The 2021 Olympics start later this week, and as a result, swimming is top-of-mind for me at the moment.
Growing up, I was reliably athletic, but not particularly standout in any one sport. I was a pretty solid runner, though sidelined by shin splints during a few of my track or cross-country seasons. Running skills translated into being a fairly good soccer player, but without the ball-handling skills to capitalize much on a decisive breakaway. I didn’t make the volleyball team, knocked over the pole all 3 attempts in my first meet trying high jump, and only tested 3 belts deep in martial arts before a sparring session left me wondering why I’d signed up to have someone knock the wind out of me.
But swimming… swimming was my jam. I didn’t start until 7th grade because one of my friends was joining the team, and initially I couldn’t make a single set, no matter how forgiving the intervals. But evidently I just had to be given a few thousand repetitions over the length of the pool, and something close to natural talent emerged. (I say “natural talent” referring in part to how my adolescent brain rationalized the benefits of my anatomy compared how gangly and unfeminine I felt with my big hands, wide feet, broad shoulders… and the way boys in class would tell me to put my “guns” away when I wore sleeveless shirts.)
Granted, I was still not an all-star. I made Varsity all 4 years of high school, but it wasn’t tough to score enough points when the team overall was only so-so. I qualified for the MHSAA “state meet” a couple of times, but only in relays. And if I’m being honest, I always looked like I was sandbagging at practice… I swam in the middle of the team talent and never led sets unless they were something competitive like drop-a-second 50s. To be fair, I wasn’t trying to low-ball my abilities, but the thousands of yards daily were simply not my fast-twitch forte, and I like to think it was more a matter of how I was clearly suited to turning on and mentally letting go during a race (I swam sprint freestyle and part of what I loved about my events was how little thinking there was; just muscle memory, power, and a vague resignation to oxygen deprivation).
But after years of 2x/day, 6 days/week practice, hours and hours (and hours and hours) watching the same floor tiles drift by with no other mental distractions available, finding no amount of soap can ever really remove the chlorine smell from your skin until the season was over, “Iron Lung” clubs, “Animal Kicking” clubs, “Hell Weeks,” glorious “tapers,” rushed locker room routines with 30 other girls in the 12 minutes allotted to get ready for 2nd period, sizing up the competition’s seed times before a race, post-practice Saturday team breakfasts, pre-meet Spaghetti team dinners, and that awful, knowing moment you spend mid-air en route to the shock of cold water to start the first set of practice, first thing in the morning… I developed a lasting love and respect for the sport and what it taught me.
Fast forward many years since being out of the competitive scene, and of all topics in life, including those I studied in college and obtained a degree in, those which I have since pursued solely out of passion and interest, even those for which I am employed and literally paid to have an informed opinion of… there are none that I feel as confidently expert in as swimming.
All this to say, I have 2 timely thoughts on my mind the past few days:
- On the topic of childbirth — during my labor with A, the doctor was coaching me through breathing and pushing. She asked me: “do you know how to swim?”
Me: yes.
Doc: okay, I want you to take a big breath like you’re going to swim. Now when I say push, you push and we will count to 10. Ready? Push!
Me: *pushing, exhaling*
Doc: no, no, no! Don’t exhale! Stop, stop.
Me (reminder: actively having a baby): you said to breathe like I’m going swimming.
Doc: yes, but don’t exhale!
Me (still having a baby): swimmers exhale.
Doc: no, they don’t.
Me (really, oddly coherent given that I’m within minutes of giving birth): yes they do, otherwise they’d have a buildup of CO2, but that’s neither here nor there. You do not want me to exhale then?
Doc (clearly more than a little surprised to be having this conversation): right. Okay. Let’s just have you push and hold your breath this time until we’re done counting to 10. Ready? - And this, perhaps the greatest relay leg in Olympics swimming history. Jason Lezak anchors for Team USA, comes back from a major deficit and presumptive loss (including at the 50 meter mark in his own leg), sets a world record with his split, and earns the team a gold by 8 hundredths of a second. I have probably watched this video 40x just by myself over the years because it is such a stunning race.
Suffice it to say, I am very much looking forward to watching the Olympics coverage coming up — and hey, maybe even some events live despite the Tokyo time difference due to my own impending up-all-night schedule! (What can I say? I’m a sucker for some silver lining.)
If Baby arrives in the same 2-day gestational window as its brothers, then our family will be back to even numbers between Thursday and Saturday of this week.
The boys seem mostly aware of the impending change. When prompted, they confirm that they are excited. They understand that if they wake up in the morning and GiGi (my mom) is here, it’s because Mom and Dad went to see the doctor during the night because the baby is coming. And, when it came up just yesterday that A is the “littlest bro,” J corrected Dave: “no, the new baby is the littlest bro now.”
“Well, technically the baby may be a girl; we still don’t know,” Dave said.
J, without missing a beat: “girls can be ‘bros’ too, Dad.”
(In our house, “bro” is indeed an abbreviation for “brother,” but clearly more often is used as a compliment – someone who is a good friend, shares their toys readily, takes care of another bro in need. Really, we should all aspire to the status of ‘bro.’)
We spent the weekend ensuring we were caught up on laundry, hair cuts, and my mom even took me out for a manicure to carry me through the end of the pregnancy and first week or two of Baby’s life (so even if I’ve not showered in days, I’ll look kempt… at least from the cuticles down). We stocked up on convenience foods like Lunchables, hot dogs, and pre-cut fruit. I took O to a park for the rare 1:1 play date with a friend from daycare – an event in & of itself for him to be the sole child in the car, to say nothing of the focused attention and lack of competition required to dictate the terms of a given activity compared to when his brothers are around. We played at the pool, ate meals on the patio, made crafts, played games, and kept the big boys up past bedtime for a bonfire and s’mores in our backyard (their first but definitely not their last this season as they thoroughly enjoyed that the treat itself is the objective).
As for me nearing “go-time,” I did some working out, took some naps, got to bed early, and was only occasionally self-conscious about the number of involuntary noises I make while doing things around the house like picking up objects from the floor, leaning over to buckle the boys’ sandals, or, you know, rolling over during the night. Most importantly, I am still feeling great and had my latest check-up today with Baby looking good and in the proper exit position.
With my first 3, I went into labor during the wee hours of the night, so I admit it’s a bit anxiety-inducing to fall asleep the past week+ lest I wake up shortly thereafter in active labor… but then again, each morning I’m finding the predominant feeling is a little less relief of a full night’s sleep and a little more disappointment that the baby’s not already in my arms. Soon enough…
Unfortunately for both Dave & I, neither of us seem to have:
- A sense of interior decorating style
- Informed opinions about art
- Anything resembling a sense of urgency to “finish” a space
As a result, we have a high percentage of walls in our home that have remained bare, even years after first moving in.
I listened to an NPR Life Kit podcast a few weeks ago titled “Why Surrounding Yourself With Art Matters — And How To Do It.” The takeaways were not groundbreaking. Basically, art is that which inspires you, and if you love it, you should prioritize having it in your home. I’ve been observing my dad pick up an eclectic art collection in the recent past, in fact, and envy the conviction with which he pursues it and the obvious joy it brings him. But then, I’m not willing to hunt to develop my preference for art, I’m not looking to spend money to fill a space just for the sake of filling it, and I find that if I wait long enough to become accustomed to said space being unoccupied… it doesn’t register in my mind as void at all.
All this in mind, it was notable when, after strolling separately through the Ann Arbor Art Fair this weekend, both Dave & I had mentally flagged a tent of oil paintings that we admired enough to want to revisit together. When we did return, we jointly decided on a large-scale oil painting that’s reminiscent to us of the sandy dunes and shores along Lake Michigan’s coastline — contentment in the form of a geographic location for us.
It’ll take a few weeks to get hung in its permanent home, and then, as the sticker shock of one-of-a-kind art begins to wear off, I’m certain we’ll truly enjoy it and its origin story in our family’s home for many years to come.
Plus, on the upside of being exceedingly slow to put up household decorations, you can be sure that once we do invest and hang something, it could be decades before we find ourselves inclined to move it.
I was leaving my OB check-up yesterday and a middle-aged man working in some medical capacity at the center joined me in the elevator. He eyed my belly, smiled, and asked,
“First baby?”
“No, this is my fourth,” I smiled back.
“Oh, really? Same husband?”
So… there’s that.
Yesterday I took all 3 boys with me to the grocery and, walking around pretty aggressively pregnant, I received the following question from strangers no less than five times during this single outing:
“You going for your girl now??”
Now, we don’t actually know what we’re having with this pregnancy, but obviously we’re having a boy. I answer this harmless query pretty good-naturedly live, but here, for the record, is why I think that question should be eradicated from the public’s stock pregnancy conversational repertoire:
- I can’t help but wonder if the person asking knows that — barring pretty extensive medical intervention — a person does not, in fact, get to choose their baby’s sex. I flash back to 7th grade Sex Ed, when I found out what was involved in conception and chromosomal combinations that determine a baby’s sex, but then remember that the very topic of Sex Ed itself is contentious nationally today. I seriously contemplate sending them a number of informative YouTube videos that might be genuinely illuminating. 4 full seconds later they’re still smiling waiting on my answer and I am adrift in concern for the well-being of America’s sexually active and potentially equally ignorant youth.
- Assuming they do, in fact, know the first point, they also should know that there are ~50/50 odds of either sex, so “going for” one or the other is a dangerous game to play if you have strong feelings about the outcome because it’s not even remotely in your control. In fact, the statistical probability of having the opposite sex actually decreases after having 2 of the same sex and trends down with each successive pregnancy (“sperm natural selection” as it’s referred to between paternal and maternal environmental survivability factors means it’s not a coin flip for baby #3 & onward once you’ve had the same sex).
- In my case, clearly I only make one kind of baby. I happen to think it’s a damn good model. I am so convinced of that, in fact, that I am willing to procreate again. (This is usually the answer I say out loud.)
One of my friends met a pregnant mother at a preschool orientation recently who reminded her of me. The woman introduced herself to the class with a preemptive strike: “Hi, I’m so-&-so. Names/ages of 3 girls, & I’m having a 4th girl in August. No, we weren’t going for a boy. Yes, my husband is happy. No, we aren’t having more.” I think she’s onto something with this approach — though I admit that at least with sons, I don’t get questions about my husband’s satisfaction with our family (yeeeeeesh).
Don’t get me wrong: I’m confident that little girls are wonderful as well. And I suspect there’s not even much of a difference between the two sexes for the first many months other than I don’t think you’d get peed on quite as frequently as you do with infant boys during middle-of-the-night diaper changes. But you better believe there’s a part of me that bristles at the idea that I would be anything other than thrilled to have another wonderful boy like the 3 we have already.
Whether this baby is a boy or girl, I know this for sure: they will be raised with an abundance of vehicle-related toys because there’s not much space left in our play room for representation of new interests, so we will be exploiting the joy of the grocery car cart for many years to come.
When my parents first pulled out of our driveway with all 3 boys in tow for a 5 night venture, I’ll admit I was a little overwhelmed. What should we do first? Didn’t I have a list of books I wanted to read? A list of projects I couldn’t find enough daytime hours to tackle normally? A list of people with whom I was overdue for a good catch-up? A list of lists that I’d been meaning to make??
Now, 6 days and 5 nights later, here’s where we netted out:
- Dining out.
We had 1 lunch and 3 dinners out. The food scene in one of the major cities nearby is phenomenal, so we indulged in everything except portion control: appetizers, desserts, tapas, cocktails, even overpriced mocktails for me. In these outings, we also had a startling realization that we haven’t managed a “quick” departure in over 6 years now. We’ve grown accustomed to baking in time wrangling and packing up kids’ diaper bags, helping put on shoes, refilling water bottles, checking for items left behind, buckling and arranging in various 5-point harnesses. We were so quick to get in the car for our first luncheon, in fact, that I delayed our outing by 30 seconds because I was simply convinced we couldn’t be ready to go that quickly and must be forgetting something. - Staying clean.
With the exception of the tumbleweeds of dog fur that accumulate from our shepherd, things have been remarkably (literally: I felt the need to remark on this at least twice every day) clean. We only had to do a load of our own laundry once during this time. We ran the dishwasher about a third as often as we normally do – and that included cleaning baby supplies. We last vacuumed on Friday, shortly after the boys left. It is now Wednesday, and there are still vacuum tracks on parts of the carpet. There was such low urgency to need to clean, in fact, that we even optimized when we ran our machines to reduce power usage during surge times amid a bit of a heat wave. I would congratulate myself for being so eco-conscious if not for, you know, that ship having long since sailed given the number of offspring we’ve created. - Quality 1:1 time.
Dave & I went on walks every day, had several bonfires by ourselves, and he cooked me a fantastic dinner on our last evening alone. As a rule, our most substantive conversations happen when the boys are securely strapped into car seats and we can mentally relax enough to focus more exclusively on talking to each other, or when the bedtime rush is over and I’m only partially coherent anymore. I probably spent about 90% of our waking hours chatting endlessly, and then only last night wondered if I should bust out my personal favorite (& otherwise regarded as totally cringey) “Table Topics” game. - Having a social life.
Years ago, one of my dear friends told me that when I talk to someone, I make them feel like the most important person in the room — & I consider that a high compliment. But having kids is a constant exercise in multi-tasking (something I’m not good at in the first place) and as a result, I haven’t felt on my social game in years because I can’t really focus on the person with whom I’m speaking while my kids are around and devising yet another method to inject danger into otherwise banal situations. With our free time these past few days, we therefore had a bonfire with neighbors, a decadent dinner + dessert progressive evening out with two of our best friends, and a sunny lake day with family including great bonding with our 2 year old niece. - PANIC NESTING.
(Kind of) joking about it being done in a panic, but I got a ton of concentrated nesting done. Baby’s laundry is washed and stocked, diaper stations are set up upstairs and down, bottles/pumps/pacifiers have been cleaned, dried, and organized to minimize a need to scramble amid my impending newborn mental haze. I also took the liberty of conducting a massive toy purge, which is both very satisfying for me and also leads to my bi-annual conviction that we should all focus more on gifting kids experiences rather than things, which leads to me figuratively standing on my soap box and preaching to Dave for 30 minutes about this, which leads to him reminding me that he’s always agreed with this but I can keep repeating myself it if helps.
All in all, it was a wonderful, recharging, productive time. And, of course, an honorable mention to the 6th thematic trend of how I spent the days: simultaneously very much looking forward to having my favorite little monsters back at home with me.
Dinner at one of my favorite swanky spots – not a kids’ menu in sight. 
Enjoying s’mores and more time to converse with our neighbors than is afforded by our usual wait for the school bus. 
Queso and charcuterie. My favorites. 
D & our niece palling around before dinner and fireworks. 
Amazing homemade meal & mocktail by D, cartoon car place mat because we’re still us.
We were supposed to be on a getaway to a driving-distance destination this week with the boys and my parents. My doctor, however, suggested (as diplomatically as she could, I’m sure) that this was a boneheaded idea given the likelihood that I have a fast delivery and go early (again) with Baby #4. As a result, Dave and I ended up in this Twilight Zone scenario where all of our children are away with my parents and we are home alone for five (!) consecutive nights. Once the shock of solitude wore off, we went right to work planning things that we can’t easily do with the boys in tow — but more on that later.
One such thing on my list is more involved meal prep, inclusive of ingredients that may not be to the taste of my sons who are content to call five pieces of pepperoni stacked between two slices of bread a solid lunch menu.
Enter: this delicious stone fruit and burrata salad:
Recipe here courtesy of “What’s Gaby Cooking.”
I brought this to a lakeside dinner with family and made another lunch of it for myself as more of the fruit ripened. It’s light, hydrating on a hot day, and bursting with flavor between the fruit and the champagne vinaigrette. 10/10 will make again… albeit probably not for awhile unless I find that O – by far my most adventurous eater – also enjoys it.
June 30th is just a date on a calendar, but it’s also our anniversary. We’ve spent this date traveling to new cities, to foreign countries, to some of the most beautiful local spots… having extravagant dinners, al fresco picnics, or Subway sandwiches… alone, or among friends, or with our growing number of children. Last night, we celebrated 10 years of marriage with a substantially different version of our original vision for the milestone (the Amalfi coast!): consuming a takeout charcuterie board, watching our backyard bonfire, doused in bug spray. We talked about our early dating days, some of our favorite anniversary trips, & how nice the patio looked since being power washed. We looked up at the back of our home and recalled one night shortly after we first moved into this 4 bedroom house with our 2 month old son who still slept in a bassinet next to our bed. We stood at the top of our stairs looking into the big, empty space feeling like impostors pretending to be adults… and now that we’ve slowly replaced things like our former condo’s modern furniture with toddler-friendly ottomans, “big boy” bunks, and over-sized reading chairs, that a massive portion of our life happens just behind the windows between the living room and kitchen, and that the bedrooms are filled with the small, sleeping bodies of our favorite people in the world.
Another June 30th, and another set of happy memories made not because of what we were doing, but because we were together.
