There's Someone I'd Like You To Meet

Claire Annalise
9:22 a.m.
8 lb. 10 oz.
21 inches of pink pudgy perfection



Everything went great, more later I promise.

It's Actually On My Outlook Calendar

Tomorrow morning, at or around 9 a.m., I will meet my baby girl. Our bags are packed, my mom is here. The co-sleeper is set up in our bedroom and the new changing table is stocked with teeny tiny diapers. The nursery cheerfully awaits its baby with a closet filled with clothes organized by size, color, and type.

All four of my grandparents, an aunt, my sister, brother, dad, and mom will all be here at various points in the next few days to meet the newest member of our family. Landon is so excited about his baby sister. He calls her by name and told his daycare teacher this morning that "today is the last day I'll be all alone." She said she was confused at first and asked him if he was saying that because he was going to be a big brother tomorrow. He nodded with a grin and said yes, "tomorrow our baby is coming to be with us." I have no idea where he got the wording about being alone, as we've certainly never phrased it that way, but I know that I can't wait to see them together, even if I teared up a little while tucking him in bed tonight. Our last night as a family of three. I won't be here when he wakes up in the morning and my three nights in the hospital will be the longest I've ever been away from him. But he'll have his Papa and Gigi to go to the park and take long walks with, so I know he'll be just fine. Plus he'll be coming to visit us at the hospital in his super special big brother t-shirt.

Tomorrow I will not be pregnant anymore. Tomorrow I will hold my daughter. It's completely surreal, but I can't wait!

Silver Lake

So it's June and I'm still pregnant. I'm at peace with this fact solely because I know that I will hold my daughter in my arms on Friday and I will NOT be pregnant anymore. I know this last month of pregnancy has been infinitely beneficial to my baby, and I'm so thankful that she's stuck around for it, but I am very, very done with the 40 lb. medicine ball sticking out from my abdomen.

I mentioned earlier that we have booked our first family vacation for this summer. I spent two weeks of chickening out over the "purchase" button on southwest.com, but we now have three (horribly expensive) tickets to Minneapolis in August. I'm taking my (two!) children to one of my favorite places on Earth- Silver Lake in Siren, Wisconsin. We have to leave Austin at the crack of dawn, endure a 2-hour layover in Denver, take a second flight to Minneapolis, pick up a rental car, and then drive 2 hours to Siren (and then do it all again backwards on the way home), but it will be worth it.

My grandpa was the 8th of 8 children and grew up on a farm in the teeny town of Siren (now with a booming population of 988). Next to the farm was a lake, Silver Lake, and after his dad died and his mom sold the farm, the family kept their little lot on the lake. As the years passed, my grandpa, now an officer in the Air Force, bought out each of his siblings, promising to take care of the property and its taxes while still keeping it open for their use whenever they wanted. Most of those siblings still live in and around Siren.

For as far back as I can remember, every other summer my family and I would pile into our Ford van and drive for 3 days to visit Silver Lake. My dad would pull over when we were a couple of miles away so we could put on our swim suits in order to race out of the van and jump in the water as soon as we arrived. The land wasn't developed, so my grandparents spent the summer living out of their camping trailer and we pulled our little camper right up alongside theirs. We loved it.

We woke up to this view each morning,

and went to sleep each night with the cozy knowledge that all five of us were under the same tiny roof. We spent our days swimming, fishing, and "going to town"- an adventure that usually involved a stop at the laundromat to wash our clothes (which my sister and I loved, we actually protested the addition of a washer and dryer when my grandparents built a cabin on the property a few years ago), a trip to the Main Street Cafe for lunch, and perhaps a stop at the Fudge Shop. Siren is a magical place in my memory, and even though it now boasts not one, but TWO hotels, additional restaurants, and a coffee shop with wireless internet, it remains a place that takes me back to a simpler time.

My grandparents still drive up to Silver Lake from their retirement community in San Antonio. About five years ago they built a beautiful 2-bedroom cabin (decorated almost entirely in Swedish yellow and blue, of course) on the property and they spend a few months there each summer. They're getting older, as grandparents are unfortunately prone to do, and their stints up in Siren are getting shorter. For that reason, and because of some deep emotional urge I can't rationally explain, it became incredibly important for me to travel to Silver Lake this summer. While my family has been blessed by my grandparents' decision to create a trust out of the lake property so that we will be able to enjoy it for years to come, I wanted to have at least one more trip with the cabin as their place. Plus, my maternity leave made this the perfect time for a trip.

My last trip to Silver lake was when we randomly decided to drive over from Chicago with a 7-week-old Landon. My grandparents got to meet their first great-grandchild, JP got to swim across the lake for exercise (not to diminish his swimming prowess, which is considerable, but it's a little lake; I did the same swim when I was in middle school),

and I got to enjoy some family time with two of my favorite people.

I am so excited for our trip this summer. We've saved up our money in a separate "vacation fund" savings account, and while the part of me who keeps a constant, unhappy eye on our student debt knows we should probably funnel it that way, the rest of me knows it will be money well spent. Our first family vacation. Landon will be old enough to enjoy the sandy bottomed beach, the little minnows that swim around the dock, and the "Queen Mary" pontoon boat (named for my grandmother). My grandparents will be able to spend time with their second great-grandchild. JP will be able to swim and comb antique stores for old stuff we don't need. And I will be able to watch Landon enjoy a place that I love so very much. I can't wait.

Defying Gravity

It continues to amaze me that my belly can hold itself up without outside support (or stretch marks!). I know pregnancy is like the epitome of a natural process, but it is so bizarre to see something sticking as far out from my abdomen as my belly currently does.

5 more days!

A Different Breed of Baby

This is my sister's new baby, Louie:

She just adopted him from SNIPSA, the same wonderful organization that rescued both of our dogs and my parents' two dogs. I think our family is SNIPSA royalty by now.

Landon was SO excited to meet the "baby doggie." When I told him that Tia was adopting a puppy he told me over and over that he was going to be SO GENTLE and give him soft pets and hold him "just like this mommy, JUST LIKE THIS!" (cradling an imaginary baby in his hands). We even stopped at Target after dinner tonight to pick out a few toys for the little guy.

Landon followed Louie around trying to interest him in the fluffy blue toy we bought him, but Louie was far more interested in Lilly the cat, the general smells of our house, and Landon himself. Maybe he felt the mini-human was just less intimidating, but he seemed very taken with the Lanman. And Landon was very gentle and sweet with him. He's such an animal lover. Lilly seemed pleased that we'd brought her a physically inferior underling. I think it drives her crazy to know that she's ten times smarter than our dogs, but they're so much bigger than her, she can't properly assert her superiority.

As for me, I'm still pregnant. It was nearly 100 degrees today and I wavered in my commitment to remain content in my hugeness until Friday. I got winded and sweaty walking to the mailbox and I started thinking that maybe going into labor a few days early wouldn't be such a bad thing... but here I am, trying to keep my laptop from falling off my non-existent lap. But I can take some comfort in knowing that this is my last pregnant Saturday- it's all one big countdown now!

Idle Musings: Family Planning

Still here, still gestating, and remarkably okay with the status quo. At this point we're so close to having my mom here and having everything go down in a nice, planned manner that I'm completely at peace with staying enormously pregnant until next Friday. It's only 7 days. In fact, exactly one week from today I should be holding my baby girl! Even I can wait that long.

It is remarkable to think that at this point in my pregnancy with Landon I had a 3 week old baby at home. I still tend to think of our daughter in fetal terms, but then I look at a picture of Landon sleeping in his papasan chair at 21 days old and think wow, that's our baby girl right now, except she's all squished inside my belly alongside the frosted cookies. Amazing.

Last night JP randomly turned to me and said he wished we were having twins. My look must have reflected something like, "have you lost your mind?!" because he immediately explained, saying that then we would be done and wouldn't have to wonder if we were having any more children. I hadn't realized he was spending so much time thinking about our future family planning, but I guess I have too. It's nothing I'm obsessing over, but I do find myself wondering if I'll be doing this again. Will I get these maternity clothes back out of the guest closet for my own use? Will a little boy of mine wear Landon's old clothes? Will I get to use my baby boy name? Will I decorate another nursery or will my next project be turning it into a guest room? Little thoughts.

It's such a big thing -- 2 v. 3 children. It's a 50% increase. So it seems a little odd to me that we're so uncertain as to our plans, and yet, how can you know? We have yet to experience life with two. Maybe we'll find a feeling of completeness? Or maybe it will be more of an awareness that we've reached our limit as to the number of children we can effectively parent. In a purely theoretical sense I would like to have three. Well, actually I would like four. I grew up as one of three, and JP was an only child- when we got married we both of us agreed we wanted as large a family as possible. And maybe that's two. I'd be done with pregnancy. I could get back to my normal weight and just stay there. I could permanently pack/give away the maternity and baby stuff as we get through each new stage with our baby girl. We could start talking about some of those vacations I want to take when our youngest is out of the baby/toddler years. I think about daycare for a third child for five years- an extra $60,000. More than any of that I think about managing the schedules of three active kids with two working adults and wonder if we could give enough of ourselves to three.

And then I wonder how people know. My mom said that when my sister was born (baby #2) she knew she wasn't done, and when my brother was born, she knew she was. I know other families who knew they were done at two, had a surprise third baby, and found their family complete in a way that it wasn't before. I figure it's something we'll keep in the back of our minds for a while and revisit in a year of so. But if we're done, I kind of wish I knew that now. Maybe I could enjoy these last few days of pregnancy a little more? Maybe I could find a little extra appreciation of our little girl's newborn newness? Perhaps the fact that I don't know means that we're not done. I think I might be a little sad if we decide in a year that we're complete as a family of four and I need to go back and give a belated goodbye to the baby things I'd been saving just in case.

What about you? If you're done expanding your family, did you know that by the time your last one was born? Or was it something you decided or realized later?

On another note entirely, what do you think of the new blog look? I've wanted to change it for months but these things intimidate me. I think I like it - it's brighter and more cheerful than the old look, but I'm still fiddling (at least to the extent that I can fiddle, I really don't know a thing about html, coding, etc.).

And in closing, 7 more days!

Still Pregnant

Well JP's chosen day has come and gone. He thought I'd go into labor on Tuesday but here we are on Wednesday morning and our baby girl still seems quite content to stay in her increasingly tight quarters. We're at 37 weeks and 5 days and I'm starting to get worried that we did too good of a job convincing her of the coziness and general awesomeness of the womb. But every additional day brings benefits and extra fat rolls (to the baby and me) and I shouldn't complain much since I'm really feeling just fine.

I've compiled the guesses from the last post into a little list (updated):

- May 27th, after 3 pm (Chrisy in Chicago)
- May 28 (Meegs)
- May 30 (Kelly)
- May 31 (Gillian, LT)
- June 1 (Liv, Lisa M, jwg)
- June 3 (Jen)
- June 4 (Procrastamom, MJS, JLS)

My guess, for what it's worth, is May 29th. I don't really think I have any additional insight into what my body and baby are planning than anyone else (seriously, Landon's early arrival was a total shock to me), it just seems poetic that my daughter would arrive on the very day my best friend is getting married in Houston. I'm supposed to be a bridesmaid in that wedding and I remain devastated to be missing it- not only because she and I are so close, but also because her family knows how to throw one hell of a party.

As far as names, Hanah guessed Anabelle, Kira, Veronica, Kendall, and Stella, Kelly guessed Adrienne, and Anonymous on the Graduated! post guessed Avery. I had a dream last night that I was surprised with quadruplets and I was absolutely panicked about naming three other babies. Note that I wasn't at all concerned about caring for three additional children, I was just upset that I couldn't name them. Even after I woke up I continued trying to think of extra names.

(a windy shot before JP's graduation dinner)

Meanwhile my belly continues to defy gravity, physics, and the length of my maternity shirts. I'm reconciled to waiting until June 4th- it's only 9 days away, but as fewer of my clothes fit and it gets increasingly hard to sleep, I wouldn't mind at all if she debuted sooner.

The Rest of the Weekend

Cliff's Notes version: JP is graduated. My in-laws are back in Maryland. I am still pregnant.

On Saturday I spent the morning lying around the house recovering from the physical exertion of the night before. My in-laws came over for an hour or so to see Landon while JP and I ran out to get some lunch. They left at Landon's nap time and I spend a few more hours lazing about the house wondering what on earth I was going to do with myself if this baby waits until June 4th to be born.

We all got back together at 5:00 for a fancy graduation dinner at Shoreline Grill. My sister, her boyfriend, and a few of JP's MBA classmates (our Indians, as we fondly call them) were able to celebrate with us since their families couldn't travel to Austin for the festivities. It was a lovely dinner and Landon was very good at the fancy restaurant even if he didn't eat a single thing. After dinner everyone gathered back at our house to eat the delicious cake that Landon and I baked the day before and to play washers in the backyard. Eating and beating people at games are JP's two favorite things in the world besides swimming, so I'd say his graduation celebration was a big success.

(Please excuse the pastel orange icing. We didn't have enough food coloring for burnt orange and I had exhausted all my creative juices after coming up with the idea to stick some of the homemade cream cheese icing into a ziploc bag to pipe out a message on top.)

On Sunday I had a massage (possibly/hopefully my last prenatal one) and then after some more lazing about the house, we decided to take Landon to the pool.

It is a testament to how much I love my child, and perhaps to how seriously bored I am at home, that I put on a swim suit at 37.5 weeks pregnant and wore it in a crowded public place. My maternity suit is black with a white stripe and I felt like a giant orca in a sea of slimmer, sexier dolphins. But the water felt nice.

At first Landon wasn't so sure about the big pool (the baby pool was closed for reasons I don't want to know about). He never went in it last summer, though we didn't really try to acclimate him. JP was doing so much coaching that the last thing he wanted to do after an 8-hour saturday swim meet was go back to the same pool with us, and it was so horrifically hot outside that not even the pool sounded as refreshing as staying indoors wearing as little clothes as possible with the AC on. But Landon was very excited about his shark swimwear and so strangely confident in his ability to swim ("Mommy let me go, I want to SWIM!") that he quickly became fearless.

He starts swim lessons in June, so hopefully we can keep him safe from his overestimation of his abilities until them.

The outing was a great way to waste away the afternoon and cap off the weekend. Now I'm back at work, having lots of irritatingly unproductive Braxton-Hicks contractions, and feeling very ready for this baby to be born. For whatever reason, JP has decided that tomorrow is the big day- if you would like to record your own prediction as to the day, name, or anything else, please do! It'll be fun to see if anyone gets it right.

Graduated!

Yay Daddy!

JP graduated! I'd like to be able to say that I was overwhelmed with pride and happiness as he walked across the stage, but in truth I was exhausted and distracted after 3 hours of being 37-weeks pregnant and keeping a nearly 3-year-old entertained, in his seat, and, by the bitter end (45 mins after his bedtime), just anything that was not yelling.

It was a loooong day. It started at work with a firm-wide meeting at 8:30 a.m., went home early as I made JP a graduation cake from scratch (Landon was sous chef and darn proud of it), continued with an early graduation dinner at Moonshine, and ended, slowly, with 3.5 hours at Gregory Gym for the graduation ceremony. Poor Landon. He started out so good, and he so excited about his daddy's grabadation, but it was just too long.

My in-laws are not particularly hands-on, so I did 100% of the chasing Landon up the aisle, walking him out to the breezeway for a break, and picking him up over and over again. My back is killing me and I have elephantitis of the ankles. But I did NOT go into labor, I am officially full-term, and JP has his MBA, so really things are fantastic. And even if I couldn't savor the moment at the actual graduation, I am incredibly proud of my husband -- proud of us both really, for supporting each other physically, emotionally, and financially through two graduate programs.

But I'm still really glad that our next graduation will be Landon's high school ceremony and that's a good 16 years away.

Transitions and Maternity Leave

16 days to go. I am an official graduate of Texas Perinatal Group pre-term labor prevention program. I wanted a certificate I could frame in my office, but all my nurse practitioner could get me was a signed picture of the Marine One Helicopter outside the White House. Her husband flew it during the Clinton administration and I had mentioned in a previous appointment that Landon was obsessed with "hepatopters". The picture was propped up by his bed last night and he carefully carried it down to breakfast with him this morning. I suppose that's better than a certificate. I will miss my NP. Not so much with the weekly appointments, and definitely not the weekly shots, but I will miss talking to her. She was a wonderful complement to my OB and I've felt very well cared for throughout this pregnancy.

And speaking of my pregnancy, I'm having stronger and more frequent Braxton-Hicks contractions, particularly at night. One actually woke me up at 3:00 this morning and I swore I was going into labor (I think I was simultaneously dreaming that my water had broken, but it had not). I'm a little more dilated- my first change since that appointment at 32 weeks. I've politely asked my baby girl to stay inside my belly through Friday which is both 37-weeks, full-term, and JP's MBA graduation. I think she will cooperate.

Work is strange right now because I feel like I could disappear at any moment. I clean up my desk each evening and try to leave my assignments in a good place for someone else to pick up. I've been relatively slow since my giant case settled back in February, which has probably been great for my prenatal health, but it has been annoying to me professionally. I like being busy and I like having big chunks or roles in cases. Instead I've been on the periphery of several matters, getting lots of varied experience in drafting smaller motions and doing discrete research assignments. There's positives to that, and I've learned a lot, but I look forward to coming back after maternity leave to a section that is hopefully busier and getting staffed on a case I can sink my teeth into.

And speaking of coming back, I am blazing an odd new trail of being the first woman in my section in three years to come back after only the 3-months paid leave. We get 12-weeks paid, up to 12-weeks more unpaid, and then 3 months of optional phasing in where you spend a month at 50, 60, and then 70% (and are paid at 60% throughout that 3-month period). My section has had a baby boom and pretty much every eligible female is either pregnant, on maternity leave, or recently returned from maternity leave and all have done the full 9-month option. I plan to take my 12 weeks and come back full-time, something every associate has tried to talk me out of. It's gotten to the point where I'm almost defensive about it- I feel like I did when everyone told me how they cried and cried when they dropped their baby off at daycare for the first time but then I dropped of Landon with a big smile on my face (and then picked him up at the end of the day with an even bigger smile). Like maybe my lack of tears means I'm a terrible mother, but damnit why should I feel guilty for not being sad when I know that he's perfectly fine and on that day I felt happier and more like myself than I had in all eight weeks I was home with him?

So maternity leave. Twelve weeks of paid leave- more than I got with Landon and more paid leave than any US employer is required to give (since that requirement is ZERO). I'm looking forward to it. I have another 2 weeks of vacation in reserve that I can tack on if desired, so that's nice too. The reasons I'm not taking the unpaid leave are because (1) it's UNPAID and we don't know JP's job situation and we simply cannot responsibly go without any income for any period of time (well we could, we have an emergency fund, but using it would require an emergency), and (2) our neighborhood daycare, which we adore and which our baby girl has a guaranteed spot at the start of the school year, begins on August 23rd. If we don't enroll her and start paying the $1,100/month on that date, we lose the spot until the following year. August 23rd happens to coincide perfectly with my 12 weeks of leave, and even gives me a transitional week or two to still be home but have the option of taking her to daycare for short days. So not only would my additional 12 weeks be unpaid, we would be paying $2,100/month for daycare during that time... that time while I'm not being paid.

Secret reason number 3 is that I don't want those extra 12 weeks at home. Even if it was an option- if I was sitting on a stockpile of cash and we didn't have huge student loan payments and daycare didn't cost more than our mortgage, the idea of the first twelve weeks makes me nervous enough. I enjoyed my time with infant Landon, but I wasn't nearly as happy as I was once law school started up again. JP even commented on my second day back that I was singing while making dinner- he said he couldn't remember the last time I did that. I have no doubt that two kids will be harder, and that our schedule will need some adjusting, but overall this working thing works and I don't feel any need to dig ourselves into a huge financial hole for 12 more weeks at home.

I'm really excited about this summer. JP will be home for at least part of it, our baby girl will be home, Landon will stay in "daycay" but we'll be able to get him early each day and go on walks, go to the pool, etc. We have visitors lined up and our first official family vacation booked. I think it's going to be great. And then I'll go back to work, and that will be great too.