My daughter's preschool teacher has used the phrase "queen bee" to describe N. N has two or three best buddies at school and she spends a lot of time giggling and twirling. Being very silly. Setting the one for the class even, with her obsession with princesses and all things girly.  When the teachers try to break up N's little clique, she just goes and sits with someone else. She is very very social and gets along with everyone. This is funny to my husband and I because neither of us is as extroverted. We're definitely not the center of attention type. I'm happy that N is making friends so easily. I have talked to her about respecting her friends, taking turns playing, and not excluding people. I'm happy that my daughter gets along with her classmates. Could she be......popular?  

This just sends me right back to middle school when I wished I was popular, or just normal, anything but who I was.  I was the opposite of popular.  I had two or there friends, ugly clothes, glasses, and maybe even a mustache.  I was bullied all of seventh grade by an eighth grader.  I was miserable and invisible.  Today I realized that I have given these middle school years of my life too much power- to this day I still think of myself as a big fat nerd!  Still feel that I will get called out for being one and my friends will no longer like me.  But my friends now don't think of me as a nerd.  They don't know how clueless I was back then.  They don't smell the stank.  They just know me as who I am now.  So I can release these old negative feelings.  I'm not a nerd, whatever that is.

I hope my daughter never becomes a bully or makes some other girl feel worthless.  

I didn't pass the FSOT QEP and I fear not even dark chocolate and Tom and Lorenzo can improve my mood. There's no point in retaking it next year because I have no new work experience to write about and I gave it my best shot. I may not be the huge go-getter they want but I sincerely believe I would have made a great consular officer. As a part time teacher I am just not generating the kinds of experiences that make me competitive. It's a dream I have to let go and it hurts. I'm not as great as I thought I was.

I'll always have dance. (sniffles dramatically while drawing foot in to swimsuit pose)

My baby is sleeping! And not on my chest!  Which means I have a few moments to write. 

I went to my optometrist yesterday.  I like seeing her because we always talk for a few moments about children.  She has two sons, five years apart.  When her second son was born, she became obsessed with her first son.  When she was pregnant she didn't fret about missing a basketball game or letting someone else pick him up from school, but after the baby she felt she always had to be there for him.  She didn't worry so much about the baby.  I told her I felt the same way.  I'm wracked with guilt about not being able to give N all the attention I once gave her.  My optometrist thinks this feeling is more intense when the siblings are farther apart in age.  The older one has had longer to enjoy mommy's undivided attention, and the mommy has had longer to make him the center of her universe.  She also reassured me that it was hormonal.  That's good.  So this feeling will pass. I don't want to spend my whole life feeling bad about "abandoning" N.  

In thirteen days I return to work.  R will be two months old. It's coming quickly.  Every morning I try to get up before the baby so I can pump a few ounces of milk. In addition to going back to work, on the 9th of February I have to go serve a day of jury duty.  So I think about that every morning when I sit on the floor of the nursery willing my milk to let down.  I feel angry about going back to work.  I didn't take three months off because I didn't have that much sick leave.  Now I think it would be nice to have that month to stay home.  I'm hoping R will sleep most of the time when I'm at work.  She does take a long morning nap.  Let that be with my mother.  

And oh- how I miss belly dance and exercising!  It's too soon to leave the baby with my husband while I go to class because she still gets hungry unpredictably.  I gotta get back into that studio soon though.  I drive by it every day when I pick N up from preschool.  I have DVDs here at home but...my free moments at home are so rare, when I'm not holding the baby, and exercise DVDs just aren't as fun as a class.  I do remember that going to dance class after I had N was the only thing that made me feel good about my body again.  And I'm pretty disgusted with my baby weight.  I bought a pair of fat jeans in size 8!  Ugh.  I usually wear four.  At least they only cost 12$ - thank you after Christmas sales!  It doesn't feel as horrible to keep wearing my maternity pants as it does to buy normal pants two sizes larger. 

All of my desire to fix up my house has disappeared.  So that painting frenzy was totally hormonal.  Now I just look around and everything looks messy. I want to get rid of stuff.  Every week or so I come across a princess item of N's and I toss it.  This week it was four board books about princesses or dancers or fairies dressing up and being the prettiest of best of all.  Why do people write this shit for girls?  Because they know little girls will see the pretty pictures and demand them, and the mom will buy them.  These four books came from the library used book sale. I find the messages so hateful that I am recycling them instead of donating them.  I am also trying not to buy N any more pink clothing because the outfits she picks out make her look like a little strawberry popsicle.  

Here's a video I just watched on you tube about the bad effects of marketing to children.  It was an hour well spent .  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uUU7cjfcdM

It's very similar to a book I read a few years ago called Buy Buy Baby.   I read it when N was a baby, and it had a strong effect on me, making me want to avoid exposing her to TV and advertising.  So now I watch this, and the difference is N is four years old and I have more experience as a parent.  I don't mean that to say I am a good or better parent.  Simply that now I have four years of experience being a parent versus one year.  Watching this documentary makes me, again, want to shield my child from mass media.  Only now, my child does watch some TV programs, and has fully entered the dreaded princess phase of young childhood.  Her current favorite princess is Tiana, but she has cycled through them all.  The Tiana phase is interesting because she has only watched the Princess and the Frog once, and I fast forwarded through most of it.  So she picked this up from her friend.     

The message of the video is familiar.  Kids under 12 aren't sophisticated enough to understand that the messages they get from advertising are not in their best interest.  In 1985 advertising to kids was deregulated and there has since been a surge in media and marketing directed at children, not just in commercials, but in their schools, on their phones, in their cribs, on-line, on their food and clothes.  Kids are surrounded by advertising that teaches them that their happiness and identity depend on what and how much they can buy.  

My generation was one of the first hit by the effects of all this marketing.  We were some of the first ones trained to be super consumers.  The documentary stops short of saying this, but I think the effect of my generation being raised as super consumers is the current economic slump.  You can't train kids to buy and buy and not end up with adults who make unwise financial decisions.  The current trend of home cooking, canning, sewing, gardening, and other domestic skills is a rejection of the consumerist environment we grew up in.  And yet, parallel to that is the technology that we fully embrace: the constant access to the internet provided by our phones and computers that gives us another way to announce our identities as consumers and to "brand" ourselves.  Really, an iPhone is not more than a really sleek marketing device.  I can shop anywhere!  Acquire useless information whenever!  Blog about my domestic exploits so people know that I am different and down to earth in a home canning sort of way.  

Even worse, my daughters are used to seeing my husband and I looking at our iPhones whenever we have downtime.  I use my phone for useful things like sharing my calendar with my husband, calling and texting people, and keeping track of breast feeding sessions.  But I also shop on it a fair amount.  Kids should not grow up thinking iPhones are extensions of their parents' bodies.  I have even introduced my older daughter to online shopping by showing her shoes on Zappos.  She plays games on my iPhone and watches TV on our iPad.  One day I suppose we will buy her her own phone or computer.  And then I will have lost her, and there will come a dinner time when I start screaming bloody mary at my family for sitting at the table with all their phones turned on.

The Consuming Kids video says that it is too difficult for parents alone to protect their kids from the detrimental effects of marketing, and that the government must make laws regulating what kids may be exposed to.  I agree with this, but that time may not come soon enough for my own family.  In the meantime, if people really want a revolution, they should put down their iPhones.  They should just stop shopping.  If kids didn't have buying power, commercials directed at them wouldn't work.  

And yet, it's so hard.  I have caved.  My daughter likes princesses and wears predominately pink.  I rationalize...I wonder about nature vs nurture... I declare i won't buy another pink thing and create an environment in which my kids can use their imaginations, have unstructured time, access to open air.  

This post is unending.  R is grunting and will wake up soon.  I can't wrestle this into any great idea.  I'll just end here with a slogan:  Reoccupy your mind!  

Sitting around watching Gnomeo and Juliet with the husband and kids.  I was almost able to online shop while nursing the baby which I consider a top 21st century consumerist feat.

So... a real keyboard is awesome.  And yes, in my last post I meant to write "grunty" to describe my little baby.  It's amazing how much snuffling, groaning, and grunting can come out of that little seven pound body.  She does not sound delicate.  I love the head banging against my shoulder telling me that she wants more milk.  

I get about four hours of sleep these days.  My sweet husband has been around a lot.  He's holding the baby as I write this.  Even with the nightly 2 am spit ups, I feel like this time around is a little easier because I have no expectations of having a life.  I am completely down with  knowing that I will spend the next month unwashed, nursing, and in my fabulous 20$ fluffy robe from Target.    

New year's resolutions.  My friend gave me a podcast link where the guy says they are a big waste of time and energy because they set you up for failure, no one goes about them in the right way with a contingency plan and reasonable expectations, and that if you really wanted to make a change you would have made it already.

But as I write every year, I like reflecting on my foibles and setting goals at the end of the year.  The podcast said that doing all this just because the calendar year ends is arbitrary, but I don't think so.  Calendars run our lives, and every day we are aware of what number we are on.  They have been around for millennia.  As vaguely math driven creatures, there is meaning to Dec. 31st turning into January 1st.  It can't be ignored.  And you're always supposed to pick a quitting date for bad habits.  So it's fine to do it at year end with everyone else.  And it's fine that I don't remember the actual resolutions eight weeks later because it is the process of reflection that is important.  A really necessary change will happen when you can't put it off anymore.  The rest of the resolutions are filler, but fun filler!  It's not harmful, really, because I don't beat myself up about not sticking to my resolutions.  Now, if I did, and starting feeling like a failure who could never better herself, then yes, that would be harmful.  

So what were my 2011 resolutions?  At this time last year, I had just had a D&C and we were house hunting.
I decided to go on an insulin resistance diet.  I stuck to it for long enough to get pregnant. (Three months)  So my resolution for this year seems to be the very same one as last year.  Insulin resistance diet.  This year I will make an appt with a doctor recommended to me by my OB/GYN and get my dietary guidelines straight.  Now I know more about my risk of developing diabetes and heart disease, so I will be more serious about eating well.  This is what I meant about making changes that can't be put off.    Like quitting smoking while pregnant, this is something I HAVE to do.   

But just for tradition's sake, let me add some more:
1.  Bellydance!  Get back into it because I haven't danced in two months!!!
2.  Find a hairstyle that works so I don't look like a frazzled hippy.
3.  Lose enough weight to fit back into my expensive jeans.
4.  Be fully present for my kids.  Be understanding of N's frustrations.
5.  Stop buying so much crap.
6.  Always write thank you notes and try to be more gracious.

OK- I've forgotten those six already.  Doesn't mean I won't do some of them.

My husband has gone back to work, and N is home all day on winter vacation.  R is growing.  She looks just like N did at this age: like a puffy shrunken little old man.  She's very fruity.  Her hiccups shake the whole bassinet.  She prefers to sleep on my chest and cries like she's been left to the wolves when I put her down.  

Oh fuck this iPad.  It just autocorrected grunty to fruity and then grungy.  I can't write on this damn thing.  So my next post will be when I can find time to go down to the basement, which may be weeks from now.  miss you all!

Ten days after R was born... Am sitting on my bed typing on my husbands iPad.  The iPad and my iPhone have been my constant companions.  I use a Medela app for my phone to keep track of feeding times and boobs.  With N I used a little notebook.  This is much easier, but it also means I check Facebook every time I nurse, which is ridiculous.  

The c- section went as planned.  I was in the OR by eight am.  They didn't let my husband come in until after they put in the spinal tap, which was the scariest thing. I cried because it was so scary.  But then K came in, and they started the procedure.  He held my hand the whole time.  I kept thinking that having a big operation was the not the way to bring a baby into the world, with all the nurses and doctors in blue scrubs and monitors and lights everywhere.  Then when R came out they showed her to us before they washed  her off, and she looked a bit scary with her cord and white coating.  She cried heartily while they washed her off, then they gave her to K to hold so I could see her. I was so in love with K seeing him holding her and holding my hand.  I heard a slosh when they pushed the placenta out.  My doctor was teaching another doctor so I could hear his comments on how to sew me back up.  I tuned that out and focused on K and the baby.  Then it was all over and they wheeled me into recovery where I waited to regain control of my legs and feet.  And then into my hospital room, where I stayed for three nights, with very helpful nurses bringing me pain relieving drugs around the clock.   My stomach didn't fill with painful gas the way it did with N.  I was eating pretty soon.  The kitchen brought my first meal two hours late and they spent the next two days apologizing profusely, even giving me flowers, a card, and bon bons. 

K brought N to visit me and I was so happy to see her.  She had been with my parents.   

After two days I was up and walking around.  My doctor said I could go home if I wanted but R hadn't passed her hearing test and needed to be retested the next day, and I knew I needed one more day of recuperation, so I stayed Sunday night as well.  I was right that I wouldn't rest at home.  Since I've been home I've reorganized my closet, made banana bread, cooked, done laundry, and made slipcovers for my glider.  Oh, and started R's baby book and decided to redo N's.   Paid bills too.  

K actually has been a huge help.  I'm so glad he is home with me.  N is too!  

My doctor said I have to wait eight weeks to exercise.  I googled it too, and found lots of women who said they didn't wait long enough and their stitches burst open.  Horrifying.  I will wait.  And take it easier.  I really do miss dancing and stretching, though.  I bought a cd of golden age bellydance songs, and will have to imagine the dances in my head.  Last night I watched a documentary about Russian dancers called Ballerina.  It was totally engrossing.

Friday at 8:00 am.  This baby is coming out.  She rolling around in there right now, making huge sea movements across my tight tummy.  By seven pm I can barely walk.  I can't imagine how difficult it would be if I had another few weeks of this.  I'll be 39 weeks tomorrow. I had my last doctor's appointment and got my snazzy red and white hospital admittance bracelet.  I just put in an order for dairy delivery on Monday, and I've thrown all the old food out of the fridge.  My freezer is stocked with Trader Joe's meals and Arabic bread.  I keep shooing the cat out of the bassinet, which is set up in my bedroom.  Yesterday I bought a used boppy pillow on craigslist.  I put sheets on the mattress in the crib, washed all the newborn sized clothes, wrote thank you notes to the ladies from my school who gave me shower gifts.  I took N to the toy store to pick out a little stuffed animal for the baby, and I have a pair of pink earrings in my hospital bag that the baby will give to N.  I packed some nice toiletries for the hospital and half of the clothes I need.  I'll finish that tomorrow.  I still need to sew some black out curtains for the nursery and covers for the exposed glider cushions.  Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.  I bought half of my Christmas presents. The tree is up and decked.  There are new shelves in the laundry room, getting half the crap off the floor.  I have an elastic girdle in my hospital bag, and lanolin, and some breast pads.  I'm ready.

At least three times a day I have to tell people that I am having a scheduled c-section, and that look crosses their faces.  Why?  Some ask, some don't.  But I'm getting tired of the look.  I'd like to shoot back that I am avenging Eve for being a curious rule breaker by not having a vaginal birth and bringing forth my children in pain.  But this is not appropriate hallway conversation.

For some reason, I also felt that it was vitally important to sell my broken golden bangles from Jordan.  The gold price has been high.  I got an application for my iPhone.  The price even changes by the hour.  I took my bracelets to a jeweler, an estate seller, and two Pakistani gold merchants.  The jeweler "tested" my bracelets and told me they were 18K and would give me around 300$ for them.  I was surprised because in the Middle East, 18K is considered slumming it and I bought these in the gold district of Amman.  The estate seller saw the 21 K stamp on one bracelet (which I hadn't shown to the jeweler) and said they were all 21 K.  She also priced them at 300.  The first Asian gold merchant said she would give me a trade in value of 500.  The second gold merchant said 400.  So after all this footwork, I chose to sell my bracelets to the first Pakistani gold merchant.  She had a little store in a strip mall in Arlington on Lee Highway.  Ornately beaded salwar kameezes hung from the walls.  The colors were so intense. I would like to buy one one day if I have a fancy event to go to.  She had a couple small display cases of gold jewelry, most of it in that wonderfully complicated style one associates with Indian wedding jewelry.  This woman was a sharp salesperson, and I suspect an experienced speculator.  I visited her store three times trying to make up my mind.  Even met her daughter when she was out.  She had only a few bangles my size, but there was one I liked.  It was 18K (the horror!) but I figure it will stand up to the daily beatings all my jewelry gets because I hate taking it all off at night.  I had sold some old Tiffany jewelry to the estate seller, so I got a brand new gold bracelet for only 40$ out of pocket!

This gold bracelet thing is serious business.  A pair of bracelets will run over 1500.  My husband's Pakistani friend jokingly begs his wife to wear all her bangles so he doesn't have to pay Zakat on them.  If they sit in her jewelry box he has to figure their value into his wealth, and therefore the amount he tithes every year.  If she wears them, they're just jewelry.  

The other Pakistani store I went to was in the same strip mall as the first one.  That strip mall really represents Arlington.  There is a Latino chicken restaurant, a Vietnamese art gallery, a Persian tailor, a few Bangladeshi restaurants and groceries, a swim suit store, two gold jewelers, and I don't know what else.  I went to the second store to check out their gold selection and see if I could get a better trade in value on my bracelets.  They buzzed me in. It was a huge store. There was fabric, salwar kameezes, stacks of plastic bangles, and many many cases of gold jewelry.  No one acknowledged me when I walked in.  In the back of the store I saw an old man with red hair sitting in a small glass cubicle with a sign that said jewelry repair.  So I asked him about selling my gold and he just pointed at one of the salesladies who was busy helping a couple.  I browsed the cases as I waited.  A rather intense woman walked right up to me and commanded my attention.  She had a long braid, half of which was a blondish red.  Her fading lip liner was bright pink.  Her eyebrows were precisely angled.  And she seemed very imposing.  "You want threading?" she asked.  I told her that i was feeling a little sensitive and I didn't really want to do it.  
"You need it.  Your eyebrows are messy."  she countered.  
"I know, but.."
"Eight dollars."
"I don't have cash."
"Ten dollars minimum to charge."
"Ok"
And I followed her down into a cavernous basement.  It was only when I sat down in her chair that I saw that the reason she struck me as so imposing was that she was every bit as pregnant as I.  She's due a few days after I go in, at the same hospital.  So I got my brows threaded for the first time.  I usually get them waxed.  She did a very tidy job.  It's a little more intimate than waxing because she holds the thread in her teeth and uses two hands to direct the thread. So her have is closer to mine.  I could feel her breath.   She told me how to hold my lids closed or stretch my skin.  I have one little ouchy on my eyelid where I didn't hold my skin taught enough, but my skin seemed less red and irritated than it does when I get waxed.  She said threading pulls the skin less, so it's better. I got her phone number, but I suspect we will both be out of commission for a while.

Fixing my messy brows was actually on my list of things to do before the baby. 

I sat in on two parent teacher conferences today.  One was for my Chinese student, and the other for my squirmy little kindergarten student Elisa.  Her dad has been in jail for the last 9 months awaiting deportation.  If I understood correctly they picked him up for drinking.  (?)  Estaba tomando.  Elisa is really quiet sometimes and chatty others.  She misses her father.  He used to pick her up from daycare every day at four and play with her until her mom came home at seven.  The teacher, a very experienced lady, said she would help them put together letters, schoolwork and photos to send to the father so Elisa could feel more of a connection.  I was really glad to be able to attend this conference.  At first, when the teacher was worried the Spanish interpreter wouldn't show up, she asked me to translate.  I told her I would do it in a pinch, but I am rusty.  The interpreter showed up.  I still explained my ESOL report card to the mom in Spanish.  Later on the other ESOL teacher who works with that classroom teacher asked me how I managed to get her to let me come to the conference because she always stonewalled her.  I don't really know.  

The Chinese student Chuyen's conference was nice too.  The difference was that no interpreter showed up, so I felt the father may not have understood as much as he could have.  The classroom teacher is also young.  She was friendly and welcoming but spoke quickly and seemed more concerned with imparting information than seeking to make a connection with the parent.  

I worked feverishly all morning at school on my sub plans.  I'm not done.  Getting there.  

On Facebook, a former Mongolian student (the one whose brother was killed) posted a picture of his father and him skinning a sheep.  There is some place in Virginia you can go to slaughter your own animals according to your traditions or religion.  That was the second sheep of the day.  While I was manically folding little books for my sub I caught fragments of my colleagues' conversation.  Inez said something like when you dream of someone you have to kill a sheep for them.  That can't be the whole idea, but that's what I heard.  

I am so uncomfortable. It's hard to walk around and I have a headache.  When people see me staggering down the hallways at school they all say, "You're still here?  When are you due?"  And then they tell me I look pretty, and I just can't see how that is possible when I'm leaning over counters trying to rest my back, batting my grey hairs out of my eyes, or making a beeline for the bathroom on my swollen feet.  

I want my body back.  It's such a countdown right now.   Everything is going to change.  I want to hug N all the time, but she is very daddy focused right now.  I don't want N to feel like I am leaving her when the baby comes.  I also don't know how I will love two children, but I am sure that will just happen.  Everyone says it will.  How will they both have enough of me?

Things I look forward to:
Holding my baby.
Sitting with N and baby on the couch.
being able to exercise and dance again
being able to reach down far enough to shave my legs and do my toes
checking my blind spot while driving (can't twist right now)
getting my hair done
sleeping on my back and still being able to breathe
having a glass of wine
wearing something other than my five maternity outfits
being able to take a full breath of air
stretching
not having an aching belly