Cold Spaghetti

Now that Mardi Gras is behind us, the city of New Orleans is in Lent and all us sinners are back to the grindstone.

In our household, childcare searching went up a notch. I found several local students interested in sitting (unfortunately, none are available all mornings and several who have worked as full-time nannies are asking $12/hour pay). One student (who gets extra points as a native spanish speaker and seems very sweet) is coming tomorrow morning to babysit for a few hours. Thursday is her only available morning during the week but we want to get to know her so that we may have the possibility of calling on her in the future. I think the last time went out leaving Will with a babysitter was last Mardi Gras when we hit the Quarter with Eli and Wyatt… just to give a sense of what a rare event it is.

But there are other exciting babysitting fronts coming available. One is that University Montessori, where Will was before the storm, is going to have an opening and we are welcome to go back there starting in a few weeks. Will actually has seen several of the kids from this program out at the park and clearly remembers and gets along with them. We love the staff and Will gets along well with everyone, so this is a good option. Another option (and more affordable) is that the Abeona House, a center using Reggio-Emilia teaching (of which I am a fan), is opening April 1st. Some additional benefits of Abeona House: awesome, like-minded parents with cool kids and the fact that children as young as 6 weeks are accepted — so, in the fall, I could bring the baby there for a few hours a day/week as well. And finally, yet another option is an in-home based provider. I found a woman over Craig’s List, a K-8 teacher, who lost her job post-Katrina and is starting an in-home program to help her stay at home with her kids (ages 2 and 7 months). She is bi-lingual (spanish-english), seems very well-spoken and friendly, and would take Will from 8-12 M-F for a mere $100/week. (This is literally hundreds less than any other option.) We’re going to meet with her on Friday and check everything out. In the event that we like what we see, Will could start there on Monday. My gut instinct on her is very positive (I’ve loved our emails) and we’re excited about the idea of Will being in a bi-lingual household for a few hours a day.

Mostly, it is very exciting to have choices!!! The bummer is that we are going to be in Mobile for about a month or so around Baby Number Two’s birth, so any childcare we start will be interrupted. We could either re-start the same program when we return or start a different one. But at least we have some options.

Which leads us to the next point: where we are living for the next few months. We decided to hold off on selling for a few months. With all the work I have to do, the cost of moving, and the time of re-finding everything from housing to daycare, it makes sense to stick around until after I am officially approved for a prospectus and hear back from some funders. Then we can make decisions about what to do with the house when we go back to Peru. And by having the house a little longer, we’ll get through the 2-year window and not get hit with the under 2-year taxes at sale. So staying through the summer is today’s plan. The power of acceptable daycare options on a parents’ psyche should not be underestimated.

Our prenatal visit with Vicki and consultation with Dr. Maher (a high-risk delivery specialist) went very well! My iron levels, glucose test, and weight are all fabulous and the baby is great. I am officially okay-ed to deliver as a VBAC at Mama’s Cradle Birth Center! Hooray!! (Provided that I don’t suddenly gain an enormous amount of weight, become hypertensive, or start true labor before 37 weeks.)

Ultrasound #2 showed conclusively that while the placenta is low, it is NOT on my scar. Phew! It was worth bothering little Baby Number Two with the distress of an ultrasound to get that piece of information confirmed. From a voyueristic perspective, it was also fun to see her jumping around — playing with her toes and even putting her toes in her mouth! (See pictures below.) Her current weight estimate is 4 lbs (a little above the median at 30 weeks) and her foot measured 2 1/2 inches in length.

Anderson Cooper is not a reporter that I look to for informative and insightful journalism. Maybe I’m being harsh, but in the days leading up to and following the storm, his reporting seemed sensational, seeking to exploit the terror and trauma of the situation and giving little back to the city and people. It turned me off and I tuned him out.

Like many reporters and celebrities, Anderson joined New Orleanians for Mardi Gras last week. His blog entry regarding the celebration and his rolling with the Endymion Krewe has made me turn the other cheek. I truly feel that he “got” what Mardi Gras is about in these parts and wrote what I found to be a touching and respectful reflection on it. It’s well worth a read to gain an understanding of what it is really like to be a part of the Mardi Gras holiday in New Orleans.

I have a long standing “thing” for geeks. I’ve generally felt that I was a least a little on the geeky side, my dating history is (almost?) exclusively with geeks, and I definitely married one.

Last night, the subject of “geeks” came up during our weekly post-unicycle/juggling club potluck. So we took the Geek Test.

Let’s just say Paul scored really, really, high. I came out at just under 29% geek (“Total Geek”). Anyone else up for a score?

One wonderful thing about my marriage is that we have been through some incredible stresses and strains. Lay-offs, serious and chronic illness, cross-country moves, ownership of 3 homes, renovations, family dramas, a child, 5 international jobs, a bunch of degrees, and the nation’s most major natural disaster. All in under 6 years. We figure that with our history of working through these things, the current questions we face are no match for our ability to work together. Still, we are pretty stressed out.

Balls we have in the air:
– We have a very long and detailed punch-list of things to do to fix up the house for market.
– We have no current daycare for Will.
– I need to be in NOLA to work on my prospectus (the writing and research of which cannot happen without the daycare situation worked out).
– As of the first week of April, I have weekly appointments with our midwife in Pensacola (3-4 hours drive from New Orleans).
– We are putting our house on the market sometime between April 1st and May 1st.
– We have a friend living with us until classes end in late April.
– Paul needs to continue to work 40 hours a week, each week, while juggling appointments, the no daycare situation, and home repairs.
– Valerie, my committee member based on Lima, will be in-country in mid-May, so this is the perfect time to present the prospectus… which means I have a ticking timeline that I cannot even start to address until we figure out a daycare arrangement.
– The baby is due May 5th.
– We have no firm plans on where we are going after selling the house, what we are doing with our stuff, or generally what we are going to do. (We are leaning towards a maintainence-free condo in a planned community somewhere, but would need to find somewhere very, very affordable since we need to save our pennies for rent in Lima.)

Just writing all of these things down is giving me indigestion. We know we will be okay and start to figure things out and certainly we’re working on it (I’ve got some daycare leads and have been working on house stuff each day) but there are still so many unanswered questions!

Anyone have a really good magic 8 ball???

We’ve arrived in Mobile for a short trip. Tomorrow we have a full day of prenatal visits: a morning appointment with our midwife and an afternoon consultation with the doctor who has to sign off on my medical chart for me to deliver at the Birth Center. Part of the consultation is the “scare session” where he’ll go through all of the terrible things that can happen in a VBAC and in birth in general. We’ve heard he’s a pretty nice guy and totally into midwifery care, so I’m kind of interested in hearing the schpeal. I’m also glad I know the science and the studies and have the knowledge to stift through it in a responsible fashion.

The big part of the day is the second ultrasound. Turns out my placenta is on the front and low — possibly on my scar. This is a Big Deal and needs to be investigated for the birth plan to proceed. We feel pretty good about it not being a problem, but it will be nice once we get the go-ahead.

We enjoyed a great Mardi Gras weekend. We’re both still of mixed minds about the whole affair: we love Mardi Gras and thoroughly enjoyed it; we think it is great that area businesses are reporting over $200 million in revenue; and we are eager to see if the funds actually get put back into the city’s failing infrastructure.

There were some differences this year… shorter parades, less parades, and less days of rolling krewes. On the parade route, there were less port-a-potties (I waited in line at a nearby bar when I had to go today), and the intense street cleaning crews weren’t quite out in the same force as previous years. (They are *impressive* to watch.) Word on the town is that the crowds were much smaller this year, but to us, it seemed full and fine. Then again, we stick to the Uptown festivities where the families hang out — and where it is relatively easy for your kids to get throws, have cook-outs, play frisbee, and enjoy other common Uptown Mardi Gras fun.

We only attended 3 days of parades (I think we saw 7 parades) but still have a ton of loot. This is a close breakdown:

– 12 stuffed toys of various sizes (not including the many we caught but gave away)
– 5 footballs and at least 1 plastic basketball and stuffed baseball
– A stuffed Muses spear and Muses backpack (my new diaper bag) — both were gifts from the Sherry’s
– 5 doubloons
– Special medallion necklaces from Muses, Morpheus, and Zulu
– Two Krewe d’Etat Skulls
– One Zulu Coconut
– One pack of Male Nude Model Playing Cards
– Three super-speciality bead necklaces (one a bit more risque — read about it under the picture of my belly below!)
– Two lanyards
– One music stick
– One light-up Muses star wand (that Will has repeatedly taken apart to the point where it may not work much longer!)
– At least 8 light-up necklaces, charms, and bracelets from the various night parades
– Two pedicure kits (Muses)
– One awesome “high-healed shoe” bracelet from the ladies of Muses
– A t-shirt (size small — so we it gave to Mina, in the pictures below)
– Approximately 28 cups
– A TON of beads!!!

Mondo Kayo and Pete Fountain’s “Half Fast Walking Group” kicked off the morning! These two local traditions march before Zulu on Mardi Gras morning. We did get one of the medallion necklaces from Pete’s group and it is one of my favorites from the day. This was also the first year since they started in 1961 that Pete wasn’t with the walking club for Mardi Gras morning (he was ill).

How we entertained Will before the parades began! Once Paul decorated my belly, Will insisted on helping Paul share in the fun. He also decorated his own and gave us markers to help him. We wrote: “If found, please return to Zoo.” For the rest of the day, Will showed everyone his belly to great amusement! 

This year, Zulu featured a group of Africans (I’m not sure if they are actually from the Zulu tribe in South Africa or not, although that would sort of be the point).