The Number Field

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Last week some friends asked us to watch their one-year-old son Spencer. I had the day off work, so I was home to help out. Elena was still asleep when he arrived, so he played on his own for the first little while. He seemed interested by types of toys he probably hasn't seen at home, especially necklaces. He didn't quite know what to do with them, but he knew that they were different.

After Elena woke up and came downstairs, the jealousy started up pretty quickly. At first she didn't want him to hold any of her things, but we seized the opportunity to work on her sharing skills, and before long she would respond to our request to find a toy that he could play with and bring it over to him. We'll need more opportunities like this in the next few months to prepare her for Moonbeam.

Spencer must have been tiring, because out of nowhere he started to cry and came over for me to hold him. This brought out a new strain of jealousy in Elena. Ever since she's been able to indicate that she wants to cuddle, she's always wanted to have Jenny cuddle her and rejected me. But just as soon as I had another baby on my shoulder, Elena tried to squeeze onto my lap. Over and over she came back to me, but I was not positioned to accommodate her for very long. Eventually she decided to win my attention by focusing on Spencer. She patted his back and tried to cover him with her blanket.

Spencer only slept for about forty-five minutes, but it had a lasting effect on Elena. After he left, she wanted to cuddle with me. She still prefers Jenny, but is not completely opposed to a daddy cuddle. It was a reminder to me of how quickly an element of a relationship can go through a transformation, especially when an external stimulus is introduced. We're trying to prepare Elena for Moonbeam's arrival, but none of us know what it will be like until the new baby arrives.

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Last week Jenny and I took a short trip to New York, because we had three things to celebrate: Valentine's day, our upcoming fifth anniversary, and Moonbeam (with Elena we waited too long for the babymoon, so we wanted to have one earlier this time). Several months ago we started planning: we invited Jenny's mother to stay with Elena, booked inexpensive tickets on the Bolt Bus , and found a good hotel that we could pay for with airline miles.

Our trip was only for two nights and we didn't make any plans. We wanted to eat good food and explore parts of the city we hadn't seen before, and maybe go see a show or visit a museum. Jenny contacted a friend she hadn't seen in years and arranged for us to have lunch. The weather was amenable to our plans; the first two days felt almost like spring, and although there were high winds and snow flurries the day we left, we missed a serious storm that blew in a day later.

Because we hadn't done much advanced planning for our activities, several times I found myself wondering whether trips like this would even be possible without the internet in our hotel room and even at our fingertips all the time. If we wanted something to eat, we could find something close by and well-rated just by pulling out Jenny's phone and looking something up. We made our way around with no missteps because whenever we didn't know where we were or where we were going, we could pull up a map that would show us our current location and directions to our destination. It didn't always work perfectly--if New York is truly the city that never sleeps, it seemed odd that we couldn't find an ice cream shop anywhere in midtown Manhattan at 9:00 on a Saturday evening.

Our dining experiences were very fulfilling. During this pregnancy Jenny's been enjoying bagels, but the ones we have at home are nothing compared to the fresh ones we had for breakfast, warm and loaded with cream cheese. We ate at Empanada Mama , where the empanadas were amazing, but the plantain chips and guacamole stole the show anyway. The second night we had dessert first--at Cafe Lalo (notable for its appearance in You've Got Mail )--before enjoying a late Indian dinner. We thought about ordering out, but it smelled so good that we decided to go in and enjoy the atmosphere of a sit-down meal.

On Friday afternoon we went out to the suburbs of New Jersey where we met Jenny's friend Carolyn and her daughter, who's several months younger than Elena. Jenny and Carolyn met while studying abroad in England and traveled across Europe together. They had a good time catching up, discussing life and parenting, reminiscing about their travels together.

Our plans for cultural activities did not turn out to be as successful as our food experiences. We put our names in the lottery for rush tickets to Wicked , but didn't win. The next day we walked by the TKTS booth, but the line was long and it wasn't worth it for us to wait. Instead, we were able to spend more time on our temple visit that evening. We tried to go to a taping of the Today Show, but got there about ten minutes too late. We walked over to the UN building for a tour, but it would have taken too long and we needed to make our appointment with Carolyn. Besides all that, it took so long to get from one part of the town to another that it didn't seem worthwhile to make any impromptu museum visits. We did visit Greenwich village on Saturday morning, but there wasn't much to see so early in the morning. Many of the locals probably went to bed at the time we arrived, and Washington Square park was under construction so we couldn't even find the famous chess tables. We did have just enough time to do some shopping at a chic maternity consignment store and take action on our final food experiment--falafel from Mamoun's .

When I was younger, I thought the primary benefit of a vacation was in doing as many new and different things as possible. Now I see the benefit of vacation being instead of doing. By existing, if only briefly, under a different set of circumstances, we change our context and connect with parts of ourselves and our relationships that may have been lost in the daily grind of ordinary living. That is, even though we took a trip without Elena last December, and even though we didn't do much on this trip except eat and walk, and even though my relationship with Jenny can only be described as wonderful all the time, somehow this trip helped us reconnect and remember a little bit of how we were when we were dating and newly married. It was a refreshing experience.

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At some point during Elena's birthday celebration last week I had to ask where all the presents came from. In the days and weeks before the birthday, Jenny and I did almost no birthday shopping. Jenny had strategically taken advantage of pre- and post-Christmas bargains to build up a present cache ahead of time. Once presents from grandparents were added in, the total volume overwhelmed me and delighted Elena.

Since we couldn't find Tangled in a nearby theater at a convenient time, our festivities began with a home screening of Monsters, Inc. I promised Jenny I would skip through any parts that scared Elena, but she handled the whole thing well and hasn't woken up with nightmares since. My parents were the guests at the party, and the conclusion of the movie was timed perfectly for us to start dinner. We had one of Elena's favorites: tacos, which by pure coincidence is also Jenny's favorite.

After dinner we adjourned to the play area for present opening. It was hard to delay Elena for long enough to set up a video chat with her Washington grandparents, so we distracted her with a present she had already seen. As I mentioned before, she received too many presents for me to remember. If there was any common theme, it's that many of the presents should help her interact with and learn about the real world through pretend play, with the possible exception of the purple unicorn PillowPet.

Among the instant favorites that come to my mind now are: a dress up skirt from Grandma Renee, a beautiful set of MegaBloks from Gran Ann and Grandpa Dana, and farm animal hand puppets that captured Jenny's imagination when she saw them several months ago. We had to play with all of those as soon as Elena opened them. When it was bedtime, we found that Elena wanted to take her new bear to bed. Perhaps she thought he would be lonely in this new home just that first night, because since then he's slept downstairs with the other toys.

One late present has probably received the most attention of them all since it arrived on Thursday with Grandma Nancy--a tricycle that Elena calls a bike. Grandma Nancy came up to take care of Elena while Jenny and I went on a two-day trip, so I have not yet observed the phenomenon directly, but Elena likes her bike so much that she will sit on it while watching Barney or reading books. She prefers to have someone push her around the apartment or, during the unseasonably warm days, around the park, but sometimes even Grandma gets tired. Elena can keep her feet on the pedals while they turn, but still lacks the muscle and coordination to use them for self-propulsion. She'll probably figure it out soon, given all the time she spends on the bike.

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When presented with a case, the first thing a doctor needs to do is diagnose the true problem from a sometimes poorly-organized collection of symptoms. Elena has recently started to show interest in medicine, specifically the diagnosis of ow-ees. So far her diagnoses tend to be overly aggressive. Jenny says it can feel offensive when Elena points to some inconsequential little blemish on her cheek and asks "mommy ow-ee?" over and over again. She's done the same thing to me (replacing "mommy" with "daddy"), and I can understand where Jenny's coming from.

Elena gained her knowledge of ow-ees at least partially from observation of me. She was helping me make dinner one evening--a simple chili that involves browning beef, mixing in cans of tomatoes and beans, adding spices, and simmering. I wanted Elena to help pour a can of beans into the pot. As we were doing so, something went wrong, the can fell, and I sliced my thumb. It was good that Jenny was nearby to take care of both of us, removing Elena from the kitchen and getting me some ointment and a bandage to apply after I ran cold water over the wound for a while. For the next day or two, Elena wanted to wear band-aids when she saw mine, but didn't insist on it.

We've also had several interactions with real medical professionals this week. On Monday Elena's two-year checkup went smoothly. As befit a big girl, she stood on the scale for weighing and measuring. She's a shade over 38 pounds in weight and exactly 36 inches tall, still tracking above and along the upper edges of the growth charts. No additional vaccinations were required, and the PA who performed the evaluation warned Jenny against competitive parenting, especially with regards to potty training.

The next day Elena accompanied Jenny and me to the second prenatal appointment for Moonbeam, which was just a short checkup. Elena picked up a yachting magazines to look at while we waited. The high point of the visit was when the doctor let us listen to the baby's heartbeat for the first time. At about 150 beats per minute, it was right within normal parameters.

My meetings with health care providers were not nearly as fortunate. My teeth had been sensitive recently, but I thought it was nothing out of the ordinary until early this week, when the pain started to grow. On Wednesday morning I tried to eat some carrots and almost started crying from the pain. Jenny arranged a dentist appointment on short notice, at which the dentist assured me that the problem was from me grinding my teeth and recommended a mouthguard. I wasn't in much pain at the time, so I happily went on my way.

I spent that evening in excruciating pain. My only relief came from pooling cool water over my teeth. I eventually figure out that I could spit it out instead of drinking it all. We made a late night call to the dentist, who told me to take pain medicine and come see him in the morning. Despite the late hour, our home teacher came and gave me a blessing. Late that night, the pain subsided enough that I got several hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The next morning, the dentist still couldn't pinpoint the problem and referred me to an endodontist. They agreed to see me as soon as I could get there. Presented with the same confusing set of symptoms, the endodontist formulated a hypothesis that finally led to pain relief and pinpointed the problem. He reasoned that whatever the source, the inflammation had spread so much that the pain couldn't be used to identify the problem and prescribed antibiotics to treat the infection. Mere hours after starting treatment, the worst of the pain was gone and I figured out which tooth was causing the problem. Now we can move forward with treatment to fix things, and while I have to have a root canal re-examined, at least I don't have to have a new one. It's too late for my teeth, but I'm doing all I can to help Elena never experience serious dental problems.

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One shiny balloon is all it takes to fill Elena's birthday cup to overflowing. At naptime Jenny let Elena have it and she played with it for an hour before Jenny had to remove it from the room and deal with the crying. When I put her to bed this evening she cried uncontrollably until I let her have the balloon. Jenny warned me about the possible repercussions, but this time she was tired enough that she went right to sleep, still clutching tightly to the string--after I was sure she was asleep, I recovered the balloon.

I left for work just as Elena was waking up and didn't go in to see her. Jenny said that when they came downstairs, Elena spent several minutes looking around and admiring the balloons and streamers we put up last night. Other special morning moments included a special big-girl breakfast of three scrambled eggs and chocolate milk, an early screening of a Barney episode, and fun time with the "Happy Birthday" 3D window decals that may now be hidden somewhere under the covers of our bed.

I took a long lunch and met Jenny and Elena at Five Guys , their first time there. The food was as good as we hoped, but Elena only wanted to eat fries and smile at the people in line. She even got one kind man to sing to her. After lunch we enjoyed the sun with Elena running back and forth for some pictures, but not for too long because it was still very cold.

When I arrived home, I found a package at the door--a present from Aunt Heidi, Uncle Gerrit, and Cousin Ginny in what may be a continuation of Operation Birthday Treat . They must have known how happy I would be that Elena is now old enough for peanuts and peanut butter, since they sent peanut-butter chocolate cookie cups.

We followed up that snack treat with an after-dinner trip to Baskin Robbins, where Elena chose Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl. There is no better way to learn to love peanut butter than when it is paired with choclate. We can teach her about jelly later. No cake today; that will wait until Saturday when we have a party with her grandparents. I'm going to try to make pie-cookie-cake . I hope it turns out better than the ice cream cake from Jenny's birthday.

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Our first prenatal appointment was about three weeks ago, the morning after a big storm was scheduled to blow through. It wasn't as bad as some had predicted--around here it almost never is, last winter notwithstanding--but we did have enough of a slushy mess that morning that I called the doctor's office to make sure that they were still open. Jenny dropped Elena off at her friend Saoirse's house; we thought that if we were both there, it would be too obvious and we didn't want to let the news out at that point.

During Jenny's previous pregnancy, our experience with the doctor was very positive from day one. We had a high standard of comparison for the new office, and were not impressed with the impersonal processing at the front desk and nurse's station. Eventually a nurse showed us to an exam room where we met the doctor. Jenny had a strong word of mouth recommendation, but we were still waiting to find confirmation that it was the the right office for us. When the doctor finally joined us, she put our fears to rest, listening patiently to our concerns and giving reasonable answers.

After question and answer session, it was on to the main purpose of our visit. The doctor confirmed what we already knew. She fired up the ultrasound machine and showed us the first video of Moonbeam, heartbeat and all. The baby appears normal and healthy. According to the doctor, there is almost no differentiation in embryo size at ten and a half weeks, so the due date she gave us (August 12) should accurately represent a full term, although Jenny's hopeful that this baby will be early like Elena.

We told Elena about what's happening. As many toddlers do, she now thinks that everyone--including her--has a baby in their tummy. As a result, she wants to show everyone her tummy and look at theirs. We saw my parents just after we told her but before we were ready for them to know. At some point she started pointing at midsections and talking to them about babies in tummies. Thanks to her garbled enunciation they didn't understand what she was saying, so she didn't blow our cover. But now we're ready for everyone to know, so if you see Elena, feel free to ask her about it.

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Blog name: Moonbeam Due date: Early August

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