17 Weeks and Showing

I've never been a lover of secrets. You tell me yours, and my lips are sealed, but I'm a regular let the cat out of the bag lady when it comes to my own private confessions. At least, that's what I used to think.

Turns out, I've been roasting a secret now for a good long four months. And it looks a little something like this:

Those who know us have known that we have been trying to have another baby for some time. My husband, who I am convinced could get a woman pregnant through a fax machine, was never the problem. Something to do with me and the way my body metabolizes insulin put a kink in our fertility. That same condition made a miscarriage a lot more likely. That same condition also made me gain near 70 pounds with our first baby, Morgan.

So somewhere between playing it safe, playing the odds, and pretending that I wasn't pregnant in order to jinx the bathroom scale, I kept our secret safe except from family for 17 weeks and a day.

5 - 7 pounds later, a baby kicking, and a belly growing, I figure its time to make it official.

Spoiled

Morgan is spoiled. Not rotten. But spoiled. It's our own fault, and now I've got to find a way to correct what we created. Do all parents feel this way about their kids?

I've made excuses up until now. She's only 3. Or, she's only 4, 5, 6, but the truth is excuses is all they are. If I want my child to listen, eat her vegetables, mind adults, etc, then I've got to expect her to do it - every time and not just when she feels like it. Sounds simple I know. Those little darlings can wrap themselves around your resolve and make it so damn hard sometimes to be stern.

We've started by creating a list of goals. The first is that Morgan will learn to listen. Morgan is a good listener, unless it is about a subject that makes her uncomfortable or something she is not interested in. Then she fidgets, wiggles, practically falls out of the chair, or stands up and walks away. I've seen her do this to me and to her teachers.

Imagine a three-year-old doing the pee pee dance and you'll get some idea of what it is like to watch Morgan uncomfortably try to avoid listening to someone who is trying to correct or teach her something. The girl thinks that she knows everything, and if you try to teach her anything she doesn't know, she won't listen. She takes it as a personal attack, as though she has failed.

If you keep trying to get her attention, she'll start talking about other things, change the subject, or even talk to herself. Sometimes crying is involved if she really is pushed to listen to something she doesn't want to hear.

Rather than catch her being bad, we've decided to look for her to be good. Our goal this week is to work on listening. Three things need to happen for Morgan to reach her goal for the day: 1) she needs to sit still when someone is talking, 2) she needs to make eye contact with the person talking, and 3) she needs to "turn on her ears." If all these things happen, she'll get a gold star.

When asked to do all three things, she can do them quite well. We've just never demanded that she do it. Now we will.

I hate to say this, but I think I might need a gold star at the end of the week too if all goes well.