First loose tooth - out!

Eliana's loose tooth finally came out tonight! I heard her from the next room - "My tooth came out!!!" She was waving it around, totally proud. "I just pushed my tongue on it and it popped right out! Look! I lost my tooth, I lost my tooth! Congratulations to me!!!" This went on for about 5 minutes, complete with dancing.

Carefully orchestrated

Lately I feel like I'm conducting a symphony with my body. Here are the instruments:

A healthy, balanced diet: obtain lots of protein to grow a new human being, vitamin-rich foods for my health and baby's, healthy fats; make my body strong for labor and postpartum.

Exercise: Make my body strong for labor and postpartum.

Cravings: Recognize what my body is trying to tell me about my nutritional needs and respond appropriately. (Still haven't figured out why I had to have that decaf mocha frappuccino two days ago, but the occasional useless craving can be fulfilled, too.)

Iron: Take twice daily, preferably with foods containing vitamin C but absolutely nowhere near foods containing calcium. To prevent even mild anemia (which had developed at 24 weeks), reducing risk of certain labor complications and/or postpartum anemia (BTDT, NOT going there again).

Calcium/magnesium: Take once daily, nowhere near the iron. To combat leg cramps.

Probiotics: Take once or more daily, preferably with food. To prevent yeast infections, improve digestion/immunity, and provide the baby with healthy bacterial colonization at birth, giving him a good start on the above.

Cranberry juice: Once or more daily, to ward off UTI's.

Red raspberry leaf tea: 3 cups daily if possible, to tone my uterus, hopefully making labor easier and reducing risk of postpartum hemorrhage. (Eliana - no RRL tea, 25 hour labor, excessive pp blood loss -> pp anemia. Kesenia - RRL tea, 6 hour labor, normal pp blood loss. Coincidence? I'm not willing to bet on it.)

Butcher's broom: 2 doses daily, to tone veins and improve circulation.

Chiropractic care: As needed, currently needing it once a week. To keep my sacrum where it belongs between my ilia, help me walk comfortably and sleep decently, and perhaps even help baby start labor in a more favorable position.

Acupuncture: Twice weekly - in Berkeley! - to help with my varicose veins.

Immersion in water: Once daily if possible, spend 1/2 hour in the birth tub, to help with my veins and ohhh the comfort of weightlessness.

It's a lot to think about, a lot to schedule given the things that can't be done concurrently, but I have got to say I feel amazing for being 36 weeks. So many discomforts which were obvious months earlier with my last two pregnancies have only now started cropping up. And on the other hand, these veins - which were not a problem in previous pregnancies, but arrived at 14 weeks this time - are annoying and worrisome... but I'm so glad to have an arsenal of treatments available to try. All in all, this health symphony is well worth the time and effort - the results are fabulous.

Questions

E: "When was the first day of everything?"
Me: "You mean the new year?" (This sounded like a line from a book about the new year.)
E: "No, the first day of everything."
Me: "The first day of what?"
E: "The first day of G-d."

E: "Who were the first people who were born?"
Me: "People think their names were Adam and Eve." (OK, why does the anthropologist go with the Biblical explanation first? Is it because she had just mentioned G-d? Is it because it's easier? Is it because of the evidence of an Eve ancestor?)
E: "Did Eve have a mommy?"
Me: "People think she was the first mommy and that G-d made her."
E: "Was she a child or a grown-up when he made her?"

Tonight, as I read "Sosu's Call" to her (a book she has long been familiar with):
"Why does the lagoon give them good food?"
"Why did his mommy carry him on her back?"
"How did he get in that canoe?"
"Why are they eating with their hands? Why does he have a bowl but they don't?"
"Who are all those people? Why was she scared of him?"
"Why don't his legs work?"

Yowza. So exciting to see her mind at work. Wish my mind worked... if I didn't have such preggo brain maybe I'd be able to answer her questions better.

Is Kesenia a good name for a psychic?

K: "Mommy, I hear a train! Do youuuu hear a train?"
Me: "Yep."
K: "I hear a purple train, is that the kind of train you hear too?"

Kessa quotes

Kes: "Mommy, I'm scared! There's a monster under my bed!"
Me: "Well let's go get it."
Kes: "OK, I will go get a stick to kill him."

Me: "Time to get dressed. Should I pick out your outfit?"
Kes: "No. I wanna 'cide."

And of course it's even cuter when you realize that all s and sh sounds are pronounced th. It's adorable listening to her "read" Mr. Wishy Washy: "Mithter Withy Wathy watheth ditheth."

The picture of motherhood

I enjoy the artistry of a good photograph, especially photojournalism. So I frequently look at the "Week in Pictures" on MSNBC, as it captures what is going on in the world, with artistry and frequently with emotion. Usually they give warning if a photo is disturbing. Apparently they categorize "disturbing" as meaning "bloody" as there was no warning for this picture today.

I wasn't sure what I was seeing. It was a bunch of people covered in orange dust, in a circle around more orange dust. I read the caption: "Rescuers find the bodies of a mother and child killed when an earthquake struck China's Sichuan province on Sunday, August 31, causing their home to collapse." And then I saw in the orange, a smaller and larger head, a large body covering a small one, the mother's arm and body protectively wrapped around the toddler, their legs still buried in dust. I cried and moved on to the next picture, thinking no pregnant mother, no mother, should have to see this without warning. I was surprised after putting in my own vote that this picture was in first place.

I had just let the picture back into my mind this evening, on the couch reading, my kids in bed, when my house creaked. Creaked again. Shook a few inches. As it kept rattling, I didn't get into a doorway. I didn't run outside or under my table. I did run to my kids' room. I don't know exactly what I was going to do, and the house stopped moving as I walked through their door, so I didn't get to find out. I didn't think at all, I only acted on instinct. The instinct to protect my children, even impossibly.

That was the draw of the picture. Mothers and fathers - current, future, or unmanifest - saw past the tragedy depicted and saw the universal love and protection we all know deep inside our hearts.

I came to the computer to look up the earthquake - only a 4.0, but close-by. Then I revisited the picture. I cried again but this time the tragedy was not the only cause of my tears - the beauty of motherly love and thankfulness for all my blessings were also wetting my cheeks.

A better day for Elly; Kes starts preschool

When I picked Eliana up from school today, she was chipper. I said, "You look like a girl who had a better day at school today." She said, "YEAH!"

Then she said, "Where's Kes?" I said, "where do you think she is? Do you remember where I was going to take her this morning?" And Eliana's response was, "Preschool! Let's go home and play."

Wow, I think this child was hungry for some one-on-one time. We played a game of Sequence and she was thrilled.

When we picked Kes up from preschool, though, Eliana intercepted her as she was on her way to come hug me and gave her a huge bear hug. Kes was enjoying it but at the same time kept waving at me saying "Mommy! Hi Mommy!"

Elly's "horrible day"

After school today, Eliana and I were sitting down and the teacher approached us to tell me Eliana was having a hard time listening. One event in particular had been upsetting to everyone involved, as a little girl's feelings were hurt and Elly felt very guilty about it. (I get the feeling the teacher likes to tell parents anything about the school day that she is afraid the child will report back on - from the child's perspective - to pre-empt the parent wondering what the heck this is all about. It does not feel like tattling, or "what are YOU going to do to make your kid behave better" as was an experience I had with one of Elly's pre-K teachers.) Anyway, after the teacher told the story, Elly put her head down on the table on her arms and said, "I had a horrible day!"

The horrible day continued after school, as Eliana just fell apart at everything all afternoon, either by exploding into anger or tears at me or Kes, anytime she didn't get her way. Not the usual Eliana intensity, far more than that. I get the feeling that she is 1) low on sleep and 2) having a hard time adjusting to kindergarten despite loving it there. (I asked her tonight, "I know you had a bad day today, but all the other days have you liked kindergarten or not?" and she said she did.) Kes has been having a hard time getting to sleep some nights and we usually approach that by waiting for her to fall asleep and then sending Elly to bed. With 8:15 am kindergarten, that may not have been the greatest idea. It will work better once she starts the 9:35 staggered schedule. Anyway, it was a refrain I heard all afternoon: "I'm having a horrible day!" Whenever we talked about it, she seemed to understand without my help that it was her own issue - that people were not doing things to her, just that she was unable to cope and therefore very sad about things that would not bother her as much, and that she was also having a rough day by not listening and therefore having negative interactions with her teacher and me.

So, I put her to bed a half hour before her usual bedtime (which hasn't been upheld due to Kessa's issues) and I'm hoping she'll fall asleep soon, and that tomorrow will be a better day - for everyone.

Love

I asked Elly whether she wanted a Mommy cuddle or a Daddy cuddle. Her response:

"I want a Mommy cuddle because I have to practice loving you more than Daddy. Because I love Daddy more than you, but you love me more than anyone, so I need to love you more than Daddy."

Kindergarten testing

Yeah, it starts already. I have issues with standardized testing on 5 year olds, but the good news is it was 1-on-1 with her teacher with me there. And neither I nor the teacher ever referred to it as "testing". I told Elly in advance that she was going to have a special meeting with her teacher because she wanted to know what to teach Elly, so she wouldn't be having her do stuff that was too easy or too hard. And the teacher today just referred to the testing as "some activities we're going to do together." (I love this teacher... if they could all be this good we'd be set.)

Anyway, Eliana rocks. Highlights of the testing would be that the teacher asked her to count as high as she could and she went to 100, and that she read all the way up to level 14 before the teacher stopped her and decided that would be a good place to start her for the school year. (And she read all the words in level 14 perfectly... the reason to start her there was for fluency - faster reading with more inflection.) To put that in perspective, they aim to have kids reading at level 4 by the END of kindergarten, and at level 18 by the END of 1st grade. Though I'm sure Eliana could read the level 18 books now, I'm very glad at the choice to work at a level where she feels confident and can work at mastering the subtleties of reading. Also, she was able to answer the teacher's comprehension questions, and that is clearly an important component.

I'm so happy that even in today's school system, my child can be given work that is appropriate for her level. Hopefully that will last through all her school years (I have my doubts).

On our walk home, I told her she did a great job and that I was proud of her. She said, "Does level 14 mean that I read like a 6th grader?" I said, "No, a 1st grader, but that's still really good." She said, "Yeah. I'm an awesome super star."