Inhospitable

Six months plus

Well, whaddya know. An update from Kat. Kath. Whatever her name was. We’d thought she’d maybe had a freak hand-scalding accident while mixing formula, or slipped on a dropped dirty diaper and suffered a complicated concussion involving blog amnesia or something. Because there had to be a pretty good reason why she’s been neglecting us for so damn long. Right? Right, Kath? Huh?

Hi. *Waving feebly, pursing my lips to whistle nonchalantly, remembering too late that I can’t whistle to save my life; settling for a sheepish grin instead* Why, hello there, and welcome back to this sadly neglected corner of blogland.

Let me see. In the eons since last you heard from me, I have done nothing earth-shaking, I am sad to report. I have merely been very busy with my Banana and with work, which I stupidly resumed at the beginning of February. That was not one of my more brilliant ideas, seeing as it involved no child care arrangements whatever. I worked, in other words, whenever Banana slept during the day, and then until the wee hours of the morning. A typical night saw me staggering into bed at 2:15 a.m., only to be awakened 15 minutes later by a sleep-regressed infant insisting loudly on her first night feeding. (Her second usually came three hours later.) So yeah. I won’t bore you with the details – or perhaps I will, at a later date – but I kept that up for about six weeks and then called my sort-of boss and told him that I’d recently rethought my sleep-ha-who-needs-it position and wanted to reduce my workload drastically. And that is what I have done. I feel guilty about it, but have come to realize that I’d rather feel guilty than overwhelmed.

I just had to interrupt briefly to go un-jam Banana, who has taken to sleeping across her bed. Unfortunately, she is now longer than her mattress is wide, so her favored position usually involves a certain amount of discomfort, inevitably leading to loud protest. The protest is a lot whinier today, because she has a terrible cold, complete with a cough and fever. Poor little thing. I should have seen that coming when her two-and-a-half-year-old cousin repeatedly stuck her finger in Banana’s mouth last Friday. (Banana loved it, of course. Fingers are her snack of choice, and if they come with a liberal sprinkling of tasty day-care germs, so much the better.) Anyway, I do hope Banana is better tomorrow. I have taken her into bed with me (on the pull-out sofa in my office) for the past two nights and have not slept too well, what with all her spluttering and whining and coughing and snotting and burning up and straining to poo out her fever suppository and turning every which way. I know it’s a tired old cliché, but it really breaks my heart to see my baby suffering. We’re due for her six-month checkup tomorrow morning, so maybe the good doctor can help.

Yes, six months. It’s been half a year since Banana was born, and I still can’t quite believe it. On the one hand she herself is ample proof of the passing of time – she has become such a big girl, and it’s amazing the things she has learned – but on the other it seems like only last month I was looking down in wonder at that little newborn sleeping in her hospital bassinet. Time seems to have acquired a strange warp; my pregnancy, too, once so interminable, seems to have compacted in hindsight, with the months between January and September last year a dizzy blur.

In the past month, Banana has made huge strides forward. After taking her sweet time to turn, she finally was successful in getting from her back to her belly when she was two days shy of five months old, and then in getting from her belly to her side or back ten days later. That very day – February 29, no less – was the day she was first able to sit unassisted for several minutes. She is now busy on her next project: locomotion of some kind. So far she’s only managing to slide backwards, but often now she can be found pushed up on her arms and knees, extending her bottom into the air again and again like the star in some baby fitness video (“Bend It Like Banana,” perhaps?) Her body control is getting better in other ways, too. She can now signal clearly what she wants to do and where she wants to go. If she’s on my arm, for example, she will often become a veritable arrow of intention, pointing me forwards or trying to dive down to an interesting toy, and it’s all I can do to hold her. Her strength is increasing by leaps and bounds. She’s loved standing on my lap now for three months, but now she tries to bounce up and down rhythmically while doing so, which looks absolutely hilarious and always makes me break out in chants of “Disco Baby”. When she wants to nurse, she doesn’t cry but instead fixes my chest with her stare. She makes a similarly determined face when she is examining me, especially when she tries to remove the moles from my neck and chest with a pincer grip or with a swipe of her claws (ouch). Her feet have become her favorite playthings. She prefers them naked and will go to great lengths to take her socks off, either by rubbing them off or by pulling, a skill she has only recently discovered and has been practicing like mad.

Speaking of time warps, it is now three days later, Banana is still ill, and I just sent off a project at one in the morning. But since I need some wind-down time and am truly determined now to get this blog post up sometime soon, I will see how much further I get now. Those of you with a child (or two, or three), and a job (or two, or three): How on earth do you manage this blogging business? How do you compose brilliant posts on a regular basis, much less every day? Yes, Helen, I'm taking to you. I’m in awe, truly I am.

But anyway. Where was I? Oh yes: I was boring you with tales of my kid.

Banana is still a very happy and easygoing kid. M’s favorite thing is when he comes into her room (which is also his office) in the morning and she greets him with crazed exuberance, grinning and squealing and somehow managing to jump up and down in a lying position. Even now, she will smile at me in the midst of a coughing fit, and yesterday she lay in her play yard giggling at me for no discernible reason other than perhaps having succeeded in divesting herself of her pants. She will often amuse herself for ages just sitting there looking at a toy, turning it this way and that, putting it into her mouth and testing gravity on it. (So far, she reports, gravity seems to be working pretty consistently.)

As for feeding, I am still nursing and supplementing, though my pumping frequency has gone down for practical reasons. My hopes of ever being able to breastfeed exclusively were buried a few months ago, and largely I am fine with that now, but when she got so ill a few days ago I had a brief relapse into Mommy Guilt. It took a call to my sister, formerly exclusively breastfeeding mother of three, to knock some sense back into me. (“What, and you think breastfed babies don’t get sick?? Let me tell you something...”) Anyway. Nursing can a bit frustrating these days (and I’m not even talking about the difficulties a stuffed-up nose causes), because Banana uses me as a jungle gym, pushing off, arching her back, throwing her head this way and that to see what’s going on elsewhere. Only in the early-morning hours am I guaranteed a good, calm nursing session. But enough about that – I wanted to tell you that we’ve started her on solids, too:

So far it’s been carrots, apples, pears, pumpkin, rice cereal, potatoes, and jam. (That last one was courtesy of my mother, who “just wanted to see how she reacts.” My mother is not a big believer in these crazy-ass modern notions of being careful about starting foods. What she believes in instead and advocates often: “I would let her scream at night. Look at her. She’s not going to starve.”  and “You know what I would do? I would just wean her.” And yet she lives!)

Two weeks ago Banana and I traveled to England for the Easter weekend. It was our second trip alone without M, and Banana’s seventh and eighth flights. She is a very good traveler – she even took it well when they had our fully boarded flight wait on the tarmac for more than two hours while they fixed a water leak. As it was a full flight, she was on my lap the whole time, and never cried once. That’s not to say the experience was easy; traveling alone with a baby is sometimes amazingly stressful, particularly the security procedures. But we did it, and once in England were whisked away to our seaside apartment, where we spent the first two full days of the long weekend with my mother and some good friends of the family’s. It seems we lucked out with the weather: the southwestern corner of England was the only region in the country with lovely sunshine. Anyway, on Easter Sunday we took the train to London, where I had a long-awaited chance to visit with Thalia and little Pob. It was great to see Thalia looking so beautiful and happy. This was our third meeting in two years, and another reminder of how far we’ve come. The first time we were in the thick of trying, loss and frustration; the second, we were both seven months pregnant; and here, we were laughing as our little six-month-old almost-twins faced each other on their bellies on the floor, taking deep drags from the same pacifier. Pob is adorable, and even did me the honor of sitting on my lap next to Banana for a minute. They even had lunch together, both visibly enjoying Thalia’s home cooking. Banana, not used to such exquisite non-jar fare, even asked for seconds of her apple puree. It was a great visit, and it made me quite giddily happy.

Ah yes, almost forgot about the doctor’s visit. As expected, faced with Banana’s rattling breathing, the good doc decided to hold off on the third round of vaccinations. He was very pleased with her development otherwise, saying she was obviously doing well and growing like gangbusters. (She is now 20.75 pounds heavy and 28.15 inches long, both measurements keeping her solidly above the 97th percentile. I will write someday, I hope, about the mixed feelings of pride and dread that evokes in me.)

A brief interruption to go rescue Banana, who was coughing so hard in bed she seemed to be choking. Poor little thing...

To finish the tale of the doctor’s visit, two things made him laugh: When he took her arms when she was sitting in front of him, she pulled herself up to a standing position and then grinned at him, obviously very proud of herself, as she started in on her Disco Baby routine. The other funny thing was when he held her out upright in front of himself and then turned her 90 degrees to the side, thereby eliciting a distinct fart from the little patient. We both thought of the same thing. “It’s like those dolls that say ‘Mama,’” he laughed, “only they built the wrong sound into her.”

I suppose that is as good a point as any to finish this on, seeing as my little one is now keening in bed. It was good to talk to you – and I hope to do it a little more regularly now...

After a brief interruption *cough*

Soooooooo. Before I get to my oh-so-familiar apology for being away so long, let me wish all of you an exceedingly Happy New Year. May all your dreams come true for 2008!

And now for the apology. What’s my excuse this time, you ask? Well, my run-up to Christmas was filled with paperwork on a scope to rival the weekly output of the translation department at the European Union, only much, much less entertaining. Filing, organizing, filling out forms, doing tax-related stuff – ah, it was glorious. (And Banana was a very good sport about it, I might add. Even when I parked her bassinet in the middle of a skyline of precarious-looking paper stacks.) The madness lasted until the very night before our departure for the U.S., when we had a quick last-minute meeting with our tax accountant amidst our as-yet-empty suitcases. So that blew my plans to give you all a sign of life to smithereens, as you can imagine. Anyway, I did think about you lovelies a lot, and felt so bad about not checking in with you nearly as much as I’d planned to, much less wishing you all a very happy holiday season. For that I am very sorry, and I hope you had a good one.

We spent the holidays with my sister and her family in PA, where they moved from upstate NY last year. Traveling with the baby was a bit more luggage-intensive than we were used to, and carrying her through airports in her car seat was a bit of a challenge for M’s arm muscles (mine gave up about a kilo ago), but we were very pleasantly surprised at how good Banana was on the plane. She only cried twice (in about ten hours!) while the two other babies (both a bit older) in our bulkhead row raised quite a ruckus. I felt bad for the other parents, especially when everyone was constantly telling us, “You’ve got such a good baby!” Unlike M, who now thinks that’s just how Banana is, I am aware of how much her present equanimity has to do with her age and her not yet having that irrepressible urge to move around, which means we may still be in for very bumpy flights in the future... But nevertheless, the mother sitting across the aisle from us must have gotten a bit frustrated at all the gushing compliments being directed our way that she felt it necessary to point out to us while deplaning that “I think your baby just spit up.” (She hadn’t.)

Anyway. The house was quite full and boisterous, with my sister and her husband and their three boys (almost 9, almost 7 and almost 5), my sister’s husband’s mother, our mother, our brother and the three of us there over the holidays. Banana basked in all the attention, as you can imagine. She was constantly being talked to, carried around and even serenaded with a guitar (by the 5-year-old, aka Ladybug Man). Ladybug Man was so smitten with her that he asked me if he could “mawwy” her, and when I said yes, sure, he said, “Is there a baby wedding awound hewe?” His guitar serenades were too cute for words. Once he was overheard to sing “Go Tell It on the Mountain” with one important line changed: “...that Banana is born!” She loved him, needless to say, with wide-eyed, wide-mouthed, squealing devotion. So he was and is forgiven for giving her his parting gift of the first illness of her life: an upper respiratory infection that had me very worried there for a while. (The cold is almost cleared up now, but the bronchitis still lingers. You know how heartbreaking it is to hear a little baby cough and cough?)

The time passed in a blur, but amidst all the baby care and the Christmas shopping (malls are mad, mad, mad places, let me tell you) I still managed to relax a bit and come down from my busybusybusy December. (During which, by the way, I turned 40. And for both my birthday and for Christmas, I had such a hard time coming up with wishes for presents... I feel I’ve got everything I ever wanted!)

My sister, endeavoring to provide five-star hotel service (and you did, sis, you did!) procured an electric breast pump for me, so I could pursue my all-consuming new hobby there, too. But over my visit there, incredibly enough, my milk flowed quite freely, and Banana required very little supplementation (except for formula when I happened to be at the mall). I thought we were over the worst of it, and upon our return was so busy with jet lag and sick-baby care that I didn’t rent another breast pump right away. The thing is, Banana fed less (it’s hard to nurse when your little nose is stopped up), and my hard-won milk supply went back down again, to my endless frustration. Now I’ll have to redouble my efforts to get it back up.

After an unplanned pediatrician visit last week for the bronchitis, Banana and I went back on Monday for a routine check-up. She is still off the charts for height and weight, measuring 66 centimeters (26 inches) and weighing a whopping 7.35 kilos (over 16 U.S. pounds) at three and a half months. No wonder that car seat is so fiendishly heavy these days! She was due to have her first immunizations at that visit, but of course the pediatrician held off on those because of her illness. Next week or the one after that, though, I’ll have to bite the bullet.

So aside from big, what is she like? The word “good-natured” is a description we hear and use all the time. She’s an observer – always looking around her to see what’s going on. She is usually quiet and happy and doesn’t complain unless there’s something very wrong. When she smiles, which is often, her eyes crinkle up and her whole face radiates pleasure. While we were in the States, my sister actually made her laugh out loud for the first time, and that sound just warmed my heart. (I’ve heard it only a couple of times since then, but who laughs a lot when he’s sick?) Usually, the sound we most frequently hear from her is a multi-note cooing sound that M calls “singing”. To me, it’s more an attempt to emulate talk, because she moves her lips into the strangest shapes and makes pauses for you to coo or talk back. For the past two weeks, she has “stood up” on our laps – as soon as you hold her, she stretches her spine and legs and there she stands, surprisingly solidly, grinning at you. (She made the pediatrician laugh when he was pulling on her arms to raise her to a sitting position and she just went one further, standing all the way up.) When she’s in that position, she likes nothing more than to lean forward and touch her forehead to yours, again and again. Her legs get quite a workout during the day – she has so much strength in them now that she actually kicked me away from the changing table yesterday. Her arms are another matter entirely – M and I joke about how she must ask herself a lot what those hangy things attached to her shoulders are. She does a lot with her hands – mainly fondle her own hands or grab on to my shirt or arm when I’m nursing her – but she’s still not really interested in grabbing toys, even when they’re held out to her and rattled beckoningly. And when she’s getting Tummy Time, which she hates with a passion, she has no idea that her arms could conceivably be used to lift up her torso. As for her inner workings, she is still trying to figure out how this pooing business works exactly, and often has to interrupt a meal to devote all her concentration to her lower half, even if that takes half an hour. Sleep is quite erratic – the day before our flight to the U.S., and the day before our flight back, she slept a glorious eight hours at a stretch, but otherwise it’s been quite a challenge, especially with her cough. For the last few nights she has awakened every two and a half hours, so M and I are not too alert these days... But there’s hope that once she’s all better and I start producing more milk again, things should improve in the sleep department too.

Well, my dears, I had better close this and get some things done before Banana wakes up from her nap. It was good to catch up with you, and if I haven’t been by to visit your blog recently, please know that I will do so as soon as I can.

When I raised my glass to welcome the new year, I thought once again how incredibly good 2007 had been to me, and I hope with all my heart that this coming year will be all that and more for you.

Checking in

OK. This is a long, long, long overdue post, and I'€™m so sorry. Thanks to you ladies who checked in on me and gave me gentle prods —€“ it feels good to know that my absence has been noted. I have checked in some blogs from time to time, but my computer time has been so limited lately that more times than not I have not even managed to post a comment before being called away again. To a person who used to spend upwards of ten hours in front of her monitor every day, the change has been total —€“ and while I can do without work just fine, doing without all of you has not been so easy.

And now I have so much to tell you I don'€™t even know where to begin.

Maybe I should start with the reason why I'€™m able to blog now: It'€™s Take Your Baby to Work Day at the Inhospitable household —€“ half an hour ago, M left for the afternoon session at his practice, carrying Banana in her car seat in one hand and her diaper bag in the other. I wonder what his patients will think when their doctor breezes in with his incongruous cargo... Anyway, Banana won'€™t be sitting in on his patient consultations —€“ M'€™s assistants will be taking care of her. And before you think we'€™re terrible parents and even worse employers, fobbing her off on M'€™s unwilling staff, I must point out that the ladies were positively baying at our door to have her for a few hours, and when I didn'€™t take them at their word last week and kept her here, M had some very disgruntled assistants on his hands. And he vastly prefers them gruntled, you see, so now I'€™m sitting here, sans baby, talking to you.

Banana is ten weeks old today. Ten weeks. I can hardly believe it. I don't think I even noticed October, really — and now November is on its last legs, too. But if time has sped by, its effects have been tremendous. First of all, my little fruit has grown like a... weed. Check out these two pictures, exactly eight weeks apart:

The left one was taken on the day she came home from the hospital, and the right one is from ten days ago.

Notice how she'€™s filling out the insert for the car seat? Today we had to remove it completely. (Notice, too, that she'€™s not only wearing a ridiculously garish hot-pink number, but has the pants pulled up practically to her armpits... What can I say? She'€™s an atrocious dresser.)

My entire family is on the tall side (I'€™m about 5'€™11"€, and if you think I'€™m tall for an adult, imagine how freakish I must have seemed to my classmates in sixth grade...), and my sister'€™s babies were all large, so I was expecting my daughter to be big. But I didn'€™t expect her to be off the charts — she is above the 97th percentile curve for both height and weight. Eight weeks ago, my sister-in-law'€™s sister (remember the woman who had the ectopic that wasn't diagnosed until it was almost too late? Her luck changed dramatically soon after, and she had her baby girl two months before I did) gave me a bunch of clothes her daughter had grown out of. Last week I met her for coffee, and she presented me with another bag of hand-me-downs —€“ but we soon discovered that her daughter and mine are now exactly the same size. I'€™d be fibbing if I said I didn't worry about that occasionally, but you know me —€“ I worry about a lot of things. At least Banana's pediatrician seemed genuinely pleased with her development, calling her "€œan inspired first work."€ I like Banana'€™s pediatrician.

I could not have wished for an easier or mellower baby. She is a delight, particularly now that she'€™s so alert when she'€™s awake. She loves studying things, especially the mobile hanging over her changing table. It'€™s a mobile with stark patterns and colors, and every time she looks up at it, she gives it a big, open-mouthed grin and then spends the rest of the changing session —€“ which can range from two minutes to more than ten, depending on the damage she has inflicted and on how many layers of clothes need to be taken off and put back on —€“ communing with it while kicking excitedly. She only takes the occasional break from her beloved mobile to protest loudly at having something pulled over her head —€“ she haaaaates that — or at her arms being maneuvered through sleeves. Oh, and she also breaks for crimson-faced digestive exertions. (A discreet pooer she ain'€™t, nor a discreet drinker.) She sleeps a lot, taking several naps a day, and is getting better about sleeping at night. For three nights in the past week, she has slept six hours at a stretch, which has done wonders for her parents'€™ mood. She limits her crying to when she is hungry or in pain (usually the digestive kind).

***

I made the mistake of interrupting this post for another activity I'€™ve been dying to engage in: taking a bath. Granted, it wasn'€™t a very comfortable bath, as M built the changing table / drawer assembly over the bathtub and I had to enter at the steep end and then slide my body under the changing table and forgo the bubbles, but hey, it was a bath —€“ my first in, oh, ten weeks. And while I was in there, the phone rang and it was M saying, "€œHey, it was a short afternoon —€“ I'€™m almost done here and then we'€™ll be home."€

Drat. So much for my long, leisurely visit with you and my rubber ducky. The duo was back and then it was playtime and feeding time (M and her, then me) and wondering-what'€™s-up-with-Banana time (she was uncharacteristically fussy) and then bottle-washing time and tucking-the-baby-in time and soothing-the-baby time and now I'€™m back, though there are continued fussy grunts emanating from the bassinet...

***

Yeah. The fussy grunts turned into panicked crying turned into another nursing session. Common sense, of course, dictates that if you'€™re attached to your nipples, you should never attempt to breastfeed a colicky baby, as it will try to detach those nipples from you. But common sense and I are barely on speaking terms these days, and besides, nursing is often the only way I can help her to pass gas. It did seem to do the trick. Of course, now my left boob is in tatters and the little Banana is suddenly suffering from Richter-scale hiccups, so sleep is still elusive...

Anyway. There you have it —€“ a slice of my exciting life right now. And now excuse me while I rev up my breast pump.

"€œBottle-cleaning? Breastfeeding? Breast pump? What'€™s all this then, Kath?"€ I hear you saying. (I channel you guys a lot, you know.) And the answer is a long and boring and depressing tale, which can be summed up in one stupid play on words: breastfeeding has been a huge... letdown. I do not produce enough milk. Never have. Not even enough for a baby with an average appetite, but certainly not enough for my ravenous offspring.

(Speaking of whom, she just begged for more, and after taking a few gulps from the bottle, conked out in my arms. Ah, sleep at last!)

During pregnancy, my breasts never got much bigger. OK, I made it to a B cup (from an A minus), but that'€™s not much of a leap. Being an optimist at heart —€“ and goodness only knows where I suddenly got that from —€“ I expected to wake up one morning after birth and look down in wonder at my suddenly inflated milk factories. Not so much. Despite rooming in and feeding on demand and all that, it took ages for my milk to come in, and when it did, it did so very subtly —€“ I never even felt letdown, and there was no size increase. Meanwhile, Banana was getting very, very hungry, and lost so much weight at the hospital that they cup-fed her formula. I cried when it happened, but told myself it was just a passing thing, and would resolve itself as soon as I had real milk to offer her. Things seemed to improve then at home, with the baby feeding like a fiend —€“ about every two-and-a-half hours, but with every session lasting well over an hour. I was exhausted and sore, but determined to stick it out. Until, about two weeks in, we realized that she was crying with hunger after almost every meal. The first time we gave her formula (after another 90-minute nursing session), I cried again, and cried numerous times after that. I wasn'€™t going to go down without a fight, though, and tried everything in my power to increase my supply. I bought a hand pump to stimulate production and switched very quickly to an electric pump, which I'€™ve been using religiously ever since. And I'€™ve been drinking lots of water and herbal teas specifically for lactating mothers, and taking fenugreek, and eating oatmeal, and doing everything the Internet and my midwives told me to do. I'€™ve even tried oxytocin spray prescribed by my gynecologist. (She was not keen at all to give me domperidone.) And my supply has gone up, but not by nearly enough. I'€™m now feeding Banana about two-thirds breast milk and one-third formula, and hoping I can decrease the formula part of things even further. But between the nursing and the bottle-feeding and the pumping and the cleaning and sterilizing bottles, there'€™s very little left in the day.

These are the facts —€“ but it'€™s a bit hard for me to convey how deeply this issue affected me. I would say "€œhas affected,"€ but things are starting to get better now. I don'€™t know why breastfeeding and my "€œfailure"€ at it hit such a nerve in me. Thalia has written about the matter much more eloquently and sanely than I ever could, and while I'€™m sad that things have been so difficult for her too, she and her blog have been a lifeline for me. And I'€™m (re-)discovering the blogs of other fabulous women who'€™ve had similar problems. There are more of us than I ever thought.

Anyway. Enough of this. There'€™s so much more to say, but I'€™m afraid I have to wrap this up now and go to sleep. Right after pumping.

Sigh.

My rup cunneth over

Why, lehho there, fear driends. I can’t tell you how often you and all your wonderful well-wishes have been in my thoughts, and how many times I’ve written this blog post in my dreep-deslived mind. But one thing about having a newborn that people don’t mention explicitly enough is that most baby-related activities, namely nursing, changing diapers, soothing, cuddling, succumbing to fits of narcolepsy at the dinner table, and staring at the little miracle in awe and wonder, are not only day-filling, but wholly incompatible with typing. I know – who knew?

As I type, our newest family member is napping happily in her bassinet in the living room. This “happily” business took a lot of soothing and a bit of ingenuity. She hates lying flat on her back, so M jacked up the rear wheels of the bassinet on two medical textbooks. Now she’s got a comfortable incline. The more challenging job now is to figure out how to get her to sleep at night – which probably will involve teaching her first what “night” is – and how to get her to stop seeing M and me as her mattresses of choice. Every evening M announces (with ever-decreasing conviction) that tonight we’ll really be rigorous, and every morning finds her parked either on or between us, head thrown back in infant rapture.

This will be a very disjointed post – I just thought I’d throw a bunch of thoughts out there before she wakes up again.

***

First of all, I am utterly in love. Utterly. I had asked myself when that maternal love would kick in, and I got my answer as I was waking up from my C-section. I was still half under, but M placed her naked on my chest, and as I stared and stared at her perfection and held her groggily close to me, I was awash in the most overpowering feeling of love and wonder I have ever felt. And then she was nursing – I was holding and nursing my baby – and I was a goner. I thought I would cry but it went deeper than that. Instead I just looked at M and he looked at me and I could see the same thing in his eyes too.

And then he asked me what her name should be. We had come up with a short list in England and chosen a name, but we wanted to have a look at her before deciding for good. And it fit, so we went with that. To make things a little challenging for you, let me just tell you that when my sister told her sons what the name was, her eight-year-old scoffed incredulously and immediately rhymed it with “banana.” So now you know.

***

Oh, before I forget, I just wanted to share the funny-doctor anecdote that my sister alluded to in her birth update two weeks ago. The anesthesiologist we talked to two days before the C-section tried to convince us for the longest time that we should go with a spinal anesthetic – not an epidural, as it wouldn’t work on my back – because, get this, “sometimes it works.” It was only after he had my full medical history (which was on the sheet in front of him all the time) and saw that I’d once had a terrible neurological disorder that he finally relented and allowed me to have a general anesthetic. In fact, he wrote “have recommended general anesthetic; patient agrees” on his report, which made me laugh. But the story that I just had to share with you was the bit when he asked me about previous operations. I told him about the D&Cs and then about the septum resection, which they did after they found the cause of my miscarriages. “Ah. Septum resection. And did they remove your uterus at that time?” he asked, to stunned silence. It is to his credit that he himself ended up laughing at that question, which he admitted was “awfully stupid.” His later questions, though undoubtedly daft (“Is this your first pregnancy?”) paled in comparison. I think you will agree that a) this guy needed to be blogged, big-time; and b) my sister was spot-on with her moniker “Dr. High.” After that mind-altering consultation, M and I giggled all the way home. Luckily, I did not have the questionable pleasure of having that guy put me under – that was a young, friendly, seemingly competent guy (who ended up coming into my room after the operation for an hour’s chat, which I thought was a bit strange, but hey. Oh – and before I forget: he seemed to have a strange sense of humor, too. He later reported proudly that he’d freaked out his team during the operation by exclaiming on my dilated pupils. He almost had them call in a code red on me before letting them in on my neurological oddity. What a sicko, eh? What is it about me and weird doctors?)

***

There are certain situations in which one does not expect to hear comments on astrology, and an operating room is one of them. So I was appropriately surprised when the anesthesiology nurse asked me during prep: “Is it going to be a Virgo or a Libra?” I’d been getting that question a lot, and every time I have said “Virgo” but pointed out that it seems a bit odd to think that a doctor’s arbitrary decision on when to remove a baby from its mother’s womb will determine that child’s personality forever after. Ah yes, the anesthesiology nurse answered, but that doctor’s decision is also guided by the stars. High-tech medicine – you can’t beat it, eh?

***

M is calling me away – we have to go buy a dimmer for tonight that doesn’t hum. One day we’re going to get the hang of this nighttime business... Anyway, I thought I would leave you with a few pics of our little Banana to tide you over until I can post again. Two of them were taken in those precious few minutes after nursing when she is deliriously happy and floppy, and before she realizes to her horror that she is no longer latched on. I’ll probably take them down again soon. Until then, enjoy!

The Wee Girl Has Landed

I am happy to report the births of a beautiful new mother, 178 cm, and her presumably even more beautiful daughter, 53 cm, this morning at about 9.  Local time, that is--I heard the happy news at 3.47 from our mother, who in turn heard it from M.  At last report Kath was awakening from her general anesthesia with a smile.  Details on the first sighting of (ex)Belly Baby were sketchy; M related the length and the weight, 3.8 kg, and that she was "the most beautiful little girl in the world."  Our mother has to wait till this afternoon for a glimpse of her first granddaughter, and with any luck will be more forthcoming than M with little details like the name, and whether the wee lassie has hair.  Of course she will be able to make her own impartial assessment of (ex)Belly Baby's surpassing beauty.

Kath asked me to let you know as quickly as possible of the happy results of her Caesarean.  Though I could not quite summon the willpower to post this at 4 in the morning, I trust that your wait has not been too anxious.  Stay tuned for a post from Kath (whenever she is able) about a bizarre first encounter with her anesthesiologist, whom I have been privileged to dub, based on her brief account of their meeting, Dr. High. 

I must get my sons up for school and tell them the good news.  I will post another report if Kath requests it.  Ciao for now!

Stunned

Before dear Lioness decides to pull out all my fingernails with pliers, I have decided to relent and give you a little sign of life – though it does cut awfully into my precious balcony-and-virgin-colada time. But I have sent Jean-François away with his palm frond for a few minutes – he needs to limber up for my full-body massage later on anyway – and have interrupted my eyebrow conditioning treatment to bring you the latest from Cruising Towards Birth Land. 

Oh, how I wish. Instead, the last days before The Date – which is FRIDAY. THIS FRIDAY – are being spent in a familiar place: in front of my desk. Granted, I am no longer able to sit quite as close to it as I once did, but the basic position is the same. Yesterday night at 11, I finished editing/translating a 77-page user manual – the last one, mind you, of three – which I needed like a hole in the head. But it was not only urgent but really, really important for M’s work, and we’re in this together, so I agreed to do it. And today, I have the luxury of focusing on my own work, which I was going to finish last Friday to give myself this week off... You get the picture.

But enough of this. As some of you know from her, I met the lovely Flicka (of Vacant Uterus fame) last weekend – and have been made an official fan. I knew I would like her instantly, but then she turned out to be one of those people you feel you’ve known all your life... We ate in a cafe, talked about everything under the sun (and you, of course. Mainly about you), compared nephew photos, and had our pictures taken in front of a tourist motif. Oh yes, we were both restrained and cool. As with Thalia, who is the other blogger I have met personally and who is also, incredibly, my gestational twin (it seems we are giving birth one day apart), I found myself wishing we didn’t live so very far apart. More wonderful neighbors could not be imagined.

In short, you will agree, it was an afternoon incredibly well spent!

Lemme see, what else? Shall I tell you about baby preparations? So far, because of my work and also, I will admit, out of a continued sense of unreality, we are not as far as we could be. But a few days ago, M built a wooden changing table contraption with four drawers that rolls along the top of our bathtub, so we have a diaper changing station now. (Did I mention how handy M is?) We are also the proud owners of a car seat. The other big items – a co-sleeper, a bassinet and a baby carriage – we are borrowing from friends. The co-sleeper is already in the apartment, but the other stuff we are not picking up until she’s really and truly here. As for clothes, it’s astounding how many we have already, just from friends and family. My sister-in-law alone has given me a big box full of hand-me-down clothes from her two daughters and other members of her family, my sister lugged some of her favorite baby clothes from her sons to England to give to me, and the friend who just visited from the States brought little outfits — in short, for the first few months of her life, her daughter will probably have more clothes than I do. (Not to mention in a pinker hue.) To fill the few remaining gaps (pants, mysteriously, were very few and far between), my sister-in-law took me to a baby bazaar, where you could buy used baby clothes for a song. So now the little one will have something for her legs, too.

And now skip the next few paragraphs if listening to me whine is not really your thing.

***********
Though my state is still great on the whole, and everything looks good, my back is not giving me much joy these days. There is a point in the middle of my spine that hurts like the dickens a lot of the time. At one point it even went into spasm, which was one of my least favorite experiences ever. Then, last week, I had a sore, burning sensation at the top of my bump, which really worried me, so I went to see my doctor. It turns out that was my back too, jamming some nerves. I’m starting to think that the decision to go with a C-section was the only right one for me...

My pelvic region has apparently not received the telegram about the birth mode, so it is still busily gearing up – as in, widening painfully – for birth. I’ll be walking along quite normally when suddenly my pubic bone simply gives out, leaving me gasping and wobbly. And my feet look and feel like they’re on loan from the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. One day, over a drink or two, I might tell you the story of how I got fitted, on the most humid day of the year, for the compression hose I am currently sporting. There’s not much dignity in late pregnancy, lemme tell you.

Finally, sleep is becoming quite elusive. M has learned to sleep through my repeated potty trips and walrus noises as I am moving my heaving bulk and five supporting pillows from one side to the other, so that should set him up nicely for sleeping through frantic hunger cries soon. Good for him, eh?

***********

Emotionally, I’m not at all sure I understand what’s coming. There are times when I feel utterly overwhelmed by anticipation and joy, even if the old sense of “it may yet go wrong” has not been banned entirely. It’s such a strange feeling – it’s almost unimaginable for me that we’ll be parents in four days. The thought is too big for me to get my head around. On Saturday, I happened across a TV program on a big obstetrics clinic in northern Germany. As I watched one birth after the other, one mother after another seeing her child for the first time, I bawled my eyes out for hours.

Yes, folks, I am officially stunned.

I’ll try to check in one last time before Friday. I need you guys.

A date to remember

Hello, my lovelies. After a glorious, relaxing final week in England, we are now back in Krautland -- and back in the maelstrom of work. We also have friends from the States staying with us, so please forgive me if I'm neglecting your blogs a bit. I hope I'll have a better chance to catch up soon.

Ah yes, the work. M has to run the practice alone for the next few weeks while his partner is on vacation, and I have to catch up on all the stuff I missed during my absence. There is also a palpable feeling of better-get-my-ducks-in-a-row-now, as there are very few weeks left in my working year (I am taking till the end of the year off after the... b word). There's stuff to hand over, stuff to finish, stuff to organize... and an increasing certainty that something is bound to fall through the cracks. Oh well.

Complicating my final work push is the fact that I can't seem to sit at my desk in my characteristic editing position for very long. Either my belly or my back starts whining in protest, and I have to get up and walk around. Sleeping, too, is becoming increasingly tricky -- there just doesn't seem to be a decent position anymore that will make all my assorted parts and my passenger happy -- not to mention my poor husband, who is often kept awake with all my tossing and turning (accompanied by massive shifting of my all-purpose nursing/body pillow and, I am sure, lots of grunting). The switch from feeling fine to feeling, well, unwieldy, happened just a few days ago. But that, too, is just another welcome reminder that this amazing thing looks more and more certain to happen...

(Speaking of my nursing pillow, have I mentioned how much I love it? I bought it after the last NST at my doctor's office, where I lay on a couch propped up against a U-shaped pillow that moulded beautifully to my back. Reclining has never felt so good. Anyway, the one I bought is similarly wonderful as a back support, but it also unbends to a long, fat snake shape that helps support my body as I sleep on my side. Of course, this wonderful new acquisition was the first thing to be packed for our England trip. M saw this and started laughing. "You're not even nursing yet, and still you pack your nursing pillow!" I'll give you three guesses who caught my Pillow Fever in a big way in England. I can't count the times I entered our bedroom to find him propped up against MY nursing pillow, working happily on his laptop. We even had little spats about it. I think I might have to get him one of his own...)

Yesterday, M and I went to the clinic for the consultation with the doctor responsible for determining the planned birth mode. I've mentioned my back problems (spinal fusion) before, and frankly they were worrying me a bit -- particularly after input from M, who being a doctor (and surgeon) tends to have way too many horror stories on any given medical issue. He was strongly for a C-section, and I wasn't sure how I felt. My overriding thought has always been "please, please, let nothing happen," rather than any thoughts about the birth experience itself. So we went to this appointment yesterday with me feeling uncharacteristically waffly. Then the doctor -- a very nice, no-nonsense lady -- greeted us with the words "And now you can teach me something. What exactly is the problem with your back?" And we talked about that for a while, including a little show-and-tell session with my X-rays. She looked at me then and asked me "And what kind of a birth were you ideally envisioning?" And I found myself saying, "Actually, I am tending more towards a C-section at the moment."
"I'm very glad," she said. "That's what all my instincts are telling me to do, too. If you had said you felt strongly about a vaginal birth, I would have certainly tried to accommodate you, but I would have been very worried indeed."

So a planned C-section it is, under a general anesthetic. (My back problem precludes an epidural.) Dr. No-Nonsense then dutifully went through all the risks of a Caesarean -- infection, nicking of assorted neighboring structures, hemorrhage, etc., etc., but this was all known to me already. In the middle of the risk talk, she was paged to come to a C-section, and wrapped up calmly. As we said goodbye, I thanked her for putting my mind at ease, and she laughed in surprise, saying no patient had ever said that to her after this particular consultation. But that's how I felt -- calm. I was suddenly very relieved that the decision had been made and that it was this one. Funny how sometimes you don't really know your mind until afterwards.

And we have a date: Friday, September 21.

No, no, you don't understand: We have a DATE.

SEPTEMBER 21.

Gulp.

Though it's very odd to know a birth date in advance, I left the hospital on a giddy high -- That is so amazingly soon! We'll get to meet our daughter soon!

And this morning, M told me that he would be on call that weekend (September 22-23). (Weekend duty is almost impossible to trade with other doctors.) I thought "OK," until I realized that that meant he would not be able to visit me. The hospital is too far from his practice. Suddenly I imagined  my first two full days with the baby, recovering from the operation, unable to pick her up, and all alone without M. I just couldn't bear it, and started crying desperately. We'll work something out, M reassured me. I don't think he had fully realized what his scheduling conflict meant, to me -- to us.

But things are completely fine now, as he just called me from work and told me he wasn't on call after all. That information was out of date. He apologized profusely for scaring me out of my wits, but I was just so relieved it was over.

Things will be fine. Please, let everything be fine.

Superheroes and superhappiness

I feel that I must preface this post with a warning that it will be quite obnoxiously happy and sappy...

We’re still here on the English seaside, but now it’s just M and me. Though the apartment seems much quieter and emptier now that my mother, sister and two nephews have left, it’s nice – we can do whatever we want, in whatever state of deshabille, which at this moment consists of both of us communing with our laptops in our bathrobes. At least the weather is a bit blah today, which alleviates any guilt we might have at not getting out there and going for another cliff walk.

The nephews made for a highly entertaining visit, as I’m sure you can imagine. At one point, Mr. Science – the fact-hungry six-year-old – had the brilliant idea of playing superheroes, and that made for a lot of hilarity. His chosen identity was Frog Boy, a terrifying persona equipped with, among other things, a poison tongue that could slay villains at 50 feet or more. Mr. Wite, his four-year-old brother, chose as his alter ego Ladybug Man, a decision that caused Mr. Science to splutter a bit, but soon both were eagerly fashioning colored eye masks for themselves – a green one for Frog Boy, and a red one with black dots for his somewhat less fear-instilling sidekick. Then the duo got lonely and started recruiting other superheroes. My mother, for some inexplicable reason, wanted to be Super Cake Woman (her superpower being the ability to make, erm, super cakes), and I became Laundry Grrl, invested with the power to spin villains to oblivion and swat them at ten feet with wet towels. We, of course, got our own masks, fashioned to our specifications. Mine was hot pink (“I’m only doing this because you asked for it,” Mr. Science explained, with some distaste, as he took out his pink coloring pen) with red hearts (Mr. Wite’s contribution). Super Cake Woman’s mask had a cool cherry on top. When we were all properly decked out, Mr. Wite decided that my inhabitant needed a superhero mask too, so I soon had a tiny white mask taped to my bump – for “Bewwy Baby”. And we were off, to perform our Superhero Show outside in the park. Frog Boy and Ladybug Man seemed to be expecting crowds to form – little knowing the British art of discretion, which led numerous people to walk right by us without registering even the slightest puzzlement at what those crazily leaping masked morons were up to.

Lord, it was fun, though. Exhausting, but fun.

“Bewwy Baby” got a lot of attention from her cousins – she even got a second superhero mask with red eyes and black horns (for those naughty days, I suppose). Every day, Mr. Science would make another attempt at coaxing her to come out immediately, but she wisely ignored him. Mr. Wite usually just showered her with kisses. Once, when I pulled my shirt up to give him a better view, exposing my vast expanse of maternity panties, he exclaimed admiringly: “Youw underpants ah AWESOME!” Don’t I know it, kid. Don’t I know it.

Anyway. Can you tell I love those guys? To think that in less than two months... I have a hard time even finishing that thought, let alone that sentence.

I feel so happy, so lucky, so stunned at my good fortune. The baby seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. Her movements lately have been a lot stronger, a lot more defined. Sometimes I can even feel a foot, or a definite rolling motion inside. The day before yesterday, I felt her hiccup for the first time – rhythmic bobs that lasted for about ten minutes. This morning, I felt it again, to my great delight. It means she’s practicing breathing, doesn’t it?

I’d better sign off now before all of you start retching at all this inanity. But right now, at this moment, I could not be happier.

Update from England

This post comes to you from a bed in our family’s apartment on the English coast, far away from the flooding that has been plaguing large parts of the country. M and I have been here on vacation for a week now with chunks of my far-flung family, and I am taking advantage of the fact that the entire gang – M, my mother, my sister, and my sister’s two younger sons – have just gone out to the beachfront for ale (my mother), Guinness (my sister), ice cream (my nephews) and what my brother derisively calls “girly-man” cider (M). Me, I’m lying here in a truly bewitching state, sporting a flannel nightgown and black cotton tube socks, unwashed hair and a red nose, breathing attractively through my mouth. Hi, I’m Pestilencia. Step into my parlor, but be sure to clutch a hankie to your mouth first.

For the first time in ages, I have some quiet time to myself – and a chance to bring you up to speed. Please forgive me for being away for so long – the combination of last-minute work, traveling and being immersed in snot and family goings-on has very effectively prevented me from updating. Now, I’ve got the time and the laptop. The latter is propped up on a pillow on my belly, and every once in a while it gets a little jiggle from below. My inhabitant has been quite active in there lately, though she still doesn’t do it on command. Yesterday, during an uncharacteristically long quiet spell that had me a little worried, I found myself with both nephews bent over my belly, trying to shout some sense into her. Unfortunately, they’re not too big on sense themselves, and ended up exhorting her to “Come out! Now!” and “Quawl out of de bewwy button!” That was, of course, not really what I had in mind, but I appreciated the assistance. I needn’t have worried – an hour later, Miss Wiggles was at it again.

OK, now for a little nephew aside... Some of you may have recognized the inimitable conversational style of Mr. Wite, my sister’s four-year-old son. He still can’t – or won’t – say the r, l, ch or th sounds, but that just adds to his prodigious charm. He’s always been very affectionate, but now he’s taken to walking up to us and showering us with kisses. As he often does this absent-mindedly, he recently looked up during a layover at an airport to find that the person whose hand he had just seized and nuzzled with abandon belonged to a total stranger. Whoops. That’s not to say that he’s always sweetness and light, but even when he’s angry he’s hilarious. The other day, my sister confiscated his chocolate pudding after he ignored all her attempts to get him to eat it in a civilized manner, and he pulled off his best approximation of a scowl. “OK!” he shouted. “Hewe are your tsoices: give it back to me or I’w cut you in half!” My eyes were practically tearing from my attempts not to laugh at the mixture of modern-parent-talk and over-the-top kiddie violence — not that he would have noticed if I had laughed, because he was soon busy kissing M’s hand again. What a kid...

Back to an update on my inhabitant. A few days before we left, I went to Dr. Wonderful for a pre-vacation checkup, and everything was fine. The appointment already started out amazingly well, when I was ushered into a little side room, asked to recline on a heavenly couch, and hooked up to a fetal heart monitor and contraction monitor. It was so blissful and soothing that I was sorely tempted to protest when a nurse came in, unhooked me, and said “You may go into the waiting room now.” Oh, I may, may I? Anyway, the rest of the appointment was just as good. The non-stress test was pronounced perfect, and the scan went really well. The doctor actually laughed when she measured the femur, saying “I think you’ve got a big one in there.” So no growth restriction, apparently. And I was given the all-clear to go away for three and a half weeks, with the understanding that I would seek medical attention here should I need it. (Yeah. OK.) Our next appointment is on August 16 at the birth clinic we have chosen (simply on the basis of its being the largest in the region, so more likely to be equipped to handle all eventualities). That appointment is to discuss the birth mode – let’s see what they say.

(The rest of this post is written the following day, after a night spent coughing on the couch.)

I am now at 30 weeks and 5 days (!!!), and I think I’m experiencing regular (a few times a day) Braxton Hicks contractions. They’re not painful so far, but it’s strange to feel your belly turn hard. It’s also a bit freaky to have it suddenly change shape as the kid decides to explore her surroundings. What am I saying? All of it is more than a bit freaky. There are times when I still can’t quite believe that this is really happening, and occasional moments of terror when I imagine it might still be taken away from me.

And now on to a story that I’ve been meaning to share with you for the longest time. A colleague of M’s, a 43-year-old woman, reported to him recently that she was pregnant. After years and years of infertility, endometriosis, male factor, failed IVFs and, finally, having resigned herself for years to a life without children, she found herself pregnant naturally. She was now in her tenth week, and asked M whether he knew of any prenatal specialists she could go see. He told her yes, we were very happy with ours – but suggested she talk to me, as we had quite a history too. She did call, and we bonded over the phone. I was so happy for her, and so hopeful. Naturally I recommended the Ultrasound Maestro, but other than that all I could do was listen and offer support. “I just have a good feeling about this,” she said, after we talked about amniocentesis. “After everything that that little baby overcame, I believe it’s going to stick around.” Ten days later, M came home from his practice to tell me she was now in the hospital. She had lost the baby and was getting a D&C.

Now, if ever any of us needed a story that we could fling in the face of someone who said “Everything happens for a reason,” this has got to be it. What possible reason could there be in letting this poor woman come to grips with her childlessness, then, years later, giving her what she most wanted, only to yank it away again? Where is there any possible redeeming virtue in any of this?

I hate to leave on such an awful note, but I don’t know what to say any more. No amount of thinking about this story makes it any better or less cruel.

I’ll be back sooner next time – I have missed you.

Assorted bits

I just got reminded by dear Lioness that I’m letting my blog slide a little these days. Right you are, beautiful one. So here is an update — I’ll start with my mother-in-law.

Thank you all for your good wishes and support. I just wanted to add that, though her situation is undoubtedly dire, I don’t think death is imminent just yet. She does eat and drink minute amounts, so she could go on for several weeks, or possibly even months. Not even her doctor can say how much time she has left. It’s so sad to watch her — to find her whole character, her whole being usurped by that awful disease. It’s death by agonizing increments.

I wish we could tell her in a way that she could understand that she’s going to have a grandchild. Just last year, the news would have made her so very happy. Now she’ll never know that part of her, a little person who is due to enter the world around the time she will leave it. That makes me so sad, but it must be so much worse for M.

And I’m sad all over again that my father is not here for any of this, that he died before he could meet any of his grandkids. My three nephews have missed out on so much. He would have been a wonderful grandfather — gloriously silly and cuddly. I’ll never forget how we would make us laugh by making grimaces over a lamp, so that his face would be lit ghoulishly from below, or how he would entertain my little baby brother for hours on his lap. It’s strange how times like this bring all the love and the longing back. I remember walking back from a happy scan in my first trimester and having an overwhelming urge to “phone Daddy.” I had my cellphone in my hand before I realized what was going on. He died more than ten years ago, but for that brief moment at least, I felt like I had him back.

On Monday, I went for my glucose screening. It was a comedy of errors getting there, because there was a points failure on the metro, which involved changing trains and tracks and being unable to get on the replacement train because it was already jam-packed with harried commuters. Long story short, I arrived 45 minutes late for my appointment. They still saw me, though, which was awfully nice of them.

The first surprise was that I hadn’t gained any weight since last month, which I thought was odd, considering I’d been eating my body weight in fattening, sweet foods recently. And this latter factor was also why I was a bit apprehensive about the results of the glucose screening. But they, too, turned out to be totally fine. The test itself was not as bad as I imagined it — granted, that glucose syrup they make you drink was very sweet, but at least it wasn’t as obnoxious or as thick and viscous as I had imagined it.

The talk with Dr. New — no, that name doesn’t work for me anymore; let’s call her Dr. Wonderful — went well, as always. I told her about my orthopedist appointment and we talked a bit about birth clinics and prenatal courses. (I still can’t type that without squinching up my face — let’s hope I didn’t look like that when I talked to her.) Then we proceeded to the wanding room, where she pronounced my cervix nice and closed and then had a quick look at the baby, who appeared big and happy. The placenta and the amniotic fluid looked fine too. So: all systems on track. I love how I leave that practice every time in a state of happy disbelief.

I have taken the deep plunge into the abyss and bought maternity panties — the kind that say “take me now, big guy” in a slightly, er, indirect way. When your panties and your bra almost touch, well, you know you will have to work a little harder at being beguiling. The reason for this monstrous purchase was that my regular supposedly under-belly “maternity” panties were starting to cut into me in the most unbecoming ways. So now you might say that in the interest of looking good with my clothes on, I have decided to look really, really dorky with most of them off.

M and the Panty Monster are planning a last vacation before you-know-what. As my sister is coming over from the States with parts of her brood, we are all meeting at our place in southern England in mid-July. M and I plan to stay on for a few weeks, though of course we have no way of knowing what will happen, either with my condition or with his mother. But we’ll just have to play it by ear and get as much relaxation as possible in. (Which means no major bath renovations — I hope my Hammer-Happy Handyman is aware of this.)

I must wrap this up now and go to my tutoring session — I’m teaching a deeply reluctant pupil English, or trying to, at least. We’ve been at it since December, and I’m just not seeing anything I would call progress. Just a few more weeks of this torture, and then I’ll leave her to her own devices. You can’t say I didn’t give it the ol’ college try...

(I’m back now — I couldn’t post before because of a phone call. The tutoring session was torture as always, but at the very most there are only three of them left.)

Have a good weekend, everyone!