I had a bit of a scare today. Not to be too graphic but I woke up, got Dax out of his room, grabbed a couple of his books to read downstairs and as I started walking toward the staircase, I felt a small gush of fluid go in to my PJ bottoms. "No, no, no" I said out loud, this can not be my water breaking, I'm only 36 weeks along. I ran to the bathroom and sure enough, there was more moisture there than usual. I started to cry and Dax seemed very concerned. "Are you sad mama?" "Yes, I'm sad Daxie." "You crying mama?" "Yes, I'm crying." I changed into something dry to test the wetness again, scooped up my little guy and we read a few books together. We read "Pouch" about a baby kangaroo who every day takes a couple more hops from his mama's pouch to go and explore the world but every time he goes out of his comfort range, he hops back to his mother's pouch to feel safe again. It's the cutest book ever. I stood up from the recliner nervous that if there was amniotic fluid, it would have pooled and gushed again. This time, dry. "Ok, ok, this is good." Meanwhile, Tim is still sleeping and hasn't a clue about how stressed I'm getting about the situation. As I start cooking up a weekend-style breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and cinnamon rolls, my father calls. It's only 7:30 a.m. but he knows I get up early. I tell him I think my water may have broken and he thinks I should ring the doctor on call right away but at the same time, his voice remains calm, which I what I need at this moment. We hang up and I make the call and am put right through. She explains that if it only happens once, it's likely not my water breaking. Wait a bit and call me. I call in 45 min. and tell her there's been no more gushes or trickles but could I still come in and be checked? Dax was born at 37 weeks and it all happened this way the first time. A light trickle and I thought I was incontinent. I ignored the moisture and saw my doctor 24 hours later. At that point, the risk of infection was already high. I didn't want to take any chances this time. She agreed. In her office, she did three quick tests and I think I held my breath until she came back to the room where I lay with my feet still in stir-ups. "Well, it looks like . . ." it took her so long to get the words out it seemed she was talking with mud in her mouth, "all three tests have come back negative." "So my water didn't break," I ask? "Yes, it seems that way." I left her office feeling like I had just gotten a second chance at keeping this baby inside me a little longer. As my father said this morning, "Every 24 hours, the baby is that much further along." That's a good way to look at it.

For friends and family who don't get to see Dax every day, I wanted to post some fun "Dax-isms" for you all to enjoy and so his mama doesn't forget them!:

Dax's new thing is to pick up Tim's phone, flip it open and have a full on conversation with his pretend friend on the other line. A typical conversation goes like this, "Hi, this is Timmy. (pause) Oh no, that's terrible! Really? What are you doing this weekend? I'm playing basketballs. Ok, see ya. Bye." And with a certain degree of authority, he flips the phone closed. Conversation over.

He's a total love bug these days and tells his mama and dada every day, "I love you dada, I love you mama. I love you bear bear (Kodi). We love each other." Yes we do!

He told my Aunt Karen the last day we were at her house and packing to leave, "Karen, Karen . . . I have to get outta here."

He told the neighbors yesterday who for some reason keep mispronouncing his name, "My name is NOT Dak! It's Dax. D-A-X." He spelled it for them!

When saying goodbye to anyone, it's always the two full expressions, "See ya later alligator . . .after a while crocodile." Then he falls in to a fit of giggles.

He says to me, "Make me handsome", which means, put product in his hair. And he flirts with himself in the mirror, smiling slyly and lifting up his shoulders in that cute way. Nope, he's not vain.

When I said we were flying to California, he turned to me and asked, "Is California a girl?"

While on our nature walk this week, he said "I hear music." He was referring to the scuffle sounds he was making with his feet on the gravel. How cool is that? He hears music in just about everything. Even in the sounds a truck makes as it backs up. He hears notes!

And now everything is, "Mama, I NEED muki (milk) . . . I need ice cream NOW! I need mama."

Dax loves to talk to my "baby tummy" as he refers to it and pats and kisses my belly. He already loves his baby brother.

I was wearing these ratty old flip flops the other day and he said, "Cool shoes, mama."

When Timmy misses a shot on Dax's basketball hoop, Dax says, "Uh oh, that was terrible dada."

He's fascinated by body parts. "Does Dax have boobies?" Then he giggles and answers his own question, "Noooo, only big girls have boobies. Dax has nipples . . . and a pee pee!" Yes, you got that right Dax.

When I asked him if he knew who God was, he said, "He is grand." Wow.

When I ask him where his crocs are, or where his sippy cup is, etc., a typical response is, "Weeeelllll, it's probably upstairs. But maybe it's in the kitchen or downstairs." He just sounds like such a little adult when he answers like this.

We were sitting on the stoop and he looked at the peeling wood frame and his eyes got big and he said, "Don't want to touch that . . .could get a splinter in my finger!"

When a stranger asks him his name, he responds proudly, "I'm Dax Reed Murrell . . . I'm two years old."
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Dax is 28 months old and can hold his breath under water for a few seconds (he comes up laughing!); ride his no-training wheels Strider bike down the paved driveway, feet up and totally balanced and in control as he takes the curve at the bottom; starting to keep a 1-2-3-4 rhythm on this drum set - he even did a slight drumroll the other day that I thought was Timmy, just amazing; throw the ball overhand for Kodi who retrieves it and brings it back to him to throw again; can almost do a somersault and can do crazy balancing acts between the coffee table and couch; will tell us when he needs to use the potty and will go number one and two in it but he's still not quite potty trained yet; can brush his teeth with his electric toothbrush almost better than mama can brush his teeth now; starting to learn how to get dressed - sometimes the shirt stays on the head like a turban though; can count to 15 and sing the whole ABC song, knows the lyrics and notes to more than a dozen children's songs and lullabies; has Good Night Moon memorized word for word, with a little prodding from mama; and he's a nature boy at heart - loves to smell flowers, look for ladybugs, collect cool looking sticks and stones, and listen to song birds; and counted out exactly how much cash I had in my wallet the other day - four single one dollar bills; understands that a "hitch" on the back of a car pulls a "trailer" and that cars have four wheels and motorcycles and bikes have two wheels.

It's not surprising that what's consuming my mind these days is the fact that I'm 35 weeks and five days along in my pregnancy and that means this little guy will be here soon. Very soon. Are we ready emotionally, financially, psychologically? Do we have homemade meals Tupperwared and properly labeled in the freezer for each day of the week? Is the house deep cleaned? Is the co-sleeper set up? Do I have enough newborn diapers to get me through the first week of clay-looking poop? Do I have a pretty, yet practical nightie I can birth him in? Do we have a name picked out?! Ah, that's a big resounding "no!" to all those questions.
I have good reason to feel slightly anxious about this second delivery. Against my wishes, I delivered Dax three weeks early and those three weeks posed some serious health problems for him. He was badly jaundiced and had to be hospitalized for a week until his numbers came down and then when it came to breastfeeding, his mouth didn't have the muscular strength yet to latch. I pumped 10-12 times a day for two full months and fed him breast milk from a bottle until he could clamp his little mouth down the right way. I was determined to not go to formula if I could help it. I'm glad I stuck with the pumping because Dax ended up breastfeeding for just over a year. But for 60 some odd days, I felt like the Vermont Holsteins I once saw on a field trip in middle school who were tirelessly hooked up to milking machines. I remember one batting her long eyelashes at me, seeming to beg to be unhooked from the constant suction. Yes, that was me.
Aside from the insurmountable newborn to-do list that has barely been checked off, I'm feeling so incredibly weepy about having to say goodbye to my first baby. Once the second one is here, Dax is no longer my baby. He's my little boy and I'm not ready for him to play this older role. I love our routine now. I love the life we all have as a family now. I'm scared to turn it all upside down, topsy-turvy style. As much as I want his father to step in and do more of the care giving with Daxie the first few weeks and months, I'm also terrified I'm going to feel left out. Will Dax start turning to Da Da when he's hurt himself or isn't feeling well? Will he feel like I've abandoned him? God, I hope not. I plan to do everything in my power to let him know just how loved and cherished he is even though I have a new baby to love and care for too. Well, with this all said, I'm thinking maybe my time right now might be more wisely spent cleaning the house and getting the new baby's room ready. It's time to chip away at that to-do list!

As I was bringing another plate of hot vanilla cream scones to table 10 at a High Tea a few months ago, one of the ladies reached out and touched my arm and in an accent that struck me as very familiar asked when my baby was due. As we chatted, I learned that the two older women were in their 60's and from Yugoslavia but had spent much of their childhood in Austria. The younger lady was a niece of one of the sisters. Ah, Austrian I say. I was married to a man many years ago whose mother's family was from Austria. I thought I recognized the accent. As we continued to chat, more about who they were and where they had come from spilled out. The two sisters had survived WWII while the rest of their family - parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles had tragically not. I've always had a real interest in WWII history but this was a slice of history I knew nothing about. I learned that morning that thousands of Austrian Jews escaped German-occupied Austria by leaving on illegal ships bound for Israel. They were put on river boats and sent down the Danube River which was considered "international waters" and therefore these refugees could not be touched. Austrian Jews continued to escape this way until April 1940 and my customers were two of those passengers lucky enough to get a spot on one of these river boats. They said they felt like gypsies living with no homeland for all those war years.
After the war, the sisters and three cousins ended up in the Denver area and have lived on American soil for the past 60 years. And then the conversation turned from war-torn Europe to life now as U.S. citizens and how grateful they both felt to be living in a country where they were free. One of the sisters said, "I never take one day here for granted." Wow, I thought, now there's an appreciation for what one has. The other sister shared with me that she miscarried four times and never had children of her own. She was very matter of fact and with no self-pity. It was what it was. But she leaned in a bit closer and said to me, good luck with the pregnancy and "stay happy". Stay happy. I thought that was a wonderful way to conclude such an amazing interaction with total strangers. I will never forget these women or this conversation for as long as I live.

I first started noticing a particular phenomenon while living in Santa Fe, NM many years ago. It was a recurring theme playing out in people's relationships, including my own for a while, that had me perplexed to say the least. Women from all aspects of my life, be it my hair stylist, a former boss, a close girlfriend or a fitness instructor would eventually share with me their stories and these stories all tended to have a very similar theme - highly motivated, driven women taking care of their free-riding counter parts for a host of reasons. Some of the men were struggling with alcoholism, others with depression, lack of motivation or not wanting to "sell out" for work that was below them. I thought at first it was just a coincidence that one or two women had similar experiences. Not the case. After living there for nine years, I realized that I was witnessing a common occurrence and I have to say, I was appalled. Appalled at myself for succumbing for some time to this but also for the women I cared about too. They were working themselves to the bone while their men were "finding themselves" or trying to get a little freelance work here and there. One hair stylist told me she had been financially supporting her artsy, live-in boyfriend for the past five years. When I asked why he didn't work, she sighed and said he was a "fine carpenter" and he didn't want to work for anyone else but himself. When I asked if he was bringing in any money, she said no. His way of helping out was to do handy man projects around the house. Turns out she was putting in 50 hours a week on her feet to keep a roof over their heads. She said she couldn't kick him out. I thought to myself, pathetic. I had a former boss struggle to pay her huge mortgage and house bills while her sober, live-in boyfriend search half-heartedly on their home computer for work for nearly seven months. He never once considered doing something other than what he was trained to do. Why should he? His girlfriend paid all his living expenses including gas for his car and food for his stomach. But it really hit me when my own boss at the restaurant I worked at asked me once as I was setting out the chopsticks and fine linens for dinner why I was putting in a full work week at my magazine internship and another two shifts at the restaurant on the weekends while my partner wasn't even working full time. I said our phone bill was threatened to be cut off and I didn't want to live that way. She asked, "Well, why doesn't he work more? You know, your lower back is sore because you don't feel financially supported." I was stunned that she had it figured out. And I sadly didn't have an answer for this wise Chinese woman. But I think I have an answer now. I think because most women have the capacity to do an extraordinary amount of work in and out of the home as well as be expert multi-taskers, not to mention that in so many instances, we care a whole lot more about keeping our shit together and our lives in order, that as a result of our type-A makeup, we let our men off the hook way too easily. This phenomenon isn't special to Santa Fe. I see it here too unfortunately. We take on more than our share because we don't want to rock the relationship. And now this rant is over.

Ah, the beauty and health care products I can't live without these days (starting from head to toe): Weleda Rosemary hair oil - I give myself a tingly scalp massage with this heavenly-scented oil; Queen Helene's Mint Julep Masque - your clogged pores will breathe a lot easier after doing a face mask with this green goodness; Tweezerman tweezers - need I say more?; Sonic Care toothbrush combined with Crest Pro-Health toothpaste (this fluoride paste is the bomb!) and a daily flossing has my hygenist envious of MY teeth, (and for whiter teeth, I brush once a week with straight baking soda - the best stain remover product out there); Neutrogena Sesame body oil right after a shower makes my skin silky smooth, and as for feet, I soak them in a warm bath of lavender Epsom salts, then use my $2.49 heel shaver from Target and with a coat of OPI red on my toenails, I just gave myself a very inexpensive pedicure that looks like I just stepped out of the salon.