holiday weekend photo explosion

I really, really wanted to go camping this past weekend. I made sure I'd have Saturday off, then when I found out MB was getting Friday off, I took that day off, too. I was looking forward to it so much, but then the logistical reality of a three-hour drive to / from the park I wanted to go to versus needing to be at my family Easter dinner at 3 pm on Sunday collided to change the original plan. I campaigned to camp at a closer park or to only camp Friday night, but we ended up not camping at all. I won't lie - I was pretty terribly disappointed. But the weekend turned out nice anyway, so I'm mostly over it.

One of the local museums had a free admission day on Friday, so I took the kids to that. I'm glad we didn't pay because they really don't have much for kids my kids' ages to do, but since it was free it was a nice little morning activity. The weather was amazing (which did increase my no-camping bitterness), so Nico got to play in the yard while Elliott napped Friday afternoon.

On Saturday we did go for a hike at a nearby state park. We started on a 1 1/2 mile loop, but hit a bridge that was underwater at the halfway point. Our choice was to turn back or to continue onto a longer loop, and we decided to press on. It was a 3 1/2 mile hike in total, which was just a little bit too long for Nico. He did complain in the final stretch that he was tired of walking and his legs hurt, but he made it to the end without any major meltdowns or an overabundance of whining. I was really proud of him, and told him so. I wish I had a photo of the way his face lit up when I told him we had made it to the end and asked him for a high five. He was pretty proud of himself, too, I think. After our walk we had a nice picnic lunch under a tree, then headed home.

(awkward baby back-carry selfie!)

Once we got home Nico and I dyed eggs. He was initially very concerned as to why the eggs were dying. This was the first year we tried dyeing real eggs and he seemed to like it. After the eggs he went down for a nap which turned into him sleeping from about 4:30 pm until the next morning. Poor kid was tuckered.

The Easter baskets were a pretty big hit. Nico made adorable / hilarious gasps of surprise when he opened the eggs containing his Lightning McQueen socks and pull-back race car. Elliott was sufficiently impressed with his light-up balls and kept holding them above his head and laughing maniacally. They both enjoyed their rainbow Goldfish. I ended up feeling like I'd bought just the right amount of things for them, which is always nice.

I never caught a shot of Elliott in victory pose, but this one continues to crack me up.

We went over to my aunt's house around 3:00 for the annual family egg hunt and dinner. Sadly, Elliott fell asleep on my mom's shoulder mere minutes before it was time to hide the eggs and didn't wake up until just after the hunt was done. I seriously considered waking him up to hunt, but I suspected it would've just made him really cranky so I didn't. Unfortunately this is the only photo I got of him in his cute little shirt.

Nico had a great time collecting eggs for both himself and his brother, and managed to score a bunch of the eggs my mom brought, which were stuffed with marshmallows and teddy grahams. He only had two eggs with peanut butter cups inside, which MB was happy to confiscate for Nico's safety. Nico did refuse to pose nicely for me with his basket for the first time, like some kind of tiny teenager.

awake, just moments too late

Because Monday always feels like an extension of the weekend (and because there are cute pictures), I'm going to include today as well. The boys and I had a pretty busy day and they were both fantastic. We started at baby story time at the library, then moved on to the community playgroup. At playgroup, Nico cooperatively played with another little boy from his preschool for quite a while, loading blocks into a dump truck and delivering them for the other kid to add to the wall he was building. It was really great to see him playing with another kid properly and well without any adult coaching. Elliott did some toddling and some crawling, tasted lots of toys, and eventually found a pile of cloth panels with wired edges that can be velcroed together to make cubes and tunnels and tents. I built him a bit of a half-assed tent and he had a blast crawling in and out of it. Nico had a bit of a difficult spell during circle time at the end of playgroup, but managed to get it together and then was great through lunch with grownup friends and a trip to Target. It was one of those days where I felt like a competent and confident mom, proud to be seen with my awesome kids whose company I thoroughly enjoyed. Altogether, an A+++ day.

Easter baskets!

Every holiday I think it's going to be the last one that Nico is oblivious enough for me to buy stuff at Target while he's there, and then the next one comes around and I manage to sneak stuff past him yet again. Not complaining! Because I like seeing other people's Easter basket posts, here's mine:

Elliott is getting a stuffed bunny I found in my Easter basket / egg stash in the attic, a box of Goldfish, two board books, a peg puzzle he'll enjoy chewing on, and two light-up balls. When he saw the same kind of balls at a friend's house after Christmas they straight-up blew his mind, so I'd been obsessively checking the dollar spot at Target ever since. They finally had some a few months ago, so I bought three.

Nico is getting Goldfish, an egg of M&Ms, a Pete the Cat Easter book, Lightning McQueen socks, a little pullback car, a bubble blower toy, a light-up ball, a little kite, a puzzle, and a front loader.

mish-mash

Now that Elliott is nearing full bipedal status, I figured he could use a little more space to play. A few nights ago, I took his big square pen apart and used the pieces to build two fences, one to close the gap between the living room and dining room and one to block access to the fireplace and bookcase. I spent most of today cleaning the floors and shuffling the toys around so that Nico's big boy stuff is safely behind a gate in the playroom and the things Elliott is old enough to share are out where he can reach them. I'm happy with how it turned out, and Elliott greatly enjoyed scattering things all about after his nap.

I don't have a photo, but we bought Elliott his first pair of shoes yesterday and they are so cute. I had hoped to keep him in soft-soled shoes for a while, but because Nico's feet were so much bigger at this age, his hand-me-downs fall right off Elliott's feet. We went to Target to try on new ones and found that his feet are too fat for the 6-12 month size, but far too small for the 12-18 month size. I'm okay with him wearing just socks anytime we're indoors, but with trips planned to state parks and zoos plus a family vacation in the next few months, I wanted him to have some kind of actual shoes to wear outdoors. We got him a tiny pair of size fives with flexible soles (these, in navy) and I made him practice toddling up and down the aisle wearing them and nearly died of the cute.

Our air conditioner is not currently working and I am beyond frustrated about it. We had a brief moment of rejoicing when we thought that replacing a fuse had fixed the issue, but after a brief celebration it became clear something was still amiss. All the working parts were replaced in May 2008, so I'm pretty furious that it has already broken down. I'll be calling the company that did the installation tomorrow to see if there are any warranties covering anything, then I guess we'll find out how much the fix will cost. If I could go back in time, I certainly would not pay to fix the furnace only to have to turn around and fix the air conditioner. Ugh. So cranky!

Spider day at preschool went really well. I read the kids two books and talked to them about how spiders have eight legs and two body parts, then I showed them the tarantula. They loved her and kept going to the table where I'd put her cage to look at her again. I had explained to them that we weren't going to touch the tarantula because its bristly hairs can make us really itchy, but one of the kids really, really wanted to touch the spider. She sidled up to me while I was helping one of the other kids make a spider puppet and whispered, "Miss velocibadgergirl? I want to pet the spider." When I reminded her that we couldn't because it would make us itchy, she earnestly told me, "I want to be itchy." I promised her that I'd find some animals she could touch when the class comes to see me on their field trip in May, and she seemed willing to accept that.

I swear

Nico and I were at the grocery yesterday, putting packages of baby fruit into his kid-sized cart, when he cheerfully said, "Goddammit, this cart is really full!" in his sweet little voice. I won't pretend I don't know where he's heard that before...we try to mind our language in front of him but we aren't perfect and little pitchers have big ears. I would guess we probably swear a lot more than the average parents of small children, but I decided a long time ago that our kids are almost certainly going to hear swear words, whether from us, our adult friends (most of whom don't have kids), television, or (eventually) other kids. I'll try to mind my mouth, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I also decided that we aren't going to tell Nico and Elliott that swear words are bad words or react with shock / anger when they inevitably say them (though it's really hard not to laugh), because it seems to me that just adds a layer of thrill / shock value to it that will make the kids more likely to swear. Instead we tell Nico that swears are "grownup words," and that he's not old enough to use them yet. I figure it's not that much different from the other things he is not yet old enough to have, like soda or a 10 PM bedtime. So when he used the word (in correct context and with impeccable pronunciation), I told him, "No, sir. That is a grownup word. You are not allowed to use that word, ever." Being Nico, he asked me, "Why can't I say goddammit, Mommy? Why is that a word that only Daddy can use?" (which: Ha! Yes, let's blame Daddy and I'll pretend I'm blameless today.) and my life might as well have a "what Swistle said" macro for situations like this. I told him that Daddy knows what the word means and understands when it is appropriate to say it and plus he's a grownup. Luckily for me the whole chat took place in an empty aisle, safely before the appearance of the sweet grandmotherly woman with whom Nico struck up a detailed conversation about the Hot Wheels car he was buying with his piggy bank money, the dump truck and cement mixer on his raincoat, the food we were buying, and the fact that his hair is "a little bit red."

Today the theme at preschool was insects. Nico picked out his bug shirt without prompting, carried a toy butterfly and his magnifying glass to school for show and tell, and made a ladybug out of a paper plate. When I dropped him off, he rushed into his classroom and gave his teacher a hug, then headed off to find his spot in the circle. I had to remind him to come back and give me a goodbye hug. He learned a song about the parts of an insect, which he told me about during bedtime. "It's head, shoulders, knees, and toes," he explained to me, "except it's head, thorax, and abbumend." Oh, kid. I love you and your whipsmart brain and your little-bit-red hair. It's my day to be class helper on Thursday, the day they're learning about spiders. I'm doing double duty as a special guest speaker, since the class aide has to book one as part of her practicum class. I will be bringing a Chilean rose-haired tarantula I borrowed from my boss, so I told Nico this evening that I'd be the helper on Thursday and that I'd be bringing a big spider for the kids to see and he told me he wanted to pet the spider. Excellent answer, my son, though sadly impossible this time. I do hope that the children will find it immensely impressive.

Not to be outdone in the cuteness department, Elliott spent his day doing this:



It's a happy / sad (but mostly happy) day!

Stuff that is up

1. Poor Elliott has a full-on spring cold. Is there anything worse than a cold right when the weather finally gets nice? Yes, there is...a BABY with a cold right when the weather finally gets nice. He's all snot-nosed and stuffed-up and pitiful and I feel bad that he's really too big to sleep propped up in his bouncy chair this time around.

2. Said baby is now taking fairly stable unassisted steps. Never more than three or four, but steps. It's exciting and sad all at once!

3. Another thing that might be worse than a spring cold is that our furnace went out two weeks ago. The furnace guy came and tinkered around and said that because the furnace was 26 years old, there weren't really any parts available. He thought he'd be able to round up a bunch of pieces from the shop and cobble something together that might last another year for about 500 bucks. Since a whole new working and warrantied furnace only (ONLY. HA.) cost $2500, we decided not to gamble on the Frankenstein option. It hasn't ruined our year or forced the cancellation of our (very, very modest) vacation plans, but it has left us tightening our metaphorical belts and sighing a lot over our credit card balance. Adding insult to injured finances, we had to get it fixed because it got down to 20 degrees the night it was broken and 17 degrees the next night after it was fixed...but we haven't had to use it since. If the thing had managed to hang on for two more damn days, we could've put off fixing it until the fall. Not that there's ever a good time to have to spend thousands of dollars on an unexpected home repair, but still.

4. Despite being pretty well-behaved on the "no unnecessary spending" front lately, I found these on sale at JC Penney the other day and could not resist getting one for each kid. They're totally wearing these for any and all camping trips we take this year.

5. I have had a major itch to write fiction again lately but I can't think of anything to write. I keep hoping inspiration will strike.

6. It's been storming off and on for about 24 hours, plus we had heavy rain for most of the day. I do love a good thunderstorm, but they turn Indy into an excruciatingly whiny mess. I try to be sympathetic but the constant panting, whining, and clinging is seriously wearing on my nerves. It would be easier if anything we've ever tried to help him worked in the least, but nothing does. We even tried getting him one of those thunder shirts and the shirt itself gave him anxiety. Dog, I'd send you to therapy if I could...but since I can't, please stop panting at me. Please.

7. The amount of rain that's fallen today is nearly unbelievable. I just flipped on the TV to check the weather report because the storm sirens went off and apparently we're supposed to get 3 1/2 inches per hour for the next three to four hours. Knowing that the water cycle is a closed system, I'm beginning to wonder if there's a lake somewhere that's drying up or something. (Okay, not really, but on a scale of 1 to 10, it's a HOLY SHIT amount of rain.)

8. MB has been making fun of me for how often I listen to this Pink song, but it's his fault since I'd never heard of it until he told me to put it on my driving mix. Apparently we have listened to it in the car enough times that Nico has been wandering around singing it after MB picks him up from my parents' house. You'll have to excuse the boring / typo-y lyrics version of the video here...the real video is semi-NSFW due to lots of Pink in her scanties, per usual. I can't help it; I love her anyway.

99 Luftballons

I was sent home from my Monday book discussion at the library with a bouquet of bright mylar balloons for the boys, leftover from an event they'd had that day. Nico latched onto them almost immediately and has been carrying a pair back and forth from my parents' house all week. Today we had to stop by the consignment shop and the grocery before we went home. The wind was kicking up, and as I was putting Elliott in his carseat after leaving the consignment shop, it sucked Nico's red heart-shaped balloon right out of the car and whipped it away, trailing the small plastic dinosaur I'd tied to the ribbon as a weight. Nico burst into tears as we watched it sail across the mall parking lot across the street and then dip out of sight. I buckled him in as he cried, asking me how we were going to get the balloon back, who was going to get it for us, would someone find it and bring it to him at Grandma's house? I kept telling him no, buddy, I'm sorry, your balloon is gone, we can't catch it. I looked after it one last time as I shut the door and saw it, briefly, low to the ground, near the video store about 100 yards away. I threw my things into the car and tore off in pursuit, hoping for an impossible bit of luck. And sure enough, in the lee of the video store, tucked away out of the wind, was Nico's bright red balloon, resting on its miniature ankylosaurus. I leapt from the car and snatched it before the wind could take it again, and brought it back to Nico with a cheer. I couldn't believe we'd actually managed to get it back.

I wound the ribbons around the gear shift until there was no chance of another escape. We drove to the grocery just down the street, chatting happily about our good fortune, but once we arrived I realized that my wallet was missing. So we scrambled back to the spot by the video store where we'd retrieved the balloon and then back to the consignment shop...where my wallet lay abandoned in the parking space where we'd been. Two awesome turns of luck within one half-hour? I'll certainly take it.


Reading:  The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

Playing:  the driving mix I made for my road trip

longing

My two days away from the kids were - predictably - no big deal. The kids were fine for both MB and my parents, and Nico reportedly started asking when he got to go spend the night at Grandma's as soon as he got up Thursday morning. I got to go to one of my favorite state parks and learn fun stuff and feel like I was with My People. There was an ice waterfall and a night hike and I got to read in bed, which I can't do at home since Elliott still sleeps in our room. The training kept me so busy that while I missed the kids, I didn't have much time to think about how I was missing the kids. A bunch of the people I met were my age with kids in the same age range as mine, so we got to talk about our kids and that helped, too. I got the boys really cute stuffed birds from the park (a barn owl and a turkey vulture) and pretty well enjoyed the drive. It was long (looooooooong) but I made a huge mix of songs that I enjoyed belting out shamelessly in the car. So yeah...glad I went, had a good time, all survived.

An unexpected side effect of the very short walk I took during our break on Thursday is that now I am longing to go camping. Pining, even. We have a trip already booked for the first weekend of May back at the park we loved last year, and now MB and I are flirting with the idea of taking the boys here over a weekend in April. I fear the baby will be in an awkward transitional period - not content to sit as much as he did when we camped last fall but not walking yet; no longer only subsisting on nursing and bottles, but not ready to eat actual food. Surely it'll all work out, though.

Ice waterfall, which was actually a free-standing ice pillar, not connected to the rock at the top. Well worth getting muddy feet.

Heartstrings

I'm going away for a two-day training for work, starting tomorrow. Once it's done it'll be no big deal, but right now with my little boys asleep in their beds and me leaving in the morning long before they wake for the day, it feels big. It feels hard and sad and gloomy. A few people have said things indicating that I should enjoy a break from them and a night away and I guess I will in a way, but only a little. There are moments, of course, where the tiredness or the routine or the mess or the whining get to me and I just want a break, but going away-away? Like, not just to Target for an hour by myself but four-hours-away away? It feels a little soon. Probably I just have possibly-last-baby Feelings. Probably I'll have a really good time and only feel a tiny bit bad about it. Probably they will do just fine without me. Definitely I will miss these little faces. 

days of our lives

5:15 MB's alarm goes off. Elliott stirs. Send powerful go back to sleep brainwaves to Elliott.

5:45 MB gets up, showers, leaves for work. Elliott has gone back to sleep, is busy earning a pony.

6:30 Alarm goes off. Snooze.

6:30 - 7:15 Snooze. Snooze. OMG. Damn you, daylight savings time!

7:15 Okay, fine, I'll get up. Elliott is usually up long before now, but the time change has fully kicked his tiny butt. I wake him up and take him to his room for a diaper change and to nurse. He's so tired that he can barely keep his eyes open during his breakfast.

I'm with you, son.

7:30 Finish nursing Elliott. Tell Nico it's time to get up. Pump for E's morning bottle.

7:50 - 8:25-ish Pack up pump. Get dressed, brush teeth, splash water on face. Let Nico pick out his shirt and get him dressed. Head downstairs, put Elliott in his playpen, give Nico a yogurt cup. (Nico finally being able to eat his own yogurt cup is awesome. This saves me so much time.) Pack up pump parts & bottles and my lunch. Get the kids into their jackets, make sure Nico has his backpack and show and tell, head out the door.

8:35 Drop Nico off at preschool, take Elliott to my parents' house for the day

(I like it better when we can leave at 8:15 so I can drop Elliott off before we do preschool drop-off. On days when I have a morning school program at work, we have to do it that way.)

9:05 Get to work, check and deal with 8 voicemails and 20+ emails, finish prepping for afternoon science program

11:10 Surprise visit from Nico and my dad, who have stopped by for a walk in the woods after preschool pickup. This is awesome.

11:45 Eat lunch at my desk, finish program prep

1:00 - 3:00 Program time. Yay!

3:00 - 3:45 Worky work

3:45 - 4:15 Late pump break

4:15 - 5:00 Finish up work stuff, close up office, head home since MB picked up the kids today

5:20 - 6:00 Dinner. We're all eating something different (leftovers, more yogurt, baby cereal), but at least we're eating together.

6:00 - 7:00 Cash in a Shutterfly code and put together a photo card for the family members who are on the list for periodic kid pictures while the boys play separately but happily in the living room. MB heads to the basement at 6:30 for his weekly online game session

7:00 - 7:30 Elliott's bedtime - pjs, books, late bottle, kisses, into the crib in our bedroom. Tonight he's tired so he settles right down.

7:30 - 8:00 Nico has picked up his toys so he gets to watch kid shows on Netflix until his bedtime. I use the time to wash all my pump parts and bottles.

8:10 Nico's bedtime, only ten minutes late. Pjs, asthma meds, brush teeth, three stories, three songs

8:45 Pick up the toys in Elliott's room, put away a few outgrown pajamas, take the nursery trash downstairs for Wednesday morning pickup. Take a shower and shave my legs for Mommy & Me swimming tomorrow

9:30 Head downstairs and spend a few minutes picking up the house. I busted my ass cleaning this weekend and I'm determined to fight the inevitable entropy for a few days at least. Pack lunch items for tomorrow. MB offers to make bacon. Is there any possible answer but yes? Change out a load of laundry, which I do pretty much every night lest it pile up.

10:00 Sit down with MB to watch the last 15 minutes of Under the Gunn and an episode of Supernatural. Order Shutterfly cards. Refresh my Carters cart to see if anything has gone on sale today. Look at teacher thank you notes on Tinyprints. Write blog post.

11:30 MB goes to bed. Stay up to finish blog post, fold kitchen towels, poke around online a little.

12:00 Bedtime! Hooray!

float on

Hey, look at that. March, already. This year is trucking along at a pace that I don't recall approving. Usually by now I'd be thinking of spring things, but the winter is just lingering on, continuing to outstay its welcome. I'm in one of those spells where I'm not doing anything terribly noteworthy but I feel like I should say something, so here are a few somethings.


1. Perhaps it's because Elliott is at an age where he'd rather play with his toys than hang out with me all the time, but for whatever reason, I've been reading up a storm lately. I'm already at 8 books for the year, nearly half of my total number from the entirety of 2013. I doubt I'll set any records, but I've been enjoying myself. I'm keeping a list of what I'm reading in the books tab, so if you're interested you can venture over from whatever feed reader you're in and check it out. I think I'd recommend everything I've read this year, especially Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen and Ask the Passengers by A.S. King.

2. My birthday is coming up and my dad asked me yesterday what I want. And I, typically, can't think of a thing other than stuff I'd like to get the kids. Any suggestions?

3. I was off work today and will be off again tomorrow in exchange for working a big event last Saturday and Sunday. Well, Sunday was kind of a bust because we ended up shutting down early for bad weather, but I'm still taking all day off tomorrow. Nico went to afternoon preschool today because the public schools had a two-hour weather delay. It threw a bit of a wrench into my previous plans for the day, but Elliott and I managed to get quite a few errands done while Nico was at school, then we had both kids' well-child visits. N is 41 pounds and 43 inches, which puts him somewhere in the 90s on the growth chart I found online; E is 23 pounds and 30 1/2 inches and is 85th percentile for both. I was strangely disappointed that E is no longer off the chart, but then realized that's pretty dumb and obviously he's healthy and fantastic. After their checkups we picked MB up and celebrated our tax return coming in by having an early dinner at Panera (Nico's favorite).

4. I've been loving all the day in the life posts people have been writing lately. I'm itching to do my own since I haven't posted one since Nico was a baby, but I want to wait and do one on a typical day, not a random day-off day.

5. I finally jumped on the Greek yogurt bandwagon after someone on facebook posted that she'd finally jumped on and loved it. I tried Chobani and was really unimpressed, but now I'm hooked on the Fage with the cherry goo. And of course our grocery doesn't carry it, so I bought eight cups while I was at Target today. The kids have also turned into yogurt fiends lately. We are going through YoBaby like there's no tomorrow...the kids each ate two cups at breakfast this morning and then Elliott had two cups for dinner. People on facebook keep saying I should just make my own yogurt but I'm skeptical. I hate sour plain yogurt and only like it sweetened, plus I'm wondering if after I buy the milk and fruit and take the time to do it if I'd really be saving much money over buying pre-made organic yogurt for the kids.

Is that enough things? I think that's enough things.


Reading:  The Moon Sisters by Therese Walsh

Playing:  Make Yourself by Incubus

one

Dear Elliott,

You are one! How did this happen? Your first year has flown by and I don't think I've really accepted that it's ending. Of course this ending is the very best kind of beginning, but you'll have to forgive me for feeling a little sad that your proper babyhood is over. It's funny - when your brother was one I thought he looked like such a big grownup toddler, but I do still think you look like my baby. You remain round of cheek and belly, soft of thigh and hair. You still suck the middle two fingers of your right hand to soothe yourself. You have the most amazing eyelashes I have ever seen. I sometimes bury my face in your laundry and breathe in your sweet smell. Sadly for me, you are not much of a sleep snuggler. You'll nap on my lap sitting on the couch or in the rocking chair, but I don't often have a chance to sit for long and enjoy it. And if I try to bring you to bed with me, you just wiggle, try to climb out, or complain. I still want to keep you close, though, so your crib is still beside my bed and I must admit I'm not in any hurry to move it. Though I should never admit this for fear of jinxing it, you sleep through almost every night and are generally a very good napper. When I pick you up after work or get you from your crib in the morning or after a nap, you usually lay your head on my shoulder for a few moments, snuggling in. It is one of my very favorite things ever.

You have two top and two bottom teeth and two more top teeth are just starting to cut through as of yesterday. You say mamamamama and dadadadada and sometimes bye. You have signed more a few times. You like to kiss the pictures of babies in your bedtime book and beam at yourself in the mirror in the back of the new book you got for your birthday. If I put you in your pen in the living room with toys, you'll often play by yourself for pretty long stretches of time. You also enjoy playing with big brother in your bedroom floor in the mornings. Your favorite toys are your wooden disk rattle, the Little People barn, and your wooden chunky puzzles. You put everything in your mouth so I have to watch you closely and can't let you spend much time alone with board books. We have you in baby swimming lessons at the Y and you seem to like them. You spend most of class floating happily on your back with my hand under your rear. You still fit in the Beco though increasingly are allowed to get down and crawl around on outings. I'm interested to see if you'll tolerate being worn when the weather gets better and we go back to the zoo...I hope you will.

You have a strong personality but you are also immensely easygoing and sweet. You are happy most of the time, and have the best and biggest grin in all of babydom. You can properly crawl and cruise all over. You like to eat baby fruit, but only if it's mixed with cereal, and you also like yogurt. So far you're not a big fan of finger foods, though you will crack Cheerios in half with your four teeth before spitting them back out onto your bib, and you'll nibble pancakes into little bitty pieces. You only nurse first thing in the morning and take your milk by bottle the rest of the time. You are a big fan of your big brother, and will light up when he comes into the room. When he plays with you in your baby pen, you'll throw yourself up onto his back and try to hang on as he crawls away. You seem more physical and more daring than he ever was, and now can climb up onto the bouncy seat or the nursing stool in your room and stand up. You are bold and funny, loving and curious, and sometimes very loud. It's been a year since you were lifted out into the world, and you've been lighting it up ever since. Happy, happy birthday, my beautiful little one.

Love,
Mama

such great heights

Back in November, the weekly community playgroup where I sometimes take the boys was offering ages and stages developmental screenings so I went ahead and filled them out. There were a few minor not-quite-red-flags on Nico's that I pretty much knew would be there, things that on paper point to gross motor, fine motor, and social delays but that I suspected were just signs of Nico's Nico-ness. For instance, I truly don't think that he can't climb the ladder of a playground slide - it's just that most of the slides he encounters have stairs instead and he chooses not to play on slides despite my encouragement. Likewise, I was 100% certain he could feed himself with a spoon, he just wouldn't. He was still a few months away from his fourth birthday, so I kept the screening paperwork but refused to worry much. Then, in January, his preschool teacher filled out similar developmental screenings for the kids and brought the results to our parent-teacher conferences. Two weeks past Nico's fourth birthday, those possibly reddish colored flags were still there. His teacher (who is truly wonderful and a fantastic cheerleader for Nico) and I talked over the shared concern we felt over some of the things, and then I asked his pediatrician about them. I figured if he did need to be formally evaluated, better sooner than later. His doctor (who is a huge Nico fan and looked at me like I was a little nuts for even asking) didn't feel I should be concerned at all, and lamented the tendency to try to fit every kid into a predetermined box of abilities. I wasn't ready to dismiss the possibility that Nico has some mild sensory processing issues, but I felt comfortable waiting and seeing what he'd do in his own time.

Turns out I didn't need to wait too long - Nico's been checking off flags and concerns left and right the past few weeks. He drank from an open cup at school (a feat celebrated by excited texts from his teacher as it was happening). He started feeding himself his morning yogurt without protest (except for the hard-to-get last couple of bites). After refusing for over two years to let me teach him the correct way to hold scissors, he spent half an hour cutting a piece of construction paper into minuscule pieces while I was getting the house ready for Elliott's birthday party on Saturday. I was so happy that I wasn't even cranky about the mess. And today at a classmate's birthday party, I heard him ask another child, "Hey, do you want to play with me?" and he played well and appropriately with the other children for almost two hours.

There are still definitely things he doesn't do that the surveys and checklists say he should. He still has some catching up to do when it comes to things like hopping on one foot and catching a ball. But on his own schedule, to his own beat, he's blossoming, and I couldn't be prouder.

"I love you as high as I can jump! Mommy, I'm practicing my jumping. Jumping is like dancing!"

little prints

Last Saturday when Nico and I came home, there were little tracks all over the snow in the driveway. I pointed out the bird tracks, the rabbit tracks, and took some pictures of them with my phone. I went to get something from the car and came back to find Nico had made his own little tracks all over the snow. "Mommy, I made prints!" he told me. "Now you can take a picture!"

hot mess express

My left ear finally un-clogged for the first time in a week and following a month of one cold after another, I finally feel mostly normal today. The joy I feel over these long-awaited developments is somewhat diminished by the fact that I somehow managed to close the car door on my thumb last night. I squashed it right across the nail bed and it hurts like...well, like a motherfucker, honestly. Last night I tried to ignore the building constant thrum of pain for a few hours, then broke out the leftover good drugs they gave me but I barely used after my c-section. This morning I got barfy and lightheaded while changing Elliott's diaper and had to do some deep breathing. Because of how I pinched it, any pressure on the pad of my thumb hurts just as bad as any bump to the side or top. Good thing it's just my right thumb so it's not like I need it for anythi--OH, WAIT.

Things I have discovered to require more thumb-involvement than I ever realized:

>> changing a diaper
>> unhooking my bra
>> refastening my nursing bra clips
>> tying shoes
>> using scissors, especially small ones
>> typing
>> texting
>> writing by hand
>> folding socks

When I was in third grade, I shut my left hand in the door of my mom's big metal Chevy Impala. It gouged a big chunk out of my first finger, just below the knuckle. I remember being at school one day and my band-aid falling off. I went to my teacher to ask for another and she, presumably used to kids' frivolous band-aid requests, asked me skeptically why I needed it. I held up my gory finger and can still recall the burst of (probably bratty) satisfaction I felt when she visibly recoiled at the sight of it. She did give me the band-aid after that.

The good news is that while my thumb still hurts this evening, it hasn't tried to make me throw up in over 12 hours, so I think we'll be on good terms again soon. Hopefully I can avoid becoming infected with any new gross ailments or hurting myself in any additional stupid ways for the rest of the season.

Reading:  Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Playing:  Led Zeppelin IV

little light of mine

I'm sitting in a high, wide windowsill at the children's museum (which used to be a library, which I sort of love...as if in a way, in its bones, it'll always be a little bit libraryish) and watching Nico play. I am absolutely positive I get judged a lot for bringing him here and then pecking away at my phone most of the time. But I don't bring him here so I can dictate and guide his play; I bring him here so he can play how he wants and hopefully learn a few lessons about sharing space with small humans who aren't related to him. I enjoy watching him play in his particular Nico way, somewhat focused and inward-turned, often narrating with bits of dialogue from his current favorite episodes of Mighty Machines. He'll end up spending our entire 3 1/2 hour visit in one big room today, moving from activity to activity but never venturing out into the rest of the building.

In the way of all kids everywhere, he spent nearly an hour playing with the very same Duplo blocks he has at home but only plays with in short bursts there. Then abruptly he was done and went to play with the Tonka trucks in the shredded tire bin for thirty minutes. Then he abandoned that to go play with the wall-building house, an activity area he has ignored since we started coming here in his first year. He's peculiarly non-efficient, walking all the way around the open-walled house to carry one foam brick at a time from the back of the house to the doorway in front. It's an exercise in meditation for me to not tell him a better way to do it, to not suggest more than once that he pile the bricks into the wheelbarrow and then carry them all at once around to the door. Or use the bricks that are already piled inside the hollow house. I saw something on facebook the other day about not realizing how type-A one was until attempting to decorate cookies with one's children. And yes, amen, preach, for making cookies and a whole host of other things which I have learned to just let go.

When Nico was tiny I used to daydream about him as a child, as a teenager. I didn't imagine him as a straight-A student (though that would be nice) or a football star or class president. I always daydreamed about how nice it would be if he turned out to be the kind of kid who made friends easily, who was effortlessly popular without being horrible. I went to grade school with a boy like that, who was class-clowny but sweet and never mean to anyone. Everyone liked him, and he never got his laughs at the expense of anyone else, something I appreciated as the class outcast. And there's the crux of the issue, really. I never fit in well, never made friends easily, and when I daydream a better future for my kids, that's what I imagine away for them. But as Nico becomes less baby and more Nico every day, it's clear that he's a little more like me than I hoped for in the ways I have wished he could skip. He often doesn't seem to know what to do with other kids, doesn't always share well, can turn inward and shy when another kid approaches and tries to engage him.

But as I wrote this, as I was literally in the midst of it, another little boy approached, maybe a little younger than Nico. He started bringing foam bricks and tossing them into the house with Nico, and Nico decided this was acceptable and actually a fun game. The other boy's mom came over and encouraged her son to ask Nico his name. They played in the same space companionably for about half an hour before it was time for the other kid to go home. We usually stay until the very last call, so we were still puttering around when a handful of employees swept into the room and started picking up all the pieces and parts of things that kids had scattered all over. Without any nudging from me, Nico pitched in to help and kept at it until the work was done. Then he let me help him wash his hands and we put on our coats and headed for the car, hand-in-hand through the beginning of a slight snow shower.

He might turn out to be an odd kid, a weird kid, a little bit of an oversensitive kid. But he's also funny and sweet and smart and kind and full of the capacity to surprise me. There's always a chance a difficult social childhood will even out later, for I now have a group of the best and most wonderful friends anyone could ask for, and I will always hope for my kids to find the same thing. And most of all, above it all, Nico is a good kid, a really good one. I think that matters most of all.