Yesterday I started taking a new class, much like the one I took in September, which is 4 days a week, and runs from 8am to 12:30pm for six weeks. Three of those days, I then must go straight to work, and work until 8pm, essentially missing Cordy’s entire day.

Today was day 2, Cordy has already caught on to what’s happening, and she’s none too happy about it. She realizes this means not seeing mommy all day, as well as being rushed in the morning to get dressed and get out the door (and oh, how she hates to be rushed in the morning!), and this routine change has brought out the hair-trigger tantrum monster.

I suppose I could be glad that at least I’m not the one dealing with her grumpy attitude, but truthfully it breaks my heart. Plus, being away from her entirely for three days a week is no fun for me, either. I never experienced anything like an anxiety attack before becoming a mother, but now there are times when I’m gripped with an illogical fear that while I’m away from her, something bad will happen to her. The logical, rational part of my brain always steps in and reminds me, You have no proof that anything bad will happen to her, silly. You’re being irrational, so stop it, but that doesn’t stop the occasional anxious thought from sneaking past the logic police now and then.

And so yesterday at my doctor’s visit, I found myself having another anxious moment. It was the day we were going to hear the heartbeat for the first time, and I had this sense of dread that baby #2 would have no heartbeat. It was a crazy thought, since I’ve been feeling OK and didn’t have any spotting, but that thought remained in the shadows behind other thoughts, casting a little darkness on all of them.

The visit started with all of the normal stuff: blood pressure (still low, so good), weight, etc. I was down 2 pounds from my last visit, which was more than I thought I’d weigh. This baby is being nicer to me, I guess. By this point with Cordy, I had already lost 10 pounds.

Then the doctor came in, and we chatted a little. I told her about the pain I was having at the back of my pelvis that basically feels like my pelvis is separating from my sacrum (base of the spinal column). We both agreed it was being caused by the sacroilial joints loosening (see? I did earn that A in anatomy class!). Apparently when you have a second child, your body just gives up faster, and I’m already experiencing sliding joints, resulting in sharp pains when I walk or sit. Unfortunately, the only treatment right now for this condition is Tylenol, a heating pad, rest, and not lifting too much. I laughed at the last suggestion, reminding my doctor, “You do realize I have a 32+ pound Amazon toddler, right?”

Finally it was time for the doppler. My doctor warned me, “This could take a bit to find, and there’s a chance we won’t find a heartbeat at all due to the baby still being so small.” I really needed to hear that heartbeat, just to know everything was OK.

As soon as she finished her sentence, the faint but steady thump-thump-thump was heard. We listened for nearly a minute, and I gave a big sigh and smiled. Not only does this baby have a heartbeat, it also willingly let us listen in.

When I was 11 weeks pregnant with Cordy, my doctor tried to find the heartbeat and had a lot of trouble finding it. And as soon as we did hear it for a brief 2-3 seconds, it disappeared. She found it again, only to once again have it disappear. Cordy refused to be poked, and hid under my pubic bone to avoid the doppler.

That personality trait stuck with her, too. Every visit, she squirmed and tried to escape the doppler at all costs. Once, at 24 weeks, she managed to pull back towards my spine so far that my doctor couldn’t find the heartbeat (and panic set in), only to moments later have the doppler kicked forcefully off my stomach by a determined foot that didn’t appreciate its presence. I never thought personality could be set so early on, but Cordy still has that stubborn determination today.

But unlike Cordy, baby #2 has no problem letting us listen in on his/her world. I now have some hope that this child might be a little more…laid back. Not so strong-willed. Willing to go with the flow. Zen. Oh, to have a zen baby! Maybe it could teach me how to be less anxious?

And if you have a moment, be sure to pop over to visit Mom-101 and give her some support. Unlike me, she has a valid reason for some anxiety right now, and my thoughts are with her.

The Toys R Us Big Book was released today, with lots of toys for kids to drool over and beg their parents for. It was also today that every Toys R Us was releasing its only shipment of TMX Elmo dolls to the public, along with presales for the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii.

After a little thought, I decided to try to get a TMX Elmo. Does Cordy like Elmo? Not really. Do I like Elmo? No way. But seeing the crazy prices on eBay for this little annoying doll made me think that if I could find one, just one, I could sell it on eBay and use the profit for Christmas this year. Yeah, call me greedy and evil and a horrible person. But Christmas gifts always stretch our budget to the breaking point (because we have so many people we have to buy for, and yes, I do try to make homemade gifts as much as possible), and reselling one Elmo doll would easily cover several gifts.

Aaron and I arrived at the Toys R Us at the opening this morning, and I was a little surprised to see the line around the store. I mean, yeah, I figured all the gamers would be out for the Playstation 3 and Wii presales, but certainly that line can’t also be people wanting TMX Elmo, right?

We waited in line, listening to others talk about what they were there to buy. Soon it was clear Elmo was also a highly wanted item. Two older women in front of us were both looking for Elmo for their grandkids. A thought crossed my mind that if I did get a ticket to buy Elmo, which meant I was eligible to buy two of them, I’d let someone else in the crowd have my second one if they couldn’t get a ticket.

However, the line starting moving very quickly, and soon it was apparent that there were no more tickets left for anything. There were supposed to be 81 Elmos at that store, and while the line was long, I didn’t see how they were gone so fast. We decided to go inside and look around anyway.

While in the store, I got to hear people complaining to the manager, and talking to others on cell phones. Apparently some people stood in line for a long time, then at the last minute brought every other member of their family into the line with them so they could each get a ticket for the Elmo. One lady who walked past me was saying that the people in front of her demanded 4 tickets for Elmo (since it was one ticket per person), a ticket for each parent, and a ticket for each of their two young children just because they were there, and they planned to purchase all 8 they were eligible for. Soon it was obvious that most of the people who got Elmo dolls were not interested in keeping them – most would be showing up on eBay sometime in the next week.

A store employee said the line actually started yesterday at 5pm, and got longer through the night. Again, I could understand waiting in line for a PS3, because gamer teens can be obsessive when a new system comes out, but an Elmo doll that laughs and vibrates? I was willing to try to get one today, but I didn’t want it so bad that I was going to wait overnight in the freezing cold. The manager was being yelled at left and right by people who said the distribution wasn’t fair, and it was obvious that many of these people were getting several Elmo dolls to resell.

I was reminded of the hysterical craze over Cabbage Patch Kids the first year they came out. With no eBay back then, most of the people wanting them actually wanted them for their kids. I got one for Christmas that year, thanks to my grandmother going to Children’s Palace early the day after Thanksgiving, standing in a tightly packed swarm of moms, dads, and grandmothers, and being lucky enough to catch and hang onto one of the boxes they were throwing down from the upper stock shelves. My grandmother was offered hundreds of dollars to give up her prize as she left the store, but she knew I wanted one, and she wasn’t giving it up.

Those people were fighting to bring happiness to their kid, instead of fighting over who was going to make a fortune reselling them. (Although I’m sure there were resellers even back in the early 80’s, just not the numbers you see today.) So thinking back, I did feel a little guilty wanting to buy one just to sell it on eBay. But at the same time I wasn’t being greedy, like some people there – I wanted one to resell, not several. Am I just as greedy as them for wanting one that I didn’t plan to keep? The $60 in profit would go a long way for Christmas gifts, which was my original intention in doing this.

However, it wasn’t meant to be, and I’m fine with that. There were people who were far more determined to get one (or several) than me, and that’s OK. We left the store empty-handed, although we did get the chance to look at a few items we might like to get Cordy for Christmas. And unlike my grandmother, I didn’t have to nearly get in a fist fight for a chance at the hot toy for Christmas.

Forget eating us out of house and home – I think Cordelia will be walking and running us out of house and home. I’ve ranted on this before, but after shoe shopping again today, I can’t help but want to scream about the money we have to spend on shoes.

Her current pair of sneakers have been showing the usual signs of being too small for a week or two now. Which meant it was time for me to determine if her feet had yet changed into normal feet that could wear your average, everyday shoe.

See, Cordy’s feet have always been a little different. She has wide feet, which I’m told is common for a baby or toddler, but she also has tall feet. The middle of her foot, between her toes and her ankle, has always had more height to it. A little extra fat pad, I guess.

Because of this, stopping by Target for a pair of shoes just won’t work. Oh no, no matter how cute those little Mary Janes are, I can guarantee Cordy’s foot won’t get halfway into the shoe. A $10 pair of no-name canvas shoes would be wonderful, but Cordy’s feet will not comply.

I tried Land’s End this time, hoping that their shoes, which run a little wide in adult sizes, would also work the same way for their children’s shoes. Their all-weather mocs are my #1 favorite shoe, so I ordered a pair for Cordy. As a bonus, they come in a lot of cool colors, like deep blue, purple, and red.

I had a lot of hope for these shoes, but like others that came before them, they failed the test. Her tall feet wouldn’t go more than halfway in, no matter how much pushing, tugging, and twisting I tried (gently, of course). Damn.

Having tried just about every shoe, I was forced to go back to my only choice: Stride Rite.

I’d like to say I’m grateful to Stride Rite for being the one shoe store that carries shoes to fit my toddler’s abnormal feet, but I’m not grateful. They’re expensive shoes, for one. I don’t spend $50 on shoes for myself – I don’t even spend $30 on shoes for myself, and the shoes I do buy for $27 (Land’s End) I wear for several years, going from good shoes, to play shoes, to shoes to wear in the mud, until they finally give up and collapse into a heap of dust. If I’m lucky, the shoes cost me $1 a month or less for the use I get from them.

Yet for my precious little girl, I have to spend $50 on special shoes to fit her feet that will last her for maybe 3 months, possibly 5. That’s, at best, $10 a month for the use she gets from them.

Next, while they do carry extra wide widths, not all of their shoes are available in this width. Which leaves a limited selection, and for girls, seems to always be limited to the colors of white and light pink. Ugh. What is so wrong with making shoes for little girls in some color other than pink? Purple is a perfectly valid color, as is green or even red.

Today, Cordy measured in at a 7.5 extra wide. So we had these selections to pick from:

The last ones didn’t interest me due to the cute hearts. And the second ones, while being wide, were unable to handle the height of Cordy’s feet, making it look more like a sausage casing than a shoe. So choice #1 it was – not much of a choice, though.

With the new shoes on her feet, and Cordy doing laps around the tables filled with shoes she can’t wear, I paid the $48.70 and we left the store, determined to not return for at least 3 months.

I sometimes think the only reason I work my job is to pay for Cordy’s clothing and shoes. I will probably be relieved if baby #2 is a girl, so she can wear all of Cordy’s old clothing. And hopefully the second one won’t have weird feet.

You want to know why I have blog ads on the site now? It’s to help me afford to keep this kid in shoes.

Wow, 300 posts in just under a year? I never thought I’d write that much.

Anyway, today was cold, wet, and dark, and Aaron has been very busy with final rehearsals for MacBeth this week (tonight is opening night), so I was on my own with Cordy for today and tonight. Finding ourselves trapped inside and running out of ideas, I called my friend L., she brought her son over, and we baked cupcakes.

Yeah – baked cupcakes. Did I ever mention I’m rather domestically challenged? But I got these great Fun Shapes baking tins (more on that can be found here), and I was dying to try them out. Warm chocolate cupcakes on a cold day sounded like the perfect remedy for the blahs.

First came buying the cake mix. I took Cordy to the grocery, where she became very attached to the box of cake mix. Seriously, when I tried to check out, and had to pry the box out of her hands, the entire store could hear her wailing, “Nooooooo!! Caaaaaake!!! Caaaaaakke!” Of course, knowing little about baking, it wasn’t until the checkout line when I glanced at the back of the box and realized I needed eggs for the mix. What? This isn’t a complete mix? So I trudged to the back of the store again and got a six pack.

Once home, we got to work. Dumped the mix into a bowl, along with eggs, water, and oil. My friend L. then asked, “Do you have a mixer?” Uh, no, I don’t think so. “A whisk?” Nope. But I did have a wooden spoon, so I started stirring the mix (after picking out some egg shell that got into the bowl…sigh).

After several minutes of stirring, it still looked pretty lumpy. “Let me see if I have something else to stir with,” I said, looking in my cabinets for some miracle. And just then, the miracle appeared: I looked in one cabinet, and suddenly noticed an electric hand mixer. Where did that come from? I don’t remember ever purchasing a mixer, or ever putting it in that cabinet. But there it was, just begging to be used. It was still sealed in the box, too.

So I pulled out the mixer, which made the job much easier.

After the mix was smooth, we scooped the mixture into the cups. I had no idea how full to fill them, but figured there was probably going to be some expansion, so settled on about half-full. We used three of the heart shapes, and 17 ghost shapes, since Halloween is just around the corner. Once filled, into the oven.

When the timer went off, L. asked if I had any toothpicks to check if they were done. Toothpicks? She apparently thinks I keep a stocked kitchen or something. I dug through a drawer and found a pair of bamboo chopsticks. Close enough, I thought. They were done, and so we took them out to cool, while fighting back two toddlers who wanted to see what we were spending so much time on. (And two toddlers who don’t yet understand “No! Hot!”)

Frosting was next. Again, I’m clearly no Martha Stewart here, because they didn’t look like anything I’d seen in pictures. But they were white ghosts. However, without any facial features, they sorta looked like white blobs.

L. asked, “Do you have any cake decorating supplies? Or candies we could cut up and use as eyes?” I laughed. If I didn’t have toothpicks, I sure as hell didn’t have cake decorating supplies. But digging through my tiny stash of baking supplies (a bottle of vegetable oil, some now-solid brown sugar, baking soda, and some dried herbs) I found my mom had also at some point brought up some of her old cookie-making supplies. (Maybe she snuck in the mixer, too?) I found some sprinkles (not useful), colored sugar (still not helpful), and an old set of food coloring.

Now, when I say old, I mean old, as in, I think we used it to make the icing for cookies when I was a kid. The text on the box was faded, and it had one of the old-style price stickers on it. But hey, red dye #4 never goes bad, right? I tried applying the dye directly to a cupcake to make eyes, but that resulted in a giant red blob.

So I grabbed that bamboo chopstick again, poured a little red coloring in a small dish, dipped the chopstick in the dye, and then used it to make little ghost eyes and a mouth. Success!

Alright, so they don’t look great, but not bad for a first try, right? And what really matters is that we had a lot of fun making them, and they are delicious!

I’ve been told by many, many people that baby #2 suffers from not being baby #1. If this baby has a baby book at all, it will have less information in it than Cordy’s did. This baby will have less pictures taken, less attention, and less awe at each milestone reached. They say I will worry less about little bumps or illnesses, and won’t ever think a simple cold could really be bacterial meningitis in disguise.

I’m an only child, so I never got to see this firsthand. Growing up, it really was all about me. Not that my baby book was ever completed, though. My mom worked too much to have time to keep that thing up-to-date.

I’m finding this unintentional neglect to be true already for this baby. This pregnancy has taken up far less of my thoughts than Cordy’s did. I have no doubt that I will love this child just as much, and make sure this child is well cared for, but at times I even forget I’m pregnant. Forget I’m pregnant, for cryin’ out loud! When I was pregnant with Cordy, not a minute went by without my mind drifting to that little clump of cells growing into a person inside of me. I had baby on the brain back then, while now I sometimes have to stop myself and say, “Wait, no, I’m pregnant.” Were it not for the lower back pain, raging hormones, and nausea that is now thankfully easing up, I might forget entirely.

Things that are different so far this pregnancy:

• With Cordy, I could tell you exactly how far along I was: “I’m 15 weeks, 6 days, although that’s using the standard pregnancy due date calculator. I’m actually 15 weeks, 4 days because I ovulated on day 16 instead of the standard day 14.” Now? I was asked how far along I was yesterday, and I had to stop and think for a few minutes because I wasn’t sure. Without a calendar to consult, I finally said, “Somewhere near the end of the first trimester.”
• During my first pregnancy, prenatal vitamins were taken religiously. Missing one stupid pink horse pill sent me into a tizzy – oh, God, the baby will have some horrible neural tube defect because I missed this one dose of folic acid, and if this baby isn’t a genius by two I’ll know it’s because I screwed up and missed a vitamin! If that were to be the case, well, baby #2 is screwed then. Taking my prenatal has been a challenge this time. Forgetting I’m pregnant means that I forget to take the pill. I consider my track record of roughly every other day pretty impressive now.
• And speaking of ingesting things, I’m already back to my caffeine habit. Sure, I’ve cut back, but eliminating soda from my diet just wasn’t going to happen this time. Without that little energy boost in the afternoon, I’d be useless. And eating lunchmeat doesn’t worry me, either, because the risk of listeria is so tiny. Hell, if I had some good soft cheese around, I’d probably eat that, too.
• Remember the book, Your Pregnancy: Week by Week? Yeah, I read that thing every single week when pregnant with Cordy. I knew what new features she had each week, if she had fingers yet, and when she could open her eyes. All I know about this baby is that it is somewhere between the reptilian-blob-with-a-tail stage and the looks-like-a-mini-person stage. I haven’t cracked a single pregnancy book this time.
• I did show all of you the first ultrasound picture a few weeks ago, but other than here and showing family at home, no one else has seen the blob’s first picture. I didn’t e-mail it out to all my friends and distant family, and I didn’t show everyone at work. (I’m sure they’re more than thankful for that.) Cordy’s ultrasound pictures were kept in my wallet, where I showed them to anyone who even asked about my pregnancy. This baby’s ultrasound pics are somewhere in our house. I’m not even sure where. (No worries, though, I get new, updated pictures on Monday.)

Poor baby #2. Loved, but not fussed over as much as the firstborn. Then again, maybe this one won’t be sitting in a psychologist’s office some day saying, “My mom just smothers me! And she has put every detail of my life on the internet for all to see!”

Who am I kidding? Of course I’ll blog about baby #2 just as much. Guess I’d better start adding a little more money to that therapy fund each month to cover both kids.

(Those of you who weren’t firstborns – did your parents take less baby pictures of you and never finish your baby books? I’m curious if this is a myth or not.)