Philly Moms

That's just wrong

After a long Saturday of errands and other assorted less-than-fun outings, we decided to treat our girls to an ice cream at the local fast-food establishment.  You know, the one with the big, colorful playland outside.  Of course, the ice cream was abandoned after two bites in favor of the twisty slides and tunnels.  Rich and I settled back to chat as the girls enjoyed themselves.

A few joyful shriek-filled minutes later, Georgia came over to report that there was a puddle up in the playland and that it was kind of slippery.  Well, it had absolutely POURED the day before, so we just told her that she should be careful but go ahead and have fun.

A couple more minutes went by, during which another mom took her four-year-old daughter to the bathroom and then brought her back out to the playground.  But I started to have a bad feeling about the whole situation when the mom started gathering her things and whispering to her friend.

The Broad Street Run

A year ago last weekend a lot of things in my family's life were different.  A year ago last weekend, I was away on a church retreat while my husband held down the fort at home with our three girls.  But while I was relaxing and enjoying myself, Rich spent much of the weekend in pain with a horrible attack of acid reflux and a hiatal hernia.  It was a wake-up call for him, and the next day he went to see his doctor for advice.

Basically, Rich had to lose weight, eat more healthily, and start exercising.  Being a big guy, this is not news to him.  But the amount of pain he had experienced showed him that this time he had to actually make a lifestyle change.  That day, he stopped eating dessert and the next week we joined the YMCA. 

And Rich set a couple of goals for himself--to run the Broad Street Run and to get back to the weight he was when we got married ten years ago at the end of this month.  These were big goals, important, life-changing goals.

Time to Write the Birth Plan

I am now 35 weeks pregnant with my fourth child.  Even though this is the fourth time around this whole experience, (and my youngest is only three) I have been shocked at how much I have forgotten.  So to brush back up on all things baby, I decided to sign up for those week-by-week pregnancy emails that various parenting sites will send out.

And this week, my trusty 35 week newsletter told me that it's time to write my Birth Plan.  I dutifully clicked on all the links that promised to help me write the ultimate Plan.  I started checking off boxes (no, I don't really need the birthing ball, yes, I want my husband to take pictures).  But once I was done and neatly formatted into a personalized PDF, it was Six. Pages. Long.  Yeah, I don't think the nurses or my doctor would really be interested in reading a thesis while trying to hook the monitors up to my belly.

Now, I have written birth plans in the past (especially for my first) to be sure the big, bad hospital wouldn't ruin my entire birth experience.  But somewhere during the pregnancy and birth of my last child I realized that most of what I had written in my birth plan was already hospital policy.  What can I say, maybe I have good taste in hospitals.

So this time around, I'm doing things differently.  If I'm going to write a birth plan, I might as well shoot for what I really want.

My Birth Plan

Name: Amy, mommy of three, soon-to-be four

Due date: June 3 but really later since my three older kids were at least nine days late and up to eleven days late so let's just say July 1 to be safe

Obstetrician: Local group practice, two of whom have little to no bedside manner, two others who are great, and the fifth who I'm ready to sign up to be her new BFF

Birth Coach: Yeah, that would be the hubs. 

Other Support Staff: An epidural.  Wait, that goes later on...

Feathering the nest

  We are coming around the home stretch of waiting for our new little boy to join our family.  33 weeks.  7 weeks to go.  In less than two months, he will be here.  In some ways, it seems like there's still a lot of time.  But then I think about it some more, and I realize that we have done pretty much NOTHING to get ready, and Oh My Goodness he is going to be here before we know it.

So last weekend, my sweet mother-in-law threw me a baby "sprinkle" (which is like a shower lite).  And as soon as I got home, the nesting that I've been lazily waiting around for suddenly kicked in.

What's with the wildlife?

My daughters and I love spring.  We love walking to and from school, noticing the daffodils and tulips coming up, the forsythia blooming, and all the trees with their beautiful blossoms.  Every day, Sydney tries to coax robins to hop up into her stroller and play with her.  We love watching the squirrels running up and down trees, and the other day we even saw a beaver as we were driving home.

We live in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  Our town is far closer to the "urbs" than the "subs."  In other words, we don't have deer leaping through our backyards like we used to have in central Bucks county.  Squirrels, birds, and the occasional bunny are pretty much what we expect to have as far as animals.

But in recent weeks, we have encountered a greater variety.  Several mornings, we have been awakened by a horrible stink that permeated throughout the entire house. 

Procrastinating is a bad, bad thing

The bio on my personal blog is my attempt to introduce myself to my readers.  One of the character traits (ok, flaws) that I admit to is being a procrastinator.

Yeah.  I've been one all my life, and it has always served me well.  I (almost) always get things done just under the wire and besides a bit of extra stress at the last minute, procrastinating has never been a huge problem.

Just a glimpse at my house this morning, when I left to take the girls to school and then to head straight to the grocery store:

--Breakfast dishes on the table
--Clean dishes still in the dishwasher
--Folded laundry not put away
--Two clean loads of laundry, still unfolded
--Sheets not changed on the beds, despite Audrey asking me to take the flannels off her bed on Friday (or was it Thursday...)
--Two (three?) loads of laundry to be sorted, washed, and dried (laundry day is Friday...)

Lessons Learned at Swimming Lessons

I am under no illusions that my 2 1/2 year old is actually learning to swim, but Sydney and I have been enjoying our weekly jaunts at the mommy-and-me Perch class at our local YMCA.  We have our routine down--we get there early so I can squeeze in a short workout and she can play, then we head up to the locker room to get our suits on.

Every 8-week session, there are new families in the class.  I am always curious to see what new connections Sydney and I can make with the kids and parents who "swim" with us.  There are the usual assortment of stay-at-home moms, as we go on a weekday morning.  Sometimes the token grandparent, but all quite normal-looking folks hoping to have a little fun and bonding time with their toddlers.

But I have found that beyond the average-seeming exterior sometimes lurks the strange, odd, or even bizarre.  And I have an example from each of our last two sessions...

The Birth Story Club

Sydney and I just joined a new club.  For her, it's a play group.  Each Tuesday morning, she gets to play with her little buddies and gorge on Goldfish crackers.  For me, it's a play group.  Each Tuesday morning, I get to talk to actual grown-ups and gorge on Danishes, banana bread, muffins, or some other yummy baked goods.  And fruit.  We do try to keep things healthy.

I have known several of the ladies in the group for a while, but this is the first time that I have really gotten to hang with them in un-mixed company (i.e. without the hubbies).  Since two of us are pregnant and two others have little babies, the talk this week turned to birth stories.  There are not many topics I love more than birth stories, and I have a feeling that I'm not alone.

No, we weren't trying for a boy

When we brought our sweet third daughter Sydney home from the hospital two and a half years ago, all of us were instantly in love.  Her big sisters thought she was the cutest thing ever and immediately wanted to dress her up in outfits that matched theirs.  We loved seeing the sisterly bond that formed between them and getting to know our precious newest family member.

And in the joy that accompanied her homecoming, I was stunned by the number of people who asked me if we were going to "try once more for a boy."  What happened to a simple "Congratulations?"  Was there something wrong with our little princess, that we should be dissatisfied with her and want a boy instead? 

I Hate Homework

It all seemed just like a regular afternoon.  The girls came home from school, ate a snack and started on their homework.  We chatted about their day while Sydney colored.  Georgia, my kindergartner, was halfway through her weekly packet of "work" and Audrey, my third-grader, had already finished her math sheet.  They had been working less than five minutes.  A whole afternoon of possibilities stretched out before us.

And then Audrey turned to her spelling assignment.

Every week, Audrey has the same four spelling homework assignments.  She has to do a crossword puzzle, a word search, put the words in alphabetical order, and write 7 of her 15 words in sentences.  She is allowed to choose which activity to do on which day and other than the word search which is always a struggle because of its size, her homework is pretty routine.

So, having done the crossword puzzle on Monday afternoon, the next easiest in Audrey's mind is always the ABC order.  She's done it tons of times, it usually takes her five minutes.

But not this time.