day-to-day pregnancy

[ Saturday, July 19, 2008 ]

This was a rough week. On Thursday night I went to pick up Kate from swimming class and she surprised me by having a meltdown and saying she didn't want to be with me, she wanted to stay with Gigi and Granddad. We had a conversation about saying hurtful things to the people we love - since she had done the exact same thing to David a couple of nights before. In the process, I told her she is lucky to have a Mommy and a Daddy who love her so much, and she asked me about my Mommy and Daddy. I had previously tried to dance around the whole death subject but this time there was no other way. So I explained how my Dad got very sick and couldn't get better and that he "went away'. She asked where. I said no one knows for sure where people go when die, but that I like to believe in what my Dad said when I was little, that living things who die become little stars in the sky. Her reply: "When I am bigger I will buy a big car, put you in a car seat and drive you to see your Daddy up in the sky". I was bawling at that point. Luckily the subject changed but the next morning, she asked me flat out "Mommy, are you going to die?". I said yes, we will all die some day but not for a very long time and she shouldn't think of death as a bad thing, only as something natural that happens to everyone. As heart-wrenching as the conversation was, she didn't seem scared, sad or worried about it. I felt relieved but the next day learned that one of our dogs is in her final days and the issue of death will have to come up again.


[ Saturday, July 05, 2008 ]

It's been a long time and a lot has happened. Kate had her first ballet recital in June. She looked absolutely adorable in her little pink tutu, but she was far from thrilled. She had just come back from spending 10 days in Texas, and during that time I went on vacation in Honduras. As a result, she didn't see for almost 3 weeks. Naturally, she was a bit "clingy" when she got back and had an incredible meltdown right before the recital when I started to walk out of the room where she was supposed to stay with the other little girls. She grabbed on to my pants and cried so desperately my heart almost broke. I had to stay with her until she went on stage, but after that she was fine. She lingered on stage after the other girls had left because the auditorium was dark and she was trying to find us in the audience.