Life's been good to me so far

We've had a lot of balloons in the house lately. Ananda and Aaron can blow them up by themselves now and want to do it constantly. Jake likes to lay on them and rock back and forth, on his belly. I realize this is a popping risk, but a week went by with no popping and I stopped trying to distract him from it, as he was basically doing it all day long (with intermissions to throw them in the air, chase them, and laugh and shriek with balloon-y joy).

Well, tonight he did it to one that was overinflated and it popped. He was in the laundry room near the old deep freezer, which has it's door off and we use for alternate storage as it hasn't actually been plugged in since before I moved in here. There is a small screw sticking straight up (sharp end down) out of the protruding bottom hinge, and when the balloon popped, Jake dropped forehead-first onto that screw top. I ran in and grabbed him when I heard him start wailing, but he seemed fine aside from being scared by the pop. Then as I paced with him, and his screams started to quiet a little, he pulled his head back off of my shoulder and I saw that he had blood streaming down his forehead and over his eye and cheek. I rinsed it all off twice in the sink before I was able to calm down and realize he would not need to go to the hospital and it was already slowing to nothing - he had a tiny, screw-top sized circular bruise that was cut along the bottom edge and just bled like crazy. He was his usual happy affectionate self again before it had clotted, but I was still tied in knots and feeling I'd nearly had a heart attack an hour later. It occured to Grant and I both that had Isaac gotten an injury like that at that age...or his current age...the whole neighborhood would have heard about it for HOURS. He screams and wails over stubbed toes, stumbles that don't even result in falls, any damned thing.

Which is why it's SO WEIRD that I spotted his barren pinky nail bed the other evening and asked, in shock, "Isaac, where is your fingernail?", pointing, and he responded casually, "I took it off." "...Why?" I asked, and he replied, "Because I wanted to." I mean, there is NO NAIL, it is a depression in his skin where a nail would be with not even a tiny edge or anything. G and I looked at each other in wonder, and then both got simultaneously squinty eyed thinking...he can tolerate huge amounts of pain just fine. What is this maniacal fit throwing over the slightest nudge?! Isn't pulling fingernails the kind of thing secret government agencies do to torture prisoners of war into giving up information? Or is that only in Stephen King novels?

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ASIDE from treacherous toddler injuries and balloons...Grant Sr is apparently totally supportive and fine with us having a homebirth here, having a midwife stay with us for awhile, all of it. Who knew? He promised to make himself scarce and everything. And Teresa is cool with having Robbie go back there for a couple of weeks around the time of the birth. We're just waiting to here back from Valerie, now, to know that we can go with the cheaper-but-still-insanely-expensive version of this saga.

I've also decided I can't stand the origins and meanings of Ambriel and can't wrap my mouth around Tallulah. I love it in theory, in thought, in meaning, all of that, but I can't REFER TO THE BABY by that name, when talking to or about her out loud. It's just impossible for me to get familiar with. Ambriel is a little awkward that way, too. Neither name "worked" for telling the kids things like, "When ______ comes out". So I've been thinking and praying and asking and researching about names whenever I can, and I think I might end up naming her Elise. I think it's beautiful and interesting but not at all common, it feels like it fits very well, and it's also something I can actually imagine calling a baby or child out loud in everyday life. It means "God's oath" or "oath of God", which immediately made me think of the very strong sense of feeling called to a natural birth that I've been overwhelmed with this whole pregnancy. It almost feels like naming her Elise is having faith and faith and God will protect she and I both and she'll arrive just fine, if that makes any sense. Having just started considering it this afternoon, it already feels like her name in a way none of the others have. They felt like good and special names - this feels like HER name. Like the way that Jacob Luke was just Jacob Luke, whether I liked it or not. And let me say that consulting lists of popular baby names today (so that I could avoid them), it really irks me that Jake was THE NUMBER ONE BOY NAME in this country the year he was born. And the years before and after. When he's older every kid his age is gonna be Jake. *sigh* I couldn't change it, though. It is just so him. And perhaps it's our area, but thus far I've yet to run into any other baby Jakes out at LLL, the park, etc. Plenty of Aidans and Ryans and a few Elis and Logans, though.

I feel like "Ananda, Aaron, Isaac, Jake and Elise" works, and also like "Ananda and Elise" are not too twin poodle-ish, like Ananda and Ambriel sort of are. I do not have any real contenders for middle name yet.


Anticipating a midwife staying in our home, nesting like a crazy woman for a new baby, and imaginging trying to birth in this space, have all got me cleaning like a madwoman. Remember my laundry room? It's clean now. Like, you can mop in there clean. I've got the changing table organized for the first time in months. Grant and I are devoting this whole weekend to things like cleaning out the office, getting every speck of left-out Christmas decor that's been bagged up in corners into the attic, and re-sealing the nasty cracked open caulking around the bathtub. I've been very unduly stressed and tired from all this cleaning, as whatever I'm NOT working on falls to pieces while the kids trash it with me distracted, and it seems so overwhelming and neverending, and I'm still doing all that I "normally" would (answering PATH emails and phone calls, 1-2 hours of schoolwork with A and A each day, bedtime routines, cooking, cleaning pee off the floor a dozen times a day, answering a million questions, yada yada yada). I was laying there this afternoon getting Jake down for a nap (he usually nurses for 10-15 minutes and then I slip away); he was standing and bent over, humming a tune as he nursed, and the baby was freaking doing somersaults and line dances inside of me, as I layed there exhaustedly trying not to fall asleep and feeling like death warmed over. All of a sudden the image of them both sucking the life out of me, and kicking each other through my belly skin, just made me laugh until there were tears streaming. I suppose it shouldn't be funny but...well, it was.