Dylan Christofer Peppler
Born at home in Austin, TX
June 13, 2009
7 lbs, 2 oz
21.25 inches
Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Announcing…
Learning How To Relax
I am finally learning how to relax. The sad truth is that I am just not wired to be good at relaxing, and by “good” I mean being able to really do it at all. Sure, get me on vacation, away from my usual routines, and I’m fine (for the most part), but on a day-to-day basis I struggle. There is always something I feel like I should be doing, progress I should be making, tasks I should be accomplishing. I am ruled by lists. I even have a “someday” to do list for the day when I miraculously finish everything on my regular to do list.
Pregnancy has been helpful for the relaxing, in that I was so sick and exhausted the first trimester that I didn’t have the energy to care about…well, anything really. And now that I’m nearing the end and my energy is dipping again, I’m feeling more laid back about things. Of course there are things that need to be done, and others that I simply want done, before the baby arrives, but I am finding it harder to stress out about them. I think part of this is the heavy realization that every day could be our last day without a baby in our house, so I’m a bit more choosy about how I spend my time and brainpower. This is a more positive variation of the “if you knew you were going to die tomorrow what would you do today” type of thinking.
Yesterday Brian took the whole day off work (he’s been working nonstop lately, trying to finish as much as possible before the baby arrives) and spent it with me. I think the combination of his company and my own realization that the baby could be here any day allowed me to actually relax. We took Cooper to Red Bud Isle for swimming in the morning, and I came home and took a nap. Who naps at 11:00 AM?! I am often tired around that time but never allow myself to lay down; well, yesterday I did and it was spectacular. After fidgeting around for a bit (I just cannot get comfortable these days) I fell asleep and stayed that way for an hour and a half. When I woke up Brian offered to make me some potatoes, which I allowed him to serve to me while I was still in bed. Crazy! That sort of “lazy” behavior is usually categorized as completely unacceptable as far as I’m concerned. After I ate we hit the pool for a while, and then came home and sat on our balcony with Cooper, eating and chatting and just enjoying the day and each other’s company. It felt so good, the whole time I was like, “Why don’t I do this more often? This is awesome!” I had been hoping to go to a free outdoor concert in the evening, but I was too tired so we sat around and ate guacamole and finished getting caught up on our “Friday Night Lights” viewing before turning in early. I think I am on to something, that is what weekends and evenings are supposed to be like. It’s kind of too bad that I’m finally figuring this out now, right before we’re going to have a baby and our lives will be completely turned upside down forever, but I’m too relaxed to get upset about that. Better late than never, right?
Bugaboo Bee Stroller Recall
I found out the other day that the stroller we purchased has been recalled due to possibility of brake failure. Apparently no one has been hurt yet, but Bugaboo has received reports of the brake failing, which could cause the stroller to roll away on an incline. They’ve already fixed the problem in production by adding brackets to secure the functioning of the brake, but for those of us who don’t have the brackets, Bugaboo will provide them free of charge. I was so happy to find out that we didn’t have to go through the rigmarole of returning or replacing our stroller. I ordered our brackets online a couple of days ago and they arrived today – very quick service! We have not installed them yet but it looks like it will be pretty straightforward.
Visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission website for more information on the recall. You can also go straight to the Bugaboo site to confirm whether or not you need the brackets and if so, order them.
Health Insurance, Baby
I spent a large part of my day researching health insurance options for the baby, including federal assistance options like Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). I now know what the federal poverty level is for a family of three ($18,310 before taxes, holy shit that’s low), and am guessing we will be above it in 2009 (holy shit, we’d better be). I never imagined I would be the kind of person who would apply for federal health insurance, but this just goes to show that you can’t make predictions about your life, and you can’t make assumptions about yourself or anyone else. I can just see myself now, going to apply for CHIP, carrying my Balenciaga handbag. That sounds crazy but is entirely plausible. Who’s to judge?
While our situation isn’t dire, it’s not great either. I make some money doing contract work for Design Commission, but I’m going to be taking time off after the birth, and while Brian’s freelance income is starting to pick up, it is completely unpredictable. It’s possible that in given month we may have way more income than the limit for qualifying for federal assistance, and then go several months without bringing in anything at all. I spent a long time on the phone with a CHIP representative today trying to explain this, and in the end she pretty much gave up on me and told me to take all of our income statements from this year to the local community-based organization that helps people with federal assistance. The real kicker here is that we can’t do this until the baby is born and has a social security number. So then I spent some time on the phone with the Social Security Administration finding out the fastest way to get a social security number for a newborn (answer: take the baby’s birth certificate to your local SSA office and apply in person). It still takes about 10 days to get the newborn’s social security card, though. Hopefully the CHIP application process is quick, because we only have 21 days once the baby’s born to get him insured (there’s some law that mandates newborn coverage by the mother’s insurance for the first 21 days, thank god). If CHIP doesn’t work out, we’ll pay for private insurance, which is not cheap but of course completely worth it since going without insurance is just straight up crazy. I wonder if we could fall into that space between qualifying for federal assistance and actually being able to comfortably afford private insurance…we could become part of the demographic you always hear about in the news! Anyway, I guess this is progress, since I now know what we need to do to get our little one insured, but it’s kind of frustrating that we have to wait until he is born to actually DO anything, especially since the time limits are so damn tight. Now it’s on to life and disability insurance for ourselves, which is something I actually can (and should) do something about pre-baby.
Four Weeks To Go…
I’m 36 weeks pregnant today, which means that I am officially “due” in exactly four weeks. It also means that we are good to go with the homebirth (labor prior to 36 weeks means a hospital birth). I know the next four weeks are going to fly by so fast, and I alternately feel really excited and kind of freaked out. I am so excited (SO EXCITED) to meet my baby, but I also feel all !!!! about my list of things to finish up before he arrives. This is amplified by signs we had yesterday that the baby will probably come more like on time rather than late. We called our midwife, who said she was “impressed but not that impressed,” and also, “very good, the more work your body does before labor the less work you’ll need to do during labor.” She also reiterated that I need to eat like it’s my job. I’m doing better on the eating front, getting tons of protein, but still not enough calories. So, I hope my bun stays in the oven long enough for me to get absolutely as fat as possible. I did let him know that if he needs to come early, though, that he’s totally welcome to. While there are still a few items on our shopping list, we have almost all the essentials at this point. If I went into labor right now we would be okay in terms of our supplies (both for the baby and the birth), so that’s a good feeling.
Late pregnancy is a strange time. It’s hard to not constantly be looking forward, thinking about, and preparing for, what’s to come. But just as often, I catch myself really savoring how things are now. It’s so nice to just have our little family of three, I almost want to stretch it out a bit longer. I vacillate between feeling unbelievably eager for the birth of our baby and wanting to stop time right now so I can bask in the happiness of our current situation. I’m sure part of that is just the uncertainty. It’s easy to appreciate how awesome things are now, and I can’t really imagine what they’ll be like after our baby is born. Even though I really (REALLY) want to have a child and am very ready to be a parent, I still spend a lot of time wondering and daydreaming about what it will be like. I guess that’s pretty normal, though.
It may sound silly, but one of my biggest fears about having the baby is that Cooper will somehow feel less loved than he does now. Brian and I constantly talk about how we want Cooper’s life to continue to be as fabulous as possible even after we have a new baby to care for. I get weepy when I think about bringing a new person into our household who will get to go everywhere with us while Cooper will still have to stay home alone sometimes. It just breaks my heart. My Dad keeps reassuring me that the fact that Brian and I are so worried about Cooper’s quality of life post-baby means that it will continue to be awesome, but I still worry and get all emotional about it. The crazy extreme amout of love I have for that dog also concerns me because I know I will be even more crazy in love with our baby. Sometimes I feel like I might just spontaneously combust from the magnitude of all the love in my heart (and yes, I felt like that even before the pregnancy hormones kicked in). How will I ever deal with having all these people I love running around out there in the world where I can’t protect them? I just hope I can manage to remain a sane and reasonable person and not turn into a complete freak when I’m a parent. So far, I am way more laid-back in pregnancy than I’ve ever been before…let’s hope this trend continues once the baby is actually on the outside of my body!
I Think We Are Ready For Kids
Last week I posted about how we are not ready for the baby yet. I meant it in a “having all the supplies and loose ends taken care of” kind of way (and we are making huge progress on that, thank god). Mentally and emotionally, we are ready, as evidenced by what went down this morning.
Me: [stepping out our front door, spotting a giant turd on our porch, and calling back inside to Brian] Did you see the giant turd on our porch this morning?
Brian: What?
Me: There’s a giant turd on our porch.
Brian: What? Oh, that. That’s not a turd. It’s a piece of wood Cooper picked up on our walk this morning.
Me. It’s a turd.
Brian: [now outside, looking at the turd] Nah, it’s wood. He picked it up on our walk and carried it for like 20 minutes.
Me: That is not wood. It’s poop!
Brian: [kicking the turd off the porch and watching as it bounces several times & leaves a series of little brown stains on the concrete] Oh, maybe it is poop.
Me: Yeah, that’s poop.
Brian: But he carried it home!
Me: I can’t believe you let him pick that up. It is obviously a turd.
Brian: Huh.
Me: Okay, well, I’m leaving now. Please go brush his teeth.
Brian: Yeah, okay.
[At this point Cooper had come to the front door to see what all the fuss was about and Brian was loving him up. Cooper then attempted to lick Brian's face/mouth (a usual occurrence in our house - those two make out all the time.)]
Brian: [jerking his face away from Cooper's] Ugghh! Guuugh!
Look at the grace with which we handled this situation! I didn’t freak out, and Brian didn’t deny that he let our dog pick up a turd and carry it home. We are so ready for whatever parenthood throws our way, right?
