It's now late July, which means that I'm due in 7 weeks (50-something days - GAAAH!), the little person in my belly weighs about four pounds, and the countdown has begun. I feel strangely calm about the fact that I'll be FULL-TERM in a mere four weeks. There's no logical reason for this, so I am assuming that the recent insanity both at work and at home has simply pushed me into pure survival mode, where I am (fortunately) capable of functioning fairly well as employee, mommy and (occasionally) wife (not in that order), but the typical, anxious, Type A, living-five-weeks/months/years-in-the-future part of my brain is rendered broken. Clearly that's the only reason that I feel any calm whatsoever about the fact that in a matter of weeks I will have TWO CHILDREN, correct?! Or is it that I am just too stupid to know any better?

Whatever the case may be, I'm feeling much more positive about life these days, largely due to the fact that I have only five weeks left in the office, and the chaos that has haunted my every workday for the past, oh, 8 months, is beginning to die down (KNOCKING WOOD FURIOUSLY). Carter has been SLIGHTLY less crazy recently, so my plans to sell him to gypsies are now off the table. No more crying when I drop him off at daycare (that was a brutal way to start the day for two or three weeks there), and the sleep has been going a little better (I will not elaborate, for I do not wish to jinx it...again with the KNOCKING).

My main concern these days is his upcoming transition to the 2+ preschool next door. He's been in the infant/toddler center since he was four months old, and has thrived there. He knows the teachers, the kids, the toys. He naps well, sleeps well, plays well. So all of this begs the question - what kind of fresh new hell will preschool bring??

My saving grace (if there is one) is that he will be transitioning to the preschool with two of his little girlfriends (and oh yes, my child can FLIRT like you've never seen, little ladies' man that he is), as they were all born within days of each other. My daycare begins the transition weeks prior to his birthday, so he'll begin venturing over to the preschool in the next couple of weeks and spending more time there each day leading up to September 1st (when my boy turns TWO - TWO!?!?!). Also, one of his favorite activities for the past few weeks has been going to visit his friend Adam next door. Adam is a June baby, so he moved next door last month, and Carter misses him. Every day when I pick him up, he says "Go find Adam!!" and we toddle/waddle next door together. Carter stands at the gate and calls "Adam, Adam!" and then Adam sees him, joyfully cries out "CARTEROOO!!" (yes, it seems that everyone has adopted his nickname), races over and they play through the fence until Adam's mom arrives to liberate him. Then they run around the yard together and race up and down the sidewalk. Carter looks through the gate and points out all the big-kid toys to me, and I tell him that soon he'll be joining Adam next door.

I am certain that the transition will be difficult for him, as my boy is a creature of habit and doesn't adapt particularly well to new people or situations (though I have yet to meet a toddler who does). For instance, last weekend my husband and I went to dinner (in a RESTAURANT! at a NORMAL TIME! and didn't FALL ASLEEP AT THE TABLE!) and let my mother-in-law and sister-in-law do Carter's nighttime routine for the first time - dinner, bath, bed. To understand the significance of this, you'd have to know that NO ONE has ever put Carter to bed except us. In fact, no one has ever done any of the nightly routine except us...and I could go into labor in four weeks, and seriously need Baba/Auntie to step in and save the day.

Shockingly, it went very well. He ate like a trucker (yes, MY kid ate - WHAAAAT??), went to sleep easily, and slept through the night in his big-boy bed. The only hitch was when they went to start his bath and he realized that mommy and daddy weren't there - evidently, loads of tears and crying ensued, but by bedtime all was well.
Oh, the freedom we felt, eating our dim sum at 7pm at the awesome new restaurant in our 'hood instead of yawning over our dishes at 10pm. We'll be trying to do this several more times before D-day.

I would write more, but my husband just brought dinner home and it's 9:24pm on a Thursday night, so I can no longer focus without stuffing my face with noodles.

That's how I roll these days, people.

Hanging In

Somehow a month has gone by without my realizing it. You see, these past several months - and particularly the past month - have been, without doubt, the most exhausting, stressful, and challenging of my life. Hrmph. You know, I was about to write "I'm not complaining" but yeah, I guess I am - SO THERE.

When you are working SO FREAKING HARD at the office that you blearily emerge into the bright early evening summer sun at 5:45pm, racing to pick up your toddler before daycare closes, and realize that OH CRAP, you forgot to leave your desk and go eat lunch all day and OH YEAH, you're 8 months pregnant so that's not good, it's okay to complain a little.

When your toddler decides that sleeping through the night is for SUCKERS and he'd rather wake up 3+ times per night for the past two months, screaming "MOMMY AND DADDY'S BED! BACK IN MOMMY AND DADDY'S BED!" (yes, we let him sleep in our bed ONE night when he had a cold - NEVER, EVER AGAIN!), leading your husband to start sleeping on the floor of the nursery just to get him to sleep, DEAR GOD, get him to sleep, you get to complain a little.

When, while attempting to re-sleep-train and let him cry it out, said 22-month-old toddler CLIMBS OUT of his crib and wanders down the hall to the living room where you are FINALLY relaxing for five seconds on the couch and you suddenly realize SWEET JESUS it's a whole new ballgame now, you're going to complain a little.

When it's 95 degrees in Los Angeles and you're SO HUGELY PREGNANT that parts you didn't even know you had are simultaneously aching and bloating and sweating while you waddle around the neighborhood at noon in a desperate attempt to get your toddler to nap in his stroller, OH WHY OH WHY won't you NAP?!?, then by damn, it's your god-given right to COMPLAIN A LITTLE.

Yawn. Blargh.

At work, we are launching three shows this fall, in addition to the half-dozen or so other shows we already handle, which means PURE CHAOS for yours truly. You see, I handle the money, and EVERYONE WANTS THE MONEY these days. I really like my job - I really do. But when I (stupidly?) attempted to take a mini-vacation to visit family in Seattle a few weeks ago, accidentally scheduled said "vacation" during THE WEEK OF MY BIGASS DEADLINE (no, I'm not an idiot nor a masochist - without telling me, my boss moved the deadline after I'd booked my flight), and spent the entire trip tethered to my iPhone, replying to emails, with a sick kid who would not sleep, I realized that vacations and parenthood are not particularly compatible.

For some people, this is no doubt a depressing thought, but I have grown accustomed to the idea, and actually find comfort in my new vacationless resolve. For me, there's no point in attempting lofty travel goals - at least, not with the silly notion of "relaxing" in mind. BAH! Relaxing vacations are for childless people and people who leave their kids with Grandma. Thus, save for visiting my parents up north, I have decided that I am not taking any more vacations until 2018. I figure by then all of my children (assuming I have three, per the current plan) will be done napping and we will have more freedom and less insanity. Oh, and we'll bring Grandma.

Well, this post was simply DEEEELIGHTFUL, wasn't it, kids??

I'm going to finish with something positive - I am having a BAAAAAABYYYYYYY in less than two months, and he's already head-down and ready to rock. A few days ago I gave Carter a baby doll to introduce him to the concept of Big Brotherhood. He took one look at it, started chanting "NO BABY! NO BABY! NO BAAAAABY!" and threw it on the floor, which I didn't even realize until my husband pointed out that Carter's little brother was now lying face-first on the rug. Hmm...this does not bode well for their relationship. Gotta work on that.