December

• Hospital Records

  Yesterday, I went and picked up my medical records from Thora’s birth. I was really nervous to read through them, but happily, there really weren’t any surprises. The official post-operative diagnosis was “fetal intolerance of labor” and “fetal malposition with asynclitic position,” and I was diagnosed with atypical HELLP syndrome. In short, I appear to grow crooked babies who panic during labor. And my placenta tries to kill me.

  I still want to go over my lab work with my mom (an L&D nurse) to better understand what all the numbers mean, but for the most part nothing stood out as being “not how I remembered it” or anything. One operative note mentioned “adhesions noted to the uterus,” which I assume is scar tissue from the first surgery? I’ll have to ask about that too I guess.

  There weren’t any tears involved in reading through the notes; I think mainly because nothing came as a surprise to me. I knew why we transferred, and even though I hated to do it, I knew that it was a legitimate reason to transfer. The midwives’ notes from my labor are all very positive and show that I was handling everything well and I feel a little more at peace with everything now that I’ve read through all the notes.

• Thora

  Thora continues to be a delight. At seven months old, she doesn’t fall asleep by herself anymore, and wakes up at 2am to nurse (it used to be 5am) and nurses every two hours thereafter, but if those are my only complaints I HAVE IT SO GOOD. Rocking her to sleep is a small price to pay for a baby who actually sleeps long stretches at night.

  She’s got a super-quick army crawl and is already working on pulling up to stand on things like laundry baskets and the couch and our footstool. She is so much more active than Wesley was at this age. Keeps me on my toes.

  We’ve introduced solid foods, but like Wesley, she’s not super interested in actually eating anything for real yet. (Except paper she finds on the floor. She will happily eat any and all paper garbage.) I’m completely fine with her intake; it’s way easier to just nurse a baby than try to figure out what and how much solid food to feed them. She hates bottles and I had FIVE OUNCES of pumped milk go to waste recently because I couldn’t get her to drink it after it was thawed. Argh!

  I started calling her “Beebee” a while back (like “baby” but with more Es) and that devolved into calling her “Beebz” and “Beeberton.” I make no excuses. Nicknames are dumb and hilarious.

• Wesley

  He loves preschool and asks me if he can go three days a week instead of just two. (Would if I could, but his class only meets 2x/week.) I love hearing him talk about what he learns at preschool. This past week, he made a walrus out of a paper lunchbag and it was so funny to hear him explain stuff about his “rahl-wuss” to me.

  He is finally mostly over his bad behavior phase; he doesn’t throw things at me in anger anymore and only has occasional tantrums. I knew it was just a phase, but man, that was a rough couple of months.

  He’s pretty conscientious of not leaving stuff on the floor for Thora to grab/eat/choke on, and we’re currently working on making sure that if he has something he doesn’t want wrecked (like a train track or block tower) it needs to be in his room because if it’s in the living room, she’ll Godzilla it immediately. He’s a great big brother and really likes her company.

• Secret Quonsar!

  My third year participating in Metafilter’s annual SQ gift exchange was the best yet. My recipient gave me a lot of info to go on which was very helpful. I ended up getting her a Jane Austen-related book from her wishlist, plus a Graze box, two chocolate bars, some paper clips shaped like bunnies (she said she liked office supplies!), and a Tattly tattoo of a rainbow riding a skateboard.

  The gifts I received were amazing. Trader Joe’s chocolate caramels (two different kinds!), a little birdie letter opener, a letterpress postcard from San Diego, the gift-giver’s favorite book (The Secret History by Donna Tartt), and a cute little notebook with feathers on it that was personalized with my name. I actually didn’t even notice my name at first, and when I saw it a few days later I was like OMGGGGG because I never get to have stuff with my name on it and it made that gift so much more special. Thank you, SQ!

• Christmas

  I’m pretty ready for Christmas, actually! I got most of my shopping done before the end of November, and I even managed to get some family photos of us so our Christmas cards are all ready to be stamped and mailed.

  Family photo:

  

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