the fourth pregnancy chapter

I've debated long and hard about whether to post this story, but since this our only form of family history at the moment, a mention seems important.

A couple of weeks before Christmas we learned that we were unexpectedly pregnant. After my initial chagrin at the thought of being nine months pregnant in Texas in August (again), I was thrilled. We excitedly told our families on Christmas morning and watched the children joyfully talk about when "baby sister" would join us. Then the morning sickness started and kept me from properly taking care of my family (or doing anything else) for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. Why is the first trimester so brutal?

My wonderful mother came down to help us out and ended up staying three whole weeks. (Three whole weeks we wouldn't have survived without her help.) During this time, I had a series of appointments with my midwife but she was unable to hear the baby's heartbeat with the dopplar even though I was 11 weeks, 12 weeks along. So I met with a doctor on Friday, Feb 5th, and an ultrasound showed no heartbeat. A follow-up ultrasound at the hospital on Feb 8th confirmed that the pregnancy was not viable; I was given the official diagnosis of "blighted ovum." The medical stuff is easy for me to talk about, the emotional hell and depression is not. So I won't.

The doctor was pretty certain that my body would figure things out on its own and I'd spontaneously miscarry within two weeks. I didn't. Wanting to avoid a d&c, but tired of throwing up every single day and crying myself to sleep every night, I saw the doctor on Feb. 18th and was given some medication to help my body jump-start things.

My body freaked out. I did miscarry, but it involved a whole lot of pain and enormous amounts of blood loss and a middle-of-the-night trip to the ER. A week later, I'm still recovering as my body continues to try to rebuild my red blood cell count.

Though I'm in no shape physically or emotionally to get pregnant again anytime in the next, oh I don't know -- 50 years? -- I am very thankful for my daily improvements in health, and for the wonderful friends and family members who have supported us. I cannot express enough gratitude for all the people who prayed for us, watched my kids when I couldn't, made us food, cleaned our house, stayed with me when I was at my sickest, and cleaned up my bodily fluids. Especially my superhero husband and my sweet mama.

I think I can safely say that the past two months have been the hardest of our entire marriage, but the blessings have been abundant.

End of chapter. I don't want to talk about it anymore.

snowball fight

No, not today. As I wrote yesterday, we get a Snow Day here in central Texas. These are leftover pictures from the fun yesterday. (When I got back from work, an ambush was set for me.)

what could it be?

Even though I was convinced that we'd have to go without this year, this afternoon brought our all-important Snow Day for the season. The children were ecstatic.

The Snow Dance

Gwendolyn was serious about her work: creating a Snow Person like last year. Her early attempts failed, but only because she and Linus decided that it would be more fun to break the snowballs with shovels and jump into the piles. By the time I returned home from work, the snow was very wet and heavy, and I found standing puddles all around the lawn (though it was still snowing, and was relatively cold). We worked on the recreation of Snowball for at least half an hour, picking up nearly as much mud as snow. I was amazed that I was able to roll the backbreaking torso-ball onto the base, but we got her fashioned, then spent some time decorating a very cute snowfigure. Unfortunately, just as Gwennie was snuggling up for her photo op, Snowball fell over (just as she had last year, though that wasn't until the following morning). Gwennie was crushed, though only figuratively.

I explained that while we didn't get to keep a picture of this year's Snowball, we were fortunate that we got to welcome her back to our yard again, and we'll surely see her next winter.

two bits a gander

Gwennie and Linus and I have lately been playing a game where we take a picture of the two of them and change it in funny ways. At first, we were simply making them grotesque -- turning them into freaks, vampires, or suchlike. Lately, we've gotten a little more sophisticated and have been intentionally ratcheting up the artifice of the pictures, trying to incorporate a mixture of colorized and crudely-illustrated elements. (Gwendolyn, however, is sincere in her love of the "makeup" we added to her image.) I'm sure we'll have more to show in coming months.

self-promotion

On Monday, I signed the paperwork which, come March, will render me an assistant professor with the title of "rare books and manuscripts curator." Linus and I celebrated by going out to the backyard and taking pictures of each other. (Have we ever mentioned how much he loves working with tools?)

outtake

For me, it's the rain boots that really make this ensemble. And the curtsy.

I Cho-Cho-Chose You

On Saturday, Gwennie announced that she wanted to prepare Valentines to take to church to distribute among her friends and classmates. We worked together through quiet time, painting these hearts (with Linus getting into the project as well), then wrote a little message on the back of each, which Gwennie addressed and signed.

Valentine

berry patch

I devoted a fair chunk of Saturday to ripping up turf and digging holes for our backyard's new raspberry and blackberry bramble. I don't know whether the plants will make it -- even after my soil preparation, I despair about their chances, given the clay-and-rock soil I've complained about before. But they seem to be draining all right at the moment, and Casper hasn't pulled anything up by its roots, so we're off to a great start.

finery

Dateline: Texas. The elusive milk baron continues to thumb his nose at the authorities. Swaggering about in a garish new raincoat, he seemed to say, "Look at me, Rex Banner! I have a new raincoat!"

(He doesn't get it either)

Their Majesties

We've seen a lot of royalty play over the past few weeks. Instead of the usual king and queen, however, Gwennie's been mixing it up -- sometimes Duke and Duchess, sometimes a trio of princesses. When Linus was king most recently, he refused to respond when I asked him to clean up and get to the dinner table; after I explained that I was the Emperor and that he still had to listen to me, he declared (imperiously) that we would swap titles. Even Casper's been getting into the spirit -- the first thing he said to Jen after waking and needing a new diaper was, "I command you to change me!"

movie night

Our little zombies

literary minded

Until recently, Gwennie has resisted our gentle efforts to encourage her to read for herself. Partially because of the curriculum we've adopted, and partially because she gets a lot of book time from other sources (our reading aloud, her books on mp3), we haven't pressed her too much. It's more important for us that she enjoy books than that we impose any kind of milestone. Knowing her, we figured that when she wanted to read, she'd get around to it. (Like her Grandmother with her Teen Age Tales, maybe.)

So we've kept up our rhythm of having her read a few pages from Frog and Toad are Friends (note: I am not disparaging the oeuvre of Arnold Lobel) day by day, but we haven't placed much pressure on her. But in the last week or two, she has decided that she is going to read Harry Potter, and she's been working through the first book, reading aloud. She's made it through the setup and challenges like Hagrid's dialogue, and is now somewhere around 60 pages in. It's fun to see her accelerating every day as she gains the ability to negotiate some of the difficult words and gains more vocabulary. It's also quite charming to hear her giggle her way through her favorite moments.

robotech

In addition to many other things (I think we'll need to have another post about Casper's pronouncements on food in the next little while), Casper is fascinated by machinery of all kinds. How like a boy, you say. Yes, but he's still too little for this to be a structural interest, as Linus's obsession is. Instead, it seems to be an identification with the operation of tools. For example, here are a few unprompted things which we've overheard the past little while:

Casper: You know that big robot with the beeping head and the big mouth? What he say?
Mama: I don't know. What does he say?
Casper: [in a robot voice] I am a robot!

Casper also likes to give play-by-plays of some of the games he is allowed to play along with his brother and sister. After some time with a video game on Daddy's computer (The Ocarina of Time), he gave the following synopsis to Mama:
Casper: We play Seawayne [our name for Link] on Daddy's computer. And there are scary monsters. The monsters have paws and . . . what? and noses. Paws and noses!

Casper wanted to display our kitty water fountain, Price is Right-style

grateful sunday

This week I am thankful for:

• Friends and family so willing to love, support, help, and pray for us. We've had a rough month over here. I'm especially grateful for my mom who has been with us for the past two weeks, running the household while I have been unable to do so.
• The Superbowl. What a game, and we had such a great time watching it as a family. Plus: homemade fudge sauce.

Edited to add: Todd wrote the note about the Superbowl as joke on me. I'm not at all thankful for football and I didn't watch the game. But I did sit in the same room and work on our taxes. I'm thankful for tax returns.

digging a hole

Much of today was devoted to digging holes and planting the three fruit trees in our side and front yards. The ground was fairly wet due to the rain we'd gotten this week, which helped considerably; the clay-and-rock soil combination in our yard takes quite a bit of work to get up unless it's moist. The children were excited about the labor, though they were mostly involved in the celebration phase of the process.

I am a tree.

new growth

We have three new fruit trees (pear, plum, and apple) to add to the one we planted two years ago, and I expect to get them in the ground this weekend. The children are looking forward to helping, although they tend to get distracted -- for example, while I am busy excavating, they tend to spend most of their time looking for interesting rocks to collect. (To be fair, they've found some really attractive, bright red and orange "magical stones," so I can't fault them.)

It's generally all about the tools.

indoor plumbing

Yesterday we had some plumbers out to replace the bathtub faucet in the kids' bathroom. Of course, my tool-obsessed boys were very interested in the process. When Todd got home from work, Casper reported, "The plums came and fixed the bathtub!" The next day, he started talking about when the "pears" came over. It took me a minute to realize that he was referring to the plums, er, plumbers. While getting in the bath, he pointed at the faucet and told me, "The plums did that. They did it on purpose."

play ball

festival

Today, we attended Gwennie's first piano recital. Not only was she uncertain about what to expect, but since she got scheduled as the first participant, she was a little trepidatious about the whole thing. But she took it seriously, practicing "Party Cat" and "Knock Knock Joke" (which calls for her to knock on the piano cabinet after every musical phrase) repeatedly over the past weeks. And she did a really fine job; she feels proud of her performance. We even got a few pictures of her with her teacher, but since we had to borrow a friend's camera to get them, it may take us a few days to get them posted.

finale

One of the great moments of yesterday came when I arrived at the Library early, a little anxious about the interviews and specifically the presentation and Q&A. I was really buoyed when I saw, for the first time, the new banners installed on the facade of the building. I designed these for our upcoming science fiction exhibition, and tried to capture the same exuberance and over-the-top energy of the material (especially the pulp periodicals from the 40s and 50s, where the Library's collection is particularly strong).

interview

Printing on the common press while teaching last year's workshop

I'd been working toward today for the past two years. Since I joined the library, I have been attempting to join the faculty as a tenure track professor. Despite my doctorate, I do not have the terminal degree for the profession, so after managing to get the credential last summer, I've been waiting for a new position (Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts) to be posted. (Considering the rate of institutional time, I consider the half year to be relatively speedy.)

My day consisted of a formal presentation before the full faculty and staff, and then led through a series of additional interviews before various groups (including my colleagues at the library, the search committee, and the Dean). I feel that it all went really well, and look forward to hearing about the outcome.

The title of my presentation before the faculty

ulterior research

(These shots, of the children looking at the vitrine full of astronomy books from the library's collection -- which I'd loaned and installed at the Museum -- are not only documentation, but became a slide from tomorrow's presentation slideshow.)

outtakes

Grandad time

Check out these shots from the weekend before Grandad returned to Dallas. It's pretty easy to see what a good time we all had.

The kids actually requested this shot -- I guess they've been well trained.

expedition

With Grannie and Grandad here for a visit, our Saturday afternoon options were unlimited. But since Grandad was only able to stay briefly, he wanted to treat the kids to a fun outing, and so suggested that we head out to the local natural science museum. We stayed for a couple of fascinating hours, looking at the books I'd lent to the astronomy exhibit and examining the permanent collections. So Mama got her nap, and we got to look at snakes, gems, dinosaur bones, muskets, and to buy some break-your-own geodes. Thanks, Grandad!

feminine mystique

They'll probably have something to say about this when they're a few years older.

wardrobe

We've written about the children's love of costuming before. It goes without saying that in this game, as with most, Gwennie is the ringleader and mastermind. In this instance, she's dressed her brothers up as a princess and a ballerina. Gwennie's costume? She's the mother.