenges, even if they're not obvious.  I might as well accept mine.
Early pregnancy for me comes with a lot worry and stress, but this time I really wanted to keep that at bay.  It's maddening to wonder every second of the thirteen plus weeks of the first trimester if everything is going okay in there.  The kicker is, there's nothing I can do about it.  I think that's the main source of stress.  I can eat right and take care of myself, but beyond that, there is nothing I can do to change the outcome of a pregnancy.  So this time around, when I would feel that panic welling up from my heart into my throat - that anxiety-ridden voice that asked, "what if I miscarry again?"  I found a strong, firm voice to answer it.  I'd repeat a mantra I picked up in yoga:  "I am only part."  What that means to me is this:  I can only do my part to make sure my body is a good place to grow a baby.  The rest is up to chance, fate, the universe, whatever.  It doesn't matter what.  The point is, there is a very large part of pregnancy that is not up to me.  So I would take a deep breath and do my best to let it go, because worrying about it was only going to make me miserable, not change the outcome.  This actually worked pretty well, and I was much less of a basket case this time than previously.  And now, I can relax a little and be excited.  I have finally allowed myself to start thinking about where we will put the new baby and how to prepare Jack for a sibling and all the other fun stuff that goes with being pregnant.
My mom said to me not too long ago, she thought I was brave for persevering with my goal of having children with so many miscarriages under my belt.  After all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  Though after having Jack, I thought about it more like gambling in Vegas.  My odds of getting a baby out of a pregnancy  were pretty low, but it HAD happened and, oh, when we hit the jackpot again, it was gonna be sweet!  I really don't think it's about bravery, though.  When you want something as badly as I have always wanted children, you do what you have to to get it.  The alternative, giving in and resigning yourself to failure, is unthinkable.
I seem to be hitting a recurring theme in my life the past several years, and it revolves around letting go of control, or more to the point, things over which I imagine I can have control.  It turns out, not only is a large part of pregnancy beyond my influence, but a substantial part of life in general is as well.  Having babies, when, what kind and how many, is largely out of my control.  Those children are going to have personalities, quirks, habits and ideas that are totally beyond my manipulation.  And I know that's only going to get more pronounced as Jack and baby number two get older and go out into the world on their own.  They are going to make decision I don't agree with, they're going to have friends I don't like and they're going to eat, drink and/or smoke things that I don't approve of.  If I maintain my illusion of control, these things are going to break me, because I am going to thing all of them are my fault - that they would make better decisions if I were a better mother.  So I think I'll keep working on my abdication of control, because, as scary as it is to let go, it feels really good not to be responsible for every bad thing that ever happens.