Lea loves school. She has loved school for over two full years now, ever since we started sending her one morning a week, then two, to the infant/toddler room at her preschool. She has made so many friends (as have we) through this school, that even if it weren't for the excellent teachers, perfect schedule, and short (and lovely) walk from our house, I'd still consider it a great part of all of our lives. It's just been awesome.
I was talking to my friend Lindsay (mother of Rylan, Lea's best buddy, met at school), as I have many times before, about how much my mental health was suffering during the summer of 2007, when Lea was 7-9 months old and we knew NOBODY in town and a two-minute chat with a barista every now and then was all that was passing for my social life. I say that flippantly, but really: I was in some serious trouble that summer.
And then, I took a leap and invited myself to lunch with an acquaintance of Brian's who had young kids, whom I'd met once for about 15 seconds. She graciously fed me vegetable orzo and handed me a flier for the preschool open house that evening. She also gave me the phone number of the preschool director. I could not wait until that evening. I could not even wait to get home to place a phone call; I actually drove straight from Marybell's house to the church, where I frantically introduced myself and my need NEED NEED for this preschool to the first person I found (who turned out to be the spouse of a custodian, but she pointed me in the right direction). Within 15 minutes, the deposit was paid and Lea was signed up for school.
Since then, Lea's school time each week has increased. She first started going four mornings a week when I had just gotten pregnant with Susanna and was dealing with round-the-clock sickness. She still goes four days, plus now she has the option to stay for lunch, which she does once or twice a week. She gets so excited about "lunch bunch," and I get to do that age-old Mom think where I write her name with a little heart or a flower on her little Tupperware lunch container. Overall, it makes her seem about six and a half years old and it's almost too much to bear. The kid really is growing up.
Except, she's still only two. Two! I cannot believe sometimes that this child who talks in paragraphs and has favorite songs and picks out her own library books is still only two years old. Which brings me to the title of this post.
The preschool director decided to be a stickler this year, and so, even though every single other member of her class from last year has moved up to the three-year-old class, Lea is still down with her old teacher from last year with the current crop of two year olds. She does great there, actually-- I'm so proud of her. There's always somebody screaming and crying, and there's lots of pacifiers and non-verbalness but she gets right in there and plays with them and helps her teachers and it's wonderful. But on Tuesdays, oh, glorious Tuesdays, the three-year-old class is small, so the teachers arranged for Lea and two other 2006-born kids to spend the morning upstairs. The big kid class.
Every morning, Lea asks if it's Tuesday. She loooooves Tuesdays. She gets to see her best buddies, and do very grown-up things like carry her own paint and learn a new song every week and make crafts all-by-herself. She still loves school every day, but on Tuesday she comes home with a twinkle in her eye.
And I start to feel the wheels turning in my head, fast-forwarding to kindergarten and grade school and wondering: will she be challenged enough? Will she get to do things that excite her, that make her proud to be growing up? And this isn't even an age-related worry, although I do kind of wish we'd at least have the option of sending her to kindergarten at almost-5 instead of almost-6. I think it's just the first time I've really been faced with the concept of my children's academic lives, and how much control I will really want or be able to exert on them. And it starts a whole slew of other lines of thinking about the public schools in this region (not too great) and in Virginia in general (way too ruled by state Standards of Learning, as far as I can tell). I know people who homeschool for that reason, and I know people who just go with the flow and hope for the best, and I also know people who choose public school but very intentionally supplement that education with family reading projects and educational trips and real-world learning in the form of planning and planting gardens, or building things, or extra art classes.
It's a lot to figure out, but it's three years away, so I know that the best thing to do right now is just nurture Lea's love of learning whether it's a Threesday or a Twosday or not a school day at all. And soon enough, Susanna will start to go to school too (although she's ten times more stranger-phobic and cling-to-parent than Lea ever was, so we'll see how that goes). I hope very much that I can send them off to school with confidence, and that they both come home most days with twinkles in their eyes.
*
While I'm here, I should also mention that Susanna is crawling all over the place, pulling up on furniture, eating some solid food, babbling away ("Dada" might be intentional-- it's hard to tell), but still not sleeping any better than when she was about 5 days old. We switched our bedrooms around so all the girls furniture, and theoretically both girls, are up in the big room on the top floor, and Brian and I in the smaller room that used to be Lea's. It's working out really well in terms of space usage and storage, and it looks GREAT, if I do say so myself. And Susanna does start the night out in the top room, and typically has one early wake-up that can be dealt with quickly, allowing a swift returning to the crib in that room, but. Invariably, there is a freak-out sometime between 1 and 4am during which the child is so enraged and so unbelievable loud, we're way too afraid to try to deal with it in the room where Lea is still sleeping. So, down to our room Susanna comes, where she snuggles in contentedly and drifts off, clearly very satisfied with herself for getting exactly what she wanted all along. Not sure how to deal with that.
She's wonderful, though. I love this stage of babyhood, the way she's soaking up everything and interacting more and generally being very happy and bubbly. I will miss it when she's big. But there's a lot to look forward to there, too, as I see glimpses of what it will be like to have two kids (rather than a kid and a baby) who can actually play together and have similar experiences and enjoy each others company instead of just regarding one another with amused tolerance.
And now Susanna is awake from her nap and I didn't do any of the things I meant to get done during that (short) kid-free time. Oh well. Maybe I'll post again before a month passes.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Life updates
Since this blog is serving as my only (lame) attempt at a babybook-type chronicle of the first years of my kids' lives, I know I'll really regret it if I look back in a few years and see it trail off to nothing, so I'm resolving to pick up the pace a little bit, even if it's just totally un-literary lists of what's going on.
Susanna is 6 months old. She has seemed about 5 seconds away from crawling for about a month now; she does the downward facing dog back-and-forth rocking that I can remember Lea doing just before she crawled. She honestly seems puzzled as to why that motion doesn't get her anywhere. The key is to figure out the pairing of the right hand with the left leg, and vice versa, moving together. Once that clicks, she'll be all over the place.
On a related note, I keep hoping that what I hear about impending developmental milestones interfering with sleep is true, because otherwise I have no explanation for the fact that Susanna is such a bad nighttime sleeper. Last week I would've told you that she just gets lonely, but for the last 3 nights, she just moans and fusses whether she's in her crib, in one of our arms, in the bed between us, anywhere. It's exhausting. She's not sick, and in the daytime hours she is perfectly pleasant and content, and even a very reliable napper. It's weird. Especially because she is just so, so different from her sister. By 5 months, Lea was on a rock-solid and totally predictable schedule: bed at 7. Nurse at 11 and go right back to sleep. Nurse at 3 and go right back to sleep. Awake at 7. Period. I think that Susanna's longest stretches of sleep these days are about 2.5 hours. Just writing that makes me deliriously tired.
What's funny, though, is that I'm actually handling the tiredness so much better than I did when Lea was a baby. I napped when Lea did almost every day until Susanna was born. Now, it's not possible to nap at all because Lea doesn't take one anymore-- but it's actually FINE, and I almost never feel like I'm about to crumble to the floor with exhaustion, which is how I felt for most of Lea's first year.
Part of it, I think, is that when it was just Lea, I was kind of socially exhausted, if that makes sense. Because with a young baby, you give and give and give from your social-energy reserves, and get almost nothing back the way you do when you have a conversation with an adult or even an older child. Which is why I have told myself so many times, and told so many other struggling new parents, that I think being alone with a baby can be lonelier than being alone. You can't just get lost in your own thoughts-- you have to direct your mental and emotional and social and physical EVERYTHING at this other person, and let's be honest-- the payoff, at least in terms of recharging yourself, is kind of minimal for most of the first year.
But this time around, even though Susanna is in that stage, Lea is around too, and she is social. We have conversations, and she's funny. She's infuriating at times, and every day she tests me, and yes, still, it's sometimes pretty lonely to be on my own with the girls. But it's so different. I am in such a better mental-health situation than I was two years ago. And I thank God for this time with my kids, hard as it may be on a day-to-day basis. I look at Susanna and I KNOW this time how fast it goes, because I have evidence of how fast it goes-- Lea, the not-at-all-a-baby-anymore-- right there in the room with me.
Of course, the other big difference is that they are different kids. Obviously. But I still find myself surprised and amused when Susanna shows signs of having a very different personality than Lea does. From day one, Lea was Miss Independent, and didn't much like to be held, slept best on her own, wanted to be down on the floor or next to you, but never in your lap. I remember going to a breastfeeding group meeting in Bryn Mawr when she was a newborn, and noticing with some sadness that when other babies cried, their mothers' first response was to pick them up and hold them close, but that I had already learned to do the opposite. When Lea cried, it meant she wanted to be put down.
Depending on my mood, I describe Susanna as alternately very snuggly or very clingy. She loves to be held, and she always cries out if I leave her line of sight. Overall, it's pretty easy to keep her happy during her wakeful hours; just hold her in a lap and let her observe the world. I do suspect that her snuggly/clingy nature has at least something to do with her lack of consistent nighttime sleep though, so that's definitely the downside to an otherwise pretty mellow personality.
I find myself thinking about birth order a lot too. It suddenly makes all kinds of sense that there would be some pretty consistent and pretty fundamental differences between oldest children and everybody else. Of course the stimuli a baby with a toddler in her house is exposed to will be vastly different than those of a firstborn. I have no idea exactly what that does to a little developing psyche, but I'm sure it's something. Susanna's routine, and what she sees and hears and does all day long, are so different from Lea's. It will be interesting to see how their personalities develop from here on out.
My girls are also physically very different. I think I've said on here before that at birth, they looked like different species. Such different faces. And also, Susanna was so skinny in comparison, which is hilarious because as of yesterday, she weighs more than Lea did at 13 months. She also has bigger legs-- they wear the same size diaper, and it fits snugger on Susanna than on Lea. Strangers routinely come up to comment on her ankle rolls. She's a chunk. I love it.
Life is pretty good right now. Abingdon is the perfect place for our family at this point, except for the fact that it's so far away from family, which is a drag. But in all other ways, I can see us staying here forever. We've made some wonderful friends, and fill our days with low-key activities that I feel so good about shaping a child's life around: walks on a trail, rocks thrown in creek, horses observed from the roadside, vegetable gardens tended and explored, bluegrass on the radio, good friends and a circle of acquaintances ranging from authors and artists to activist ex-nuns. Very cool.
In other news, I take the first step in my should-I-be-a-midwife journey this fall: Anatomy and Physiology I, one of three prerequisites to nursing school. If it goes well and feels right, I'll take the other two (A&P II and Microbiology) in the spring, and begin the official nursing program the following fall. Which makes me an RN by Spring 2012 and a midwife two years later at the absolute earliest. Whew. It's still a huge question mark in my mind, but I figure the only way to really evaluate if this is a path I'd like to travel is to take the first concrete step instead of just wondering. Besides, it will be fun to use that part of my brain again, and for the couple hundred bucks of community college tuition, there's really no downside.
So. The summer's been a blur of travelling, first to PA/NJ and then most recently to the Smokies. Brian has had a really busy time with work, working on issues that have resulted in one big victory on the local level (keeping a truck stop from being built right next door to an elementary school) and a long, drawn-out fight on the national level (fighting for health care reform). Both issues have drawn some pretty ugly attacks. It's no fun to be harrassed at the farmer's market by a guy you thought you were friends with.
But. Our sidewalk is being built and a mountain autumn is just around the corner. My kids are healthy and gorgeous and make each other laugh. No complaints here.
Susanna is 6 months old. She has seemed about 5 seconds away from crawling for about a month now; she does the downward facing dog back-and-forth rocking that I can remember Lea doing just before she crawled. She honestly seems puzzled as to why that motion doesn't get her anywhere. The key is to figure out the pairing of the right hand with the left leg, and vice versa, moving together. Once that clicks, she'll be all over the place.
On a related note, I keep hoping that what I hear about impending developmental milestones interfering with sleep is true, because otherwise I have no explanation for the fact that Susanna is such a bad nighttime sleeper. Last week I would've told you that she just gets lonely, but for the last 3 nights, she just moans and fusses whether she's in her crib, in one of our arms, in the bed between us, anywhere. It's exhausting. She's not sick, and in the daytime hours she is perfectly pleasant and content, and even a very reliable napper. It's weird. Especially because she is just so, so different from her sister. By 5 months, Lea was on a rock-solid and totally predictable schedule: bed at 7. Nurse at 11 and go right back to sleep. Nurse at 3 and go right back to sleep. Awake at 7. Period. I think that Susanna's longest stretches of sleep these days are about 2.5 hours. Just writing that makes me deliriously tired.
What's funny, though, is that I'm actually handling the tiredness so much better than I did when Lea was a baby. I napped when Lea did almost every day until Susanna was born. Now, it's not possible to nap at all because Lea doesn't take one anymore-- but it's actually FINE, and I almost never feel like I'm about to crumble to the floor with exhaustion, which is how I felt for most of Lea's first year.
Part of it, I think, is that when it was just Lea, I was kind of socially exhausted, if that makes sense. Because with a young baby, you give and give and give from your social-energy reserves, and get almost nothing back the way you do when you have a conversation with an adult or even an older child. Which is why I have told myself so many times, and told so many other struggling new parents, that I think being alone with a baby can be lonelier than being alone. You can't just get lost in your own thoughts-- you have to direct your mental and emotional and social and physical EVERYTHING at this other person, and let's be honest-- the payoff, at least in terms of recharging yourself, is kind of minimal for most of the first year.
But this time around, even though Susanna is in that stage, Lea is around too, and she is social. We have conversations, and she's funny. She's infuriating at times, and every day she tests me, and yes, still, it's sometimes pretty lonely to be on my own with the girls. But it's so different. I am in such a better mental-health situation than I was two years ago. And I thank God for this time with my kids, hard as it may be on a day-to-day basis. I look at Susanna and I KNOW this time how fast it goes, because I have evidence of how fast it goes-- Lea, the not-at-all-a-baby-anymore-- right there in the room with me.
Of course, the other big difference is that they are different kids. Obviously. But I still find myself surprised and amused when Susanna shows signs of having a very different personality than Lea does. From day one, Lea was Miss Independent, and didn't much like to be held, slept best on her own, wanted to be down on the floor or next to you, but never in your lap. I remember going to a breastfeeding group meeting in Bryn Mawr when she was a newborn, and noticing with some sadness that when other babies cried, their mothers' first response was to pick them up and hold them close, but that I had already learned to do the opposite. When Lea cried, it meant she wanted to be put down.
Depending on my mood, I describe Susanna as alternately very snuggly or very clingy. She loves to be held, and she always cries out if I leave her line of sight. Overall, it's pretty easy to keep her happy during her wakeful hours; just hold her in a lap and let her observe the world. I do suspect that her snuggly/clingy nature has at least something to do with her lack of consistent nighttime sleep though, so that's definitely the downside to an otherwise pretty mellow personality.
I find myself thinking about birth order a lot too. It suddenly makes all kinds of sense that there would be some pretty consistent and pretty fundamental differences between oldest children and everybody else. Of course the stimuli a baby with a toddler in her house is exposed to will be vastly different than those of a firstborn. I have no idea exactly what that does to a little developing psyche, but I'm sure it's something. Susanna's routine, and what she sees and hears and does all day long, are so different from Lea's. It will be interesting to see how their personalities develop from here on out.
My girls are also physically very different. I think I've said on here before that at birth, they looked like different species. Such different faces. And also, Susanna was so skinny in comparison, which is hilarious because as of yesterday, she weighs more than Lea did at 13 months. She also has bigger legs-- they wear the same size diaper, and it fits snugger on Susanna than on Lea. Strangers routinely come up to comment on her ankle rolls. She's a chunk. I love it.
Life is pretty good right now. Abingdon is the perfect place for our family at this point, except for the fact that it's so far away from family, which is a drag. But in all other ways, I can see us staying here forever. We've made some wonderful friends, and fill our days with low-key activities that I feel so good about shaping a child's life around: walks on a trail, rocks thrown in creek, horses observed from the roadside, vegetable gardens tended and explored, bluegrass on the radio, good friends and a circle of acquaintances ranging from authors and artists to activist ex-nuns. Very cool.
In other news, I take the first step in my should-I-be-a-midwife journey this fall: Anatomy and Physiology I, one of three prerequisites to nursing school. If it goes well and feels right, I'll take the other two (A&P II and Microbiology) in the spring, and begin the official nursing program the following fall. Which makes me an RN by Spring 2012 and a midwife two years later at the absolute earliest. Whew. It's still a huge question mark in my mind, but I figure the only way to really evaluate if this is a path I'd like to travel is to take the first concrete step instead of just wondering. Besides, it will be fun to use that part of my brain again, and for the couple hundred bucks of community college tuition, there's really no downside.
So. The summer's been a blur of travelling, first to PA/NJ and then most recently to the Smokies. Brian has had a really busy time with work, working on issues that have resulted in one big victory on the local level (keeping a truck stop from being built right next door to an elementary school) and a long, drawn-out fight on the national level (fighting for health care reform). Both issues have drawn some pretty ugly attacks. It's no fun to be harrassed at the farmer's market by a guy you thought you were friends with.
But. Our sidewalk is being built and a mountain autumn is just around the corner. My kids are healthy and gorgeous and make each other laugh. No complaints here.
Friday, June 12, 2009
The babymoon ends
I'll start by sharing something that's a bit difficult to admit, though I suspect I'm not at all alone in my feelings.
Susanna's birth was emotionally very complicated for me, and very, very different from Lea's birth in terms of the psychological journey it took me on. Here's the most truthful truth I can muster: one of the first things that popped into my head when I saw her was "Who is this impostor? I already have a baby!"
Yep. That's what I thought. Luckily, I am a self-examiner by nature, and I had already considered the possibility that I'd have some weird stuff happen in the brain department at that moment, so my reaction to my own thought was not horror and fling-myself-out-the-window guilt, as I imagine it might be for some. I was able to kind of roll my eyes at myself, recognize the thought for what it was-- a totally human response to the sudden shake-up in my mothering world-- take another look at the wriggling slippery mess on my chest, and see, my god, how beautiful she was and how much I really did already love her.
And I have loved her, and loved her, and loved her ever since. But. It's been such a different bonding process, and it seems that every moment of falling in love with her is matched with a corresponding pang of torment that I've abandoned Lea. And that I miss my first baby sometimes, so, so much. So that's hard. Really hard. Especially in the earliest days, when Susanna's needs were so impossible to anticipate, and all I could really do was be physically available to her, we'd often find ourselves doing the old divide-and-conquer trick, with Brian taking over almost all of Lea's care, and me nursing and nursing and nursing and that's about it. As much as I love to cuddle a tiny baby, I could hear Lea's laughter and hilarious two-year-old way of talking (and occasionally, her confused and sober inquiries as to where Mama was), and it would kill me that I could not un-latch the baby and go scoop up my firstborn and blow raspberries on her belly and make her smile, and just be with her. And then, on the other hand, when I was on my own with both girls, I'd find myself in situations where I was trying to tend to Susanna, and Lea would be her typical toddler self and just get in my way, and get in her sister's face, and be noisy and disrupt feedings and whine and make a mess and I would resent her. I'd resent her on behalf of me, and on behalf of the brand-new baby who didn't deserve such chaos. I'd think about how peaceful Lea's world was as a newborn, and how unfair it was that Susanna didn't get to have the universe revolve around her, even for just a little bit.
Which brings me to today, Lea's last day of school before it closes for the summer. First of all, I cannot say enough good things about how this school has improved our lives in general. (Among other things, it's how we've met literally all of our friends. Somehow, a whole bunch of very like-minded parents ended up with kids in the same class. Awesome.) But I honestly cannot say where I would be now, in terms of mental health, if I had not had four mornings per week with just my baby, for nearly the first five months of her life. Oh, lordy. There has been nothing sweeter than those three hours, taking our time getting going for the day, making googly eyes at one another for long stretches before even getting dressed. Listening to her perfect baby laugh. Letting her nurse for luxuriously long stretches with absolutely no interruptions. It's been beautiful.
And now, it's ok that it's coming to an end, because we're right on the brink where I can tell Susanna is not going to tolerate lounging in bed for much longer. She is crazy ambitious about wanting to crawl, and she sort of demands entertainment in a way that she didn't use to, so it will be fine to switch up our routine and have more active mornings. I think she's ready for that, and I'm ready for it too. I feel so fortunate to have had this chance to focus exclusively on her, to learn all the things that make her who she is, already quite different from her big sister, and already very charming on her own. Not that I wouldn't know her if Lea wasn't in school, but I really do feel like for me and my needs and style as a parent, this has been critical. So I will never feel bad about sending Lea out into the world each morning, young as she is. She loves school, anyway; she's so social and confident, it slays me, so I don't have any doubts that school is a fun and comfortable place for her to be.
I'm lucky, by all accounts. It's going so fast this time around, so I'm trying my best to soak it up and not wish away the hard parts, because even they will be a sweet memory not too far down the road. So as much as my self-examining ways can be a hindrance in certain areas, here's another where they're useful:
"This." I say to myself, every day. "This is worth imprinting on my soul. Memorize it. Now."
Susanna's birth was emotionally very complicated for me, and very, very different from Lea's birth in terms of the psychological journey it took me on. Here's the most truthful truth I can muster: one of the first things that popped into my head when I saw her was "Who is this impostor? I already have a baby!"
Yep. That's what I thought. Luckily, I am a self-examiner by nature, and I had already considered the possibility that I'd have some weird stuff happen in the brain department at that moment, so my reaction to my own thought was not horror and fling-myself-out-the-window guilt, as I imagine it might be for some. I was able to kind of roll my eyes at myself, recognize the thought for what it was-- a totally human response to the sudden shake-up in my mothering world-- take another look at the wriggling slippery mess on my chest, and see, my god, how beautiful she was and how much I really did already love her.
And I have loved her, and loved her, and loved her ever since. But. It's been such a different bonding process, and it seems that every moment of falling in love with her is matched with a corresponding pang of torment that I've abandoned Lea. And that I miss my first baby sometimes, so, so much. So that's hard. Really hard. Especially in the earliest days, when Susanna's needs were so impossible to anticipate, and all I could really do was be physically available to her, we'd often find ourselves doing the old divide-and-conquer trick, with Brian taking over almost all of Lea's care, and me nursing and nursing and nursing and that's about it. As much as I love to cuddle a tiny baby, I could hear Lea's laughter and hilarious two-year-old way of talking (and occasionally, her confused and sober inquiries as to where Mama was), and it would kill me that I could not un-latch the baby and go scoop up my firstborn and blow raspberries on her belly and make her smile, and just be with her. And then, on the other hand, when I was on my own with both girls, I'd find myself in situations where I was trying to tend to Susanna, and Lea would be her typical toddler self and just get in my way, and get in her sister's face, and be noisy and disrupt feedings and whine and make a mess and I would resent her. I'd resent her on behalf of me, and on behalf of the brand-new baby who didn't deserve such chaos. I'd think about how peaceful Lea's world was as a newborn, and how unfair it was that Susanna didn't get to have the universe revolve around her, even for just a little bit.
Which brings me to today, Lea's last day of school before it closes for the summer. First of all, I cannot say enough good things about how this school has improved our lives in general. (Among other things, it's how we've met literally all of our friends. Somehow, a whole bunch of very like-minded parents ended up with kids in the same class. Awesome.) But I honestly cannot say where I would be now, in terms of mental health, if I had not had four mornings per week with just my baby, for nearly the first five months of her life. Oh, lordy. There has been nothing sweeter than those three hours, taking our time getting going for the day, making googly eyes at one another for long stretches before even getting dressed. Listening to her perfect baby laugh. Letting her nurse for luxuriously long stretches with absolutely no interruptions. It's been beautiful.
And now, it's ok that it's coming to an end, because we're right on the brink where I can tell Susanna is not going to tolerate lounging in bed for much longer. She is crazy ambitious about wanting to crawl, and she sort of demands entertainment in a way that she didn't use to, so it will be fine to switch up our routine and have more active mornings. I think she's ready for that, and I'm ready for it too. I feel so fortunate to have had this chance to focus exclusively on her, to learn all the things that make her who she is, already quite different from her big sister, and already very charming on her own. Not that I wouldn't know her if Lea wasn't in school, but I really do feel like for me and my needs and style as a parent, this has been critical. So I will never feel bad about sending Lea out into the world each morning, young as she is. She loves school, anyway; she's so social and confident, it slays me, so I don't have any doubts that school is a fun and comfortable place for her to be.
I'm lucky, by all accounts. It's going so fast this time around, so I'm trying my best to soak it up and not wish away the hard parts, because even they will be a sweet memory not too far down the road. So as much as my self-examining ways can be a hindrance in certain areas, here's another where they're useful:
"This." I say to myself, every day. "This is worth imprinting on my soul. Memorize it. Now."
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
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