Freedom and Toddlers

We made it to 36 weeks! Such a huge relief. I hadn't realized how anxious I was about poppet coming too early, but now I see how I have given barely any thought to the birth itself, imagining that I would be at Maine Med and at the mercy of a very medicalized birth replete with intervention after intervention. Maine Med is a really super place to have a baby, but I would have been there with high risk OBs and not exactly my ideal.

To celebrate I booked myself a hot stone pedicure for this morning - using a voucher I had gotten from Rafi for my birthday and mother's day. It was absolute bliss. 90 mins of soaking, scrubbing, massaging... aw. The pedicurist even painted little baby feet on my big toenail. Very cute.

Rich and I met for a very quick picnic in the park and then we headed to our 36 week midwife appointment. I had a non-stress test, which, when Baby Toast eventually woke up, passed with flying colours. The midwife I saw today thinks that I may make it further than we imagined, and I do hope so as it would be nice to spend some time with Rafi.

Mind you, Raf seems more interested in going to school and playing with his friends than playing with his mama. I picked him up this afternoon and he didn't want to come home with me! I was a little early collecting him and he was in another school room with a big group of boys who were about to play trains. Well, this was terrible timing on my part. I did finally get a hug and a kiss (but no running to my arms, as usual) and then a declaration that he didn't want to go home and wanted to play at school... I literally had to carry him out of the building. When we returned home all Raf wanted to do was play with his trains - and trying to cajole him to walk the dogs around the block with me was a complete failure.

He is REALLY into trains, right now. This morning the first words out of his mouth were, "kiss trains". Um.

His second love is a new friend at school. Dan, the support teacher, said yesterday that he and Rowan were playing a lot together and Raf wouldn't even go outside without him. Dan made another comment about Raf loving Rowan, and I asked, "does Rowan love Raf as much as Raf loves Rowan?" Dan responded, "sort of, but Rowan also like his space".

I have to admit that I was filled with dread that this could mean some rejection for Raf. Raf is an incredibly open little boy, and if he likes you - especially if you're a little boy - he'll want to really be close and play a lot. With his cousin Rory you could see that Raf was much more into Rory than the other way around, and I have to say that I felt a bit sad for Raf who seemed sad when Rors didn't want to hold his hand or didn't want to play with him. I know it's something that Raf will have to go through, but I would do just about anything to protect Raf from feeling rejected.

Alas, there's not much we can do other than make sure his confidence is good and his self-esteem remains in tact. And I am pretty sure that I feel the rejection more acutely than Raf!!

The good news, though, is that Raf really loves school and he has found some friends. In fact when I went into the school and spent a couple of hours with Raf in his new classroom, I thought that the little boy Rowan might turn out to be a friend for Raf!

Here he is relaxing after a hard day... he was super tired.