For my birthday last month Matt bought me the new iPhone.  I’ve never had an iPhone before, so it was all new to me, but it very quickly became one of those things (like the GPS in my car) that I can’t believe I ever lived without.

As fantastic as I think the iPhone is, Nate loves it even more.  When I first got it I downloaded a few games for him, but I would only let him play with it when we are at the doctor’s office (that way it wouldn’t lose it’s appeal and he would have something to keep him busy while we were waiting for the doctor…we go to the doctor a lot, especially now with my pregnancy).  That lasted for a couple of weeks, then I broke my own rule and let him play with it one day while we were out to lunch with my mom.  That was the beginning of the end.

After that he started asking to play with it all the time, and I gradually just gave in more and more.  I also downloaded some cartoons for him, and by far his favorite is Batman.  So he has a few Batman cartoons and lots of educational games, so my phone has now become his number one favorite toy.  He wakes up in the morning and within minutes he is asking to watch Batman (which means, “Give me your phone, Mommy.”)  He usually spends about half the time watching his Batman cartoons, while he spends the other half playing his games and hopefully learning a few things, so I try not to feel too bad about it. 

After I get my phone back I will sometimes discover that he’s been doing more than just watching shows and playing games.  A few times I’ve found that he’s started to reply back to an email.  Just the other day I saw that he had opened a browser window, somehow found his way to Wikipedia, then searched for ‘Purddsqpplopppl’.  Alas, no results matched his query.

He has also found the camera application a few times, and it’s funny to see his perspective on the world:

Like sitting in his car seat looking at the messy floorboard:

Or waiting on Mommy as we are walking out the door:

Or sitting in the grocery cart (the big part of the cart, not the front part where the kids are supposed to sit…he’s too good for that):

So, he loves my iPhone.  Which is kind of annoying because I love my iPhone and he is totally turning into an iPhone hog.

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Every day for the past week I have been certain that I was going into labor.  Now, I’ve never actually been in labor (Nate was a scheduled C-section), but I imagine labor feels something like what I’ve been experiencing all week: intense stabbing pains down in my nether regions (which by the way, is the worst place you want to have any sort of stabbing pains), abdominal cramping, and worse-than-normal back pain. 

Now, yes, most of the “I’m definitely going into labor right now” moments have occurred after I’ve been on my feet for too long (read: longer than 30 minutes), but really, all this pain I’m feeling is pretty awful.  And it’s really hard to stay off my feet for very long.

I did go check with my doctor, just to make sure that I wasn’t going into labor (I’m not), but also to make sure that Baby Will hadn’t somehow acquired an axe and had decided to hack his way out of the birth canal (so far, no sign of any sharp objects hidden up there). 

As of Tuesday I will have 7 more weeks to go (I’ll be 32 weeks along, but my doctor has already scheduled my C-section for 39 weeks).  Now, I don’t want Baby Will to come too early, because of course I want him to be healthy, but holy cow, I’m not sure I can do this for another 7 weeks.  And I’m not sure my husband can listen to me complain for another 7 weeks.  Like I told him, I’m terribly uncomfortable 100% of the time, and I’m in some sort of actual pain 80% of the time. 

So, Baby Will, as soon as you are nice and big and healthy, feel free to go ahead and kick things into gear and head on outta there.  Momma needs a break.  Because, really, as hard and exhausting as it is taking care of a newborn, at least I won’t be pregnant anymore.

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Saturday night Matt and I went and saw the movie Inception while my mom stayed over and watched Nate.  Right before it started Matt looked at me and said, “This movie is going to be a real mind bender.  Pregnancy brain doesn’t stand a chance.”

Yep, the good ole’ pregnancy brain.  Not good for much these days.

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Happy Birthday, Daddy! from Courtney Engle on Vimeo.

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About two to three months ago I started to notice that sometimes Nate was having difficulty speaking, having trouble getting his words out.  I really didn’t think too much of it at first, but then he started doing it more and more until I had to admit that he was in fact stammering.

Stammering is like stuttering in that he has trouble getting a word out, but if, for instance, he was trying to say the word “baby,” with stuttering it would sound like “b,b,b,b,baby” whereas with stammering it sounds like “bayyyyyy, be”.  It’s like his brain gets stuck on the first syllable of whatever word he is trying to say. 

We had a check up with our doctor about three weeks ago, and I mentioned this to him.  He said that some kids do go through a phase of stammering or stuttering, but that the vast majority of the kids outgrow it fairly quickly.  I accepted this, until I began to notice that Nate was stammering more and more.  It would happen every day, and each day he would get stuck on anywhere from 2 to 4 dozen words.  It was definitely becoming more frequent.

Nate didn’t really seem to notice anything was wrong, and Matt and I just ignored it, never bringing it to his attention or telling him to slow down or repeat himself, and never finishing the word for him.  We would just let him say what he was trying to say, then answer his question or make a comment or whatever.  I was relieved that at least he wasn’t bothered by it.

But then this past week I started to notice that whenever he was having trouble saying a word he would begin to do these heavy, hard eye blinks.  Seeing him do that made me realize that he was becoming aware of his speech, and that he was using this eye blinking as a kind of trick, as a way to help get the word to come out.  And that made me very sad.  He knew something was wrong and he was trying to figure out a way to fix it on his own.

So today I took him back to the doctor, concerned that the stammering was getting worse and now he had incorporated this eye blinking thing as a way to help himself stop stammering.  While we were with the doctor I was talking to Nate and he did stammer and blink his eyes while trying to say a few words, so luckily the doctor got to see exactly what I was talking about.  He again told me that I shouldn’t worry, that he was still learning to speak, and learning to speak correctly, and that we should give it until his third birthday.  That would give him about 5 more months where things could improve, but if they didn’t then it wouldn’t be too late to do some early intervention and speech therapy to address the issue. 

I just don’t want this to grow and escalate and become a major issue.  I also don’t want to send him to school in three weeks where other kids may make fun of him or shun him because he occasionally stammers.  I just worry.

To make things worse (for me, anyway) tonight Nate and I met Matt’s parents out for dinner (he’s in Austin for work) at IHOP.  As we were leaving Nate and I walked past a man who was waiting to be seated.  Nate was talking to me and trying to say, “Baba and Gigi, where are they going?”, but he was having trouble with “Baba”, so it sounded like, “Baaaaaaaa, ba”.  The man, overhearing just this portion, laughed and mimicked Nate saying, “Baaaa, baaaaa, baaaaa.”  I ignored him and kept my focus on Nate, trying to answer his question but also praying that he didn’t hear the man and/or didn’t think anything of it. 

Hearing that man laughing and teasing Nate (I’m sure he thought Nate was being silly, in which case he assumed it was alright to make fun of him…I can’t even imagine what kind of person would assume that a little kid was in fact stammering/stuttering and still make fun of him) made my protective Momma Bear instincts flare up instantly.  My sweet, innocent little boy was being teased and I was furious.  Maybe it’s because we’ve been watching a lot of “Dumbo” lately, but I felt like Dumbo’s mommy when she goes crazy trying to protect him after the boys at the circus make fun of him for his big ears.  The trainers take Mrs. Jumbo away and lock her in a trailer with a big sign posted saying, “Mad Elephant.”  Tonight I felt a little like a mad elephant. 

I don’t ever want Nate to think that something is wrong with him, but more than that I don’t ever want him to know what it’s like to be mad fun of for that something.  I really, really hope I’m making a big deal out of nothing and that in a few months he outgrows this.  But I know that if it’s not this then at some point there will probably be at least 15 other things be will be teased about. 

So I guess this momma elephant is going to need to toughen up a bit herself before she will be able to teach her son to do the same.

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Let’s just jump right on in, shall we?

1. Pain in hips- When I was pregnant with Nate I had terrible pain in my hips, especially when I was sleeping, and that pain has now fully set in this time around.  When you’re pregnant you are supposed to sleep on your sides, but for some reason I get this terrible aching pain in both hips, and laying on them is very painful.  It got so bad with Nate that the last few weeks of my pregnancy with him I had to sleep in our La-Z-Boy recliner every night.  It was awful.  And the pain sticks around during the day, too, which sometimes makes it uncomfortable to walk.  And that is why I now waddle when I walk.
2. Trouble sleeping – Please see above, pain in hips.
3. Fatigue- I was really tired during the first trimester, then I had about 2 weeks where I felt great, and now I’m back to being exhausted again.  On Sunday I was so tired that I felt like I had been drugged.  I know a lot of it just has to do with being pregnant, but I know a big reason is that I’m not sleeping well at night because of the pain in my hips and just my general uncomfortableness.  I usually try to nap during the day when Nate naps, but that really doesn’t help much.  Like Matt said, “Well, once the baby comes you’ll be able to get a good night’s….oh, wait, never mind.”
4. Hungry, hungry, hungry – I am a bottomless pit these days.  Matt asked me the other day what I wanted for dinner, and I told him that it didn’t matter, that I was only concerned about volume.  And that’s pretty much the truth.  I want food, a lot of it, and all the time.  When I was pregnant with Nate and I complained about how hungry I was people would tell me that once I got towards the end of my pregnancy that I wouldn’t be so hungry because he would be pushing against my stomach and I just wouldn’t be able to eat as much as I used to.  That turned out to be a big, fat lie.  The hunger and the ability to put away vast quantities of food stayed with me right up until the very end.  Really, the very end.  I had a C-section with Nate, which was scheduled for 2:00 pm on a Thursday.  But I couldn’t eat for 8 or 10 hours before my surgery, so the morning that I had Nate Matt woke up at 4:00 am and cooked me a huge breakfast.  I’m pretty sure that was the best breakfast I’ve ever had.
5. Wedding ring- Again, this happened with Nate, too.  My wedding ring no longer fits.  It hasn’t fit for the past few weeks.  And because I don’t want people to judge me (”What kind of woman has a toddler, then gets pregnant again, and she’s not even married?!!!”) I’m wearing this cheap, costume jewelry ring that kind of looks like a wedding ring.  Never mind that it’s not very comfortable…I need strangers to know that my children aren’t illegitimate!
6. Weight gain- I am 29 weeks along (only 10 more to go!), and I have gained 35 pounds.  Holy moley.  I gained 55 pounds with Nate, and I very well may beat that this time around.  I went in for an appointment with my OB last week, and as he was reading over my chart he said, “The baby’s heartbeat sounds good, your blood pressure looks good, your weight looks good…”, and I just breathed a sigh of relief.  The last thing I need right now is my doctor telling me I’m gaining too much weight.  Especially since just the other day as I was changing clothes in our closet, I pulled down the shorts I was wearing, and Nate slapped me on the butt and then giggled.  Matt (yes, we are all three frequently in the closet together) then also slapped me on the butt and the two of them just stood there, staring at my butt and laughing.  I’m quite sure they were laughing at the crazy amount of jiggling that was going on back there, but really, I didn’t want to know. 
7. Belly button- This is something that did not happen with Nate.  My belly button isn’t becoming an outie, like sometimes happens to pregnant ladies.  No, it’s more like my belly is being pulled and stretched from the sides so that the edges of my belly button kind of roll out.  Does that sound kind of freaky?  Well, that’s because it kind of is.  I still have 10 more weeks, so an outie belly button may very well still be in my future. 

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