Calamity Jane

OK, so I suppose this is not a calamity, however unplanned it may have been.  We found out about this small new person right before Christmas and it took us rather by surprise.  I was hoping to put off getting pregnant a few more months, considering I have just started grad school, etc, etc. but… well, nothing more to say about it.  Here he or she is.  Not going away, either it seems.

January was an awful, dark, miserable month.  I felt ho-rib-ble, fat, and insufficient for the tasks ahead of me, but things are getting better now that we are at the 13-week mark.  School is underway and very much manageable… even interesting at times.  (!)  Work is way manageable… 3 days a week is a lot sometimes, but I have a wonderful, supportive group of people around me that let me fall asleep in the break room occasionally and give me long days in the psych corner (i.e. sitting down) now and then, so it hasn’t been all bad.   And I have fantastic, free health benefits with this job, which was not the situation when Cora was born, and is a great source of relief for me.  Cora is very very excited about getting to have our very own baby to live at our house, and sleep in her room, having spent several envious months watching friends have babies.  And not grasping, I think, how much her little world is about to change.

And, of course, we are delighted.  Lots of people are predicting a boy this time, and I have really no idea.  We will find out in March sometime.  I can not really grasp the idea that there may be male genitalia attached to that little person, but I suppose we will deal with Whatever Comes.  ha.  Mostly I am relieve that there is only one of them.

Cora is doing really well…  we are through the *worst* of the terrible-two-ness in some ways, as her capacity to express herself verbally is improving by leaps and bounds.  She’s making these hilarious, complete sentences, like “Mama, You are a cow.” and “Mister Papa, turn off the yights!!” at bedtime after we read stories.  She’s potty training like a champ… very pleased with her big girl panties, and forcing herself to pee ever few minutes in hopes of pink and purple M&M’s.  She loves to put on her rain boots and let herself out the back door without us realizing it until we see her out the window, tromping around in the yard and screaming at the animals across the street.  We signed her up for preschool next fall at this wonderful little school that our friends have been using the past couple of years.  She’ll start with her buddy Simon in the fall, and I think it will be a perfect transition as we are adjusting to life with a newborn again.

And, probably, after this baby comes I won’t go back to work full-time for a few years.  I hate the idea of leaving a newborn for 12 hours at a time, 3 days a week, and can’t figure out how to be a decent mother and spouse with grad school and full-time work both on my plate.  Something has to go.

I can’t wait to meet this baby… (and, I should say, Calamity Jane was actually kind of a heroic figure.)  I’m so pleased that Cora will have a sibling, that our family is going to grow, that I get to go though birth and breastfeeding and all of it again.