Week Ninteen: Testing...

Tomorrow is D-Day. Or rather L-Day, for LSAT. Oddly enough, I'm not that worried for a couple reasons. First, I worked my ass off for four years and my g.p.a is respectable, so I don't have to worry about compensating for that. Second, I feel pretty prepared, I know what to expect, and I test fairly well. I am, on the other hand, looking forward to getting it out of the way. Moving on to the rest of the application process, which includes (gulp!) The Personal Statement.

This little document has been the source of my anxiety since I started thinking about law school. How do you balance the right amount of confidence with the right amount of "contributing to the diversity of the student body" and also not play the "overcoming adversity" card (too much!)? I also am trying my best to make it stand apart from the stack of personal statements these people have to read. I don't know how much weight they put on these things, but it's just so scary, putting yourself out there in the hands of complete strangers. Complete strangers who have the power to squash your dreams.

But anyway. I'm leaving both kids in the hands of their father for up to five hours. They'll be fine, I'm sure. Will will be mad, but he'll live. For the greater good, right?

Lately we've been talking more about moving back to the Seattle area. This morning we were laughing about filling out emergency contact forms over here. It's not that we don't like Pullman, for a while we were considering buying a house here, it's just too hard to be isolated over here now with Will being so small. And I can't say there aren't selfish reasons like, I don't know, wanting a night out once in a while, or being able to actually see friends. My friend Sara's baby, Evan, is only eight months older than Will, and that gap won't make much of a difference in the next few years.

I guess I just really want to get this application process over with so we can figure out where we'll be moving. I'm applying at two schools in Seattle, so the odds are pretty good we'll end up in that area. But at this point, we're thinking the sooner we can move, the better.

What? Will had his four month check-up and I haven't even talked about it yet? How could I? Well, there isn't a lot to report. He's healthy and perfect, just as we suspected. He weighs 17lbs and 10 oz, and is 27 inches long (97 and 95th percentile), so he's still a whopper (also just as we suspected). He had several shots, which he handled fairly well. He stopped crying when I picked him up, but it still seems so cruel.

The night after his appointment, Will had this strange crying episode. What's strange about babeis crying? Well, Will doesn't. He complains, he screeches, squeals, and sometimes cries after he's gotten pretty worked up. But this time, he just cried and cried for no reason (at least no obvious reason), and woke up after only sleeping an hour at a time, only to cry until one of us rocked him back to sleep. No fun at all.

He seems to have gotten over it, whatever it was. I'd feel pretty silly calling the doctor and saying my baby's crying. But when it's 12AM and you're mind's racing through the list of things that could be wrong, and your baby is inconsolable, it's difficult to view things rationally. I still don't know what was wrong. A bad reaction to the shots, teething, gas? Who knows? It's times like that when I'm reminded of how lucky that crying is actually unusual, and I'm also reminded of how lucky we are to have such sweet kids.

Week Eighteen: Complaining About Complaining

Will's four months old! I can't believe it. Now, I try to remember those early days with my little mister, all wrapped up like a burrito, with his big eyes staring at me so seriously, and it's already becoming hazy. I'm pulling out clothes size 0-3 months from Will's drawer and wondering if they ever fit him. He's really grabbing onto things, and letting go as he experiments with this crazy thing called gravity. He even seems to have gotten himself on (gasp!) a schedule. He takes 2 to 3 naps a day now, instead of just sleeping on and off all day, and is much more fun to play with. He has even started to have quite a sense of humor. His chuckles sound like a car trying to turn over, heh heh heh, and he laughs when he rolls from his back to his tummy like it's a real trick (which it certainly is!).

If it's possible, Emily is even more proud of Will and his new milestones than I am. It's so funny to hear her talk to him, imitating me, and I start to wonder if I sound that silly. Who's such a big, big boy? Where's my litle mister man? Oy.

But Emily. Wow. Kindergarten is going even better than we could have imagined. She runs up at the bus stop and greets her friends, and I watch her walk on the bus and start giggling with her friends. And she's also doing fantastic with her reading, but I really was more worried about the social aspect than anything. Of course the one thing her teacher is begging all of us parents to do is teach the kids to tie their shoes. This is also the one thing Emily just can't seem to get a handle on. Laces are overrated anyway, they make velcro shoes in all sizes, right?

One milestones the kids have in common seems to be complaining. Will's never been a crier, but lately when he's not happy, he just puts on this constant whine. And then Emily can start in about the most trivial things, like whether her apple is cut up exactly the way she had envisioned. I actually had to give her a time out for complaining, and I had to practically bite my tounge to keep myself from saying "just quit your bitching!". Of course I would never say that, but I won't say It didn't cross my mind a few times. But I can be quite a complainer myself, so it's not like I have a lot of room to talk.

Will's four month checkup is next week, which means another round of shots. I feel bad, I really do. I mean, how does a four month old react to the only person he trusts holding him and saying it's okay while a stranger stabs him in the thigh with needles? It just seems like a betrayal to me. And while I don't like vaccinations because they hurt my kids (temporarily), I really don't understand the current trend toward not vaccinating. As if it isn't enough to worry about things like drowning and swallowing small items, why not just throw polio into the mix? I just don't get it.

So, I'll have to sit there with my poor naked baby at the doctor's office, and come up with questions again. The last time I had to ask about cradle cap, just so I had something. Then I had to listen to detailed instructions on applying oil to Will's scalp and scrubbing. Seriously. Not worth it. Do I care about cradle cap? No. It's annoying, but I tend to worry about bigger things. Things that may make me come accross as a crazy person at the doctor's office. So I'm sure next week I'll come up with someting lame to ask, like when Will's eyes will figure out what color they're going to be. Because really, it's a much more pleasant subject than paranioa.

Week Seventeen: Yay for Nakedness

Let me start out with a little disclaimer.

The human body is an amazing and wonderful thing. And Generally we, as Americans, do not celebrate the beauty of all body shapes and sizes enough. Americans in general, are prudes. A little nakedness never hurt anyone. So my basic philosophy is yay for the human form, yay for not being embarassed or stared at for breastfeeding, yay for feeling comfortable with who you are, and well, yay for nakedness.

That said.

What is with the showers at public pools? Why does it never fail that there is an enormous naked woman in them?

Emily sarted swimming lessons again, which is great, and the facility at Pullman High School is wonderful (a far cry from the pool where I grew up, believe me). But I'm a little afraid Emily is developing some kind of complex about public nudity.

And worse, I have no idea of how do deal with this.

Yes, it's okay to wear your suit to the pool (saves me the trouble of trying to juggle Will and get her changed). Yes you have to shower after you swim, but no, you don't have to take your swimsuit off. But no, you cannot wear your soaking wet suit home under your clothes. And no, you can't stare at the the huge naked woman who's been in the shower for twenty minutes.

But I stand by my philosophy.

Will's at the age where he loves being naked. The second I take that diaper off, he's all smiles, squeals, and screams, grabbing his feet and feelin' the breeze. This, unfortunately has resulted in a lot of um, showers. He'll be lying there, and all of a sudden everything's wet and I remember that boys are different than girls. With Emily, I could just lie her on a cloth diaper and she'd be great. But now, nothing's safe if this boy's not wearing a diaper.

Then again nothing's safe even if he's wearing one. We had a major blowout today. It's like he goes a few days with no poop, then, BAM! Poop everywhere.

But I should enjoy these last few weeks of inoffensive little baby poop because Will has started eating solids! So far he seems to enjoy it quite a bit. He actually sucks the cereal off the spoon, and doesn't spit it back out too much. We've only tried it a few times, but so far so good. And he also seems to like his high-chair quite a bit. Sitting there at the dinner table like a regular person. Wow.

The downside to Will getting nutrition from other sources besides me is that Emily wants to be involved. Doesn't sound too bad? Well imagine a five-year-old perched on her stepping stool so she can "see better", hovering, and talking to poor Will, who is having enough trouble staying focused as it is. The scene is very similar to bathtime, where Emily is, uh, just as "helpful". Needless to say the novelty has not worn off yet.

But I'm starting to question whether it will at all. Emily is just so taken with Will. I know the second time parent's biggest cliche is "He/She is such a great big brother/sister", which is probably true if you call not biting the new baby being a great big brother or sister. But Emily? Can you say overachiever?

The happy side affect to Emily's interest in her little brother is that Will is compleatly taken with her. He saves his biggest smiles for her, and it's so funny to watch him watch her. It's like he's studying for a PhD in kidology, which I guess he is.

Sixteen Weeks: March of the Parents

Why is it that sometimes I have all the patience in the world, and at other times I want to just run out of the room screaming? For instance, last night as Emily squealed about getting soap in her eyes while I washed her hair in the shower and she frantically tried to wipe it out with the plastic shower curtan lining, I laughed at the hilarity of a slippery five-year-old throwing a tantrum about soap, and then she ended up laughing as well. Then there are other times when she's being paticular about "the show" (a pretend game in which I am Emily's neighbor and she comes to visit me) and she wants me to talk on the phone to one of her "friends". I don't know why, but she's always liked me to talk on a pretend phone and I've always found it boring, and well, annoying. So, when she handed me her fluffy pink play phone and said it was Diamond (an awful girl from her preschool who we thankfully never see anymore), I said "You know, I don't feel like talking on the phone right now", maybe too sharply, but isn't it a life lesson that people don't always want to do what you want them to do?

Another midly annoying development lately is Emily's discovery of commercials. We recently got cable service through the university, which includes Nickelodeon. It's been a downhill progression from no tv at all last year to just 12 local channels, and now full cable including HBO. But unlike the Disney channel's blatent self-promotional spots, Nickelodeon has real comercials for things like cereal that turns your milk green. As if it wasn't difficult enough to escape the cereal aisle with just a box of unsweetened Cherios in hand, Emily now has these images of kids having way too much fun eating breakfast imprinted on her little brain.

So, I'm the parent right? Don't let her watch, right? Well, I sort of figure that she will be exposed to all kinds of advertising eventually, at least this gives us a chance to talk about it. I told her, "The point of commercials is to make you want things, usually things we don't need". And she agreed. She's still just so innocent about these things, I just hate that she's finally catching on.

But speaking of imprinting, I bought Emily her first real soccer ball this weekend and we went to her school and kicked it around for a bit. It was so sweet to watch her akwardly run up to the ball, turn her foot out, kind of scoot the ball, and it would roll about three feet. But she's honestly quite good for never playing before. I had a good time, even with my not having kicked a ball around for six years. Muscle memmory, it's crazy. Not that I have any muscles to remember anything... but anyway.

Hopefully we'll get her on some kind of team soon. She's still working on swimming, because I'd like her to be able to swim for my own sanity. But I want to walk the fine line between encouraging her to enjoy soccer, since I had such a fantastic time playing when I was younger, and pushing her into a sport just because used to play it. Of course, admittedly, a little part of me would like her to be better at it than I was. That's wrong, right? Is it wrong then to be looking at the Camp Sealth website and figuring out what session she'll go to next summer? Okay, then it's probably also wrong to be teaching her camp songs, so she'll have a leg up on all the other kids.

But it's not as though I want her to go to camp because I went to camp. I want her to go to camp because it had such a profound influence on the person I am today. It allowed me exposure to other cultures, people, lifestyles, and time to gain my independence and reflection away from real life. Sound like a walking advertisement? Well, it is true. Camp, for me can be summed up on one word: Magic.

Sometimes it seems that Will is piece of cake compared to Emily, but I guess it's just the age. With Will, I don't worry about whether our decisions are affecting his fragile self-esteem or I don't know, discussions on death, or why we can't marry our brothers.

But Will. He's such a good baby. Really. We went to see March of the Penguins last weekend (Which Emily had been just dying to see thanks to comercials!) and he sat quietly during the first part of the movie, ate a little, fell asleep, then woke up for he credits, and hardly made a peep. This was my first movie since Ian and I saw Kingdom of Heaven almost four months ago and I sat there uncomfortable and timing what turned out to be false labor. Then I didn't eat any popcorn and felt like the seats were made of wood, and aside from Orlando Bloom's uncanny ability to stare off into space and squint his eyes, the movie left much to be desired. This time, on the other hand, the movie was so touching, interesting, and beautiful, the seats were soft, and the popcorn was so buttery and salty and delicous. Maybe it's because we get out so often, or maybe it was that as new parents, we could understand the penguin's sacrifice, their grief for the chicks that died from a) the cold b) starvation or c) the cold.

At the end, I was very glad not to be a penguin. And also glad to be the parent of these two incredible kids.