Mama Bean is very possessive of her son's appearance

So, I happen to think Bean looks a lot like me. In the eyes, and the nose, and the mouth, and the hair colour, etc. I'm his mother, so I'm allowed to think this. Go ahead, take a peek at the sidebar, compare our pics, and leave a nice little comment confirming my impressions.

When I say that I'm possessive about his appearance, I mean that I balk a little, internally, when people talk about him looking more like Papa Bean. I'm not saying he has none of PB's features, 'cause of course he does. In fact, in some pictures, Bean's baby pics look exactly like PB's baby pics. And it's super cute! And I'm glad!

I just really really like that he looks like me, that it's pretty obvious.

And, thanks to the blogosphere, I think I've found out why. Did you know there are several sectors of the blogosphere dedicated to adoption? This should not surprise me, and I don't know why, in my long history with the blogosphere, I have not discovered it until now... I suppose because I'm more involved with the parenting blogosphere in general since becoming a parent myself, so perhaps it was inevitable.

Anyway, there are lots of subsectors and corners and niches of the adoption blogosphere, and I could get engrossed in any one of them, so naturally I'm just reading it all right now lol. There are three fundamental subcategories of blogs, relating to the three fundamental members of what's called the adoption triad: those by adoptive parents (usually mothers), those by first mothers (haven't seen one by a first father, yet) and those by adult adoptees.

A post by one of the latter (I wish I could remember where, to link to it...) spoke of her own experience giving birth to her son, and how she marveled in that instant that she was looking, for the first time, at someone genetically related to her. Something she had simply never done before.

And I realized, hey, me too! I'd never seen someone who shared genes with me before. Someone who shares things like appearance with me... by design.

So, I think this is why I feel maybe a little extra proud when people say how cute Bean is. And it's maybe why I get a little possessive of how much he looks like me. We belong to each other in this way that is just a given for non-adopted parents, but is unique and special to me. And my heart celebrates that.

Mama Bean has a question for the jury

So there I stood, in all my 35-weeks-pregnant glory, belly free and fabulous, and Papa Bean says, "Oh, I just saw the baby kick." Which was un-possible, because, being the vessel containing said baby, I would know in a very real and tangible way if there was a kick, and there was no kick, so I gave him a Look. Y'know, the what-are-you-talking-about-crazy-person-I-inexplicably-tethered-myself-to-for-life-Look. And he said, "I saw it kick, right here-" reaching out to touch the underside of my belly and stopping short. "Oh."

"Oh," I said, "Oh. Yeah. I'm just jiggly. There."

Now, I don't know if this happens to all pregnant women. I'm fairly certain it doesn't happen to skinny women. But for the average to fluffier-than-average women out there, maybe this is common, maybe not. For fluffy little me, this happens: my giant pregnant uterus pushes my fluff downwards. So my belly is all smooth and hard at the top and sides, and then there's this jiggly pouch-or-something underneath. I don't know how else to explain it. I'm sorry if you didn't really come here to read about my jiggly pregnant bits today. I can't even blame it on a TMI Tuesday :(

So, I remind Papa Bean that's just what happens. And he says he thinks it's a little different this time, more spread out (he gestures, so I would be clear of his precise meaning in how spread out my jiggly under-tummy is, helpful man) compared to last time, when it was more centralized (he gestures again, demonstrating a more compact arrangement.) And then he grins sort of sheepishly and says, "Last time, I called it your chubs icicle."

Chubs. Icicle. As in, a hanging pendulum of chubsness. Used to describe a part of my beautiful, glorious, wonderful, fruitful pregnant self.

So, I ask you, dear readers:

Grounds for divorce?

;)

Mama Bean doesn't always get it right

I'm usually hesitant to go into Bean's room once I've put him down for a nap, even if he is clearly making noises and not sleeping. I hesitate because, unless he's outright crying, I know he will eventually settle down and sleep, usually within half an hour.

Except when he doesn't.

Sometimes he'll jabber and flop and twiddle twaddle in his crib for an hour, and I'll listen patiently on the monitor. And call it "quiet time." And tell myself I am not a lazy mother.

Sometimes his jabbers will turn into chirpy little shrieks, which I take to mean, "Where are you? I'm bored. Come get me." And sometimes I do. Or, I call it "quiet time." And tell myself I'm not a lazy mother.

And sometimes, I just go up after an hour, and smell his poopy diaper from the hallway, and I know I've got it all wrong. And then I change his poopy diaper, and trundle him back into his trundler. And he falls asleep in five minutes.

And I tell myself I am not a lazy mother who left her son in a poopy diaper for an hour, while he made jabbery little non-sleep noises, but was obviously tired, because without his poopy diaper, he fell asleep as he normally does. Because. I'm. Not.

Mama Bean thinks about Advent differently now

Now that I'm a mom, I mean.

It's only been a few years that I've even paid attention to Advent as a season, versus solely focusing on Christmas day. As a kid, the only connection I made between the little waxy chocolates I got to eat one at a measly, waxy time and the magic number of 24 was that, if I started eating on December 1st, I got one per waxy waxy day until Christmas day, when there were much better things to eat. (Srsly, those supermarket Advent calendars have the worstest chocolate ever. I know, what a "first world" thing to complain about, but like, save your $3 or whatever and give it to the third world rather than subject people you care about to eating those things.)

My awareness of Advent coincides with my awareness of Lent and all things having to do with the Liturgical Year of Awesomeness. I love that every Sunday can be included in a broader celebration, instead of coasting with boredom from Big Holiday to Big Holiday. I love expanding the joy of Christmas from one day to several weeks, each with their own particular spiritual focus on what Christmas means, the people involved, its place in history, etc.

Plus, there are candles!

Last year, I was just barely coming out of the Delirious Early Days and juggling the new demands of Major-Family-Holiday-with-a-Sought-After-and-Coveted-Grandbaby, so I wasn't thinking much about anything, let alone Advent. I'm surprised people got gifts last year. But this year I'm much more able to engage and celebrate properly. And I found my Advent thoughts this week centering on Mary, because I feel like I can look through her eyes with a little more understanding, now that I've welcomed a baby the way she welcomed a baby. (Well, not exactly the way she did - no angels, no manger, etc. But you get my drift...)

The whole thing about Advent is anticipation, right, this growing expectation of this really Universe-changing event that's about to take place. And the first week is traditionally focused on Hope, the hope for a saviour that permeated culture back then in this very intense, taste-it-on-your-tongue kind of way. But Mary wasn't just pregnant for the four weeks of Advent; she'd been pregnant since early Spring. She'd been anticipating and expecting and hoping while simultaneously knowing that this child, her child is the very Messiah everyone's so desperate for, for almost ten months. She just hoped and hoped and hoped all the way to Bethlehem.

I have anticipated and expected and hoped things for my child through forty weeks. I am doing it all over again for the little Sprout in my tummy now. I can imagine, in a small way, the internal light of hope Mary carried in her mind, and heart, and soul, and tummy. It's just this totally different, totally unearthly, yet fully earthly and normal and natural kind of love. That's the love of Christmas! I mean, times a million, considering the end result of Easter. But the love of Christmas starts with the love of a mother. And I get that now, because I am a mother. And it really changes the way I approach Advent, and the way I'll consider the next twenty-some days. I cannot imagine carrying a child knowing he's destined to die. Where is the hope in that? And yet. Carrying a child knowing he's destined to save the world...

The somewhat abstract concept of Jesus arriving in the world as a baby now has very concrete, very real memories and touchstones for me to hold in my hands, and my thoughts, and my heart. I know how small he was, how light and fragile. I know what it was like to nurse him (albeit, aided by a glider, nursing pillow, pump, nipple shield, fridges and freezers and bottles - but she probably had receiving blankets, right? So it was totally the same thing...) I know that his poop smelled just like everyone else's! And I will add to this knowing, in the coming years, imagining Jesus learning to walk, saying his first words, tying his own shoes (sandals,whatever!) Learning to read. Discovering the world. Discovering God.

Ultimately, I think I simply feel closer to the story, I feel like I've moved up from the back seats into the real deal, with dust on my feet from the straw in the manger. I know what a baby is, now. And so I can know what Jesus was, and what that means, in the Big Picture, about what he did for me. From where I sit now, that Advent candle looks a little brighter, a little warmer; it looks and feels like Love.

Merry Advent, everyone...

Mama Bean remembers with gratitude

“For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.”

Mama Bean doesn't quite know what to do with her weekends

I have a different perspective, now that I'm a parent, about weekend plans, particularly when it comes to alone/me/without-Bean time. I try to be careful about how much I plan on these activities, because weekends are important rest and leisure time for both PB and I, and I don't want him to feel abandoned too often. Being that our work schedules and stuff are so busy during the week (and the lingering effects of our time in Cowtown when the weekend was just an extension of the work week and we never spent any time together) we've really come to cherish our unencumbered time together on those two precious precious days. (Well, I'm speaking for him, but I think he cherishes this time... I'm assuming he does.)

Everything is just so much easier when we can do it together. Saturday mornings are pretty awesome, because I don't have to do the whole morning fetch/feed/change/dress routine alone - PB can make the bottle while I fetch Bean from his room, or one of us brings baby and bottle to the other of us still dozing in bed, and we have a little family lie-in. It's all a little more relaxed. I don't have this desperate feeling that I must pee/brush teeth/wash face/put in contacts/fix hair/warm milk before Bean's noises get really insistent, because there is another adult on the premises who can do at least some of those things for me, while I do the things that are really my responsibility alone. (I'd like to see a game show for married people, or on Minute to Win It, where one person has to put in another person's contacts...)

Even when all of a Saturday is just running errands from store to store, at least I'm not clipping into car seat, getting cart, clipping out of car seat, wrangling beast in cart, keeping beast amused without chewing or tossing everything I put in the cart, unloading goods, returning cart, clipping back into car seat ad nauseum by myself. My big, strong husband is there to share the duties. I hope he forgives me when I save up errands through the week just to blitz them all on a weekend.

However, weekends are also the biggest block of time either of us has for scheduling activities best performed solo. For PB, at this time of year, that becomes the only days all week when he can maybe go out hunting or shooting or whatever. For me, it's mostly about shopping or crafting or similarly girly activity. I recently started a weekly prenatal yoga class on Sunday afternoons, which is gonna be awesome(!!)

So, here's the thing that really prompted this post. I lately find myself dithering about inviting friends to join me on these outings, because most of our friends are also parents, and I imagine their weekends are similarly dedicated to doing things with their spouses, and I don't want to tear them away from that with my oh-so-tempting offer to shop or whatever. And I also don't want them to feel awkward about accepting an invitation if it means leaving their spouse abandoned with the baby, if that's an issue in their relationship.

And basically this is simply not something I would have bothered to think about before Bean.

I mean, often during dating or marriage-without-kids, there are very specific efforts to do things sans spouse, to Have Your Own Life, whatever that means. There are repeated articles in all the right magazines assuring us that, as independent modern feministic women of power, we have a right and obligation to pursue individual interests outside of our primary relationship (and we must be comfortable with our partners doing the same, but not too much, in case that means he doesn't love us enough or is having an affair or some such rot.) And, to be honest, having My Own Life really fell by the wayside long before Bean came along, and I've been stumbling in my efforts to get a hobby (any hobby!) because, again, all the right magazines tell me that's what healthy mommies do. Before becoming a mother, I wouldn't have considered, "Ooh, should I ask Suzie to the mall, since this is weekend time to spend with Bobby?" but now I find myself wondering, "Hmm, should I ask Suzie to the mall, since this is weekend time to enjoy Bobby Jr. with Bobby's help?"

Maybe I'm just projecting my values onto my friends? We did have that arid time in our early marriage when weekends were meaningless, and moving to the PVC was just a gift of this absolute luxury of time with each other. And during that arid time the whole reason we were working so much was to make enough money for ends-meeting, not anything extra, so hobbies really didn't mean anything. And again, moving to the PVC has been a gift of the luxury to actually buy the stuff you need to have a hobby. So maybe I'm just assuming thought processes for my friends that don't really exist.

But I also think it's pretty universal that caring for children is easier in teams, and given the reality of at least one, if not both, parents working outside the home, that teamliness doesn't generally get to happen in a concentrated fashion during the week. So I don't think my projecting is entirely baseless. Anyway, this is just another thought process that didn't run through my little mind before babies, and it's been interesting to notice the pattern. I don't think it's becoming a problem yet, but I realize it could lead to being a bit isolated if I let it get out of balance. Also, everything is about to change after Sprout arrives. PB's schedule will totally change from the crazy-super-packed-extravaganza-of-crazy-super-packedness it is now, as he becomes a SAHD again. And we'll have two babies to chase around, while wondering what this mythical "free time" is and whether we'll ever experience it again.

Mama Bean is fantastically horrible at sharing

Papa Bean says I should have failed kindergarten. I blame being the youngest, and being spoiled, and being a princess. He's the oldest, he learned to share from 20 months of age, and never stopped. He is the perfect person for selfish little me to be married to, not because he's taught me to share better, only because he's already good at putting up with it. haha.

Actually I think he has made me a better sharer.

Is that a word?

Here's a Halloween story about how good at sharing I am. We didn't give out candy this year, because we've had so few kids the past few years, it just didn't seem worth it. But we did buy candy - the next day, half price :) That's just how we roll. I bought 125 pieces of Hershey's candy (Reese's PB cups, O'Henry, and Reese's Pieces) 125 pieces of Cadbury candy (Wunderbar, Caramilk, Crunchie, and Crispy Crunch) and a dozen minipacks of Swedish berries. I'd been craving them. (Oooh, and we got an extra two packs!) Then I came home and dumped the candy into a bucket, and divided it equally into two boxes. As in, one caramilk for you, one caramilk for me, one o'henry for you, one o'henry for me, etc. So that each of us got exactly the same number of each chocolate bar. Because I am the best sharer in. the. world.

That's sharing, right? LOL.
But it's really just the best solution for us, because otherwise everything gets messed up. I eat candy slow - by the time I finish one peanut butter cup, PB's had six. I eat Reese's Pieces one at a time, PB a package at a time. I mean, we've got to add in to the general complexity of this issue my particular food neuroticals. I eat chips from biggest to smallest, saving extra flavour-covered ones for last. If we've got one bowl of chips, PB's utterly indiscriminate eating pattern totally interrupts my totally reasonable and not-at-all-crazy method! I eat m&m's in colour order, yes, I know, they aren't flavoured, they all taste the same. And yet. Brown first, then green, then yellow, then orange, then red and blue. That's just The Way It Is.

We have to get two bags of popcorn at the movies (when we splurge for popcorn, i.e. when we don't buy two tubes of Pringles at Wal-mart on our way to the theatre.)

I'm bad at sharing. PB is a saint.

He has a joke that sharing was part of my vows. It was part of saying "I do." Apparently, what I really said was, "I do will share." Which doesn't make any grammatical sense to anyone that isn't married to one of us. Of course, this has expanded into all sorts of nonsensical phrases, like "I do will clean the bathroom for my pregnant and/or generally lazy wife" or "I do will wash the dishes with a cheerful heart" or "I do will never tickle me again upon threat of castration." These supposedly implied vows don't always come true (though we're doing well on the bathroom one heehee) but they are fun to say. I say "I do will share" all the time... but that doesn't mean I actually share.

I'm just a little pre-occupied with fairness. I want my fair share. Maybe a consequence of growing up with two ravenous teen-aged older brothers? Maybe a consequence of just expecting to always get what I want? This is the problem with my Not Sharing, after all; what I really want is special treatment. I want maybe a little more than my fair share. And I'm only gonna get that if everyone else for sure only gets exactly theirs. Did that make sense? It does in my head...

I think PB will agree I have changed (for the better!) since becoming a mom. I will share with at least one person, without hesitation, and that lucky little bastard is Bean, of course! If PB and I are both sitting with identical bowls of food, Bean will crawl to me with wide eyes and open mouth first, because he knows the odds are good. The odds are very, very good. Though all this sharing hasn't seemed to make a difference to my waistline yet... (I kid, I kid. I'm pregnant, my waistline doesn't exist anymore. It may never exist again, frankly. /sigh.)

So, let's just hope with the arrival of one more child, all my neuroticness will break down and I'll turn into an angle of selflessness :) Or, maybe we'll just be this weird family that buys four bags of popcorn at the movies... and handles the Halloween candy very, very carefully.

(Let's not even discuss how we deal with bed blankets...)