L.A. Baby has a smile to melt even the coldest heart. She’s just a happy baby. If you smile at her, she smiles right back. Nothing really gets her down. Last week she received a couple of vaccines and after an ear piercing scream and the most startled, “how could you hurt me like this, mom?” look, the nurse rubbed her sore little leg and began cooing and smiling at her and wouldn’t you know, L.A. Baby forgot all about the pain in her thigh. Total screaming and crying time was about 60 seconds. You can’t ask for better than that.

What was I going to write about again? Oh yeah, work. My brain is mush. I think all the smart cells went to L.A. Toddler and L.A. Baby. This is a good thing for them, not such a good thing for my employer. Although, living in LA there’s one thing I’ve learned - temps are temps for a reason. No one wants them around all the time. This is a good thing for me ’cause my bosses and peers welcomed me back showering me with compliments and stories of how much they missed me. I’ve been back to work for 3 weeks now and I’m easing into my former break-neck pace. Thank you to my bosses for allowing me that ‘easing’ time!

Returning to work was really difficult at first, but after the second week back, L.A. Baby had adjusted to the schedule that we forced upon her. I’m a big proponent of getting a baby on a schedule as soon as possible. Not a strict, wake at 7am, eat at 7:15am kind of thing. More of a wake around 7am, then eat, then get dressed, etc. As long as each activity is followed by the next activity each day her little world has stability and she knows what to expect and when to expect it. Some mornings she wakes up earlier, but all that means is I’ve got her dressed and ready to go and she gets a little snooze in her carseat before we drop her off at daycare. And this means I get a few extra minutes to touch up my makeup or sip some coffee. And the schedule certainly makes the evening routine smooth. She knows that once we change into her jammies and she nurses, it’s time for swaddling and rocking and she’s out like a light in about 5 minutes. I have a hard time letting go of her and lying her in her crib after being apart all day so she usually gets about 20 minutes of rocking and cuddling. Supposedly she’s old enough that I should be able to lie her in her crib drowsy but still awake but I’m just not ready for that yet. And as much as I believe in a schedule, I also believe that you can’t spoil a baby (at least one that’s only 3 months old). She wakes me up once or twice during the night to eat, but she’s all business and right back to sleep and I’m back to my pillow in about 20 minutes. How cool is that?

All in all, my returning to work has been hectic and sometimes frustrating, but it allows me the adult interaction that I need and at the end of the day I’m a better mom for it.

Are you a working mom? Share your story!

We’ve come a long way since celebrating your 25th all those years ago and I’ve enjoyed every moment since. Thank you for coming into my life, loving me and for giving me the two sweetest babies ever born. You make my life fun -

Here’s to 40 more years!  I love you!

Now on to the other kind of laboring. For the past couple of days I’ve been losing my mucus plug - or as the doctors prefer to call it - ‘bloody show’ - EWW! Can’t they come up with a better term for it? Sure it’s bloody… but it’s not entertaining like a show would be. Again - Ewww! Anyhow, this is one of the signs that birth is imminent and likely only a few days away. Hooray!

So last night I woke up at about 2am with major pressure and cramping and serious hunger. Since I couldn’t get comfortable I decided to get up and eat something. I was quite groggy and was still experiencing the pressure and cramping. About 1/2 way through my peanut butter toast I realized that the pressure seemed to be coming and going. Holy crap! Was I in labor? I grabbed my watch, paper and a pen and decided to get serious. 3 minutes later another contraction, and another about 4 minutes later. Holy crap! I need to wake LA Daddy or do I? With LA Toddlers labor, the contractions were REALLY HARD by the time they were 3 minutes apart. These were just uncomfortable. 20 minutes later I had another one. Then about 30 minutes later another one. Damn. “False” labor. Back to bed I went.

Today has been more of the above. A contraction here and there but nothing worth writing down. It seems as though if I pick up the pen and watch start counting they stop. Is this LA Baby’s way of teasing me?

LA Daddy is worried (like all parents) that she’ll be born and something will go wrong. We’ve been through this before and I’m confident that this time will be easier, quicker, a little more relaxed, etc. But now I’m beginning to think that maybe what ‘goes wrong’ will be that I’m not paying attention and we’ll wait too long to go to the hospital and we’ll have a FREEWAY BABY!

We managed to tear her away from the decorations and get to the costume aisles. She was amazed - wide eyed and smiling, “WOW” was all that she could say. She walked along the aisles looking at and touching different costumes for a while until we said she could pick one if she saw one she liked. We had come to the store with the intention of getting a witch costume. It’s been a long and thoughtful process, this Halloween-costume-choice-thing. About 2 months ago she bounced out of the hallway and announced “I’m a cereal!”. She was wearing a small innertube around her waist and it did resemble the cheerios she’d eaten that morning. So for about 2 weeks we’d planned on putting her in a white sweatsuit (the milk) and painting the innertube to resemble a cheerio. I was so proud of her creative mind!

Then about 3 weeks ago she decided she wanted to be a ghost for Halloween. We quickly realized she’d gotten this idea from her Clifford’s Halloween book. You see, Clifford tossed a sheet over himself and was the biggest and scariest ghost in town. So we started looking online for ghost costumes - LA Toddler was not impressed with any of the scary ghosts and Casper was too friendly looking. So we explained that we’d put a sheet over her shoulders and paint her face white so she’d look like a ghost. She pouted and shouted “NO GHOST - I’ll be a witch!”

Today we poured over 3 or 4 witch costumes, but since none actually came with a broom attached she wanted no part of them and announced she didn’t want to be a witch. She was going to be a princess like Cinderella. Great! Let’s check out the Cinderella costumes - there were 2 to choose in her size but neither satisfied her. “I want to be a princess LIKE Cinderella.” She didn’t actually want to BE Cinderella. OK. Good thing for us there was an entire wall of princess dresses in every size, color, fabric… fairy princesses, halloween princesses (apparently adding orange toile to a black witches dress makes it a halloween princess dress), ice princesses… you get my drift. We finally ended up with a “Winter Princess” dress. It’s adorable and I can hardly wait to post pictures of her in it… but that will have to wait until the big day.

Finally, I’m pulling for throwing a white sheet over LA Daddy and letting him be the biggest and scariest ghost in town. What do you think?

I’m sorting through the mail and look up. She’s standing there, holding the open bag of jelly beans, fist inside fishing for as many as she can hold in one hand.  So I say in my best mom tone, “I had better not see you put even one jelly bean in your mouth until after dinner. Those are for dessert, not an appetizer.”

She looks at me, seriously and firmly states, “Mommy, if you don’t want to see me… then just look away.”

A grin slices across her face and she shrugs her shoulders. My mouth opened, but I had nothing.  I reward her with one jelly bean for being so logical. I’m a total pushover, I know.

I’m eating well, exercising, not allowing myself to get too upset about anything – all good stuff. But I realized that by this point in my pregnancy with L.A. Toddler, I’d read EVERYTHING I could get my hands on about pregnancy and the upcoming birth.  And I had accumulated a bunch of clothes for her, had them washed and in her dresser. The infant seat base was installed in both cars, my hospital bag was packed, and I was having nightly conversations with her, in my belly, on my commute home from work every evening.

So… I’ve managed to buy a couple of new outfits for L.A. Fetus (since she’s going to be an Autumn baby and L.A. Toddler was a Spring baby.) I can justify any shopping - watch - ’she can’t wear pastels in December for crying out loud!’ See?!

Those clothes are still in shopping bags on the floor of my closet. I’ve washed the liners for the infant seat and stroller. They’ve been hanging on the line in the laundry room for a month. They’re probably covered in dust and need to be washed again. I made L.A. Daddy fetch the infant clothes from the basement. I managed to sort through one box (of 3) and retrieve the multi-seasonal pieces.  I tossed them in a shopping bag and plopped it in my closet with the other new clothes.  At least I’m sort of organized – right?!

I suppose it’s not as bad as I think.  I do have multiple daily conversations with L.A. Fetus – she’s got a great habit of waking me up 4 times a night to pee. She likes to party (kick and punch) at midnight, 2am, 4am and 6am – although the 6am is a “get up and feed me” kind of party.  She also likes to remind me that I’ve been sitting at my desk too long during the workday.  But most amazingly, she likes to defend her big sister.  She starts her own assault on my stomach when she hears me fighting with L.A. Toddler. Of course, when L.A. Toddler is being her usual sweet self, she sings to L.A. Fetus who applauds (literally!)  L.A. Toddler gets the hugest kick out of feeling her baby sister bump around in my belly.

L.A. Toddler has also made up several songs for her sister… mostly consisting of words like “baby sister, little baby, I love you.”  It’s these things that keep me sane – L.A. Fetus is going to be just fine. And I’m sure she’s going to be showered with affection just like L.A. Toddler was (and still is).

I’ve also realized that it’s high time to get going on the Kegel exercises – oh joy. My recent OB visits have been really good – we had a bit of scare early in the pregnancy because my blood pressure was higher than it should have been, but that issue is gone and I’m back to normal bp. AND –- the highlight of my most recent visit was stepping on the scales. Yes, that’s really what I said.  I only gained a pound last month.  Yahooooo!

I might just top out at the same weight as I had with L.A. Toddler.  That would make me happy – cause I know I can lose that weight relatively quickly. Breastfeeding, chasing a toddler around and working full time… who’d have time to eat?

I am really looking forward to the next couple of months before her birth. This is the fun part, taking the hospital tour, getting the room ready, planning for the grandparents visits, receiving gifts … all fun stuff. But the most fun is learning about L.A. Fetus’s personality before she leaves my body. Feeling the little kicks and punches she gives me when she’s happy or irritated.  I can already tell she’s going to be the wild one and she’s really going to give her older sister a run for the money in the ‘independence’ department.

Yes, I’m still cranky (and hot – it’s 100+ here today).  Yesterday was my birthday and overall it was great. My family treated me to dinner out and some lovely gifts – and of course their charming company, and lots of my friends called or emailed.  What more could a girl ask for? My only problem lately has been that my darling L.A. Toddler has a meltdown the second you start to mention ‘naptime’. I know, many kids give up their naps at this age – but mine is not ready (nor am I). Seriously, she just can’t make it through the evening if she’s not had a nap earlier in the day.

So both yesterday and today we eat our lunch, read a book – while she’s sitting in bed – and I leave the room to allow her to relax and fall asleep.  About 5 minutes later she peeks around the corner with a big grin on her face and announces that she’s not tired.

Today she didit and then noticed that I was eating a snack out of one of “her” bowls and she freaked out.  Totally ran at me, smacked me on the leg, got pissed because she was aiming for the bowl and swung again – this time hitting the bowl and sending blueberries flying.

So I did my best to be “calm mommy” and remind her that this behavior is not acceptable, she is not allowed to hit and now she needs to help clean up the blueberries (it’s not like my 8 month pregnant body can get on the floor to do it!)

So she answers me like any 3 year old would.  With a blood curdling, nails on the chalkboard screeching, highest pitched scream I have ever heard.  Her face turned reddish purple and the scream lasted a good 20 seconds. I just looked at her.  That pissed her off more so she followed up with two more similar screams and threw herself into a pillow to howl.  I let her howl for a couple of minutes sitting in relative silence, not touching her or even looking at her.  She looks up from the pillow and I begin to say “I see that you’re angry…”  and she belts out another of the blood curdling, chalkboard screeching, now ridiculous screams, hits me on the arm and throws herself back into the pillow.  Repeat two more times.

I am no longer calm mommy.  I am mommy-about-to-lose-her-shit. I pick her up over my shoulder (to keep her from kicking my stomach) and take her to her bed.  At this point that I remind myself that the only thing that “works” against this behavior is taking away toys or privileges that she can’t live without.  I spot her dearly beloved monkey stuffed animal (who’s thrown in a corner under a pile of toys) and I retrieve him and tell her that since she is screaming and hitting mommy, monkey will be taking a time-out and must sit on a shelf in her room.  More screams…this time adding “Daaaaaaddddeeeeeeeeeee” .  Ha!  Good luck sister, he’s out sailing the Pacific today.

So, realizing I’m a bit jealous that he’s out enjoying some R&R with adults, I decide to call a truce with L.A. brat Toddler and I tell her that I’m giving up.  I’m not fighting with her anymore. She needs to lie down in her bed and if she gets up again she’ll not be going to her friend’s birthday party tomorrow.  She screams and throws herself sobbing into her pillow. I leave the room.  I walk to the kitchen to pour myself an icy glass of water (‘cause L.A. Baby would come out damaged if I poured what I really wanted).

I walk back to the living room to find something to watch on the tube while I blog and realized that I don’t hear any sound coming from her room. I tiptoe down the hall and peek into her room.  She’s out like a light. Snoozing away, tears still wet on her cheeks. It’s all I can do not to wipe away the tears and lie down next to her for some cuddle-time.

But I don’t dare – I’m one my way to two hours of peace and quiet!

They say it’s my birthday, yeah!

Gonna have a good time!

Ha. It’s August and very hot, I’m 8 months pregnant, and I can’t drink… So much for a good time!

So, of course, when she got upset the waterworks started all over again…