Fannee Doolee

Fringe Benefits

Kiki has been solid on potty training all month, but last night, after another read through of "What to Expect When the New Baby Comes Home," she insisted on putting on a diaper, crawled across the floor and said "waa, waa."  Which was fine with me.  I mean, I'd probably be doing the same thing right now if I could get down on all fours.  Fortunately, playing baby lasted for about a minute, then she doffed the diaper, used the potty and jumped right back into her big girl underpants.  Then, we snuggled in bed and traded Eskimo kisses.

More often, Kiki plays Mommy rather than baby.  She says, "Now, I'll be the Mommy and you be the Sweetie."  I never realized how much I call her Sweetie.

Logan has been utterly silent about what goes on at school all day, other than to inform me what school supplies we failed to bring in, or that I forgot to put a note in his lunch, or that I completely botched the pick-up procedure.  However, many questions were answered last night when I attended Curriculum Night at his school.  There are ten kids in Logan's class and two teachers.  Pretty nice ratio, eh?  Right now, they are just focusing on getting routines down and becoming familiar with each other and the school.  (It is a very Earthy-crunchy environmentally-liberal school, by the way, even from our left-leaning perspective.  They compost, have solar panels, and encourage healthy eating and recycling.) 

One of the daily routines is writing a journal entry.  I was very impressed by Logan's writing - he is apparently given no help with spelling or grammar but, rather, encouraged to sound out the words himself.  So, it took me a moment to figure out his second entry, but when I did, my eyes welled up with tears right there in the classroom:

The End Is Near

With three weeks left until my due date, the end of a challenging (but, thankfully, healthy) pregnancy is in sight.  I am ready to not be pregnant anymore, and hopefully ready to take on a newborn. 

This is also the beginning of the end of Fanneedoolee, as I've decided to put a little closure (or at least a hard page break) on this chapter of my life and take a rest from blogging for a while.  I've made this decision mostly from practicality - as you may have noticed, I've hardly blogged at all since taking on my new full-time ++ role as a SAHM - but also because this seems to be a good time to wrap things up.

When I started this blog, I wanted to create a snapshot of our family to preserve for Logan and Keelin to look back on someday, and I think I've done that now.  With the new baby arriving, the end of our life as a family of four (and sometimes five) is likewise near.  I realize now that I also started this blog as a way for me to feel more in touch with the part of my life from which I'd been so cut off.  When I was working and away from the house 10-12 hours per day, posting pictures of the kids and capturing special moments about our family helped me feel more connected, and I think also played a big role in my realization that I need to be with my family more right now.  Period.

Being here 24/7--and being more immersed in my family than I ever have before-- has tipped the scales away from reflecting in favor or experiencing.  I've got to spend a while walking in these shoes a bit more before I'm able pay homage to the next chapter of my/our lives with any meaningful insight, or even clever prose. 

So, I am planning to end Fanneedoolee with a final post shortly after the baby arrives, marking the ending and also the beginning of this point in the journey with a birth announcement.  (I know we'll all be excited to find out which name makes the final cut - myself included!).  I've got a few other loose ends to wrap up, and I will continue to upload pictures to my flickr photo stream, which may serve as my virtual baby book for #3!  I will also leave the site up for a bit until I figure out how to save it to a disk or migrate it to a site where it can live on indefinitely without me having to pay a monthly fee.

So, thanks again to you, dear readers, and stand by for the conclusion--I expect I'll have at least a few cliff-hangers to leave you all anxiously awaiting for the next volume:  Fanneedoolee and the Decade of Domestic Delirium, perhaps?  Or maybe Fanneedoolee and the Haunted Housewife Hollows?   Fanneedoolee and the Wickedly Winsome WalMart Shopping Spree??

Special Siblings

Tissue Warning:  This post may illicit possible tearing-up to an audible sob effect, particularly on mothers, or maybe its just me and my over-loaded pregnancy hormones . . . .

Dear Logan and Kiki,

Yesterday, you attended an "I'm Special, Too!" class for big brothers and big sisters-to-be at the hospital where we will be having your baby sister very, very soon.  I am proud to say that you were both at the top of your class!  Your little sister is so lucky to have such caring and special siblings awaiting her arrival.

Being a brother or sister can be very difficult, as we are learning all too well this summer.  I just finished reading Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, which, along with Ross Greene's The Explosive Child and the course materials from The Art of Positive Parenting class offered through the central-Ohio based organization, Action for Children, have become my course books for my summer educational endeavor, "How to Positively Parent Your Explosive Child and Siblings Without Inflicting Lasting Damage."  Unfortunately, I'm failing miserably and will likely have to repeat this course several times.

See, this is much harder than I could have known it would be.  I won't make excuses for myself or my mistakes - I'm going to keep trying no matter what - but I want you both to know that if you ever find yourself someday where I am now--well, first of all, if you blame me for all your difficulties being a parent, I likely deserve it, and second, if you don't do it so perfectly all the time, I'll understand.  And I hope like anything that I'm still able to come to wherever you and your family are living and hold your hand as you work through it, no matter how huge the mess (Thanks, Nana, for doing that for me!). 

The hardest thing about being a parent for me is that, unlike anything else where my potential for failure is so great and the repercussions so massive, this is something I refuse to give up on.  I love you both so much, that despite the fact that my biggest fear for you right now is the hurt I might cause you by messing up - not keeping you safe, or not teaching you the right things at the right time, or not being a remotely stable and secure comforter (which, granted, is darn near impossible to do in my present overly-pregnant condition) - I promise you that I will do everything and anything I can to be a better mom to both of you and your little sister, too. 

I hope that someday - perhaps on many days - you will look back over this post with me, and we can laugh about the fact that you had no clue I was so completely clueless and incapable of being the perfect parent.  (You could try saying, "Gosh, Ma, you must have faked it pretty well, because I thought you had it all under control!" or "Gee, I would have never known you had a moment's doubt about what you were doing, and it all made me the wonderful person I am today!"  Those are just suggestions - feel free to add your own thoughts along those lines.)   That's unrealistic, I know, but what may not be so unrealistic is that you might read this and think back on these times and the times yet to come and know that I really struggled with being a good parent, as maybe you will too.  But I never struggled with loving you.

I love you,

Mommy 

I Feel Like Dancin'

OK, this is way better than the now-defunct Cheriokie site, although I hope that, like Cheriokie, this site is also disenabled someday because if our children ever view this, it could scar them for life.  And, for the record, this is no exaggeration of Patrick's "manhood" . . .

I Feel Like Dancin'

Thanks, Marie, for the inspiration!

As Patrick and I Debate Copyrite Infringement of the Harry Potter Books in China . . .

Keelin gets into my purse and experiments with my make-up:

Considering that I never do my own make-up anywhere but in the car anymore, this is not much worse than what I usually look like.