The Mommy Post

We went to the doctor today but before I saw her we went to have an ultrasound. (See the amazing 3-D pics to the left) I got very wound up when the ultrasound tech said I was actually measuring at almost 39 weeks and it was possible my doctor might be persuaded to move my date up.

I nearly skipped the one block to my doc’s office and if you have seen me lately you know skipping is not something that is easily accomplished. I was so thrilled about the possibility of being able to breath again and go pee without holding up my belly I was giddy.

When we arrived I went through the pre-visit check in. Everything checked out good - no weight gain - check, good blood pressure - check, no sign of toxemia - check. Then the doctor came in. Before I could get the words out of my mouth, she promptly took out her mean doctor pin and burst my balloon. She said under no circumstances do they EVER, and she reemphasized ever, change the due date. I could literally feel my face falling into my overly swollen lap. Billy touched my shoulder and it actually felt numb. I thought I would literally fall off the table. I couldn’t believe my ears. She was really going to make me wait three and half more weeks - 23 more days. Was she joking? Could it be true? What kind of doctor had I found when my OB of 17 years retired and was snorkeling somewhere off the Barrier Reef. He would have seen the reason in putting me out of my misery now.

But then she said the magic words, “I am going to take the emotion out of it for you”. She asked me the oh so logical question - would you rather have your baby in three weeks and be healthy and good or take him to early and end up in the NICU for two weeks? What kind of question was that anyway? I couldn’t believe she was trying to inject reason into my moment of complete and utter despair. But she was and is right. She calmly and gently explained that ultrasounds are not always perfect and they can often be off a pound or a week or more in their estimation. The baby is measuring at 7 lbs 12 ounces. I am certain she is right because he feels like he weighs about 10lbs but maybe she meant he could really be closer to six pounds.

Whatever the weight, she is ultimately correct. The baby’s health is my first and foremost priority. I have learned through my first child that pregnancy is only the beginning of the pain you feel as a mother. The real joy comes with a healthy, happy baby who says every night, “sweet dreams mommy” followed by a big, wet sloppy, all over your cheek kiss. These moments far outweigh anything I have to endure now. In fact I find myself saying often, I don’t remember being this uncomfortable with my first pregnancy. It’s amazing how all the of the discomfort vanishes in the first moment your hold you new son.

I have found a great doctor and I trust her implicitly. And honestly three weeks is such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things.

My husband told me a funny story tonight about an Indy car driver who he thinks actually appreciates the fact that he has a dream job…getting paid millions to drive a race car for a living.

However, this past Saturday, my cute photographer husband (the one on the left), whom I have known for 22 years and have never seen more than a few feet from a camera got to spend the day at Nashville Superspeedway with his 19 year old son, photographing the race car drivers he says have the dream job.

While he may not get paid millions of dollars, in my opinion a day at the races with your great son is the real dream job. The smiles on both their faces says it all. That kind of day is priceless.

A month or so ago, who can remember, I got together with my girlfriends for a much needed girls night out. We sat there at our roundtable dinner, sans all things resembling responsibility i.e. kids, husbands, bosses, business partners and for the most part cell phones and talked endlessly about what has been happening in our lives. The five of us are quite a group so if you will indulge me for just a moment, I would like to brag on my friends a bit.

One of our group came back for a visit from her home in Florida which prompted our little get together. This woman is a rock star in her career having recently been promoted to CFO of a big hospital in Florida just a few short miles from the beach. It’s not enough she is the smartest, most hardworking career woman I know, she also wears great shoes, has phenomenal style and is a moral compass for all things in my life. She also happens to be Harper’s godmother and my best friend. She is one I turn to when I am in need of guidance on matters of the heart, career, finance or anything else that happens to come my way. She is the person I discovered my love of quilting with and I am still in denial that she moved three years ago. It seems the shock of her announcement will never go away. Every time I see a blue VW beetle I automatically look to see if it is her. Needless to say, it isn’t and I never fail to be disappointed.

Another is a rock star entrepreneur who recently retired at an early age (I won’t state her age out of respect, but suffice it say we were not born that far apart). She recently had her second baby girl and has become a stay at home mom, for now. I say for now, because I know this girl and she is not one to sit back and take it easy. She bought a bar 10 years ago after a night out with me on the town and has become an expert on how to successfully buy, manage and build an empire in the night club industry without, to my knowledge ever having served a cocktail before. I met her during her stint in healthcare which she luckily escaped. I admire her ability to turn a good opportunity into a golden opportunity and a bad situation into a goldmine. She has more business sense in her little finger than most MBA grads have years after graduating from their programs.

Another is a rock star mom, part-time social worker and my standard bearer for everything maternal. If I don’t know the answer to a question about anything related to child rearing and/or child health maintenance, I immediately call her and she will alleviate my fears, answer my question or commiserate with me in my pain. She married a good friend of ours from years ago and her second daughter just turned one. She has a two and half year old that has a better vocabulary than most 1st graders and is a charter member of Harper’s Harem. She is funny, a bit neurotic in a good way and has a most compassionate heart.

Last but not least, there is the rock star retired business manager for a crazy man who did well in the EBay business and again has more business sense than most people I know and a whole lot I don’t. She is from New Orleans and is a dedicated family girl who has endlessly helped and supported her family during some very trying times post-Katrina. She is single, loving it and an inspiration to all of us at just keeping it real in the dating world. I can sit and listen to her dating stories for hours as she entertains us in her distinct New Orleans drawl with the trials of the men who fall for her but don’t quite measure up. She is like all my friends compassionate and caring and dedicated to her family and friends.

We are, you might think, at first glance an unlikely group of women who came together through various connections. Some through work, some through others in the group but we come together in a common bond that is shared by all women, friendship. I often look at the women in this group and marvel at my luck and sheer good fortune to count them as my friends. These are the two in the morning girls you can call for any reason. You might get an earful at first if you’re on the wine, but they will be there for you in the pinch. These are also the girls who take no prisoners. If I’m wrong, they are usually the first to point it out and keep me honest.

The women in this post are the girls whom I see the most often. I am blessed with many girlfriends in all parts of the country that I don’t see nearly often enough but value their presense in my life.

We have all gone in different directions, some of us have gotten married, some of us have had kids, some of us have accomplished remarkable things and some of us have struggled. We are professional, hardworking, overstressed and underappreciated by just about everyone we know, but one thing is for certain. We are a group that is unique and when we get together to have our little roundtables, the wine flows, the laughter starts and the time that has passed since our last outing seems to disappear faster than the first bottle of wine.

I can’t believe it has been two years since your wonderful little light shown in our life for the first time. Two years, 104 weeks, 730 days, 17,520 hours - all measures of time since I first held you in my arms and fell in love with everything about you. From your crooked little toes that look just your Gege’s or your belly button that looks like a smiley face or your beautiful hazel brown eyes that bore into me just like your Daddy’s or your little hurricane of hair on the crown of your head that should have been a clue as to the force of nature God just put in our lives.

You were so small; barely 8lbs when we took you home and a slight 20 inches long. You were so amazing and strong willed right from the get go. They say it takes a while for you to recognize a baby’s personality, but yours was evident from the first moment I tried to breast feed you and you absolutely, unequivocally refused. Once you figured out where the food came from it was better, but even now, you can be as hungry as a lion, screaming for something to eat and refuse your favorite food.

The days have passed so quickly and it seems each one was filled with a new first. Your view of the world has allowed Daddy and I to look at it in a whole new way, amazed and awed by things, I’m certain, we haven’t noticed since we were born. Of course, we can’t remember the newness of the world from our infancy, but it is miraculous to view it through your eyes.

In the last twelve months you have gone from a baby to a little boy, almost over night. You have learned to walk, developed your own special language and learned that everything is better at Gege, Papa’s and Granny K’s house. There have been so many first’s and I am sure I will forget a few. But the ones I can remember are etched into my memory forever.

For example, I kept wondering when you would walk. You were so close and we tried so hard to help you feel confident as you gained your balance. Your first birthday came and went, but shortly there after you just took off and walked down the hall. I stood dumbfounded in your bedroom because a few minutes before you hesitated and insisted on crawling.

Everyone said, don’t worry, one day he will just get and go. And so you did. It was the morning of July 4th and it gave an entirely new meaning to Independence Day. Suddenly you were upright and headed out into a world that would soon come to frighten and amaze you all in the same five second span of time.

The language of babies is one only a few privileged adults are fortunate enough to understand. You have unmistakably developed your own language over the passing months. Some of what you tell me only I understand perfectly. While other words are said with such passion and enthusiasm it tells me, while I can’t necessarily understand your meaning, I know it must be of great importance. Other words are so clear I look at you, astonished by your obvious brilliance at such an early age.

And to say you are a parrot is an understatement and defies probability. You can and do repeat just about everything you hear. Maybe not in the same phonetic context as it was delivered, but still the words are there and the look of pride on your face is only out shown by your Daddy’s and mine. That is until the day you repeat the dreaded swear words I am certain could have only come from your Daddy’s lips. For you see, I do not swear Baby boy, just ask your Gege, she has never heard me swear, at least not on purpose.

They say the terrible twos start when a baby turns two, but I ardently disagree with this statement. The terrible twos, should be called the “terrible 2nd year”. Not that your 2nd year was all that terrible, just terribly challenging for your older mother and your even older father.

Your personality has developed even more and have added to the traits you displayed as an infant only a few hours old in the hospital. Some of the things we have observed include your complete and total lack of patience. I am still at a loss as to where this trait comes from because the Kingsley’s and the Stultz’s are models of patience and maturity when it comes to just about every matter.

This lack of patience is often observed because you see, you haven’t quite mastered your problem solving skills. For example, when your trike gets stuck sideways in the gate, where moments before it went through quite easily, you screech with palpable displeasure and repeat “Help Mommy, Help Mommy” over and over until I rescue the Radio Flyer from the clutches of the baby gate.

You also have developed this little red-headed temper, clearly inherited from your Papa Stultz. I say the temper comes from Papa, because you could not possibly have inherited this characteristic from your laid-back mommy and your unassuming Daddy. While your hair isn’t quite as red-headed as his, the little temper causes you to throw your passie 100 mph across the kitchen when you are put in time out. The only solace I take in the 100 mph passie throw is that someday it may translate into a fastball, strike out in the 9th inning in the 7th game of the World Series that allows the Cardinals to win again with you as their pitcher.

You poor thing, there are a lot of time outs in your future, I’m afraid.

As for the truly wonderful things about you, they are almost too numerous to list but first among my favorites is your perfect little giggle. You have a laugh that infects a room and causes grown adults to belly laugh and go weak at the knees when you utter it. It can be over something as silly as a Zerbert on your cheek or a back flip off Mommy’s lap while she is trying to work or using Daddy as a tackling dummy in the living room. When something strikes your funny bone, the laughter lights up your face and the entire room stops to enjoy the moment.

You love with reckless abandon. I can only hope this has come from the bottomless and immeasurable love you receive from all of those around you. To show you what I mean about reckless, when we ask for some love it comes in the form of a headbutt and a cheek slime. Followed up by the most passionate, enthusiastic kiss blowing, high-fiving, neck hugging one can only imagine. The ritual of goodbye or goodnight include sloppy kisses, goodbye and goodnight rhymes and lots of hugs over and over again. My only wish is that when you are 20 and away at your college dorm, you won’t mind if I call to say, “Night, night, don’t let the bed bugs bite”.

You are about to be a big brother in a few weeks and we have tried to hard to prepare you for this new little guy that’s about to rock your world. He will be small and helpless and undoubtedly, like you, will have a definite and distinct personality from the very start. Unfortunately, your little life will be turned upside for a while.

You won’t understand why suddenly you have to sleep in the race car bed and the new baby is sleeping in your “night, night’ bed.

You won’t understand when Mommy has to hold your little brother and can’t hold you at the same time.

You won’t understand why suddenly you are the not the center of every room you enter and why this other little thing is stealing the show.

But sweetheart, always understand and know without a doubt, no matter what, you will always be my first born, the one I held first, the one that made my heart and world stop and made the angels sing. I will love your new little brother as much as I love you, he will make my heart stop and will make the angels sing, for sure.

Bugaboo, you both will receive everything I can give you as a Mommy, but your place will always be firmly secure in my heart as the one that made me a new Mommy for the first time. The one who taught me no matter what age or what is happening in your life, nothing can take the place or even compare to the unconditional love you give and receive from being a Mom.

Happy Birthday, baby boy.

Love, Mommy

I finally figured out how to scan the ultrasound pictures of our newest little guy. The 4-D pictures are amazing and really give you a clear insight to what his world must be like right now.

It’s past the middle of June and we are fast approaching the Summer Solstice. The days keep getting longer and this pregnancy is following suit. I have about 7 weeks to go and I am certain I am big as I was the day before I delivered Harper. His 2nd birthday is Sunday and it’s hard to believe time has passed so quickly while the next seven weeks will DRAG on like molasses at the North Poll.

Excitement and anticipation has given way to moodiness, groaning, whining and severe discomfort. Well meaning people will say, “when are you are due?” and when I answer the middle of August, it suddenly occurs to them to remind me, “ohhh, you’ll be pregnant in the heat of the summer.”

All I want to say is “DUH”.

Call it hormones, call it the heat, but whatever you want to call it, it is making me cranky and intolerant.

This will all subside when I can walk to the kitchen and not be out of breath and when I can actually bend over and put my own shoes on. My saint of a husband actually painted my toenails for me the other day because no matter how hard I try, I just can’t reach them.

7 weeks and counting and it just can’t go by fast enough!

One of the perks of my job is I get to travel to some pretty interesting places. My territory comprises all of the west so I get stuck visiting cities like Phoenix, Denver, Seattle and San Fransicso. Since I am officially in the last trimester I am done for now - officially banned from air travel and none to soon. I was just about to have to ask for the extenstion belt for the airplane seats. I like to travel a bit but it is always hard leaving for any length of time. One of the things I have done to pass the time is to photograph the places I go. Here are a few that I took on a recent journey to San Francisco back in April.

I have seen these little houses a million times on television or in photographs, but was awestruck at magnificent view and the beauty of this area of San Francisco. It is appropriately called “Post Card Row”. I knew it was hilly there but had no comprehension of just how hilly.

The Golden Gate bridge is an icon I have again seen a million times, but pictures cannot even begin to capture the awesome size of this structure. I stood there for over an hour in the freezing mid-April bay wind taking photo after photo. Even when I finally left I did so reluctantly.

I was fortunate enough to have a beautiful view from my hotel window. For a couple of hours I layed there and just looked out at the lights. It reminded of when I lived in Chicago and the view from my 17th floor apartment. Ironically, my apartment number is Chicago was 1705 and my room number in San Francisco was 1704.

I took a long walk though Chinatown which was just around the corner from my hotel. I just walked and snapped and didn’t really try to frame anything. I thought this image really showed the beautiful architecture.

I received a most distressing piece of mail last week, the invitation to my 25th high school class reunion. I knew the reunion was coming up and while I am not a math genius, I can look at the year and easily figure out it has been 25 years. However, seeing those numbers burned into a piece of paper really threw me for a loop. I mean really, who knew 25 years could pass so quickly? The invitation also included a survey and central among the questions was, “Do you have any grandchildren?”, and again I say, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I am 7 months pregnant with my second child, how in the world could I possibly have grandchildren? My mom just got her first grandchild and she’s been out of high school almost 50 years! My husband lovingly reminded me of my advanced maternal age, that he has a 20 year old son in college and it was possible. Clearly, he missed the chapter in the husband’s handbook that pointing this kind of fact out to any woman, let alone a hormonal, pregnant woman of advanced maternal age is dangerous to his health. My husband and I are nearly the same age, although he is a bit older, by 10 weeks, so I guess technically I am old enough to have a grandchild, but honestly, isn’t it just a tad insensitive to ask the question? This is the kind of question that sends people my age to the Corvette dealership with checkbook in hand.

However unbelievable the number is, the invitation got me thinking about high school and memories began to surface of things I hadn’t thought of in years. For example, in high school I knew all the words to Rapper’s Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang but for some reason I can’t remember where I put my keys yesterday or for that matter, where I put my car.

It reminded me of my fashion sense and the fact that I use to curl my hair so I had a perfectly straight “butt crack” down the back of my head. You know exactly what I am talking about, feathering your hair so it meets in perfect symmetry from the crown of your head to the nape of your neck and is sprayed so heavily with White Rain hairspray it doesn’t move in gale force winds. It was like the female version of the mullet; it existed but no one really wants to admit to having one.

I remembered going to parties in high school where they had beer, holding one until no one was looking and then dumping it in the nearest plant or flower bed or animal feed trough. We lived in a farm community so many parties were held on farms, often in hog or cow barns. To this day, I can’t help but relate the smell of manure to beer and wondering what the blood alcohol level was in dairy cows the morning after a party.

I remember listening to Journey Escape around the clock and racing the local train schedule so as not to violate my curfew. My mother’s favorite saying in our train riddled town, “If you can be here at 12:05 you can be here at 12 Midnight, plan for trains!” My punishment if I didn’t plan well was being grounded one week for every minute after midnight I showed up. Needless to say, I planned for trains.

I remember when John Mellencamp was John Cougar and I remember thinking his career was definitely over when he changed his name.

I remember when Michael Jackson’s Thriller was the end all be all of music videos and I remember my first rock concert at the Univesity of Illinois Assembly Hall in Champaign, IL. It was the RUSH Signals tour. I have been a huge fan since.

I remember going to see Joan Jett and the Black Hearts open for Billy Squire and wishing upon wishing I could get tickets to see the Police. I would eventually see them but not until college.

I remember faithfully watching Cheers, Family Ties and the A-Team. I also remember watching with millions of other people the final episode of M*A*S*H and feeling like there would never be anything good on TV again.

I remember when the St. Louis Cardinals went to the World Series and my high school boyfriend called at 4 p.m. the day of Game 7 with tickets. This is by the way the game where the St. Louis Cardinals won their first World Series since before I was born. My parents had already left for the game so there was no way for me to get permission to go due the fact cell phones had not yet been invented. So I opted not to go in lieu of getting grounded. The irony was I almost got grounded for not going. My mother scolded me and said, “What were you thinking? It was Game 7 you don’t need permission!”

I remember the day I graduated from high school, May 31st, 1983. I was so excited in my pink gingham dress from the Limited, a new store they only had in St. Louis. It was also my 18th birthday and I remember feeling so grown up. I was leaving for college in a few months but not before I spent a very carefree, memorable summer with my best friend at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. My parents trusted me, probably because of things like “Game 7″ and I tried hard not to disappoint them or at least not get caught!

I just cannot believe it has been 25 years and I really can’t believe I will be 43 this coming Saturday. I also can’t believe I am due to deliver my second son in August of this year and that it is possible for someone old enough to be a grandmother, to still be a new mother. I honestly don’t feel much older than 25 let alone be invited to my 25th high school class reunion.

Time flies by so fast and before I know it I will be applying for Medicare that undoubtedly will be non-existent. I find it completely ironic since Medicare was started the year I was born, but I digress.

I honestly wish I could go my reunion. The next one will be in 5 years and life will no doubt be different yet again. But today I am blessed with very good health, a beautiful family and great memories.

And if anyone from my graduating class happens to read this post, have a great time and drink a beer for me. I am going all summer long without one!

Cheers to the class of 1983!

Some of my greatest memories as a child included baseball games with my Mom. It was around 1970 I was in kindergarten, my dad was in Vietnam and we lived a few miles from Busch Stadium in St. Louis. I guess you could say I was raised on baseball in what my family refers to as only “real” place to see a game. I grew up watching greats like Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee and understood the basics of a double-play and an RBI stats before I could even multiply and divide. But that being said, my son is not far behind in his early training. My mom had him watching the Cardinals at just a few weeks old in front of big screen television you, I am certain, can see from space. When baseball comes on he enters this little trance state, as does my mother. The only thing he hasn’t learned is the colorful language that goes along with a bad game. Hopefully, he will not learn it for a while.

But this past weekend he got to experience the game in person. Daddy was shooting the Sounds game for the Tennessean and Papa, GeGe, Harper and myself joined him. Naturally he was completely amazed by the number of people which at his age is probably more than he has ever seen in one place. He was amazed by the game and players and the action. He was also, as was his mother, enamored by the food which consisted of hotdogs, nachos, popcorn (which he coaxed out of a pretty little girl sitting behind us), funnel cake and the ultimate highlight, roasted corn on the cob. My almost two year old son is addicted to corn on the cob. He likes it okay by itself but when it is on the cob it becomes like a drug for him. He can’t get enough, he begs loudly and insists on eating the entire cob. As you might expect he was the hit of our section. I am sure we will visit the park many more times this summer and I only hope they continue to sell those wonderful roasted corn cobs.

Well, I am not in the habit of breaking promises, but since October it has been an unbelievably crazy time. I know I haven’t posted recently, but I haven’t changed my sheets in two weeks either so as you can see my priorities are not that out of whack. I have traveled for work, a lot, managed to get through the holidays and chased an unrelenting toddler who seems to have sprouted wheels on the bottom of his feet. To say I am exhausted and worn out is an understatement. But this is something I happily share with all the other exhausted, overworked, overwhelmed mothers out there. And if the pace of our life isn’t crazy enough, we decided in August to launch Kingsley Photography, launched a website, shot a bunch of portrait sessions, traveled to Minnesota to shoot our first wedding and build a business from scratch. It feels at times like we have four full-time jobs between us - Harper the Toddlerking, the Tennessean, Physio and Kingsley Photography.

Okay, have you heard enough of my bellyaching yet? Well, I have got even bigger news. You would think with all that going on we wouldn’t have time for quiet, mommy/daddy time, but apparently somewhere in the last two months we found some, because Baby Kingsley #2 is now on the way. I am quite certain you could have heard an atom splitting the night we found out and I took four pregnancy test and two blood tests just to be sure. But as I once read in a very well read mommy blog, Antique Mommy, “Man plans and God laughs”. It is now my favorite quote.

I would post a picture of our new little one if I could figure out how to scan on my printer. We saw the heart beat and of course I cried. The baby is due August 12 or thereabout. We are excited, but I think still in shock. It was not exactly on the list of things to do in 2008.

But as I said earlier, we don’t always know what God has planned for us. So we will just roll with it.