Guess who said “Dada” this morning?

Liam also gets very excited when he sees my dad, and starts shouting, “Ba-pa! Ba-pa!”

We spent the night at friends’ house last weekend, and when Liam woke up in the morning, Jessica heard him and brought him down to where the Husbandlet and I were sleeping in the living room. When he saw me, Liam said very distinctly, “Oh, Mommy.”

He’s working on a lot of other words, one of the most distinct of which is “grape.” Since he can eat his weight in them, I think it’s only respectful of him to learn their name.

* * *

Post-miscarriage update: I’m doing OK and better. Physically, the bleeding stopped on Wednesday (a week after I lost the baby), and I also stopped feeling nauseated all the time. That was a huge relief. Now I just have to break Ngaire of the huge TV habit she developed while I was sick …

Emotionally, it still hits me from time to time that the baby is gone, and that’s hard. I did some calculating and realized that the baby must have died just days after we got the positive pregnancy test. Strangely, that has made the situation easier to bear … more inevitable, I guess; less like I had almost made it out of the first trimester only to have my baby die.

* * *

This evening at dinner, Ngaire raced through her meal and suggested to Daddy (several times; he didn’t seem to be getting it) that perhaps they could Go Swimming Now. The Husbandlet told her they would go when he was all done eating. Then he and I went back to chatting while he finished his meal. I don’t think we even noticed when all his food was gone, but Ngaire very emphatically pushed herself into a semi-standing position in her high chair, examined his plate and bowl, and announced, “Daddy, you are All Done.”

I haven’t been blogging much of late because I had some news burning a hole in my pocket (to mutilate a metaphor) … and then the nature of this news changed, making last week a rather difficult one. Last Sunday morning, we were finally able to announce to the Husbandlet’s parents that I was pregnant. Then we told our church, and after that I started mentally composing a giddy announcement blog.

Unfortunately, in a twist of irony worthy of some famous ironic writer, on Sunday afternoon, I started to bleed.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday and had an ultrasound, and even though I was almost ten weeks along, the baby seems to have died at about week seven. I decided not to opt for an immediate D&C, and on Wednesday, I experienced the actual miscarriage at home, which was a lot less horrifying than I had feared (though in no way pleasant, of course). Physically, Thursday was probably the worst, as my body underwent a hormone rush or something that left me dizzy and nauseated all day.

Emotionally … meh. I’m OK. The Husbandlet was gone all week doing field work at a lab on the Eastern Shore. My initial bleeding was so light that we weren’t sure I was miscarrying, so he went ahead and left on Monday morning as planned, and by the time it was clear what was happening, I told him to stay put, finish up his work, hurry home, and not leave again for awhile. I figured I could soldier on till Friday, and he certainly gave plenty of moral support from a distance. We’ve been catching up on hugs ever since his return.

In retrospect, there were some warning signs about this pregnancy … I took three pregnancy tests after I missed my period, but only the third one (at 6 weeks 2 days) was positive. I didn’t experience very many symptoms of pregnancy … just occasional mild nausea, nowhere near as intense as in my other pregnancies. I guess the hormones weren’t rushing as they ought. Of course, that doesn’t make the miscarriage easy … just inevitable, and so not guilt-inducing.

I’ve been doing my share of crying, especially when I see my keepsake ultrasound photo or the positive pregnancy test I had been saving, but I’m not hysterical … I flipflop between unhappiness at losing this particular baby, and a rather clinical understanding that if the baby was not viable, I’d rather lose it now than later in pregnancy or (God forbid) at birth. Indeed, I have found myself apologizing to a number of people who have called to comfort me because I feel like I’m sounding rather stoical about the whole thing. I’m not, I’m really not, but after the initial panic and distress when I first started bleeding, my unhappiness has been mixed with peace.

The truth of the matter is that we trust God. While I haven’t completely solidified my thoughts and feelings on my loss, I am finding that it is possible to grieve authentically without trying to assign blame. We consecrate our children to God from the moment we know about their conception, and so we trust that God has done and is doing what is best for this baby. So, yes: sad. But definitely not in despair, definitely not angry or questioning … though I know God would be patient with us if we were. It’s nice to be able to skip that step, though, and experience our grief mingled with the love and faithfulness God has shown us all our lives.

Even at seven weeks gestation, the baby was so complete … little hands and feet and forehead and chin. It looked like one of our babies, and that’s what I’ve cried over the most. I wish I could know if it was a boy or a girl.

Yesterday morning:

Me: “Look, Liam’s making the ‘All done’ sign!”
Ngaire: “I’m all done! I’m all done!”
Me: “Ngaire, just two more bites of oatmeal left. Finish those and you can be all done.”
Ngaire: “All done!”
Me: “Eat your two bites of oatmeal, and you can have two cranberries!”
Ngaire: “Three cranberries.”

Ngaire’s third birthday post is coming up, just as soon as I write it.

I’d say it was the curse of the second child that has doomed Liam to getting his birthday post written eight days after the fact, but I’m afraid that, instead, the curse of the flaky mommy is to blame.

We celebrated Liam’s birthday at Kim’s house, where, much to his bewilderment, Liam was taken outside and strapped into a high chair and a video camera was pointed in his face. Then he got chocolate cake, and everything was OK. He also got to lick the chocolate frosting off the decorative train, which may have given him a taste for trains which may confuse him in the future. Most gratifyingly, he covered himself with chocolate and tried to eat the plate when the cake was gone.

He is imitating language more and more. He waves bye-bye and says, “Ba-ba!” He shakes his hands in his version of the “all done” sign and has said something that sounded an awful lot like, “All done.” I was reading him a book about an elephant and a mouse and making elephant and mouse noises, and he made those noises too. He said “p*enis” one time when I was changing his diaper (what can I say; he’s a boy). (Also, what does it mean that he said “p*enis” before “Daddy,” Dr. Freud?) He is in love with cats, and something clicked for him when we were reading Barnyard Dance awhile ago and he saw the illustration of the cat being spun by the barnyard dog. He went rigid with alertness, then started pointing excitedly at the cat and saying, “Bee!” Then he leaned forward and gave the cat kisses and smiled.

He is mischievous without being malicious. The other day, he kept throwing his bottle on the floor. I picked it up yet again and put it on his tray. Keeping his eyes on me, he carefully picked the bottle up and set it next to him on his seat. Then he pushed on the nipple until the bottle fell over, nipple-end toward his feet. Then he prodded the bottom of the bottle until it shot out the seat, under his tray, onto the floor. Sneaky much?

He has taken a step here and there, but yesterday, his daddy and Uncle Daniel sat on the floor and had him walk back and forth between them. Then Mommy took over for Uncle Daniel, and Liam walked some more, in a rather flailing manner; but walking was definitely occurring.

He is playful, happy, independent, cuddly, and fearless. He’s really the poster child for babyness and, I suppose, cusp-of-toddlerness. I think if I could be assured that every other baby I had would be like him, I would have six or eight. On the other hand, if I had six or eight Liams, I would go prematurely gray watching them scale any available furniture, walls, cliffs, etc.

Liam polished off a bottle of watered-down kefir after steadfastly refusing cow’s milk for days on end.

Later, he had Horrible Diaper-Escaping Diarrhea of Great Disgustingness. Connection? I gave him some more kefir this morning, but this and the behavior of his excretory system since I started him on yogurt and cheese is giving me pause.

Also yesterday, Liam had his first major haircut involving the buzzing clipper thingies. He went from interested (twisting from side to side to get a look) to distraught (shrieking) to resigned (back to twisting, but less avidly). He looks like such a little boy now. His big boy 9-12 month clothing is getting a bit short for him, so I’m getting out the even bigger boy 12-18 month clothes today.

Ngaire got her “hair bangs” trimmed yesterday as well, calm but for a few wiggles and giggles. She kept asking for her lollipop, which had me confused until I remembered that we had given her one after her last haircut to keep her calm. Girl has a long memory. Alas, we had no lollipops, so she had to be contented with cheesecake with blueberries and whipped cream. I’m afraid we have hearby raised the bar.

* * *

Ngaire just came up to me and said, “May I have a hug and a snuggle and a huggle?”

* * *

My housekeeping and/or mothering just hit a new low: I was sweeping the kitchen. Liam crawled into my dust pile, reached down, grabbed something and put it in his mouth. My reaction? Well, most of what’s in there is his food anyway.

Speaking of housekeeping, this has been the Week of Laundry. Granted, we have a tiny washing machine and dryer, but one or two loads a day seems rather ridiculous. Where is it all coming from? Also, why are there so many sheets in there? Did I suddenly decide not only to wash every sheet in our house but to volunteer to do the neighbors’?

I hate folding sheets. I can never get the edges totally lined up, and that drives me crazy. Don’t even get me started on fitted sheets.

Coming soon: How my kids are addicted to Saltines. And if you need any sheets washed, do let me know.