Hurricane Hadley has been going through a phase that has made me nervous the past two months: the perfect angel phase. Seriously. You’d think I could just enjoy her fun little personality but at the back of my mind, I am waiting for the fallout. These days, she finally sleeps through the night, naps 2-3 hours a day, is spirited, outgoing, loving, hilarious and is so dang enjoyable I just want to devour her rapidly-disappearing chubs.

Y’see, I’m not one of those annoying moms who constantly raves about how perfect her children are. Of course, I love my Hurricane dearly but I am well aware of her shortcomings. I should be: she is genetically predisposed to act like me. And as my own mother declared when she realized I had, in actuality, birthed Mini-Me: “PAYBACK, Amber. PAYBACK.”

Cute as she is, The Hurricane was a cranky, colicky baby. She screamed for hours, never latched on when nursing and rarely slept. Whenever folks commented, “Oh, doesn’t time just fly by?” I looked at them, exasperated, and proclaimed, “Actually, that first year was the longest of my life.” I am just not into sugar-coating like so many in the Mommy World.

I read a blog recently from somewhere in cyberspace and this woman’s honesty totally resonated with me. She confessed that it wasn’t until her child turned 2 that she truly emerged as a parent. That it seemed as though there was a postpartum fog that fell over the first couple of years of her children’s lives that was magically lifted at the onset of 2.

It was upon reading this that I finally got it: it’s not that I didn’t love my little baby and build many wonderful memories with her. It’s just that I don’t care to fraternize with children whose lives are measured in months. Well, at least not with spirited/irascible newborns who take after their mother.

But now that Hadley is a talking, walking, playing, active, full-fledged contributing member of society (she does, after all, excel when swiping my VISA card at the store), I am so enamored by her every move. Oh, and the fact that she finally seems to genuinely like me also helps.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that even though I’m excited (and SOOO ready) for baby #2 that I’m experiencing a sense of loss over my alone-time with Hadley. OK, OK, and also trepidation that Junior could be just like me. Is that so wrong and abnormal?

Of course, with a thoughtful, loving and mellow husband, there’s always hope for him. After all, the good Lord wouldn’t send TWO Mini-Mes to one family. Errr…would He?

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

The other day, I announced I was going to make some gingerbread cookies for our neighbors. Several hours went by, I become busy with other projects and quite frankly, forgot. But Jamie certainly didn’t.

J: So, are we ready to make cookies now?
A: Oh, you want to help? This’ll be fun!
J: [sheepishly] Well, uhhh, not really.

And then the light switched on.

A: Ohhhh, you asked if “we” should make cookies in the same way that I comment how “we” should take out the garbage. Or like when I casually infer how overheated “we” both are, which is just my way of telling you to get off your butt and turn on the air conditioning for me.
J: Exactly!

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

No sign of Junior making his entrance into this world. I thought for sure Friday was The Day, primarily because Thursday was The Night from Hell (day 14 of less than three hours of sleep). When I arose, I announced to Jamie I was marching into the doctor’s office and she was going to induce me Or Else. Because I am exceedingly intimidating and threatening these days; I could crush a person by merely sitting on them.

Turns out my plan didn’t exactly work but my doc gave me something even better than Junior at this point: Ambien. Sleep: it’s a whole new world….

During the rare times I do sleep, I’ve had really dramatic, sometimes psychotic dreams my entire pregnancy. My most recurring one is that I am at BYU and knocked up without a husband (for those unaware, BYU is my very conservative alma mater). Jamie’s lucky if he makes it into my dreams at all. And if he does, he’s usually the putz who knocked me up. What a coincidence.

The other night, I had a dream about Dwight from NBC’s “The Office.” No, it wasn’t anything naughty but he was a focal figure, which in itself is rather disturbing. For those unaware, Dwight is an irrepressible, irritating dweeb who has the uncanny ability to get under your skin. Someone who annoys the crap out of you but at the same time is equally hilarious and endearing.

Jamie and I were laying in bed the following night when I decided to fess up about my Dwight Dream.

“Jamie, I have a confession to make.”
“You farted.”
“No!!”
“Well, I did.”
“Gee, suddenly Dwight is looking really good to me right now.”

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

I realized last night that much of my suffering is self-imposed. No, I didn’t actually give myself bronchitis. And I’m a little bit sure Hunky Hubby had something to do with my pregnant status due to the fact that I was barren before I ever met him.

What I’m talking about is the suffering within the suffering. Really, my illness and discomfort are only surface conditions to a deeper problem these days: extreme sleep deprivation. Before bronchitis and the all-nighter cough/convulsions, there was baby-on-the-bladder syndrome. But more telling was my obsession with Said Syndrome. If I wasn’t laying in bed stressing about how long it had been since my last potty break, I was dreaming within my dreams about going to the frickin’ bathroom. No wonder I get up several times in the hour to go a teaspoon at a time.

Last night was no different with my cough. I was prescribed a powerful pregnancy-approved cough medicine by my doc (can you say VICODIN), which zonked me out for two glorious hours that afternoon. I chirpily called Jamie at work afterwards, belting out an off-key rendition of “It’s a Whole New World!” and the fog was lifted.

Until last night when I had my usual wake-up at 2 a.m. I took a second dose of my medication, which should have conked me out immediately. But I somehow got it into this obsessed little mind of mine that my water was breaking due to some minor errr…leakage. Now, most people would have just blown it off and gone back to bed to rest up but nooooo, I had to spend the rest of the night fretting that I WAS GOING INTO LABOR. NOW. WHILE I WAS SICK. AND SOOOOO SLEEP DEPRIVED. Yes, the inner workings of an irrational mind.

Jamie tries to help but as we all know, men can’t possibly grasp estrogen-driven irrationalities. After dinner the other night when I should have been resting, I simply had to do the dishes. The thought of waking up to a dirty kitchen was no less serious than if the earth ceased to spin on its axis.

Jamie was passed out on the couch after a particularly rough day at work and must have felt guilty because he called out to me:

“Hey, Amber. Why don’t you come sit down and let me do those later.”
“Must. Clean. Right. Now.”
“I’ll tell you what: next week, let’s just use all paper plates.”
“Let me see: this means you’re offering to be on dish duty next week.”
“Gee, how’d you guess? “

Kudos to the poor man for even trying.

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

For anyone who’s pondering doing this in the future, pregnancy and bronchitis do not mix. Take it from me. Ten days into my quarantine and sleep is nearly non-existent as I cough all night to the point of puking. And all those nice drugs that normally sedate you during such times of misery? Nothin’. You can take nothin’.

I’m heading to the doc today for my weekly checkup and I’m hoping she has a miracle cure. While I had previously prayed for Junior to make an early entrance into this world, I have ceased such supplications. I cannot imagine giving birth in this condition. I think it’s my fate. To not be whole when birthing, that is. With Haddie, I developed a benign tumor on my finger mere weeks before she was born. This resulted in surgery to remove it and excruciating pain during contractions. Convenient that it was at least on my middle finger so I could fully express my angst. But I didn’t even get out of diaper duty in the end. Bummer.

On Canada Day, I had to cancel the little baby shower/luncheon my mother-in-law had planned. And then I missed The Dinner Party of the Year that night by a friend who spends weeks preparing the most amazing gourmet cuisine. I insisted Jamie and Haddie go without me and spent my evening comatose on the couch watching “The Notebook.”

Note: pregnancy + bronchitis + sappy, contrived love story do not mix. The result is ugly. Or as in what Oprah calls The Ugly Cry. Noo, not gently weeping like those heroines of days gone by but rather, those convulsing, uncontrollable sobs. The kind that make men really uncomfortable as they mumble, “Oh crap…she’s freaking out. What am I supposed to do now?”

And then there was Independence Day. Our house is in an ideal location: on a hill overlooking a huge soccer complex, which is where they shoot off the fireworks. Our neighbors got a permit to close off our street so the plan was to have an ongoing block party all night long. It was the one day I have been looking forward to.

And you know what? It rained. And rained. And rained. It was the second time in several months we have had a torrential downpour. You will recall the only other time was when I was supposed to have my R&R weekend while everyone went camping. And it never happened, of course. A mere coincidence? I think not.

Fortunately, I’m starting to see humor in all these misfortunes. I mean really, what else could go wrong? As someone joked tonight when they saw me miserably hacking away whilst huddling up to avoid the rain: “Someone should just put her out of her misery now.” They don’t call me “Amber Murphy” (as in Murphy’s Law) for nothin’….

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

Even though Hadley was born in the U.S. and will probably spend her entire life here, I try to make her aware of her Canadian roots. We celebrate both Canadian and American Thanksgivings. We sing the Canadian anthem. She waves the Calgary Flames flag that my parents bought Jamie (a.k.a. Mr. Avalanche) in jest. That same flag he once threatened to burn.

This morning, Haddie was going through her toy box and found a bear bell with a Canadian flag on it. She started ringing it.

Jamie: Haddie, that’s Mommy’s Canadian bell! Can you wish her a Happy Canada Day?
Haddie: NO!!
Jamie [to me]: I guess our little Half Breed is more 60:40 American….

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog

This is just one of many ways how NOT to empathize with your sickly pregnant wife (did I mention just how sick I am?)–

When asked to pull the laundry out of the back of the dryer (you know, that same laundry she just washed for you), just do it.

DO NOT: stuff a giant, purple beach ball under your stomach, comically waddle over to the dryer and bend over to remove the laundry in a vain attempt to prove that said wife is faking her inability to reach the back of the dryer.

The grave consequence may just be that it is YOU who will forever be on laundry duty. That is, if your wife ever lets you out of the dryer after stuffing you and your Beluga beach ball in it. Just to prove her point, of course.

On a related subject–

TO DOCTORS EVERYWHERE: This is how NOT to empathize with your sickly pregnant patient. Do not take one look at her and proclaim, “Man, SUCKS to be you!” (though having a medical professional ascertain that life does indeed suck somehow adds validity to my current condition. In a pathetic sort of way.) Kind of like when the employee at the Children’s Museum commented this week that The Hurricane was the messiest painter she’d ever seen. ‘Twas a conflicted and warped sense of pride….

© Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck–A Denver Mom’s Blog