Feeling Slightly More Sane

I've been a bit more sick this week, but I still think this counts as normal pregnancy nausea. I have yet to actually vomit, which is also nice. Somehow though, I am still losing weight. Doom. And here I thought for sure I was eating so well. Maybe I'm just eating well compared to how I was eating last pregnancy, but still not actually eating much. That might be it.

Maybe? I don't know. Sometimes I think I never actually redeveloped a healthy relationship with food after the last pregnancy. I usually don't have a problem eating food dumped in front of my face, but... man, if I have to prepare food (even minimally), a little piece of my mind groans and decides food isn't worth it. A little bit of me has remained convinced that food is gross. I don't really enjoy eating that much any more. And so now that I'm nauseous so often again, I'm struggling a bit with the whole eating thing.

Ironically, Amelia is saving me. She is not shy about demanding food. And if I'm forced to find something for the tot to eat, I might as well eat a little too.

Yes, I'm still having those crazy thoughts about having twins. I think my psychiatrist is a little concerned about my mental health at the moment. She was like, "I would feel better if you had some Xanax for when you have these panic attacks." And I was like, "Oh. Really?" I'm not sure I'd use the stuff, but the twin thoughts are pretty invasive, even if I think they are getting less so.

I think what I had to do to get myself to calm down was pretend for a day or so that I really am pregnant with twins for real, and then allow myself to sit down and analyze all the stuff we'd have to do differently than we were planning to had we been pregnant with a singleton, particularly financially.

I suppose I wasn't letting myself sit down and think the issue through because I was caught up in the whole "I have no good reason to think I'm pregnant with twins in the first place" issue. But that was bad because I deal with stress by thinking things through. So I was essentially trying to tell myself to solve the problem by ignoring it. Oops.

Anyway, the things I came up with that we'd need were: three new car seats, a stroller that can fit in the trunk and fit two or three kids in it, and a twin nursing pillow. And maybe a kid leash to prevent Amelia from running out into the street while I'm trying finagle three babies in a row into car seats. That's really all I'd need. Besides more baby clothing, which is relatively easy to come by. Oh, and maybe another twin mattress to put on the floor by our bed.

If we were actually financially well off, it would probably be smarter to just upgrade to a minivan rocketship, but that doesn't really make sense for us right now. We don't have a car payment on our beloved Fred right now, and he's never broken down and is quite reliable. It makes more sense to dish out the moneys for car seats that are designed to fit three-in-a-row in the back of the car than it does to dish out all the expenses associated with a new vehicle. A minivan is quite tempting though... sigh. That's for kid four, I guess.

...

You know, now that I think about it, I vaguely remember telling Heavenly Father if he ever decided that He absolutely HAD to send us twins, he'd better do it with either the second pregnancy while we have room for twins in our car, or with the fourth or fifth before a minivan fills up, or... you get the idea. It's one thing to go into a pregnancy knowing you'll need a new vehicle before the baby arrives. It's another to have that little surprise while pregnant.

Hmm.

That thought didn't help. WHAT IF MY PRAYER IS BEING ANSWERED!? OH NOOOO.

You see, I am quite good at freaking myself out.

Anyway, once I actually spent a few days and went "shopping" and selected car seats, a stroller, and a pillow, I suddenly felt better. And just with the way our insurance works, even if the twins ended up in the NICU for weeks (sad!), it would only actually cost us another $1000 more than a singleton birth. I was all like, I CAN DO DIS TING WIT'OUT FINANCIAL RUIN! YUSSS! Only I don't know if I'm doing dis ting in the first place. But if I am, I CAN DO EET. I think. As for the actual managing two beebees at once, I was just planning on winging it anyway.

I have resolved to ask for an ultrasound on my first prenatal visit to reveal the number of babies. One or two... it'd be nice to be certain about SOMETHING finally.

Tomorrow I hit 7 weeks, and my first appointment isn't until nearly 11 weeks. I seem to recall that the midwives have an ancient ultrasound machine in their office, so they might look during the first appointment, but I suppose it is just as likely they'll tell me to schedule an appointment with the actual sonographers a bit later than that. So we have a while. I can make it, methinks.

Methinks. Every once in a while I'm tempted to call their office in a "panic" about something I know is completely normal... just so MAYBE they'll look inside to see what's going on. An even crazier part of me wants to make up stuff like "oh no, I is bleeding and cramping is ouch, please halp is beebee OKAY please halp i is scared" just to be certain they'll look. Sigh. Sometimes my better judgment makes my life so boring. And man, ignorance could be convenient, too. I'm already noticing round ligament pain (apparently not too unusual in second or later pregnancies). If I didn't know what it was and that it was completely harmless, I could totally call in a panic and get an ultrasound. Le doom.

I seriously sometimes scratch my head perplexedly at how utterly clinically unremarkable this pregnancy actually is. I cannot thing of a SINGLE good reason besides my mental state to demand an ultrasound at the moment. I want one.

Also, I begin to wonder if God is exercising His sense of humor at me. He is being so vague. And every time I notice a new pregnancy symptom, I'm like, "OH NO! NOT YET! IS TOO EARLY! I IS PREGNANT WITH TWINS! THE DOOM!" And I think He knows it. So it keeps happening. He must be rolling in the clouds laughing like a maniac, wiping tears from His eyes. And, just to keep things on the iffy side, he makes sure that it's not too rare for a mom with a singleton to have the same experience.

WHY I MUST TO KNOW THE TRUTH NOW HALP,
Jenna
plus the contents of her womb
whatever that means
confused
is i sane?
wut

Feeling Crazy!

You'll be glad to hear that so far, the pregnancy nausea has continued to be quite mild. I keep a stash of Junior Mints and ginger ale and they seem to work just fine. The thing is, though, I still dislike it when people give me advice on how to manage pregnancy nausea. Like, "Oh! Have you tried soda crackers?" And, "Just make sure you have some food right next to your bed you can eat before you get up. You'll be fine!"

Pretty much throughout my pregnancy with Amelia, giving me advice on how to combat nausea was a surefire way to get me grumpy. I saw an e-card meme-type thing on a friend's blog lately that described precisely what I was feeling and thinking every time someone suggested a well-known cure: "Why no, I haven't tried crackers, ginger, small meals, or sipping water. I enjoy morning sickness so much, I thought I would just embrace the whole experience."

The issue with me and nausea so far seems to be mostly the ubernose of pregnancy. Yes, I feel somewhat queasy in the morning since I haven't eaten all night, but that's no biggie. It's the nose. Oh, the cursed nose.

The number one culprit: Amelia.

Pee diapers. Poo diapers. Vomit breath. Sour milk breath. Whatever-she's-been-eating breath. Whatever's all over her hands. A food item she scaled a 10-foot cliff in order to grab and has now thrown in my face for me to open (i.e. banana)... that also happens to smell awful to me. In short, Amelia.

The number two culprit: Any and all food that requires heating.

Quesadillas. Eggs. Chicken nuggets. Even pizza. Popcorn. Anything that James wants to eat. Anything that Amelia wants for lunch.

In the meantime, I am eating ALL the hummus.

Other pregnancy ailments I'm not so happy about... indigestion! Seriously? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.... And horrible, horrible, horrible headaches. The worst thing is that Tylenol does nothing, and caffeine helps a little bit. Unfortunately, the caffeine also makes the indigestion and heartburn worse. Is there no "just right" sweet spot? Augh.

I'm still feeling super silly. Actually, no, I think it's gone past feeling merely silly and into feeling just downright crazy. I still can't get the twins thought out of my head. I'm tempted to call the midwives and beg for an early ultrasound because it's bothering me so much. I'm almost at 6 weeks, so the baby/babies should just barely be visible now.

Mentally, the idea that I'm just absolutely nuts is bothering me WAY more than the idea that it IS twins. I don't like being crazy. Like, at all. I think I'm more tempted to get the ultrasound to see if I'm crazy or not rather than to find out how many babies there are.

I made the stupid mistake of turning to Google to convince myself that in all likelihood, it isn't twins.

Boy, was THAT a mistake.

Lo, and behold, I run across a study that found that the twin rate amongst women who conceive while breastfeeding is 11.4% versus 1.1% in the general population. I couldn't actually look at anything besides the abstract on PubMed, but it makes sense to me given what I know about fertility, so I am inclined to trust that, to some degree at least, breastfeeding does in fact increase the chances of twins.

Also Google informs me that feeling like you are pregnant with twins is actually somewhat predictive of actually being pregnant with twins.

So.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Moral of the story: Don't Google it.

Love and respect to our Google overlords,
Jenna and Baby Delta

... and possibly Baby Epsilon. Possibly.

Augh.

I'm crazy.

Feeling Silly

You've probably heard that I'm pregnant. Woohoo! It... is different than my pregnancy with Amelia. Just the last week has convinced me of this.

Now, I remember the Baby Alpha pregnancy (a.k.a Amelia). You may not, though, so here is the recap:

At first, the only reason I knew I was pregnant was because I'd had a nice positive pregnancy test on Christmas Day 2011, smack dab on the 4-week mark. I had some annoying, but not major nausea at 5 weeks. And THEN I got quite sick at 7 weeks. It got progressively worse and I started getting sick enough at 12 weeks that I had to run out of patient appointments to vomit... and sometimes I didn't make it. And so then I'd have to clean up a vomitous mess. At this point I was expecting the nausea to go away any time now, because that's when most pregnancy nausea starts to go away. At 14 weeks, Elder Holland came for stake conference and I vomited throughout his talk. It sounded like a nice talk, but I'll admit I was not feeling particularly spiritually receptive at the time. At 15 weeks, I had so much difficulty even keeping down water that I needed IV hydration so that I didn't die. At 16 weeks, the nausea let up. A little. I wasn't dying anymore.  19 weeks: sick some more. Only now I have small amounts of Zofran, so sometimes I'm okay. 20 weeks: I ran out of Zofran and insurance wouldn't pay for more, so I'm dying again. Also, I found out that Amelia was female. 23 weeks: still sick. 25 weeks: I vomit on airplanes. 27 weeks: soooper sick. 28 weeks: not sick, except when in un-air-conditioned rooms. 30 weeks: I start acupuncture for nausea. It helps a little, but I am still sick. 34 weeks: less sick, but still sick. 37 weeks: still sick.

38 weeks: Amelia shows up, and my nausea finally goes away the instant that placenta comes out. Yuck.

I'm about 4.5 weeks right now with Baby Delta. The main difference I've noticed is how much earlier I've noticed pregnancy symptoms than I think any pregnancy symptoms have a right to be noticed... and how much more intense they are than I think they should be (for how early it is). 

I started feeling pregnant at around 3.5 weeks... that's less than two weeks after ovulation. At that early point, pregnancy symptoms should be outlawed. I took a pregnancy test, and I was shocked at how dark it was. Baby Delta is pumping out plenty of HCG, that's for sure.

And, seriously, at 3.5 weeks I should not be able to complain about being sick. Or heartburn, or bloating, or food aversions, or breast tenderness (or that matter, breasts that are suddenly making more milk and already look bigger than they did a week before... what the...?! what is my body up to?!), or frequent urination, or mood swings, or evil headaches, or terrible fatigue, or acne (I haven't had a problem for months until now). I didn't feel like this until weeks later with Amelia.

On the plus side, the one thing I am most paranoid about--nausea--is not so bad. So far. I am forced to call it rather pleasant nausea compared to what I remember dealing with. In the mornings, I usually wake up a few hours before I actually want to because I am feeling so yucky. But I can eat, even if things sound nasty. And I can keep down as much water as I like (glory, hallelujah!). And I haven't actually vomited yet. The worst I've had is a small mouthful of throw up when bending down to pick up Destructobot's latest destruction masterpiece. And the majority of the day, I don't feel sick at all.

Now we get to the part where I explain why I've titled this post "Feeling Silly". I've been so excited to get pregnant, and the second thing I think upon discovered the positive pregnancy test was... "Oh no... What if it's twins?" (The first thought was "Oh, look. It's quite positive.")

I secretly pride myself on being able to logically comb out my thoughts and not take irrational ideas seriously. For some reason, this particular irrational idea won't leave me alone. I can't dismiss it like I usually do. Therefore, not only do I feel majorly freaked out, but I also feel majorly silly for being so freaked out.

I didn't have this problem when I discovered I was pregnant with Amelia, or the two pregnancies I miscarried, so why am I so freaked out now? Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not psychic. And well, I suppose some people who get pregnant with twins do get a early, dark line on their pregnancy test, and I suppose some of them also start feeling pregnancy symptoms earlier and more intensely... but seriously, plenty of women pregnant with singletons have these same things happen to them. So really, I have absolutely ZERO evidence to indicate that Baby Delta is actually Baby Delta AND Baby Epsilon.

But has that stopped me from worrying about it?

No, of course not.

It didn't help that one the first things James said when he found out I was pregnant was... "Twins?"

I responded, "SHUT UP."

He said, "Don't you have twins on your side of the family?"

"Yes. SHUT UP." I do. I have two aunts (both of which I am actually related to) who have twins, and as far as I know, at least one pair was indeed spontaneous (i.e. no fertility treatments involved). James doesn't have twins in his family, but of course, that doesn't matter... genetically-speaking.

Actually, I suppose, in thinking about it, I had a funky feeling about twins many months ago. I read a book about them and confirmed that I never, ever wanted two babies at once. I also told myself that since I read the book, I had just guaranteed that I'd never have to use any of the information inside it. (Shhh. I'm still trying to tell myself that the universe works like this.)

Besides the fact that the idea of twins in and of itself is rather compelling, if I had to propose the real reason I have this funky feeling... it is this. I had a ridiculously difficult pregnancy with Amelia. The birth was a bit rough. Amelia screamed for her first six months of life. She turns out to be a destructobaby, so we are forced to babyproof far more than most parents I've observed. 

There had to be some secret purpose for all this, right? Aha! Jenna's brain thinks the following: What could this possibly be preparing me for? I can't think of any healthy-baby scenarios that would be more difficult than what Amelia put me through. So... Oh no! I am being prepared for twins! Woe! Calamity! Disaster! And honestly, I can't think of a better preparation for it.

In a desperate attempt earlier this week to assure myself that Baby Epsilon is years away, I turned to prayer. It wasn't all that helpful. I imagined God facepalming up there, then putting on a mischievous grin and saying, Twins wouldn't be all that bad, Jenna. Now triplets... that'd be bad for you. And I shuddered in my mind just thinking about triplets.

I felt better after that. Mostly I kept saying to myself. "Not twins. Not twins. Not twins. Not twins. And if it is, that's okay. They're not triplets. Not twins. Not twins. NOT TWINS. NOT TWINS!"

Love and a singleton (NOT TWINS.),

Jenna and Baby Delta (NOT Baby Epsilon)

P.S. Ugh, and today Amelia has been a beast. She woke up in the morning and then screamed into my ear for two hours straight. She jammed the printer with a ripped-out board-book page. She pulled all our apples off the table, took one small bite out of each, and bruised the living daylights out of them. She climbed up the sofa and pulled all the CDs and DVDs off the shelves. She decided to pull out all the contents of a brand new floss container. She screams constantly about being hungry, and when I do get her something to eat, she smears it into her hair instead of eating it. She keeps climbing on top of a table that I keep pulling her off of and she screams bloody murder each time I do. She keeps purposely ramming her head into the wall (hard), and then saying "ow" and bursting into dramatic tears. And the house is filthy. It was clean last night. Yes, I have burst into tears.

P.P.S. I feel even more silly now that I've written down the silly thoughts in my head. I hope you enjoy how ridiculous they are.

Cold, Dark, and Wet

So Oregon weather has really been a shock to my system. I've actually been completely shocked at how badly it's affected me. Apparently I thrive in a warm, sunny, non-wet environment. Unfortunately, I don't do so well in sweltering arid heat either. So. I don't know where we're eventually going to end up living, but I am starting to wonder what the chances are that I will like it right off the bat. I suspect that relatively soon my doctor is going to send me in search of one of those super-bright, super-expensive anti-seasonal-affective-disorder lights. (I hope not. I'd rather spend the moolah on bookshelves.)

I feel like I'm actually doing much better than I could be. I decided early on to allow myself to dislike the cold, dark, and wet. I felt that in my current emotional state it would be unwise to try and force myself to not be bothered by it. I knew I would almost certainly have a very tough time moving back to Oregon. I also knew that if I forced myself to pretend like I was happy about it, I think what would end up happening is this: I would feel like I had failed when I ended up feeling depressed even to a small degree. And then I would feel guilty about this "failure", and then I would be more depressed. Emotions are weird things, and I know, logically, that shouldn't make any sense, but I think that is what would happen.

So what I've done instead is decide that a less than favorable response is perfectly normal and understandable given my situation, that I'll just have to get through this difficult time, and then later things will be okay. And I think this tactic is working out all right for me.

James, I think, has a different model of brain than I do. At one point, he told me he felt like I didn't want to be happy because when he said something like, "You should just be happy!", I said, "Shut up! Let me mope and stuff!" If just being happy works for you, that's wonderful. It totally backfires for me. If I try to push aside strong emotions, they fester, explode later, and then I also explode, and it is bad news.

So... I guess what I'm trying to say is... Look at me! I'm moping! Isn't that great? I'm dealing with my emotions instead of crumbling to pieces! This is a mighty feat!

I don't think I've ever heard anyone else say that they feel like moping or crying actually helps them feel better faster. I don't think I'm the only one. I theorize that this is just socially unacceptable. Or something. Maybe partially because saying something like, "Let me be sad! It'll make me happy!", seems on the surface to makes absolutely no sense. Maybe instead I should have explained it like, "I have to deal with being sad so I can stop being sad sooner." Yes. That makes more sense. That's what I should have said in the first place.

Wow. This has turned into a much longer explanation of my current emotional state than I thought it was going to be.

Moving on.

Yay! I'm decorating my apartment! By some miracle we somehow ended up with lots of Christmas money, much of which was intended specifically for me to decorate our new apartment with. To everyone who contributed to that fund, THANK. YOU.

I've been astonished at how much my environment impacts how I feel on a day-to-day basis. I kind of knew this before, but I don't think I truly got it. I used to have to beg for months and months and months for something for the apartment, but now I have converted the James. I had to beg for a rug for our hard-floor apartment. Before we got it, James thought we didn't need one. Now he says... yeah, it was probably a good idea. Even now in our carpeted apartment, it is nice to have. I also told him I wanted a couch cover. He said... whatever for? But last night he was trying to think why he hadn't realized what a good idea a couch cover is for a family with small children. When Amelia goops it... washing machine!

Beautifying our home is actually doing marvellous things for my mood. I don't feel like turning around and running when I walk into our apartment. It's great. Of course, we are still lacking a few things, namely a kitchen table and chairs as well as bookshelves.

We are for sure going to build wall shelves, and we're going to need lots in order to house all our books. As I explained last time, that will cost us an estimated $400-$500 if we want to make enough shelves for all our books, and they have to be high up on the wall so that Amelia doesn't climb them and destroy herself. So... we have to wait a month or more so that we have those moneys.

Meanwhile, our apartment is acceptably beautified. Yay! As I mentioned, having a clean, uncluttered, pretty, unclaustrophobic place to live in is surprisingly helpful in combatting my depression and anxiety. I always knew it was important for me, but I think I might even have underestimated its importance. I mean, I guess I've never lived in a place like that, so I suppose it would have been hard to realize how emotionally helpful it'd be, but still. So again, thank you. I spent all your moneys gleefully.

Also, our apartment is getting increasingly babyproofed. We finally magnetically locked a few cabinets. You can't get in without a key... unless you wanted to hire a few strongmen and just rip the door off. James also secured our three dressers to the wall. I now foresee no squooshed Amelias in the near future. All important documents are in a locked filing cabinet, and just in time, too.

Amelia has been doing all right. She... is a mini tornado. But I think she's doing all right. She has rather suddenly begun to sign with us. She uses the sign for potty now, though I can only recall once that she used it when she wasn't already on the pot... and that was when she had already begun soiling her diaper. Still, it is progress. Amelia also uses a sign for bird, and duck, and monkey.

And, call me crazy, but I'm certain Amelia appreciates the decorations in our apartment as much as or more than I do. She delights in the photos on the wall. She points to them, and says, "Meemee!" and "Beebee!" They give her joy.

I'm not certain this part isn't just me being crazy, but I'm starting to wonder if having a decorated room is helping her sleep without me. I got a whole bunch of dollar store wall stickers of cute animals and stuck them on her walls, primarily around her bed. There's a fantastically cute sea monster. There're jungle animals like lions, tigers, monkeys, rhinoceroses, elephants... all over the walls. And ten million butterflies.

Since putting up the decorations, James tells me that she just looks at the animals and points at them while falling asleep rather than screaming herself to exhaustion. (He goes in there and lies next to her to help her fall asleep.) And I haven't heard her screaming on the way to sleep or in the middle of the night since I put the animals up. Of course, I don't have many data points, but still. I think I'm on to something. Friendly room equals friendly sleeping environment? If I had known $5 would have made such a difference...

Huh. So I guess the entirety of this post could be summarized as follows: Guess what, guys? I am almost, but not quite depressed! Yuss! I'm doing so well with this move. Be proud of me.

Love and not-depression,
Jenna

Back to Springfield

Sooooo... I'm in Springfield. It's cold, dark, and wet here, so I am less than excited about it.
I do, however, do like my apartment. It has a nice layout and doesn't feel cramped or claustrophobic. I am super excited to decorate it. Here are a couple decorations I am particularly proud of.

This one was a dollar store wall sticker and I had the brilliant idea to put it on the mirror.

This one... well, I don't actually have any cherished memories associated with masks. Yet. Maybe I'll have James take me to a masquerade ball later this decade.

We've been planning to install wall-mounted bookshelves for all our books, since bookcases have been disastrous with Amelia. And since we're only at the beginning of our baby-making careers, we thought it'd be an excellent idea to have our books living high up out of reach for the next decade or so. Baby-proof shelving would be just awesome.

Only we have a ton of books. All these boxes are full of books.

We'd need about 50-60 feet of shelving. And adding up the lumber, heavy-duty wall brackets, and screws... that's like $400 right there. And if I did it the way I really wanted to and got a couple decorative wall brackets (for all eight shelves) to use as bookends, that's another $100. We got quite a lot of Christmas money, but do we really want to spend it ALL on shelves? Yuck.

We'll see.

Love and books,
Jenna

Words

I'm not doing super spectacularly today, so I figured I should do something to make me feel better. And spilling it all out seems to help me, so here goes.

I am having a second miscarriage... in a row. I got a faint positive on a pregnancy test on Monday. I was super excited about the discovery of Baby Gamma, and it was even more exciting after losing Baby Beta last month. And because we've trying for a second pregnancy for nine months now. I've found it frustrating, and what a relief for that to be over with.

Only then I started bleeding heavily the very next day. And you can guess a lot of what went on after that. Bye bye, Baby Gamma.

The biggest trial here for me is emotional. Now, both of the miscarriages were so early that they definitely qualify as chemical pregnancies, because they both ended just after four weeks gestation. Very, very early miscarriages indeed. So I sometimes berate myself for reacting so strongly to them, telling myself I have no right to cry compared to someone who miscarried at six weeks or eight weeks or ten weeks.

But the truth is, it still is really hard. In my mind, I can't not think of either of them as potential babies that just didn't make it. I know, in the sciencey section of my noggin, that most miscarriages happen because something was wrong the fetal genetic material. And I certainly would prefer my baby to have a fully functional body.

BUT... It. Still. Stings.

Especially when you add female hormones to the mix. Sounds like a recipe for an emotional earthquake to me. And really, the Atonement of Christ is the only thing pulling me through right now.

I am desperately hoping that this time I don't bleed for an entire two weeks like I did after Baby Beta. Every day of bleeding is a reminder of what I'd been so excited about.

So... here's to hoping Baby Delta comes soon and makes it to dinosaur name status (i.e. past the first trimester).

On that note, I should end happily. Amelia has been so sweet lately, and talking up a storm with increasingly recognizable speech. My Facebook is littered with words she's been spouting out this week. Yay!

Love and babies,
Jenna

Thanksgiving Eve

Note: I started this on the road but I finished long after arriving at Danny & Steffanie's house. Don't get confused.

At this moment, we are roadtripping to Nevada to spend Thanksgiving weekend with Danny & Steffanie. Woohoo! Amelia (15 months old) is decidedly anti-carseat today, of course. She keeps wailing something that sounds eerily like “LET ME OUT!” and it's freakin' me out a little. She's too young to talk! Well, not really. I know lots of kids her age are saying way more words than she does, but this kid uses words very inconsistently. At times I wonder if it's because James and I are usually pretty good at figuring out what she wants without the words, especially now that she can point at something she wants (usually something I'm eating) if a whine is insufficient to communicate her needs.

Amelia has also invented a sign which we think means “hug”. She folds her arms emphatically at times, and we've been interpreting it as a demand for a hug or cuddles or something. For a while we weren't sure what it meant. Heck, we're still not sure, but hugs seem to satify.

So it seems talking is merely a tool for entertainment for now. She has mastered “OH NO!” and “WHOOOAAA” and “MAMAMAMAMAMAAAA!” and “HAHAHA!”. I would find “mama” much more endearing if she'd use it without making it sound like a complaint. She says “daddy” sometimes, but she says it a lot when James is at work. Perhaps she's just wondering aloud where he is...

A few nights ago she said “amen” with us at the end of our family prayer. Woohoo! (Update: During family prayer at Danny's house, she even knelt and folded her arms with us. Impressively cute.)

Amelia has pretty much plateaued growth-wise. She's still big and all, but it my delight she has yet to grow out of 18-month size clothing. She's gotten longer without adding much weight to her bones, but I'm not sure if she's gotten skinnier or not. Still, now the clothes issue is keeping them clean. I've discovered how pervasive dirt stains can be... and yet I have discovered how strangely satisfying it can be to take once-white socks which have been brutally transformed into nearly-black (and sometimes multicolored) creatures of filth... and them make them brilliant white again. Ahhh. So good.

It's possible she no longer needs size 5 diapers and can switch back down to size 4... We had to move up to that size back when she was 8 months old because her thighs were so fat that the size 4s were too small to reliably hold in pee. I got leaked on too many times in a row to deny that we needed to move to size 5. It's just a little weird though, because her cousin Oak (about a year her senior) is only in size 4 diapers. It feels backwards for her to be wearing bigger diapers than he does.

Speaking of diapers... for some reason, ever since we came to California, she has all but shunned her potty. How odd! She used to love the thing. We've been giving her some extra diaper-free time lately (during which I tend to call her Naked Butt Lady) because, importantly, it helps her diaper rash go away and stay away.

So far, our carpet has been completely spared. (Miracles!) When she pees during diaper-free time (we can't always avoid it, sadly), she trots over to the adult toilet and pees next to it. Most of the time. If the bathroom door is closed, she squats and pees on the tile next to her little potty. (Sigh. Really? The potty is right there.) She also climbed onto the kitchen table once to pee there. As far as I can tell that was her only purpose in climbing onto the table at all. This morning she peed on the bed though. That was less fortunate, so I was grateful that we'd planned to wash the bedding this morning anyway.

I've decided to take her pee location choices as encouraging, though. I mean, peeing next to the toilet is almost peeing in the toilet, right?

Amelia still nurses a lot. There was about a month or so where she cut her nursing in half—inexplicably—and then—also inexplicably—she went right back to nursing like a maniac. There are still some days when she shuns solid food and prefers to nurse. (Those days are just a tad frustrating because it seems she is never quite satisfied. And some of those days I don't want to nurse that much, so she just has to deal with it. I figure no nursing when Mommy would rather listen to hours of fingernails on chalkboards instead is a completely okay as a rule, particularly when Amelia is old enough to get calories elsewhere.) Mostly the lots of nursing is fine with me. The increase was just surprising. And she still shuns all liquids besides water and the rare orange juice or high-quality apple cider. Seriously. Picky, picky, picky.

Ug. So just now we took a 45-minute walk around some fancy schmancy shopping center because Amelia needed to stretch her legs. It took that long before she seemed even remotely ready to be strapped into the carseat again. Of course she screamed bloody murder when we strapped her back in.

We still have another two hours before we reach Danny and Steffanie's. I'm really hoping she'll decide to fall asleep and stay asleep now... or soon. [She didn't fall asleep until we were half an hour from Danny's house. She was quite angry until then.] She slept for about forty-five minutes earlier, but honestly, it didn't count for much because I got emergency starving and so we stopped at Popeye's and ate some finger-lickin' good fried chicken. Om nom nom. And then she woke up. Oh noes! Darn it. We wasted our nap on fried chicken. Oh well. Thankfully, she is currently quite entertained by some My Little Pony board books we found at Barnes & Noble the other day for fifty cents a piece. Awww yeah.

Anyway. Speaking of naps, the little one continues to be wildly erratic in her napping habits. Sigh. Well, she usually takes one nap everyday, which lasts something between twenty minutes and three hours. And we've established a bedtime routine... short and simple. Pajamas, brush teeth, sit on the potty and maybe read a book with Daddy, baby prayer, then nurse and/or cuddle with Mommy in bed until asleep. Even with the routine, there is no guarantee she'll actually go to sleep anywhere near the same time each night. She goes to bed sometime around 7pm and 11pm. Doom. Especially because James and I ideally like to climb into bed by 9:30pm.

Oh oh oh! The other night was super special and she slept for four hours on her own mattress all by herself. After the four hours though, she apparently desperately needed to nurse and so I was forced to abandon my book and join her in bed. Oh well. It was a record-breaking mommy-less stretch of sleep, so I was excited. I think she is nursing less and less at night. It really is kind of exciting.

At the end of next month (December 22^nd), I will be flying down to Arizona with Amelia to spend a couple weeks with my parents. I'll be honest. I partly decided to do this because I wouldn't have to ride in a stuffed-to-the-brim car with a whining toddler for an entire 8+-hour drive. Also, if I fly away, I will also take the baby, the carseat, the gianto stroller, and an entire suitcase worth of clothing. Which means there will be lots more room in the car to take extra things back to Oregon. Namely, books.

I am so going to miss Pleasant Hill. I love, love, love it here. It has been my most favorite place to live in my entire life so far. So I am sad to leave. One of the awesome things I will be leaving is a library which is highly superior to the pathetic library back in Springfield, Oregon. One of the things that makes this library so awesome is the HUGE used book sales every three months. We will be leaving California with over one hundred more books than we entered with. I am so saddened that we will be missing on this book sale for the rest of our lives. Le doom.

Though I'm not certain that I could point to any one thing about the Pleasant Hill that I like better than anywhere else I've lived, but I do love it. Most places I have to continually convince myself that I like it. I have not had to do that here. My best guess is the proximity of other Diltsen. We like Jesse and Jenny. And Urban and Ayla and Oak. And I'm sure we'd like Pikachu when he or she is born. (I wonder what they'll name him or her.) And also there is significantly less rain. And our apartment is significantly nicer than any we've lived in before. And library. And everything I could ever want within walking distance...

And even a ward I really like. And the ward really likes us. (Honestly this shocked me. My first impression of the ward was that everyone even close to my age were couples of “it” girls and former jocks. Possibly still true, but my mistake was thinking that meant I'd never be able to connect to anybody in the ward. Boy, was I wrong. And I was never happier to be wrong in my life. I guess I needed to learn something. To my credit, my hopelessness at finding any friends here lasted all of forty minutes.)

People keep trying to convince us to stay. Unfortunately, as I keep trying to explain to the Pleasant Hill branch of our fan club, this would require James dropping out of school and losing all our income and perhaps find a job as a cashier at Safeway or something. And then we wouldn't even be able to afford living here. Doom! And then there isn't much hope of us ending up here in the future because that would require James landing a professorship at UC Berkeley. In his words, he's good but not that good. Awww maaan!

I've spent a lot of time reading lately. Although I've been reading like a madwoman trying to get through the Wheel of Time, I've finally admitted I'm not going to get through book 11 by the time I leave California if I continue at the current rate. I slowed down significantly this week while trying to read Lord of Chaos. I suppose it's possible it's something about that particular book, but I think more likely it's just because I've been busy and super tired. I've spent more of my free time napping this week. Oh well. I guess that just means I'll be forced to purchase book 11 so I can continue reading the series since the Springfield library is lame and doesn't have it.

I've been really enjoying this series, but I feel a little silly when I realize that it has most affected me in the following way: I am heavily considering not cutting my hair for a decade or two because I think it'd be sweet to have a waist-length braid to tug when I'm angry. I'm not sure how this'll work, since as you may recall, I don't like having hair. I have a better chance now than I ever did before though, since ever since James bzzzzed all my hair off, it has grown back immensely more cooperative than I ever remember it being in my entire life. Strange, but I'll take it.

I've also convinced myself not to ever write fiction... at least not for a public audience, anyway. No one would enjoy fiction I'd write because I have the most remarkable difficulty imagining any point of view besides my own in enough detail to write with. All my characters I imagine all act like me, think like me, and speak like me. My brain hurts when I even try to invent a character even remotely energetic or flippant or evil. Which presents another problem. How the heck am I supposed to create conflict when I can't imagine any motives for anyone ever doing anything bad? Ugh. I try sometimes. I'm like, oh, well maybe he's going to do this awful thing because he's super jealous and... wait. That makes no sense. Why would anyone ever do something that dumb? Yet somehow, other authors can pull it off.

Since this realization, my in-head fiction has even started boring me. And since I've used my in-head fiction to help myself get to sleep at night for almost my entire life, now I don't know what to think about to wind down at night anymore. Doom.

Oh, joy. Amelia just handed me a loaded mouse trap—which I mistakenly assumed to be sprung—and it snapped onto my thumb. (Danny's house apparently had a mouse problem before they even moved here, and now that the neighbor cat is no longer sleeping in Danny's garage... Lo, and behold, Speedy Despereaux Gonzales has moved in and is masterfully evading all traps.) And earlier she set it off and scared her. I think moving it out of reach was probably a good idea...

What else, what else...

Ah yes. It took a while, but my body eventually got over the miscarriage of Baby Beta. I was shocked that despite only knowing of Baby Beta's existence for two days, my brain had a really rough time coming to terms with this. I feel better now that I know that this is actually pretty common to feel that way... well, at least it is for women. It didn't seem to even phase James, so for a bit I wondered if I was going nuts. But apparently, I was acting and feeling pretty normal. Once the two weeks of bleeding was over, I started feeling pretty normal again. Woohoo. Thanks for your prayers and well wishes. I'm feeling optimistic for Baby Gamma to arrive soon. (Don't laugh. Sometimes when I'm feeling particularly baby-hungry, I look down at my belly and say things like, “Go, Baby Gamma, go! Divide into sixteen cells! Commence morula stage!” and “Psst. You should be burrowing into my endometrium now. I've made it super cushy for you over the last few weeks! You can do it!” I really hope there is a Baby Gamma and I'm not just talking to nothing...)

Well, love and turkey,

Jenna and Amelia (and hopefully, any time now, Baby Gamma)