Alex update: first day of school.

Today is Alex's first day of school. It doesn't seem that momentous, because she spent the summer going to "camp" at the same place, but I think there actually are program changes. For example, she had to sign herself into class this morning by making a mark next to her name on a whiteboard. And this is the year they start the traditional nursery school thing of having daily jobs, like "line leader," "door holder," "fish feeder," "calendar person." Alex is starting to be very, very conscious of herself as a big kid (hilariously, she refers to the kids in the two-year-old room, the one she just left, as "babies"), so I think she'll love the extra responsibility.

She's a Yellowbird this year. It was fun to walk into the classroom and see most of the kids wearing yellow clothes for the first day of school. (The Redbirds, who were lined up in the hall when we arrived, had 100% participation... but then, there are a lot more red clothes out there.) Alex wore a bright yellow dress with white polka dots, and practically flew into the classroom. She looked so adorable and happy that I forgave her for wanting to wear a dress I had to iron.

I don't really know her primary teacher that well, but my impression is that she is no-nonsense and loved. We met for a 15-minute conference on Thursday, and two things pleased me: (1) when I told her that Alex never naps, she immediately said, "We'll put her cot in the Manipulatives corner, where she'll be right next to shelves with puzzles and small toys." (2) "If she comes in wearing shoes she can't run or jump in, I'm sending her home. Other teachers say that, but I will do it."

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You know, sometimes I think I'm a good, creative, resourceful parent, and sometimes I am just awestruck by how dumb I am. See, getting out the door in the morning is a constant battle for us. Our normal pattern on school days has been that Alex wakes up, we cuddle or read a bit if there's time, she eats breakfast in her pajamas while watching her one video of the day (while I shower and/or eat breakfast), and then I scramble to get her dressed and sunscreened and shod and out the door, at the last minute. The last bit with the ramped-up pace sometimes works, but more often she goofs off (running away from me, hiding her head so I can't put a shirt over it) or complains (I want to wear something else... I want to find a toy to take to school... I want a home lunch today...) and I wind up losing my patience. Every. School. Day.

So this morning, right after she woke up, I got her dressed. I sunscreened her and put on her sandals before I made her breakfast. She didn't fight me because she was sleepy and wanted orange juice and a video. When she was done with her breakfast, all we had to do was walk out the door. It was totally yell-free.

Easy, right? Obvious solution, right? So how come it took me literally months and months of being a shouty, time-pressured, frustrated, impatient mother in the mornings, before I hit on this idea? Instead I kept fixating on "I need to wake her up earlier," which never works, because (a) it means I have to get up earlier myself, and hello, pregnant, and (b) when I wake her up she is sluggish and needs to be cuddled and read to and so forth before she's up for going downstairs.

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I leave you with a final Alex quote, from yesterday:

"I want to sit next to you on the radiator." She looks up at me confidingly. "Don't you like to have part of the radiator in your buttcrack?"

(For those of you unaccustomed to old-fashioned heating systems, our radiators look like this).

Niblet update.

I'm 17 weeks pregnant today. According to babycenter.com, the Niblet is about the size of a turnip and its cartilage is starting to harden into bone.

Assuming, um, that NBHHY. I had some more spotting over the weekend, on Friday and Saturday - each time, a few drops of bright red blood. I called the midwife, who pretty much said that this is the new normal for me with this pregnancy and that I need to try not to worry about bleeding unless it's a steady flow and/or it's accompanied by rhythmic cramping.

Of course, if I wait to worry until then, it's too late - right? Whereas worrying earlier on, as we all know, is tremendously productive.

I spent Friday night and Saturday feeling doomed. I don't know, I still feel a little doomed even though my rational mind tells me that if I were to start miscarrying at a rate of three drops of blood per day I would make it all the way to my due date and be fine. But I just... yeah. I can't take this stress. And just to twist the knife a little more, I know that prenatal exposure to stress hormones isn't the best thing in the world for the Niblet.

It would really help if either (a) I stopped being able to fit into my prepregnancy jeans, or (b) I felt fetal movement. So far that's a no on either one. I'm starting to have a little bit more of a pregnant shape (beyond the Rack of Doom, I mean), and my belly feels more solid, but I haven't gained any weight and I haven't had to start wearing maternity pants. I thought subsequent pregnancies were supposed to show earlier.

Seventeen weeks is kind of early for quickening, I guess. I remember going in for the anatomical ultrasound about this time in my pregnancy with Alex and being amazed to see all those vigorous flips and rolls that I couldn't feel at all. And with my placenta anterior, it makes even more sense that I can't feel anything. But still. It would be nice of the Niblet to oblige me.

At this point in my pregnancy with Alex I was in severe pain because my round ligaments - the rubber bands that hold up the burgeoning uterus - were attached to scar tissue and pulling at adhesions as my uterus grew. I wondered if there would be a recurrence of that pain, but the physical therapy I had to break up the adhesions seems to have fixed the problem entirely. Instead, I am experiencing normal round ligament pain for the first time. When I move suddenly - especially if I am, say, standing up from a chair and twisting to change position at the same time - I get shooting pains in my lower belly. So even though I'm not showing yet, my uterus is demanding to be treated as an entity that cannot be jerked around. By necessity, I am starting to move more like a pregnant woman.

Anatomical ultrasound is next week. I have a strong sense, based on nothing in particular, that the Niblet will be a boy. Possible names: Colin for a boy, or maybe Brennan; Avery or Anya for a girl. Randolph as the middle name in either case, after my father-in-law. I am steadfastly refusing to think of Randolph Fritz.