She Used To Walk Fast

38/39 - Slip Sliding Away

2012-02-09T14:50:00.004-07:00

Every single day I promise myself that I am going to finish this post and then every single day I don't. I know I have the words in me and I know I need to write them down but there the will to write is not there. And then a friend posted one of those flow charts that everyone loves these days and it was about writing and how you just have to keep writing and it is with that in mind that I am just going to finish this post. And then I am going to keep on writing.

Every year I promise myself that I am going to write a post about Christmas right after the actual day because it is one of those holidays that has such a momentous build up that even two days later it already feels like two weeks have passed. Now Christmas was almost two months ago and it feels like two years ago. The tree is gone, decorations down, you remind me almost daily that the Christmas lights are still up outside the house and my resolution to write more is clearly not being followed. Each month so much happens that I feel like I cannot properly relate it all or distill it down to one perfect moment of parental clarity. Maybe I need to write more, which is a task that is daunting and terrifying and yet sounds immensely satisfying in theory. I suppose I find myself casting about these days for something I can say that I do. Without the garden, I feel at loose ends and directionless. Starting in September there is a great rush of activities - gardening, canning, putting up, getting ready for winter. The birthday season comes and we have parties to attend nearly every weekend. Football season with its games, your birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas, we slide into New Years and suddenly it all stops. Spring and its glorious warmth is still months away. The days slip by but with little show for it except an occasional burst of New Year's cleaning resolution. Perhaps I could try to write away the rest of winter and when I look up in a few months the ground will be thawing and it will be time to sink my hands into the dirt and drop seeds and buy three more chickens.

The house is quiet again as it always is when you are at school. Christmas break and the weekends you fill the house with the sounds of your I Love Toy Train DVDs, your own train sounds as you circle your trains around the track and newer sounds of pirates fighting and things blowing up. I won't lie though. After two weeks and two days of your holiday break, I had a spring in my step as we headed back to school. I could totally identify with the line in It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas "and mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again..." The parking lot was filled with parents who could barely refrain from looking gleeful and not a few mothers stopped me and began the conversation with, "we survived!" I know it sounds just awful and really, all things considered, the break wasn't that bad, but you were so clearly thrilled to be back at school with "your kids" and I am thrilled to sit in my house and listen to The Quiet that I think we are both in a good place.

Christmas was, actually, delightful this year as it was the first year since you were born where you really started to get it. Every morning you would bound out bed and race up the stairs saying, "Let's find Owlie," Owlie being your Elf on the Shelf that your dad and I managed, miraculously, to move every single night and you seemed somewhat convinced that he actually went back to see Santa every night. You were far less convinced that Owlie actually reported any of your daily transgressions and only told Santa the good things you did that day. Perhaps next year he will have a stronger grasp on your behavior. We went to visit Santa at one of our favorite nurseries, Cactus and Tropicals and after a few moments hesitation, you got on his lap and smilingly told him that you wanted a log cabin set for Christmas. You held tight to this request until a few days before Christmas when you started adding things to the list. I hardened my heart and told you that Santa only brought some of the things you asked for, not all. Your dad, a total softie and way nicer than I am, went out and got a few more Thomas trains for your stocking. The look on your face when you unwrapped them Christmas morning and said, "Just what I asked for!" was priceless and I was so glad that you have such an amazingly kind father.

Your utter delight in the fact that Santa ate the cookie we left out and that the reindeer stopped to drink the bourbon we left on the back step was so charming and sweet that it did make Christmas all the more magical. You stopped and looked at every single gift you received, wanting to play with it right then and there. I think your favorite was a tractor trailer truck and bulldozer combination.

A few days after Christmas, we boarded a plane and headed to California for a whirlwind trip to see your cousins, aunts and uncles and my parents, your beloved Nan and Charlie. You spent two blissful days with your cousins Avery and Birch and my sister Emelie and I could not get over how well you all played together. You were in heaven, knee deep in cars and trains and boys. Every night we would tuck you all into your bunk beds and your aunt and I would sing to you and you would fall asleep in about five minutes because you were so tired from all the playing. I kept thinking of the day I went to get the ultrasound that would tell us if you were a boy or a girl. I talked to Emelie an hour before the appointment saying I was still convinced you were going to be a girl and she said, "But if it's a boy they can all play together. All the boys. It will be so awesome." Later the technician, after showing us your fluttering heart and tiny lovely spine said, "It's a boy. Definitely a boy. DEFINITELY," and three years later that long ago dream of all the boys playing together came true. It was definitely worth the wait.

I think I keep returning to this idea that I need to write more because you are so much more of a person than you were nearly three and 1/2 years ago when I started writing this blog. That seems like such an obvious statement but I think as a parent you don't notice as much how much your child has grown until you step back and look at the long view. This past Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday and I realized that it had been four year to the day that I found out I was pregnant. Four years ago I burst into the bedroom at 7.00 in the morning (your father would maintain it was 5.00) yelling, "Oh my God! Does that look like a plus sign to you!?" And right then and there our lives shifted.

Four years ago. I cannot really take in how much has happened since then and now that you are three you say and do so much on a daily basis that I cannot keep track of it all. You say something every day that makes me laugh. You are such a miniature adult in so many ways often correcting me by saying, "Oh. You mean, a cup instead of a glass?" You respond with an enthusiastic "Of course!" when I ask you if you would like some milk or water. The other day you observed that, "there are a lot of big snowmen in this town." I could easily turn this blog into a daily one filled with funny things that you say, but I don't really want to do that. I think I will continue always looking forward to how much you will grow into an adult, but to continually be amazed by looking back to see how far we have come. Four years ago I sat on our couch and watched Barack Obama give his first national speech in Iowa and my world changed and I had hope again. Four years later, you sat on the couch with Dad and watched the Iowa caucus results. How could I have this sweet small baby curled in my arms and then four years later have this sweet small boy sprawled on the couch talking about caucuses and how he will be President some day? We have such dreams for you. I hope all of this writing lets you know someday that we loved you from the very beginning.

37 Months. It's On

2011-11-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

I was induced at 41 weeks with you. Have I ever told you that particular detail? I cannot remember. You were finally brought into this world via an emergency c-section and after sitting in my birth canal for so long when you did come out, your head was cone-shaped. Your dad thought it was actually going to stay cone-shaped and the nurses were just being nice by not saying anything about it. In any case, at the time I just thought you were a difficult birth. In hindsight, I know that you were really mad that you had not been born on your terms. I can actually imagine you sitting inside me with your arms crossed pouting refusing to come out. You were an angry infant for the first few weeks of your life. You would sleep all day and then be up all night long. Every night I would nurse you and change your revolting diapers on a fifteen-to-thirty-minute cycle. I kept one of those journals everyone told me I was supposed to keep about when you nursed and when you slept. After awhile I stopped because it was so repetitive it seemed silly to write it down. Midnight: nurse. 12.30: change diaper. 1.00 AM: nurse. 1.15 AM: change diaper. It was, I would tell people, like living in a town being ravaged by a werewolf. Night would fall and you would start screaming. Like I said, in hindsight, I think you were just really angry about being forced into the world on someone else's terms other than your own.

Three years later, you are actually a pretty good sleeper, not that we didn't have to sleep train the hell out of you for months on end. But for the most part, you usually fall asleep on your own sometime between the time I shut the door at 8.00 and when I check on you around 10.00. Of course, the other night I checked on you and you were asleep on the floor with your head half under your bed. Who knows what you had been doing when sleep finally descended. But the point is not about you sleeping, it is about living your life on your terms. That part of your personality has not changed one bit and once again I feel like I am that villager living in the werewolf ravaged town except that those villagers could just keep an eye on the moon and know when to lock their doors. I feel like I am living with a land mine that could go off at the moment when I least expect it.

Just like that it's really hard again. I am reading a book right now called Your Three Year Old, Friend or Enemy. The book, published in 1985, came before the word frenemy came into being, but that is exactly what you are right now. You are my best friend and my worst enemy rolled into one very frustrated, eager, adorable, charming, maddening little boy. But instead of being mad like an infant because you were hungry (or just mad about being born) you can tell me why you are angry and much of the time it isn't rational at all. I know, I realize I am expecting way too much of you if I think you can be rational at three. Well, maybe it is rational, but it just seems incredibly annoying to me. If I take the iPad away from you after your allotted 30 minutes in the morning you throw yourself across the couch and scream. Where warnings of 10 more minutes, 5 more minutes used to have some effect, now we get to the end of a time period and you just flat out refuse to do anything else. Sometimes you suddenly decide that putting on your shirt is "too hard," or that you don't know any of the letters of the alphabet.

You collapse onto the ground at the slightest provocation and nothing short of threatening to take your favorite toys away will compel you to get up and start moving again. If I try to take you on a walk, you will stop stock-still and not move at all. You demand to be carried and when I refuse (you weigh more than 30 pounds now) you resume your soldier-like stillness and simply say, "I can't walk." You will crumple at the smallest thing telling me, "Don't look at me. Don't smile." and you contradict every single thing that I say. If I mention that the sky looks particularly blue, you will respond, "It isn't blue Mama. It's red." My favorite, because it is just so obviously meant to get a rise out of me, is at bedtime when I am closing the door and say, "I love you Luke. See you in the morning." Your response? "I don't love you Mama. I won't see you in the morning." Last week I walked into your room in the morning and you cried for ten minutes because you thought I shut the door. I am sure the teen years are even worse, because when you tell me you hate me you'll probably mean it, but it feels like I am living with a tiny 13 year old. Nothing is ever right. Nothing will ever be right and everything I do makes you very angry. You might as well say, "You never let me do anything!" slam your door and turn on some terrible music that will give me a headache. Actually, you started asking for the Polar Express song again and you do slam your door, so we've got two out of the three already. Who needs 13 when you've got three?

It's not all gloom and doom every minute of the day even though it feels like it some days. You finally totally understood Halloween this year and could not wait to get into your costume and go trick or treating. You are still talking about it weeks later. You were Thing One from the Cat in the Hat and everyone kept asking, "Who is going to be Thing Two?" Luckily your dad stepped into the role with a helpful sign reading, "Thing 2" the night of Halloween. You also dressed up for Red Butte Garden's After Dark Halloween event and had the most magical amazing time running through the twilight with your friends. The other week we took you to a model train show, which you could not get enough of. Your father and I were fairly certain that we were the only registered Democrats in the building given the number of Tea Party conversations we overheard, but you had an amazing time and managed to keep your sticky little fingers off of most of the trains most of the time.

Thanksgiving was a few days ago and you spent some time this week at home and at school talking about what you were thankful for although I am not sure you totally grasped the meaning of the word. You reported that at school you said you were thankful for the bikes. At home you said you were thankful for me, Dad, Buddy and the chickens, but I am fairly certain that came from the fact I told you I was thankful for those same things. You also said you were thankful for "all the food," but I know that came from your Thanksgiving plate from Pottery Barn Kids printed with those same words. I think that you love us most of the time ins spite of your behavior to the contrary. You are an incredibly outgoing friendly kiddo and are rarely shy except when asked to sing your Turkey song from school; then you clam up immediately.
But a lot of our conversations are about the same topics and you repeat the same greetings and goodbye routines verbatim every morning and evening. The night we drove home from Thanksgiving with friends and your dad and I were chatting about the party and what a nice evening it had been. We were above the city and the valley was filled with twinkling lights and some houses already shone with Christmas lights. Suddenly you piped up from the backseat, "I like both your voices." My eyes filled with tears because I could not at that moment think of anything I was more thankful for than driving in the car through the beautiful night with you and Dad and hearing that sweet completely spontaneous comment from you.

Three Years. 1095 Days. 36 months.

2011-11-12T08:23:00.001-07:00

Luke, you are three! Three! After months and months of talking about it endlessly and telling everyone and everybody that your birthday is October 19th and that right now you are two but on October 19th you will be three, October 19th finally did arrive and at 7.00 on the dot, you banged on your door and yelled, "MAMA!!! I got up at seven-zero-zero!" and I went downstairs and gave you a big hug and said, "Happy Birthday Little Bear!" You got to watch two episodes of Curious George instead of your usual one as a birthday treat and then you went to school all dressed up because picture day corresponded nicely with your birthday. We took apple slices and honey and caramel (caramel SAUCE you were quick to remind me each time I mentioned it) for dipping as a birthday snack treat for your class and then I drove around doing errands while you were at school all day reflecting on how very different my life was from three years ago on that day.

I wrote about your birth here. I re-read it from time to time and it seems like a lifetime ago and simultaneously thirty seconds ago . You now do all these things I could not even begin to imagine you doing three years ago. You talk. I know you have been talking for ages and ages, but you talk all the time about everything and anything. I know you don't know every word in the world, but it feels like you have the words for everything you need in your little world. You walk. I know you have been walking forever, but now you run, hop, try to skip (it's more like a gallop) and climb the ladder at the playground with an ease you seem to have possessed forever but it's really only been about a month. You eat. You use a fork and a spoon most of the time and the only meal that really created a complete mess is still mac n' cheese, which always correlates directly with bath night. Shh, don't tell anyone but you don't get a bath every night. Dirt is good for you.

I cannot grasp all that you have taken in over the last three years. Three years sounds like such a long time, but it skipped by in a flash. In three years I learned enough to pass the Utah Bar. In three years you have learned your numbers, colors and letters, how to smile, put yourself to sleep, and almost get dressed. You know that the clock says 7.00 a.m., how to spoon tomatoes into jars for canning, how to use an iPad, an iPhone and any other device that requires tapping a screen, how to dig in the garden, carry an egg without squeezing it too hard, how to feed Buddy his dog food, load the dryer and help me sort clothes. You finally worked up the courage to ride on an animal on the carousel at the Zoo and you can climb into the car and into your carseat by yourself. You know how to give the best hugs and huge smacking kisses on our cheeks. You memorize books after reading them once or twice and you tell people you are good when they ask, "how are you?" You remember to say please, thank you, you’re welcome and excuse me most of the time. You constantly amaze me. I am in awe of how much you have accomplished and figured out on your own.

You are mind-bogglingly stubborn. You have a very clear sense of what you want in life. You will hold out for fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes in hopes of getting what you want even if I have made it clear I am not going to give in. You can be very bossy. You tell me all the time that I have to do something. You get upset with your teachers sometimes if they aren't singing the song that you wanted. You often try to "help" your classmates (whom you call "your kids") with things they don't want help with. But you also, so your teachers told me at you parent-teacher conference, are a leader and the kids look up to you. My heart burst with pride when I heard this. But more importantly, they told me you are an exceptionally happy kid and this made me so very happy. Your father’s and my greatest wish for you is to be happy in your life and to be happy with who you are and with those around you. To know that you are happy gives me hope that somehow between all of the timeouts, the lectures, the frustrations and the battles, we are doing something right. We are giving you a home that you love and where you are safe and secure and content. We are trying so hard to be good parents and hopefully you know that in the last three years, it is you who have given your parents the greatest gift - we are so very lucky to be your parents. We love you little bear.

34/35 - Remembering Again

2011-10-17T14:06:00.002-06:00

This post is not going to write itself and that's just the plain hard truth. A massive case of writer’s block, malaise and fall preserving insanity has taken hold and I find it harder and harder each day to find the time or the will to write. I also have so many months to cover that I fear this post will jump from topic to topic with few transitions. I wish that I could carry the computer around and write while we take our post-dinner bike ride around the neighborhood. I remember holding you as a tiny baby on the last warm days of October after we came home from the hospital and seeing the neighborhood kids riding their bikes around and thinking that that would be pretty cool when you could join in. Now many nights after you have taken three bites of your dinner if you don't like it, or demolished three helpings of mac n' cheese, you jump onto your little strider bike and we stroll around the neighborhood with the other parents and kids out enjoying these last lingering days of summer even though it is technically autumn. I soak in the sunshine and everything seems right with the world because the only disagreement we usually have is whether we are going to turn left or right and that's pretty easy to deal with. You love being on your bike and I can see how much you are going to love the freedom of a two wheeler once you learn how to ride a real "big kid bike," because it is that same thrill of freedom I felt when my parents allowed me to ride my bike more than one block away from our house.

You started preschool at the beginning of September after five long weeks of being home with me. I think you were pretty excited to start just because you were heartily sick of hanging out with me day after day. We went on lots of adventures - hikes, trips to Red Butte Gardens, the pool, your friends' houses where your friends' mothers and I would sigh and compare stories of how much our children were driving us nuts and just how many days it was again before school started. And then suddenly, it was the night before school started and I marked the occasion with a cupcake and we sat on the front step and talking about how your new teachers were going to teach you lots of things like how to “dance” and “make art with my hands.”
You have rough days during which you absolutely refuse to nap and "push a lot of boundaries," according to your teachers, but you have somewhat settled into your school routine and usually love it. I am constantly amazed at how much you are learning. You come home singing a new song every day, but you usually reply to my queries about what you did that day by responding, "Nothing. I just sat there." Did you play with your friends? "No, I just sat there.” This makes your dad and me laugh.

After months of bickering with you in the car about music, I stumbled into the strange realization that you love 70's music. I randomly played Creedance Clearwater Revival's "Have You Ever Seen The Rain," for you one day and you were hooked. We listened to it no fewer than fifty times in a week before I thought to punch in CCR to Pandora Radio and voila, music we can both listen to. The other morning American Pie came on the radio - a song that my sisters and friends and I would dance to endlessly when we were small, complete with a choreographed dance that our poor parents had to suffer through on many occasions. I am sure my father cursed the day he ever introduced us to that eight minute and thirty-two second song, because while it is awesome to listen to in the car, it was probably rather mind numbing to watch ten year olds stumble through a dance routine time after time after time. No matter, you finally love singing and dancing at school and when you danced in your car seat this morning to that classic song, I felt a little teary as I always do when you love things that I loved as a kid. I think that connection of my childhood to yours feels incredibly special and I don't really know how to find the words to describe that.

Outside the leaves are changing in the mountains and small spots of yellow can be seen in some of the trees on the streets of our neighborhood. Winter ticks ever closer and I am holding onto the last golden days for as long as I can. I know, however, that when our lawn is covered in snow and the trees stand bare against a very dismal grey sky, I am going to think back to August and our trip to Squam Lake in New Hampshire. We had not been to the lake since I was nearly eight months pregnant with you and you instantly fell in love with it. You insisted on having the curtains on your bedroom windows open so you could see the lake during your nap and at bedtime. You spent day after day wading in up to your waist to throw hundreds of rocks into the water and learning to fish with your very first fishing rod. You learned how to cast pretty quickly and your dad and I had a hard time not crying over how proud we were. You loved going on boat rides, squealing when we went fast and pointing out every single "Slow No Wake" buoy when we had to slow down. We took you to the boy's camp that fronts the lake because I have this crazy hope that you will want to go there six years from now when you are eight just like your uncles did when they were young. We walked around the camp and I could just begin to envision you there running around with this pack of boys. Your favorite thing was the tetherball and when you had a hard time pushing the ball, some much older boys came to your aid, showing you how to play. It was such a sweet and kind gesture and I hoped that when you were older that you could show such kindness to a younger kid.

I am finally finishing this post on flight to Massachusetts to attend a wedding of a dear friend from Smith. Whenever I mention Smith, you ask me how to spell it, just as you ask me how to spell most things these days. The other day I think I spelled cat, mighty machine, bulldozer, black, green, red, school, apple and truck all in the span of a minute. I was a terrible speller in school but this constant spelling bee may be a benefit to both of us. Luckily, you haven't started asking me how to spell xylophone or supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

This is the second trip I have taken without you and your dad. The absolute thrill of sitting on an airplane and reading three New Yorkers in succession instead of being interrupted by you harassing fellow passengers, arguing with you about not touching the window shade or hissing threats that for-the-last-goddamned-time-stop-kicking-the-chair-in-front-of-you feels as relaxing as a day spa. But this happiness is mitigated by the fact that I miss you and your dad horribly. What is it about sitting on a plane, train or any other form of public transportation, my earphones clapped my head as vintage REM plays that makes me instantly feel as if I am watching a movie of my life - removed from the everyday sameness, suddenly everything seems wondrous and precious and all senses are heightened. Somehow all the things that drive me insane about parenthood slip away and I am left with only a sweet home video playing through my head of you laughing as your dad says something funny or you hugging me tightly as you tell me you are going to miss me so much while I am gone. Where does that wonder go when I am in the thick of it with you? This same dreamy feeling of flying high above the earth, the music loud in my ears, makes me ache with love for you and I think again of checking on you last night before I left. There you were sprawled across the bed, your stuffed animal, Lion, tucked under your arm and so peaceful and so perfect in every possible way that I again immediately forgave all the flaws of the day and could only hope that you will forgive me mine.

34 Months

2011-09-02T15:19:00.001-06:00

I took August off last year. I think I'll do it again this year even though it is already September. In the meantime, here are some of my favorite posts from the last almost three (!) years.

Nine Oh Nine!

Fifteen

25 Months

29 is for giving thanks

33 months. Time Out.

2011-08-03T14:32:00.001-06:00

A few weeks ago we made it 33 months into this joint venture of parenthood/childhood. You were sick with some sad little summer cold that made your voice quite hoarse and you ran screaming in the opposite direction if I so much as suggested that you might want to blow your nose. It sort of summed up the month nicely.

Here's what you do these days. You loved the little poppers on the Fourth of July and threw them by the handful. You hated the bigger fireworks and watched them from the dining room window. At the park you climb the ladders and find rocks to roll down the slide. You slide down the slides without a moment's hesitation, which is so different then even six months ago when you would stand at the top dithering and fretting over whether to come down or not. Now you drag trucks and cars to the top of the slides, send them roaring down and follow hot on their heels. You pick up more rocks and toss them at the slide looking at me out of the corner of your eye waiting for me to say no. When there aren't any other kids at the park I let it go. It is very hard for me to let things go and I'm trying. Really trying hard. It's not easy.

You negotiate all the time. I say, "please take your trains downstairs," and you immediately counter with, "How about I leave them upstairs?" You actually use the phrase, "How about." It floors me.

Your musical tastes are slowly evolving into something that I can live with and I had an incredibly proud moment the other day when you asked me for, "The train rolling down the track song. Johnny Cash." We then listened to Folsom Prison Blues on repeat until I had to turn it off for fear you would make me dislike that classic. You danced like a crazy person at the Josh Riter show at Red Butte the other week, which was actually the last time we are ever going to take you to a Red Butte show because it was such a nightmare to keep track of you running through the dark at the outdoor show. It pains me because I loved taking you to shows in the past and some of my sweetest memories are of you and your dad at Red Butte but you make things so difficult that sometimes it is not worth it.

What an awful thing to say.

I don't like to sugar coat things on this blog. I know this little forum has morphed from letters to you to broader reflections on parenthood and sometimes I write things here that I am not sure I want you reading until you are much older and able to understand that while I love you, you also drive me crazy. Really and truly crazy. So I'm just going to come right out and say this because it seems like it is such a terrible thing to say and a lot of parents don't for fear they are going to be branded the worst parents in the world. Parenting is very hard work and you know what, sometimes I'm not all that fond of you. Sometimes I don't like you very much. Sometimes you are like the awful employee at work that burns popcorn in the microwave so that everyone can smell the hideousness for days afterwards. You are willful and you hit things and you talk back to me and you throw yourself to the ground and freak out over the most minor of supposed infractions, like I didn't hold you up the right way so that you can turn on the ceiling fan. Or I offered you milk first thing in the morning instead of turning on the light. Or I didn't pour the exact right amount of juice into your cup. Perhaps these are the beginnings of some serious OCD tendencies or maybe you are just two going on three. Whatever it is, I can see already that the therapy bill is going to go through the roof in this next year. You make me insane and you know you make me insane and you relish that power.

I think the thing that bothers me the most is that so often your mood mars what is supposed to be a fun outing for our family. (see: Red Butte concert mentioned above) I know you are two. I understand that and I guess I am supposed to also understand that you have little to no self control and therefore are a victim of your own two-ness and I am supposed to be okay with that. Only, I'm not. I don't think it would kill you to show a little gratitude. I know, I'm being ridiculous but honestly, you make it so hard sometimes.

So there, I said it. I said the stuff you aren't supposed to say. I said I don't like you and you'll read this someday and maybe you'll head to your therapist but hopefully by that time you'll have a kid or two of your own and maybe sometimes you won't like them very much. But this doesn't mean I don't love you. I spend a lot of time telling you these days that even though I yell that I still love you no matter what and that I'll always love you even when you have made me angry or frustrated. And you break my heart by prompting me to say, "Sorry I yelled." And I apologize and then sometimes you do too. It's hard. Things are tough for us right now and I don't see that changing anytime soon. It must be difficult to live under such authoritarian rule all the time but sometimes I feel like I am living with a very small dictator of my own.

So, here is something to lighten the mood. Your dad and I nearly fell on the floor laughing. And no, you cannot watch this until much much later because you repeat everything I say these days and I don't want you going to camp and repeating this montage.

Yesterday we went on a small hike around a lake up in the mountains with some friends. I took you on the same hike exactly a year ago and I couldn't believe how much faster we made it around the lake this year; even with you stopping to throw rocks into mud puddles and to climb with no hesitation on the bigger rocks that lined the trail. You exclaimed over the ducks and I breathed in the warm piney air and marveled for the thousandth time that I live in a place so beautiful. You looked with fascination at the people fishing and declared that you also needed a fishing pole and your dad was quite happy when you told him that later in the day. Then we got back in the car and turned on the Wagon Wheel song, which you call the Train Wheel song even though there is no mention of trains. We rolled down the windows and headed back down through the most gorgeous canyon bordered on either side by towering mountains covered in pine trees and a massive creek running next to the road still flowing like a wild river from the winter snows. I sang softly to myself and you danced in your car seat and then declared that you love the mountains. My throat constricted and I replied simply, "I love you."

32 - The Past is Present

2011-06-29T21:48:00.000-06:00

I am trying so hard to make this month's post work, which is probably why it is now more than a week overdue and I am still waiting for everything to coalese into something workable. The largest segments of these posts usually come when I am running around the gym track or lying in bed early in the morning unable to sleep because I know I need to write and then that month's post just suddenly writes itself and I rush to the computer and type quickly to get it all down so I can start the editing process. Editing is so much more enjoyable when you have a nice long post to comb through. Why is this month so hard to write? I have had all these thoughts swirling in my head for weeks and yet I cannot seem to make them come out correctly on the screen. Perhaps it is because the pendulum between your emotions and mine seem to swing so wildly from hour to hour and day to day. The moment to sit down and write comes and goes too quickly for me to capture it into something pleasant to read instead of a screed against all toddlers and their insane and awful behavior. We are starting to see glimpses of you at three years old, even though it is still five months away, and I will just say that I am very very afraid. It's ugly. It's all the annoyances of two but stripped of any of the charm of two. I spend a lot of times these days apologizing for losing my temper and talking with you about how much better life would be if you just stopped and listened to me. Five minutes later you are ignoring me again and I am saying, "Luke, how many times do I have to ask you not to do this?" You always answer, "One." Then I go off in a corner and scream.

Maybe you are acting crazier because your brain is going about ten thousand miles per hour all the time. In the last month you have shown a marked interest in letters and how to spell things, spurred on in large part by your newest love: the show Word World. You are so into it and I totally support your love because it is so much less annoying than Thomas. You are learning new words all the time and trying to spell them with your magnetic letters on the fridge. We help you spell the word DUCK and for some reason you always want to tack on the letter L to the front so it spells LDUCK. Very French of you.

However, your adoration of Thomas - while somewhat diminished when watching television - continues unabated in other parts of your life. We took you to see an actual real life sized Thomas engine up in Heber over Memorial Day weekend. The day was memorable in two respects. 1) We woke up to snow that morning and 2) it was truly the happiest I have ever seen you in your entire young life. You were so excited walking towards the Thomas engine that you practically levitated off the ground squealing, "Oh! Thomas! Oh! Thomas!" Your dad and I had tears in our eyes and could barely speak because it was so gratifying to see you that happy. Then we walked around the exhibits and you discovered a tent filled with four train tables complete with dozens and dozens of trains. Perfect happiness achieved for you and about 50 other kids crammed into the tent.

We drive around a lot these days and you often ask for the Train Song - i.e. the theme song from the Polar Express - which I generally deny on the grounds that Tom Hanks yelling a song at me can only do great damage to my fragile mental state. However, I always acquiesce immediately to your request for The Race Story - also known as Atalanta, the story of the girl who ties Young John From The Town (for that is how I see his name in my head and it always my sisters' voices saying it in perfect imitation of a very young Alan Alda) in the race to determine her future. The story is, of course, from Free To Be You And Me, a record (how strange that you will have absolutely no idea what a record is) that I listened to approximately 58 billion times when I was young. The first time I played the title song from the album, now nicely downloaded onto my iphone, I broke down in tears. You did too because you were about nine months old and hated all new music. But you have grown - or maybe I have forced you - to love some of the stories and I absolutely love that when Alan Alda says, "And the runners...were OFF!" you cheer and immediately pretend to be running a race in your car seat. It is the only time I allow you to kick the back of the passenger seat because really, you have to have some way to show that you are running a race. It's all very exciting but I always get a thrill when you love the same things I loved when I was a kid. I love that there is a place in your childhood for the same things that I played with when I was a child and that so many more things wait in the wings for you - Charlotte's Web, Henry and Ribsy, jumping off the diving board at the pool, riding your bike around the block, sleepovers and camping trips, s'mores and staying up past your bedtime on New Year's Eve and swinging all by yourself on the swing at the park.

A few weeks ago you finally started camp at the JCC and I had a huge lump in my throat as we walked in for the first time. I couldn't believe we had reached this point already. I remember very clearly looking through the camp information when you were about nine months old and your dad said, "Camp? That's years from now." And it was, but in a heartbeat two years ticked by and now at last you get to be a camper. We joined the JCC when you were just about five months old just so I could leave you at the day care and sit by myself for an hour a day. I would look at all these big kids coming in and out and dream of the day that you would join their ranks but also not able to picture you that old at all. And now three days a week you race into the building shouting hellos to anyone who will listen to you.

Why do these things make me cry? Is it the passage of time? The fact that you are old enough to go to camp? The unbearable sweetness of you in your little shorts and tee shirt and Keens? The fact that you are joining this community of campers at the JCC that has been going for decades and are now a part of that great tide of children seems so amazing because you are slowly taking your place in this world? It is probably a combination of all these things along with a hazy vision of what I want your childhood summers to be: fun, carefree, perhaps an occasional disappointment like the library doesn't have the book you want, popsicles from the ice cream truck, filled with friends and sprints through the sprinklers in the backyard. I want you to be part of this community that stretches back decades and will continue for decades. Your father and I both belonged to similar clubs, swam on similar swim teams, went to similar camps (OK, he went to Space Camp. I never did that) but we left all of those ties behind when we left our hometowns. Will you be different? Will you continue to return to Salt Lake City to your friends and family? Will your children swim in the same pool? Go to the same camp? Will you put down roots in your parents adopted home? I have a secret wish that you will but I suppose most parents have the same wish.

The first day of camp you were so excited that you kept telling me the names of your teachers and that they were going to say hello to you when you got there and within moments of walking onto the playground it was as if you had always been there. When I left you were sitting on a tricycle and you called back to me as you attempted to push the pedals, "have a good day Mama!" As I drove away that morning I could see the bigger kids cheering as their own first day of camp started and the cheers followed me up the hill and around the corner and just like that another piece of your childhood clicked into place.

31 Months - Dad is Awesome.

2011-05-20T14:15:00.004-06:00

I started writing this post in my head yesterday afternoon because I thought it would be cathartic because you took a thirty minute nap and after that thirty minutes of blessed silence I walked into your room (you alerted me to being up by banging very loudly on your door) and found you had torn down your curtain and broken the curtain rod in the process. I tried counting to ten. I tried deep breaths but really, I was so angry. Angry that it was clear you had never gone to sleep. Angry that it was raining for the fourth morning in a row and I couldn't get you outside so you could run around and burn off some energy because you are part dog. Angry that you would do something so destructive and then have the gall to laugh at me when I walked into the room. So I took the offending curtain and rod out of your room, told you to get on your bed and then said, "Timeout." Even after those two minutes ticked by I was still so angry that I took the time to tell you how disappointed I was in you. You spent the rest of the afternoon telling me that I was very disappointed in you. That really made me feel better.

The rain stopped for approximately an hour so I took you up to Red Butte Gardens in the hopes of getting you to run around (see dog comment above) and we did get some fresh air but even a trip to Red Butte, which usually cheers me up immediately was punctuated by moments of wanting to scream at the top of my lungs as you pushed my every last button. Just when I thought I couldn't take another second, you sidled up to me and said, "you are my best friend mama." This is not a new or particularly original take on parenthood. Every parent knows that all too familiar feeling of wanting to walk away in a cloud of frustrated tears one moment and wanting to die of the cuteness the next. It is impossible to keep being angry when you are being so sweet but it is so hard not to get angry the next moment when you are disobeying me once again. Staying in the sweet moment is so difficult.

But somehow the Mothers' Day commercials made me cry even more this year than usual. I realized as I surreptitiously wiped away tears when the commercials played on the television at the gym and tried to make an escaped sob sound like I was working out even harder that I am more of a mother this year than I was three years ago; so much more and I have so many more miles to go. I carry many more battle scars and have so many more stories from the frontlines than I used to. But I have also learned - and continue to learn and remind myself sometimes on a minute by minute basis - that no matter how many times I roll my eyes and curse the clock that it is five hours until bedtime I will make it through another day. The tantrum will pass, bedtime will come and I will get up the next day and the next and the next and much of it will all stay the same but so much has changed and will continue to change. You go to sleep on your own, you are starting to learn how to get yourself dressed and are ecstatic when you can get your shirt on without my help. You can "read" entire books to us and get upset when we try to read them to you. You are an amazing talker and can usually tell me what you do and do not want to do in no uncertain terms. You even swear sometimes in perfect context. If I am annoyed and say, "Are you kidding me?" you will sometimes supply a "Goddamn it," delivered in a breathy tone. I try not to react and remind myself again that I must stop swearing around you. It is so hard.

Do I fall down on the job? Dial it in? Let you watch another episode of Thomas when I should sit down and play with you? Yes, absolutely. But do I wish I was working and feel unfulfilled in my role as your mother, guardian, teacher, kisser of hurts, dictator and enforcer of rules? No. You have allowed me to be a mother and without you I would not be the person I am today and I mostly like the mother I have become.

So, in spite of all the things you do to annoy me - surely not on purpose right? - I found myself sobbing on the way to the airport last week as I prepared to leave you and your dad for the first time since you were born. Your father was a nervous wreck and I was suddenly wondering why in heaven's name I thought that leaving for five days was a good idea. But the trip was great for a variety of reasons, an excellent one being that you seemed to finally discover what a fantastic playmate your dad can be and you are head over heels in love with him. For the longest time I don't think you counted him as someone to play with and now whenever I tell you that I cannot do something that very moment, you turn to your dad and say, "c'mon Dad! c'mon! Come downstairs with me!" And when you get up at some ungodly hour (it was 6.30 this morning) you come upstairs and ask, "Where's Dad? Can we go see Dad?" I explain to you that your father is resting and deserves a good night's sleep before having to deal with annoying lawyers all day and this pacifies you for awhile but you squeal with delight when he walks into the living room. You have a new best friend and it makes me so happy. And so while your dad held down the fort at home, I went to New York and to my 15 year college reunion at Smith where I wandered the campus in a bittersweet daze smiling at the graduates and their parents and being simultaneously grateful I had my life at home to return to and longing for the days when I was 18 and life was pretty damned easy. However, one of absolute best parts of the entire trip was talking on the phone with you, which is something I've never been able to do before because you recently learned how a phone works. You got on and the sound of your sweet voice saying, "Hi Mama! This is my train Mama! This is the toy bus Dad gave me Mama! I love you Mama! I miss you Mama," just about killed me. I sat in that empty dorm room and realized that even if I could have the chance to go back to being 18 and young and carefree, I wouldn't take it because my life is infinitely better with you and your dad and that realization was the best Mother's Day gift I could receive.

30 Take Two

2011-04-28T13:01:00.001-06:00

This is a late post but that seems appropriate since we are late to everything these days, which drives me nuts. I hate being late. I once yelled at one of my sisters when she fell off her bike on the way to school because her bleeding knee was making us late. Not my finest moment. But time has no meaning for you. You know that you are not supposed to get up until 7.00 but this does not stop you from calling for me from anywhere between 6.15 and 6.45 so I go downstairs and get into bed with you and the next 15 to 45 minutes go something like this.

You: Mama! I want to look in your ear. I want to be a doctor.

Me: Luke. Lie down and be quiet. It isn't 7.00

Blessed silence for 15 seconds

You: Mama! I need some water!

Me: Your water is next to your bed on the floor.

You: Ohhh! Yes! I love water. Water. Water. Water. Mama, want some water?

Me: No, thank you.

You: Want some? Want some? Mama, wantsome?Wantsome?Wantsome?Wantsome?Wantsome?

Me: No, thank you Luke. Thank you for asking. I really don't want any water. I want you to lie down and be quiet.

Repeat until 7.00

You: Oh! It's seven zero zero! It's time to get up! Mama! Yeaahhh! Mama! It's time to get up. C'mon Mama. C'mon. Let's go!

Me: OK, time to get up. Do you want to use the potty?

You: No thank you.

Exit stage left. Go upstairs. Start heated discussion over who will pour the milk out of the very heavy glass milk container.

In spite of your rush to get up in the morning, you seem to be in no hurry whatsoever to get out the door. There are many pitched battles over getting dressed, putting on your jacket, walking up the stairs, deciding which door we will actually use to exit the house, opening the driveway gate, getting down the driveway to the car and then the ordeal of getting into the car. You can now climb into your car seat by yourself, which is great because it is less strain on my back but it's quite a process for you and if I try to hurry you, you insist on starting the entire ritual again from the beginning. I am sure our neighbors hate us for the number of times they have had to listen to you have a breakdown in the driveway. They may also hate us soon because we finally got chickens and the chickens will move outside in a month.

After talking about it for such a long time, we finally took the plunge and got five tiny baby chicks. Your friend Leta and Marlo's (or as you refer to them: Yeeta and Marwoe) mother, whom you now always refer to as Mrs. Armstrong (which pleases me and cracks me up) documented it much better than I could. You can read about our first day with the chickens here. You didn't end up naming any of the chickens because you still don't get the concept of naming things even though I tried to explain it to you about five dozen times. The naming aside, you love the chickens and love to talk to them and hold them. Your favorite is Maisie and she is pretty tolerant of you yelling in her face, "She's a little bit nervous Mama!"

My computer broke a few weeks ago. It was starting to get a little shaky with the screen flickering off and on for no apparent reason although I have my suspicions as to who the culprit might be of the "liquid damage," that finally caused the computer screen to switch to grey permanently. In any case, I spent a few weeks fretting and trying not to freak out over the fact that I might have lost every last picture I had taken of you in the last two and half years. When my new computer arrived and we were able to transfer everything off of the external hard drive and all those pictures popped back up I cried I was so relieved. I might have cried because I was so tired from all the sleep I had lost worrying about the photos but I also cried because to lose all those would have been the absolute worst. Another added bonus was that my phone finally backed up properly and I was able to download all the video I have taken of you for the last year or so.

Looking through all these videos made me cry even more because there is nothing like watching a video of your child to make you momentarily forget all the things that make you want to pull your hair out. In the two and half years since you were born you have imprinted yourself on my heart like the way my wedding ring has imprinted my ring finger. You are so much a part of my life, of my every breath that I find it impossible to imagine life without you. If I am out driving around and I see a firetruck I wish that you were there to see it too. I cannot read stories or see shows depicting children being hurt without the story immediately becoming the story of you being hurt. I feel like I cannot breath imagining you in the same situation. I have dreams about you falling into water, dreams of you being eaten by alligators and I wake up terrified that something has happened to you. I don't really live every moment in fear but the dreams come or the random thought drifts across my mind or I read a story of some terrible thing befalling some young child and I think, there but for the grace of God go I. At the end of the day when we are lying in bed before you go to sleep and you are telling me all the things you are going to dream about (triangles, whales, the ocean, steam engines, one car, two cars and mamas and dads) you sometimes spontaneously say, "you're the best mama in the world," and all the other unbearable stuff becomes bearable again.

So here is a snapshot of you and your life over the last year.

30 Take One

2011-04-21T13:12:00.002-06:00

You are two and a half and I have some lovely ideas rolling around my head but I cannot seem to commit them to the page. I promise not to miss this month though because you say all sorts of hilarious things now like after I asked you about singing a song about Jesus you learned at school, you pointed to my wine and said, "Jesus is in the wine." I replied that he might be but that you could figure that out for yourself in a few years. Oy vey. Time to get you to the JCC preschool.

29 is for giving thanks

2011-03-22T14:28:00.001-06:00

I don't even know where to begin this month. Do I talk about the fact that I have signed you up for summer camp or that you are now sleeping in an actual twin bed, a bed you may very well be sleeping in until you go to college? I went to check on you last night and there you were sleeping in your "big boy bed kinda like Caillou's" with a headboard and I couldn't believe that 29 months ago you were a teeny little newborn swaddled and looking minuscule in the middle of your crib. Now you have about four or five blankets, a real pillow and two stuffed animals that you only pay attention to at bedtime. You are becoming more and more of a little kid.

Do I talk about the fact that you chatter the days away asking us "What is that?" over and over and over again, which is a kind of backtracking to when you were 16 months old when you would walk around the neighborhood asking , "et's dat?" all the time. You have improved your pronunciation as well as your retort when I tell you what that particular thing is. "Luke, that's a lemur." You respond with, "Yes mama, that is a lemur," as if you were the one telling me what it is. You are really funny about wanting us to fill in the script of what you think our conversations should sound like. You prompt me by saying, "What sound does that animal make?" I then have to ask you the same question and you happily respond. This goes hand in hand with you thinking that asking for something politely makes it a foregone conclusion that you will receive it. "Cupcake? Please? OK." is a favorite.

It is hard for me to talk about your accomplishments this month because world events came storming into our lives a few weeks ago and we still seem to be reeling from them. Your dad had to go to Japan for business; he has gone to Japan no fewer than four times in the last three years so this is becoming a fairly normal part of our lives and this trip didn't seem as if it would be any different. It was a tough week for him to be gone because you got really really sick the night before he left and then proceeded to stay sick the entire week and ended up finally on antibiotics for strep throat. It was a long week.

And then just as your dad was going to board his plane in Tokyo, an enormous earthquake hit Japan. It was very very big and hurt and killed thousands of people. He texted me from the plane saying he was okay and then the waiting game of seeing whether he would actually get out of Japan started, all the while stories of a tsunami and terrible destruction started filling the news, the internet, the television and I had to shut them all off and just hope with every fiber of my being that his plane was going to take off. And it did. And it was a miracle. You and I met him at the airport that night (so did the local news) and I have never felt so relieved in my life and I still am swimming in relief. I want to hold you both closer and closer and even as the mundane details of our lives go on, I feel sick every time my mind drifts again into the what-ifs. What if he wasn't on that plane? What if he had been running late and not made it to the airport at all? What if the pilot had made everyone get off the plane instead of being brave and taking off, taking your father far far away from the disaster? What if he was still stuck there unable to get home to us? What if? I cannot bring myself to say the worst.

Two days after he got home the weather warmed up again as it has been doing in fits and starts over the last couple of weeks. A massive snowstorm hit a few weeks ago and we got a foot of snow. Two days later it was gone. But that Sunday was glorious and your dad went and got a new cherry tree to plant in the garden. It occurs to me now that it was particularly apt that we should plant a cherry tree since Japan is so famous for its cherry blossoms. A small unconscious decision that I am probably giving greater weight to now than it deserves. But I am glad we have that little tree. It is good to have reminders of the events that made you realize again how very lucky you are. While he watered it and started to clear out the dead winter leaves out of the herb beds, you practiced walking along the wood border of the berry patch saying, "look at me dad! look at me!" I had never been so happy to be in the garden as at that moment.

I hope the cherry blossoms bloom in Japan this spring. I hope that country can heal. I hold you and your father even closer now and try to cherish more moments more often. This passage from the movie Stranger Than Fiction has rolled through my head many times since your father got home. It seemed so very pertinent this month. Over and over and over I come back to these small moments that make up our lives together and I know I write about them a great deal but I do not know how else to chart the days. Long after so many other memories of your childhood have faded from my mind, I will remember you running to greet your dad at the airport when he came home. I will remember crying with relief as the three of us stood there holding each other. My little family. Three people does not sound all that significant but it is your hand slipping into mine as we walk through the garden, your father kissing me goodnight as I drowse into sleep, us going to breakfast on Sundays, you observing that Buddy is sleeping in a dramatic whisper, your dad planting that cherry tree in the newly thawed soil, your utter delight in watching the garlic come up that makes up my world and makes it richer and better than it ever could have been without you; this mosaic of a million bazillion tiny moments creating our family portrait.

"As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And so it was that a wristwatch saved Harold Crick."

-Stranger Than Fiction

28 is pretty great

2011-02-21T07:54:00.003-07:00

A lot of friends and family touted two as the dreamy year; all cuteness and cuddles and sweetness and for a long time I thought they were just flat out lying or that their children were far more adorable, sweet and cuddle-worthy than you. And then about a week before Christmas you started slowly emerging from the months long terror that was 25-26.5 months and you have continued in this vein of pretty damned tolerable for awhile. I'm not going to lie and say it is peaches and cream and loveliness all the time but this month has been one that I could potentially look back on in say, 15 years, and say, "Yeah, two wasn't so bad." I will most likely say this to a mother of a two-year-old who will probably want to beat me senseless because when people who don't have toddlers say, "Oh, that is such a FUN age," they have most likely completely forgotten what rotten little buggers two year olds can be. But, in 15 years you will be 17 and I'll probably be longing for the days when our worst battles were over whether you wanted your diaper changed or not.

Actually, you never want your diaper changed so really it's more like a battle of this is happening now whether you like it or not. I have started to ask you whether you want to do something the hard way or the easy way, explaining that the hard way will result in you crying and becoming really mad and that the easy way - i.e. my way - will be a much more pleasant outcome for us both. You consistently pick the easy way but this doesn't stop you from incurring a few timeout warnings along the way before you finally submit to my demands. I don't blame you for digging in your heels. If someone was as demanding of my time as I am of yours I would be pretty annoyed most of the time too. I mean, who wants to change a diaper when you could be watching The Cat in the Hat for the twentieth time? The Cat in the Hat is this month's newest love. I have absolutely no idea how you found out that the Cat in the Hat has a show on television - we don't even own the book - but somehow you found out about him. I suppose this is similar to you finding out about Dora the Explorer. We have not watched one minute of that show and yet you know who she is. School? Friends? The slow creep of pop culture into your life? Who knows.

A few weeks ago your dad and I got on an airplane without you and went to Mexico for a week leaving you behind with my parents, your beloved Nan and Charlie. As best as I could tell you had a marvelous week and didn't miss us at all, which is great because it means we can take more trips without you as long as the grandparents are willing to put up with your shenanigans. And the trip was wonderful. I think we slept for eleven hours straight the first night, which was the most sleep I have gotten in one night in over two years. And we got to fly without you climbing all over us and we got to walk through the airport like normal people not chasing you up and down stairs and we got to go out to dinner and not have to race through our meal before you got bored and we got to go to the pool and not worry about you falling in. All in all, a lovely week. But I missed you so much more than I thought I would and when we got home I could barely wait to see you and when you exclaimed, "Mama!' as I walked through the door I couldn't believe that I had actually forgotten how sweet your voice sounds. And then you started talking to us in complete sentences and we couldn't believe how much we had missed in one week. In fact you are talking so much now that I can understand 97% of what you say. The other day you actually started to tell me what you did at school that day without any prompting from me. It was a long description of eating pink cupcakes for a classmate's birthday and how you got pink cupcake all over your face. Cupcakes certainly deserve unprompted discussion.

So the trip was a success all around and the only thing different from this trip than our last trip to Mexico was that I didn't come home pregnant and that was a good thing too. I know you are far too young to understand now but I think perhaps I should tell you that you are not going to have any brothers or sisters. It seems like I should explain to you now, while I can somewhat coherently state our reasons, why your dad and I are not going to have any more children. I can imagine in four or five years you might ask us for a sibling and I might not be able to remember the reasons with the certainty I feel now.

First, you are perfect. OK, you aren't perfect, but you are one pretty great kid all things considered. You are sweet, funny, really smart and quite adorable to boot. You have your dad's gorgeous blue eyes and are a hilarious and sometimes frustrating combination of your parents' best and more questionable qualities. I am sure that if we had another kid he or she would be perfect in his or her own way as well, so there are other reasons why we want to keep our family the way it is now. We like our life with just you. We cannot imagine adding another kiddo to the mix because of the toll it would take on all of us - the sleepless nights, the juggling of two schedules, the rewinding back to square one of infanthood is more than we can imagine. This would all pass in time because time, obviously, does pass and babies grow up and become toddlers and teenagers but I fear the work that it would require of your dad and me would be too great a burden for us to bear. I fear, being a somewhat impatient person to begin with, that two children would make me a terrible mother to two children instead of just a pretty good mother to you. I know this is all speculation. People have two, three, four - and here in Utah - dozens of children all the time and they survive. They find a way to make it work and I am truly in awe of those parents. Maybe the second baby would be a perfect angel, sleeping consistently through the night from day one and sitting quietly on my lap for hours at a time. Or maybe not. We are not willing to take that chance. I recently started compiling a list of things I want to do in my life and so many of them involve you - taking you to Paris, going camping, fishing with you in Montana, dropping you off at college. To have another child would delay all of these things and while many people would argue that I should hold onto these precious moments with you as a little little boy, I am so excited to teach you things that you cannot do now. I cannot wait for your father to teach you how fly fish, how to chop an onion correctly, and how to grill the perfect steak. Having another child wouldn't keep us from doing that, but it would put it off by many years and I don't want to wait to involve you in our lives. Your dad and I have big exciting things to do with you and we cannot wait for you to be old enough to share in them.

Ultimately, perhaps, we are making a selfish choice. We are choosing our happiness over your potential happiness of having a sibling. We are, perhaps, depriving you of the joy of having a little brother or sister. So I can only hope that we have created and will continue to give you a good and happy childhood. I hope, and I suppose all parents hope, that you look back on your childhood with an overriding sense of joy and that it becomes the basis for what you might want for your children. We will fail you plenty of times. We will make mistakes and make decisions that you disagree with. You will probably make a list of things you will never do to your kids and then, maybe, realize with time that we were right in the end to make you stick to that curfew, eat those vegetables, finish your homework, try a new food, give you a timeout or keep you from playing violent video games because we thought that was probably in your best interest. I hope that someday you will know that we made this decision out of our love for you and our certainty that just having you made for the very best childhood we could give you.

Author's Note: I have read a lot of blog posts and articles about having one child and I hope that I have not inadvertently plagiarized anybody else's thoughts on having one kiddo. If I have, please accept my sincere apologies and let me know so I can give proper credit.

You are 27 months old. No, that's my 27 months old.

2011-01-23T14:24:00.003-07:00

I think I must have read somewhere at some point in time that for two year olds, "what's mine is mine and what's yours is also mine." I am going to put quotes around it because that cannot possibly have been an original thought from me. In the last month your possessiveness has grown to world domination levels. You claim everything as your own, including the zipper of your jacket, which you seem sure I am going to take from you. I have no interest in it other than zipping it up but you remain convinced that I am out to take everything from you. To be sure we have had a few wrestling matches over things that are definitely not yours - my pearl necklace for one; a really sharp pencil that you somehow purloined off my desk for another. I turned around the other day and realized now that you are tall enough to put your cup on the counter you can also pull a lot of stuff off of it too. I fully expect to find you standing in the cabinets soon.

Along with "mine" is your ongoing love affair with the word no. You use it in place of not, isn't or any other word that might be the opposite of an affirmative word. So most conversations with you sound like this:

"Luke, are you going to school today?"
"No go to school today."

"Are you going to see your friends there?"
"No see my friends."

"Is Alice your friend?"
"No Alice friend."

"OK, well let's go inside now!"
"No let's go inside!"

"Can you show me the sign for first down"
"No show me sign for first down."

No go to bed
No I sleepy
No I pick up toys right now

And on and on and on.

Rounding out the triumvirate of favorite toddler phrases is your need for immediate action. You have become so tyrannical about your demands that I have considered getting a little coat like Napoleon's so that you can march around and issue your edicts in style. If I deign to lie down on your teeny little bed after you have again gotten up at 6.00 a.m. you march back into the room and yell, "Mama! Wake Up!" If I respond by telling you that my eyes are open and I am speaking to you and so I must be fully awake, you then yank off the blankets and say, "Mama! Get Up!" Please be advised that I am filing all this away for future payback when you are fifteen years old.

Christmas was less than a month ago but it already feels like six months ago. You loved all of your Thomas items and are still asking to hear the Train Song from The Polar Express every time we get into the car. I finally drew the line the day after 12th Night and declared that Christmas and Christmas songs are over. This has not stopped you from asking for the song nor from discussing how you are going to take the train to the North Pole to see Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and the elves. Next Christmas should be interesting. A couple days after Christmas you, your dad and I flew off to California for a week of visiting your cousins. At Avery and Birch's house you thought you had died and gone to heaven because they had so many trains, trucks and cars of every shape and size. At Jada and Brooke's house you contented yourself with pushing a pink stroller around because it was the only thing that had wheels. Your cousin Jada introduced you to the Wii dance game but your moves still consist of bobbing up and down. The highlight of the week for you was walking into my parents' house and discovering the Fisher Price steam engine. You played with it for two days straight and even took it to bed with you. You are fathoms deep in love with your grandparents. I think your dad and I could have disappeared as soon as you walked into their house and you wouldn't have cared.

However, I think my enduring memory of the trip will be that you actually fell asleep on top of me on the plane ride home, something you haven't done since you were about five months old. I was like a brand new mother hardly daring to move for fear I'd wake you up and in heaven at the same time. You are so rarely still that to hear your breathing and smell your sweet sweaty head and marvel that your feet now nearly reach my knees whereas you used to fit neatly onto my chest actually made the flight enjoyable. An hour later when the flight attendant woke you by announcing over the the intercom some trivial thing like we were about to land I wanted to cry.

And then a few days into the new year this terrible thing happened in Arizona and a little girl was killed and once more, for the hundredth, perhaps thousandth time, I was reminded that having a child makes you feel everything a million times more than if it had just be me. Having you made the pain of those parents losing their little girl feel all the more real. And I was reminded again that I cannot shield you from all the evil in the world, I can only thank whatever lucky star for keeping us out of harm's way. I know that one day I will be at a loss to explain to you - as I heard my friend trying to explain to her four year old after he heard a story on NPR - why bad governments do bad things to people. I will have to explain to you all of the horrific things of this world and try to come up with reasons for why they happened and sometimes there won't be a reason at all and I imagine that will be as difficult to understand at six as it is at thirty six. I was selfishly grateful that I did not have to explain this tragedy to you.

We watched part of the President's speech and you looked at me as tears ran down my face and you didn't understand why I was crying. I tried to tell you that when the President speaks we must be quiet and listen but you were more interested in your trains. I was in that moment, I am sorry to say, slightly put out by this, wanting to hear the speech and not play with trains but upon reflection, I am so thankful that you are still at an age when most of the world's problems are not yours. Your unhappy moments stem from the fact that you have to put your toys away and go to bed or that you don't like what I have made you for dinner. You are so lucky right now and we are so lucky to have a warm house and clothes and food and that a tragedy has not struck our family in the ways that it struck those people in Arizona. Someday the world will come knocking and you will have to find your way in it but I am so glad that right now you are still small enough to sometime, every once in a great while, climb into my arms and lie there and talk to me the way you did when you were so very little and you would chatter in your infant babble about the trees outside your window. Now you chatter about school and how you don't want to go and about soccer and kicking the ball and your friends and for just a few moments the rest of the world and all of its awfulness and ugliness melts away.

26

2010-12-22T15:53:00.001-07:00

*The Shortest Day*
By Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

I spent 36 years never thinking much about the Winter Solstice because I really liked winter. I liked the early darkness and the cozy nights and the snow. And then I had you and much like daylight savings time, things became a little bit more difficult. Yes, lots of good things came with your arrival (you can read more about them below) but winter is undoubtedly a lot harder for me now than it used to be. I feel sad when I didn't used to. Instead of greeting snowstorms with tears of happiness, I feel an undercurrent of anxiety about how I am going to entertain you when we are trapped inside and you have all. this. energy. to. burn. So yesterday was the Winter Solstice and for the first time in my life I celebrated it and the poem above seemed a perfect expression of the holiday. We all wrote down our wishes last night - yours was a very definitive scrawl of red crayon - on pieces of paper and threw them into the fire. I am driving the dark away by looking ahead six months and dreaming of the garden and fresh peas and tiny strawberries sweeter than anything I have ever tasted and you running around the trellis pulling beans off the vine. I checked the lettuce in the cold frames today and tiny tiny little lettuce sprouts are coming up in spite of the snow all around. It seemed like a miracle and it gave me a little hope that spring will come again and things might get a little easier.

Everyone told me that 18 to 24 months were the worst and that 2 year olds were really nothing compared to those tough months. That and 3 year olds. Three is supposed to be just awful but this last month has been so grueling that it is hard to think it could be worse than this. I suppose that you adjust to your realities and if this is my life right now I'll just have to find a way to live with it. But, oh, you have put us through the ringer this month. For starters, you are back to waking up at the crack of dawn. And the independent streak I knew was going to surface because your father and I are just a wee bit stubborn ourselves (your father would say it is just me) has at last fully emerged and it is a beast. "No, I do it," entered your vernacular two weeks ago and really everything has gone downhill since then. Everything, and I mean everything, must be done on your terms. Getting dressed involves high levels of negotiations I didn't know possible. I am fairly certain that a pack of mothers of two year olds would be able to settle the Mideast peace talks in pretty quick fashion because the mechanics of just getting out the door in the morning are truly incredible. I was talking to someone the other day about the decision to have kids and he noted that no one ever wants to be totally honest and say they don't want kids if they already have them. I agreed that this was true but noted that you usually cannot give your kid back once you have them.

But I don't want to give you away. I love you too much. I love your unruly hair and the way that you say, "Hey! There's some lights!" as we drive around looking at Christmas lights. It's a good thing that people in Salt Lake leave their lights up for weeks and weeks after Christmas because you absolutely love looking at lights and for once I can drive around with you largely entertained. I also love that you have now watched The Polar Express approximately 78 million times in the last three weeks and can now quote large portions of the movie while watching it. I love our new game where you suddenly yell out, "I know!" and I ask, "What do you know?" and you respond, "I know I love you!" because I said this to you once and you found it hilarious. I realized the other day that you don't volunteer a lot of information when you talk to us; you just repeat what you have heard us say.

I love that you tell me you want Santa to bring you a Toby train because I suggested you might want to tell Santa that when you met him. When you did meet Santa, you were amazingly composed and quite ready to go through the motions; perhaps this was because we had talked about it for a week and rehearsed what you were supposed to do. You walked right up to him, turned around so he could put you in his lap and approximately five seconds later you were done. This didn't surprise me really since you like to do everything with great speed - slide down stairs, run down the street, sing songs (jingle bells song very very very fast! is a frequent request in the car) and eat your meals, if you eat at all. Of course, if I ask you to do something like walk out to the car you suddenly adopt a snail's pace. In any case, your contact with Santa was brief but this has not stopped you from being very excited every time you see his face, a figurine, lawn ornament or advertisement on television.

Getting ready for Christmas this year has been an exercise in great restraint for me because I have this overwhelming desire to get you everything, if not to see your face light up, but also to have some new toys to distract you from your general crankiness with the world. Isn't that a terrible Christmas wish? Actually, I have found that this year, even more than last year, I am prone to choke up over the smallest things because it seems that when people talk about seeing "Christmas through your kid's eyes," you actually can. For a long time I thought it was odd that people would say, "Oh Christmas will be fun now that you have a kid," because I have always really loved Christmas. But I have found that you have made it a million times sweeter. And so perhaps I should tell that person I was talking to to have a kid just for the wonder of seeing Christmas with you. Although you still don't quite get the whole Santa/stockings/presents deal you are so excited about everything from the tree to the tree lights to the stockings and the smoking men all lined up on the mantelpiece. You even asked to watch a Charlie Brown Christmas the other day, which thrilled me to no end because it is one of my favorites.

In a few days it will be Christmas and I hope you like your presents, 99% of which are Thomas related. I also hope you know how much your father and I love you. Becoming a parent makes you acutely aware of how lucky you are when you can give your kiddo the Christmas you always hoped you could give. When we pull in the driveway now coming home from school or errands or an outing, you shout, "home!" and I always think that is a nice way to come home. Home! Home! Home! I am so happy you and your father and Buddy and I are all in it together. Merry Christmas Little Bear.

25 months

2010-11-24T15:38:00.001-07:00

Someday you will learn how to drive - this fact terrifies me and I try not to think about it very often - and you will start driving to the same places over and over and over. Maybe you already notice that we drive to many of the same places repeatedly each week. To school (you call it "fool"), to Little Gym, to Dan's Supermarket and to Em's for breakfast on Sunday. I remember finally learning how to drive when I was young and just knowing where everything was in my city because I had been driving around to the same places with my parents for seventeen years. Maybe you will do the same, or maybe you will inherit your father's sense of direction. In any case, when you finally learn how to drive, every once in awhile you will experience an unsettling experience that somehow you drove somewhere but you had no memory of actually driving. You will think, "wait, how the hell did I get to this light already? I was ten miles away from this light about two seconds ago." This is what this last month has felt like. Wait, how the hell did we get here already because everything is moving at light speed.

Your vocabulary has taken off in the last month and it always astonishes me how quickly you transition into something new. For months you were mumbling words and I couldn't understand 75% of what you said. Now you are running through the house yelling, "Mommmmmyyyyyy!" when you are looking for me. You charge into the bedroom in the morning before school and yell at your father, "Wake up!" You will go up to one of us, take our hand and say, "Follow me." Sometime you say, "Follow you," because you get you and me mixed up. Every once in awhile you sing to yourself - Happy Birthday dear Nuuuke being a favorite. I once overheard you singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot to yourself and nearly cried it was so sweet. I started singing you that song when you were an infant but you usually veto it at bedtime when I try to sing it. You have very fixed ideas about what music to listen to in the car. These days it is the "Jingle Song" because somehow you heard Jingle Bells. I blame school for this since it has to be one of my most hated Christmas carols. I said to my sister the other day that I never imagined driving around with a toddler would be like operating an all-request radio show but with a rotation of about five songs.

You keep growing up before our eyes, not just in height and weight (at your two year check up, your head circumference clocked as ginormous in the 85th percentile) but in your perception of the world around you. We picked out your Halloween costume (a monkey) weeks and weeks before the big date and you spent the month telling people, only when asked, that you were going to be a "monkey suit" for Halloween. But at no time did you volunteer this information to anyone nor did you talk about the upcoming event. We carved pumpkins and went to Red Butte Gardens after dark where you ran around in a daze of excitement about being in the Gardens after dark. But still I didn't think you were going to "get" Halloween. Imagine my surprise when I put you in your suit Halloween night and took you around to some neighbors. It's amazing how quickly you "got" it once neighbors started putting candy into your little pumpkin bucket. And once we got home and the doorbell started ringing, you sprinted to the door to give out candy like you had been doing it your whole life. Every time the doorbell rang, you would freeze, squeal and run to the door yelling, "who is it? who is it?" My favorite part of Halloween has always been staying at home to hand out candy so I was thrilled you liked it so much too.

I know I spend a lot of time here chronicling my difficulties with you. I am beginning to think that perhaps I will never be truly at ease as a parent. I have certainly learned a lot in the last two years and have learned, with varying degrees of success, what works with you and what doesn't. The sticker reward chart for not whining and crying when getting dressed has been a hit. A parent-toddler dance class where you were expected to sit for minutes at a time was, unfortunately, not a hit. But two years in and I still feel a stab of resentment when you decide that 6.30 is a perfectly acceptable time to get up in the morning. I know, I should just get over it. You are two and you have big plans every day that involve playing with your trains, watching Thomas, reading train books and talking about trains. You are at the funny age where you know the rules and state them to me clearly, "No picking nose!" while simultaneously picking your nose. It's hard for you to hold it together and I appreciate it when you do so perhaps I need to remember to cut you some slack more often. It isn't easy being a parent but it certainly isn't easy being you either.

I was supposed to finish this post a few days ago but now tomorrow is Thanksgiving so I'll end by saying thank you. Thank you for holding my hand in the parking lot and then forgetting and holding my hand just a little bit longer. Thank you for asking for a "big snack" the other day and making me laugh. Thank you for taking real delight in your friends. Thank you for loving the snow and building a snowman with me. Thank you for listening to my goodnight stories every night and filling in the blanks - "Once upon a time there was a little boy named: (Nuke) and he loved: (birfday parties.) Thank you for finally learning how to blow your nose. Thank you for giving me a reason to at last use the waffle iron your dad and I got for our wedding that makes waffles in the shape of lions and elephants. Thank you for not crying at all (for the first time ever) at the doctor's office last week and then being the perfect lunch companion afterwards. Thank you for throwing your head back and laughing hysterically after your bath the other night as I twirled you to the music playing and your dad looked on smiling and the fire crackled in the fireplace and I thought to myself, "my life is perfect right now."

Two Years. 730 Days. 24 months.

2010-10-19T13:36:00.005-06:00

730 days? I don't even want to know how many diapers that translates into. I really need to be more proactive about potty training you since it is becoming readily apparent that I am a very lazy potty trainer. In theory you being able to go to the bathroom all by yourself is a great idea, but putting it into practice is much more difficult. Letting you continue in diapers seems so much more convenient when we are driving around town. And really, the thought of taking you into a public bathroom at say, the zoo, sounds so revolting I think I could keep you in diapers for a long long time.

Anyway, I didn't mean to start out this momentous second year post with a commentary on public bathrooms. Let's step back a moment and take it in. You are two! Seventeen more years until you go to college! How did we get to two already? Where did the time fly to? Two years ago you were this tiny screaming infant and now you are a twenty seven pound screaming toddler who can walk and talk and say hilarious things like, "Oh yes, airpane. Oh yes," when queried about what is in the sky. You can show us the football referees signs for first down, safety, false start, offsides, timeout and touchdown. The best one is first down because I taught you to throw some drama into it so you step forward and throw your fist out and yell, "Firs down!" It is SO awesome.

The breadth, depth and width of your obsession with Tasses/Thomas the Train has grown in the past month to epic proportions and while these posts tend to focus on your accomplishments, I will say I gave myself a huge pat on the back when I learned all the lyrics to the Thomas and his Friends song. You like to prompt me when I forget the line, "...down the hills, around the bends, Thomas and his friends." Your knowledge of the characters in Thomas astounds me. You know every single engine's name; even the minor characters like Henry. Your dad and I were so excited to give you your new train table this morning and it has not disappointed. You have been playing with it for the past three hours. You took a very brief break to eat some toast and now you are back at it circling the trains around the track that your dad and I set up last night whispering and trying not to drop the tracks since we were right outside your door. This morning you woke up and your dad recorded you as you walked out of your room to see the track. It was such a funny reaction. I had been expecting a high pitched yell of "Tasses!" but you calmly walked over to the table and started pointing out the engines.

A year ago you weren't even walking and you barely said Mama or Dad. Now you sprint from one end of the house to another and yell, "Bye Dad! Ove you Dad!" at bedtime. (The letter L is still non-existent in your vocabulary.) A year ago you still had to be spoon fed, made a mess of every single meal and found great joy in dropping food on the floor. Now you feed yourself, still make some messes but freak out when you drop food on the floor moaning, "Ohhh noooo." Or you will simply tell me, "So messy!" You caught a 12 hour stomach bug last week and when you threw up you just cried and cried, "So messy. Sorry Mama. Sorry." It broke my heart into about a bazillion pieces. A year ago you were still in your crib and now you are on the verge of getting a real twin bed. But I think the best thing about you becoming more grown up is the fact that you are so much more loving than you used to be. You will go up to almost anyone and throw your arms around their legs to give out hugs. You wrap your arms around your dad and me and announce, "Big Hug!" and then you hold my face in your hands and query, "big kiss?" before planting a huge sloppy kiss on my mouth.

We had a little party for you on Sunday to celebrate the twoness of you and amazingly the predicted thunderstorms did not materialize and the afternoon was perfect. The bright yellow leaves from the neighbors yard fell as you and your friends raced up and down the driveway and in and out of the garden. People sat on the lawn and the pimento cheese sandwiches were eaten and the juice boxes drunk and everyone sang Happy Birthday Dear Luke and I couldn't because I had a huge lump in my throat. When I finally got to hold you two years ago after my very long labor and I looked at your teeny tiny newborn face I could never have imagined the life we have now. I could not have dreamed how you would turn out to be the biggest challenge of my life and pretty much the best thing that has ever happened all wrapped up into one rosy cheeked, laughing, funny, little boy.

So big hug and big kiss little one. Happy Birthday.

Music: Nothing by Steve Foxbury off the Do Fun Stuff album. All proceeds from the album go towards Smith Magenis Syndrome research.

Spirit Fingers. 23 Months.

2010-09-20T10:34:00.001-06:00

So, this may be a long update since I managed to miss your 22 month post in a perfect storm of housework, traveling, writers block and, perhaps, just perhaps, sheer laziness. But fall is here and with it a new school year, which always feels like the real beginning of the year to me so I am feeling more energetic as the mornings are cooler and crisper and fall slides into town. I saw a few yellow leaves on the ground the other day so it must be fall. And we went to the State Fair where you mooed at the cows and oinked at the pigs and gobbled french fries so it must be fall. And we took a picture of you on your "first day" of school again this year and I marveled at the change from your first day picture from a year ago. I long for the day that I can buy school supplies for you and hope that you like freshly sharpened pencils and college ruled (none of that wide ruled stuff) notepaper as much as I do.

You started off your 21st month with a massive growth spurt that left all of us in a very bad mood due to your lack of sleep and general crankiness but added inches to your legs. Your face is still as round as ever but you are tall enough now to really look like a little boy. When your dad cut your hair the other week I exclaimed that you looked like you had aged another six months, which is not much in the grand scheme of things but you are definitely not a baby anymore. You have a mind of your own and it is becoming more and more apparent that you have a will of your own too and everything, I repeat, everything, must be on your terms. I finally got a book that I had seen many times at the library and in bookstores that I didn't think applied to you: Raising Your Spirited Child. I had long poo-pooed the notion that you were doing anything that wasn't age appropriate. Total freak outs when needing to transition from one thing to the next? Don't all children do that? Insisting on trying to do something new while simultaneously getting so frustrated that you throw said toy across the room? Um, I throw things. Maybe it's genetic. Massive aversion to new things until you have had the time to get accustomed to it about a dozen times over? OK, so you don't like new things. Anyway, I sat down and started reading and woah, maybe you are just a little more intense than the next kid. And maybe if I take the time to work with you on things maybe our days will get just a little bit better. And they have. And it's been good. There are certainly plenty of days when I feel like screaming but the other day someone complimented me on having a polite child and I nearly died of pride.

The two year old birthdays, which trickled in over the past few months, kicked off with real gusto as we attended your friend Claire's party in August. Her birthday was the first of your friends' parties last year and looking around the backyard I couldn't believe the change. Here were all these kids that a year ago could barely speak, let alone walk, running around demanding things of their parents, talking to each other, blowing bubbles, sliding down slides and feeding themselves. Here were all the parents, some of whom have become my closest friends, who a year ago I was just getting to know. It was a little bit mind blowing and as we sang happy birthday I got somewhat weepy. As these milestones slide by I feel like I can feel the years telescoping out in front of us and I can envision you and your friends at seven, at ten, at fifteen and I want things to slow down a little. This is rare for me.

You can now sing your own version of the alphabet song and join in when I sing, "I've Been Working on the Railroad," which you refer to as the Twain Song, not to be confused with the Aipane Song, the Goonight Song, the Car Song or the Babee Song (I still don't know what that last song is although you ask for it quite a bit.) One of your favorite things to do is grab a piece of chalk or a crayon and come to your father and me demanding that we draw a sun. What you really want is a happy face but the sun rays are an added bonus. We draw one sun and then you point to another part of the pavement or paper and say, "one sun. one sun." You refuse to call any ball anything but a soccer ball. I say, "basketball?" and you respond firmly, " soccarball." You are very single minded in your wants and you are very pleased with your accomplishments. For a few weeks you shouted "I di it!" whenever you accomplished anything - or thought you had at any rate. This segued into "There you go," which is so utterly charming that I laugh every time you say it. I realized I have been saying it to you for almost two years. Amazingly, you also really like your bike now and willingly put on your helmet. You go up and down the driveway and refuse to let us help you when you need to turn around.

Your newest trick is to come over to me as I am sitting relaxing in a chair and ask for my hand, "han? han?" I give you my hand, you pull me out my chair and then scramble up to sit in it yourself. Very crafty. Like so many other things that I wish for - sitting, crawling, walking, talking - once you start mastering these new developments, you start using them to your advantage. I used to wish for the day you could tell me what you want but now that you say no to most things and can insist on others, this whole verbal thing seems a little overrated. We taught you how to say Roll Tide (which sounds like "boooow tie!" when you say it) and Go Utes in preparation for the football season and every once in awhile you'll randomly yell it out. You had a marvelous time at the Utah football game a few weeks ago cheering and pointing out that the band was playing music. You were not thrilled when Utah scored a touchdown because everyone, including your very excitable mother, was cheering and screaming. You wept but a trip to the slushy stand quickly cleared away your tears and you turned out to be a quick study on using the straw/spoon to shovel the bright red ice into your mouth.

You are head over heels in love with trains and airplanes and cars, but mostly trains. Most of your obsession focuses on Thomas the Tank Engine, whom you refer to as, "Tasses," as in every morning the first word out of your mouth is, "Tasses? Tasses?" I usually insist on Sesame Street because that insipid Thomas theme music is more than I can stand at 7.00 in the morning. We have your birthday present of a train table, tracks and cars tucked away in the garage and I can hardly stand that we have to wait another month to give it to you because I am certain you are going to love it so much. I have started to dread going anywhere with a train track because the resulting temper tantrum when we have to leave is unbearable.

Two months away from this blog and there is so much more I could write about and so many things I know I am still forgetting. Funny things that you have said that I share with your father and friends but neglect to write down. Adorable moments that rise out of the frustrating ones - like the way you refuse to let me button your shirt but when I ask you if your dad can do it you reply with your breathy, "tay" (short for okay) and then stand proudly in front of your dad while he buttons and tells you that you look sharp. I feel sure that I remember everything about your little life but how could I remember every single moment of the last almost-two years? I came across an email I wrote to my sister the day after you were born telling her that you are perfect except for a tiny cut on your arm from the c-section. What? A cut on your arm from the c-section? I told your father about it and he had also no memory of the cut. I suppose this is what parenthood is - all of the tiny events that seem momentous at the time and quickly fade as presumably more important things take over. Maybe this is what this blog is then, remembering the big things but hopefully capturing a few of those small details I would never otherwise remember. But will I recall in thirty years - without this help of this blog - how much I love going in to check on you at night now? How I love smelling your warm head, straightening the blanket around you as you tuck your hands underneath your chest and smiling when sometimes you wake up just enough to sleepily say, "night" as I shut the door? I hope so.

22 and counting

2010-08-26T13:03:00.004-06:00

I have not been able to clear my head and get something written for your up and down and all around crazy 22nd month. Someday soon. But right now I cannot think of anything clever to say and unfortunately there are 80 loads of laundry to do and 15 million things to pickle and preserve in the garden and heaps of papers to file and all of these things are making it impossible for me to write something cohesive and funny and actually worth reading.

This is what you looked like a year ago. Your lack of hair and teeth make me laugh.

21 Forever. Or Not.

2010-07-21T09:52:00.001-06:00

"And then Olivia's mother gives her a kiss and says, 'you know, you really wear me out but I love you anyway.'"
-Ian Falconer
Olivia

That just about sums up this month, with each day given over to a lot of high pitched squeals, tantrums and emphatic "no's" to my questions of "do you want some milk? some juice? some water? to go outside? go inside? play with your blocks? your legos? your cars? read a book?" There has been a lot of screaming in grocery stores, a lot of total freak-outs when you don't get exactly what you want. There have not been many days when I haven't felt like throwing my hands up in the air and walking away as you stand defiantly ready to pitch your body on the ground.

So, briefly, here are your accomplishments lest you read this twenty years from now and think I only focused on the bad. You are putting words together now. It is not just Dad or guitar anymore, but "dad's guitar" and "mama's hands" and "Buddy all done" and "Nuke eat." (You are no longer Uke. You inexplicably have added an "n" to the front of your name and are "Nuke." This is probably an apt description for you.) You can pull peas out of their shells and strawberries from the vine and currants off their stems. You like watering the garden but only certain parts. If I try to direct you to water the cucumber instead of the very soggy beets you get very angry. You continue to love your books so much that the other night I went to make sure you were warm enough and found a book tangled in the blankets. You awoke the other night at 1.00 in the morning demanding your "panes book." That's "planes" to the rest of us. When I handed it to you, you clutched it to your chest and went promptly back to sleep.

After months of not going anywhere, we are on the go again. The two of us boarded a plane to California at the end of June to see your grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncle, and we were accompanied by our newest distraction - a portable DVD player gifted to me from your grandmother - something that is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I was actually able to sit and read on an airplane while you watched Caillou for the umpteeth bazillionth time. I had resigned myself to never reading another book on an airplane until you were 18, or maybe at least 12, so this was awesome. The curse is, of course, that you want to watch Caillou all the time and this leads to more tears and screaming. But for that twenty minutes of uninterrupted reading time, I will gladly deal with the fallout.

We went to a lot of parks in Sacramento, and it amazed me to see you doing all of these things you couldn't do when we visited last year. You walked to the park, slid down the slides all by yourself, rode the spring mounted horse without assistance, climbed ladders and stood in awe of the crew of workers trimming the trees in the park. We came back to Salt Lake just in time for the Fourth of July, celebrating with little poppers that explode with a loud snap when you throw them to the ground and those ash snakes that slowly emerge from small black tablets. You were fascinated by the snakes and couldn't believe we were letting you throw the poppers on the ground since we spend so much time telling you not to throw things. You did not like the regular fireworks at all.

A few weeks later we were back on the road, this time to Sun Valley where again I was astonished by your growth. Last year we took you fishing and you sat on the river bank barely crawling and eating dirt. This year you picked up every rock and stick you could find and threw it with gusto into the river. You are fascinated by water. You love watching rivers move by, streams trickle and lakes move into shore and you will throw anything you can find into moving water just to see it carried away. You also figured out how to climb out of your pack-n-play during the trip. Yeah you.

Everyone warned me that the so-called terrible twos are not so bad, that it is really the 18-24 month period that is brutal, and this is clearly the case with you. You want to do everything by yourself but still need our help for so many things. If I try to hold your hand now you wrench it away. What used to be an easy transition from waking up to watching Sesame Street has turned into a mine field if I don't offer you milk fast enough or, like the other morning, I don't give you both milk and juice at the same time. This month has challenged me like no other. I know I have written about this before but this month seemed even harder. I used to think I would let you read this blog when you were seven or eight, but now I think I might keep it from you until you have children of your own. I worry that you will read this and think that I didn't love you. I do love you, but I will admit that there are times when I don't like what you are doing one bit.

Sometimes parenting feels like the worst babysitting jobs - the ones where the kids are awful and not listening to you and throwing fish sticks at each other and you still have five hours before the parents come home. And when they do, they pay you next to nothing and forget to tip. There are times when I wish that somehow I could just stop being a parent for a few hours, not just to take a break from you but to really not be a parent. Because even if you are at school or asleep or even if I get to leave town for a day or two and leave you behind, I still worry. I worry about you getting sick or hurt and being inconsolable. I think about you needing me and not being there to make things better and that feeling never ever goes away no matter where I go or what I do. And that's not all bad, it isn't really bad at all, but it is exhausting. So this month I had to force myself over and over to take deep breaths and try to find the good moments, the moments that make being your mother worth it again.

When we were in Sun Valley we took you up to Red Fish Lake and went to the beach. It is a beautiful dark blue alpine lake ringed with tall thin pines and the spiky peaks of the Sawtooth Mountains. You were in heaven standing ankle deep in the water throwing rock after rock after rock. I think you would have stood in that crystal clean mountain lake forever if we had let you. Occasionally you would look up from your rock throwing endeavors and comment on the boats going by. Almost all of the pictures we took that afternoon are of your hat because you refused to look up from the water and the rocks. After we finally persuaded you to come out of the water, we got some dinner and you made us laugh by dipping your french fries into the ketchup and then into your ice cream. As the sun started to sink we got back in the car and I drove back to Sun Valley through the warm summer night and you and your dad mooed at the cows grazing on the side of the road. I tried to fix everything in my mind: the music playing, the way the light made everything look so green, the river rolling past and the fly fishermen in the distance casting into the evening hatch, your laughter, and knew I would remember that car ride.

20

2010-06-23T07:05:00.001-06:00

How is it nearly the end of June already? I am having a hard time believing you are only four months away from turning two. The two year old girls in your Little Gym class are actual little girls with long stretched out legs who do somersaults on their own and scale the bars with an ease I am not sure I ever possessed. I look at you, trotting gleefully on your stubby little legs running into things because you never look where you are going and swinging on bars and cannot fathom that you will be climbing those same bars in a few months.

Or maybe I can because two weeks ago I woke up to the sound of you sobbing hysterically. Usually your morning cries are more like whines so this brought me downstairs pretty quickly. I rushed into your room, looked at your crib and then saw you on the floor. Yes, you had figured out how to climb, or in this case, fall out of your crib. Major. Bummer. I was counting on you being contained in that thing until you were at least twelve or thirteen. One Facebook post, 20 helpful comments and twelve hours later, we introduced you to the idea of sleeping on your mattress on the floor. This newest change in your life yielded mixed results, much like all new things in your life. The first night you sacked out for twelve straight hours and I was elated. I should have known better because the next few nights you woke up every two to three hours and banged on your door until I came to escort you back to bed. But there are benefits too to this new routine. Now when you get into bed, I lay down beside you and sing you songs and you cuddle up with your lion and when I say good night you lift your head and blow me a kiss and say, "night." It is the sweetest thing ever and I have to force myself not to sit back down and sing you dozens more songs.

Everything is "mine" now. You point to your dad's beer and my glass of wine and say, "mine," which they most certainly are not. Trying to explain mine and yours is incredibly difficult when it is so intuitive to me and yet you don't get it at all. We spend a lot of time in grocery stores talking about mine and yours as you point to items you would like to be yours.

Another concept that I find hard to grasp now that I actually have to teach it to you is counting. You love to count and love to walk up and down the stairs (which you can do sometimes without assistance) counting each stair but always skipping from six to eight. I am not sure why you don't like seven, but you do like to holler out a triumphant, "ten!" However, as much as you are recognizing numbers and counting, you clearly don't get the concept of numbers as units of things. What makes it obvious that there are three strawberries when you could count each one as its own strawberry? Your father informs me that there are entire books on philosophy devoted to this concept so I am glad to know my brain hasn't gone to complete mush in the mundane details of your life.

Amazingly, incredibly, finally, you have learned the word, "yes." I thought it would never come and that you would continue to refuse things on principle for the rest of your life. However, you seem to have discovered that sometimes I offer you things that you might actually like so yes is a useful word and you do love to say it. The trick now is to teach you how to tack on a "please" or "ma'am" to the end of the yes. So far that is not going as well. But you continue to make your father and me laugh every day with your antics. The other night you and I were outside inspecting ants and other backyard items and you suddenly ran into the kitchen where your father was making pizzas to grill all the while demanding, "saw-ee. saw-ee." We could not figure it out until we realized you were asking for sausage and you looked triumphant when we gave you some. Other accomplishments include learning how to climb in and out of the dog door, tossing rocks into puddles of mud in the garden and throwing whatever we give you into the garbage can.

Summer - I hesitate to say this since a few weeks ago it was so cold I had to turn the heat on - has arrived and with it the farmer's market and the re-opening of the pool. You love the Farmer's Market for two reasons: the abundance of dogs you can tell us about and the trucks that the farmers use to drive their goods to the market. Seemingly overnight you have become a Boy. A month or so ago a dozen trucks could have passed you on the street and you would not have batted an eye. Now you point them out wherever we go. "Tuck! Boom!" Trash collection day is like a high holy holiday as the garbage and recycling truck circle the neighborhood endlessly.

So we go to the market and you run around pointing out the dogs and the trucks and we try not to lose you in the crowd or let you run headlong into tables of lettuce, beets, peas and dried fruit - not a lot of variety in June in Utah at the farmer's market. On Sundays, after we go to breakfast, we take you to your swim lesson at the JCC. The swim season got off to a rocky start when you started crying the moment we got in the pool the morning of your first lesson. I had this awful vision of being stuck at home all summer long as you resolutely refused to get in the pool. But I should have know your love of water would win out - I fear seeing our water bill since your favorite thing to do is play with the garden hose as I attempt to water the flowers. Within ten minutes you were splashing and playing with water toys, kicking your legs and cautiously trying to blow bubbles. Going to the pool has been another reminder of how much you have grown. Last year you could barely crawl in and out of the pool. This year you wade in fearlessly staring wide eyed at the big kids splashing and throwing themselves into the pool with reckless abandon and I can see for the first time your eagerness to grow up.

A few days ago we headed to a concert at Red Butte Gardens. Your grandfather was visiting from Kentucky and you happily sat on his lap telling him all about your Elmo sticker book for the better part of an hour. Your dad and I were amazed because you are rarely so friendly with strangers and you never stay in one place that long. After awhile you climbed into my lap and ate the parts of your dinner you wanted, discarding the rest and we listened to the opening act, which closed with a cover of Purple Rain. As I sat there holding you I suddenly remembered how I used to sing this song to you every night when you were about four months old as we waited for your dad to come home from work. I would dance you around the living room dipping you on the refrain and you would laugh and laugh.

My throat constricted listening to this cover, thinking of the first time I came to Red Butte with your dad five years ago. We had met that January and now it was June and I was studying for the bar exam and falling madly in love with your father. I remember walking through the garden that summer during concerts on my way to buy ice cream, smiling at the kids dancing and thinking that your dad was the person I wanted to build a life with. Someone to have children with and come to Red Butte with and watch our kid dance. One year later your dad and I were back at Red Butte and just married. I thought about the first night I found out I was pregnant with you and telling your dad, "now I can be one of those happy pregnant women at the Red Butte concerts," and I was. I remembered you inside me kicking through concerts and laughing and hoping you would be one of those dancing kids. Last year we took you and you crawled all over the place, not really getting that you were at a concert but enjoying an outing and staying up past your bedtime. And then my thoughts circled back to the present, sitting with you in my lap as the song played on and tears in my eyes realizing that the long ago dream of being married and creating a little family, and having a dancing kid who made other people smile as they walked by on their way to buy ice cream had all come true. This was our life now and I felt so unbelievably lucky and held you tighter and whispered, "only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain" in your ear and dipped you a little.

19 Months on the 19th! Magic Birthday!

2010-05-19T15:05:00.011-06:00

So, remember how last month I wrote about how spring had finally come and winter was over and how happy that made me? And I talked about how being in the garden with you was perfect and lovely and the culmination of so many years of waiting to hang out in the garden with my sweet kiddo? I do. It was just a few weeks ago.

Yeah, well, I lied. First of all it snowed. A lot. For days and day. Snow piled up on top of all of the flowering fruit trees that bravely put out hundreds of flowers. I have no idea if we'll get any fruit this year and I am sad about it because I couldn't wait to walk out to the front yard and pick a perfectly ripe peach for the two of us. The chances that you would take that same peach and hand it back to me with a firm, "No," are actually quite high so there goes another lovely daydream. As I write this, it is thankfully not snowing, but it is pouring rain again and I can honestly say I am elated that you are in day care today because another day cooped up in the house with you would have been the last straw.

Second of all, a few days after I wrote that post you turned back into wild child, prompting your father to quote The Onion headline, "99% of one year olds have ADD," many times a week. One moment you are cuddling with us on the couch and running to us and burying your head in our legs in the sweetest way, the next you are hanging on that same leg wailing over some unknowable frustration. I have the audacity to sing and you tell me, "No No No," unless it is bedtime when you have now started asking for a song repeatedly. We try to read you a book that you find unacceptable and you snatch it and throw it to the floor or, on your better days, put it back in your box of books and then search for exactly the right one. This process can take a long time as you pull books out and examine them as if reading the plot. (Gorilla escapes from cage. Lets other animals out or Snow falls. Child goes out to play. Has fun or Rabbit has difficult time going to sleep because a creepy rabbit in the corner is whispering hush.)

These are actual conversations with you:

Me: Do you want help getting off of the rocking horse?
You: No. Down?
Me: So you want help?
You: No.

Your Dad: Please put your shoes away in the basket
You: No (with a distinct underlying tone of, "Not in this lifetime sucker. Try and make me.")

Me: So are you done with your food?
You: Done. (Stuffs food in mouth)

Me: Did you poop? (A ridiculous question since it is obvious to anyone in a ten mile range that this has occurred)
You: No (runs away so the diaper changing chase/wrestling match can ensue)

You: Song? Song? Song? Song? while grabbing my face and moving it back and forth
Me: How about you sing me a song?
You: No

In the past month you have fallen in love with the power of the no probably because we say it to you so often. We spend all day saying: don't do that, please don't touch, we'll do that later, take that outside, now you are going inside, and NOOOO! The other day I turned my back for one minute while you were watching Sesame Street and in that minute you flipped your chair on its side, climbed it and then climbed onto the television console. When I turned around you were kneeling on top of the table gleefully playing with the remote. Of course I told you to get down immediately but I was kind of proud of your bravery too. I didn't tell you that part.

There have been some great moments tucked in between the tantrums and whining. You are counting everything now, at least up to the number eight. You are recognizing more and more letters and have added so many words to your vocabulary that I cannot remember them all, although I think my favorite is "mulk" for "milk." You will repeat words when asked, the cutest being "I love you," which comes out more like I woh oo. And you are starting to learn the correct words for the situation at hand. Last night you dripped milk on your bare toes and you looked up at us and said, "Ohh no," in this very sad mournful little voice. Your dad and I just lost it laughing it was so damned cute. Then you looked enormously pleased that you had made us laugh.

All of this talking has really stemmed from the fact you got tubes in your ears this month and that has been, on the whole, a very good thing. You started getting ear infections about seven months ago and once you had your first, you just kept on getting them. Every month found us at the doctor's or the urgent care with the doctor trying to look into your ears as you screamed and she would sigh and say, "Yes, those ears looks bad," and we'd start off on another round of antibiotics. Four ear infections in a year period is usually a red flag that something is amiss in a kid's ear, but six in six months put us on the fast track to ear tubes after the specialist took one look at your latest double ear infection and agreed that tubes were a really good idea.

And so the surgery date was set and I didn't give it another thought until the night before when the terror of you having surgery crashed around me. I could not get the image of you going under out of my head. I could only picture you alone and scared. I wished with all my might that you were older so I could at least explain what was going on, but you are so little and even though you can point out elephants and lions and geese and make an awesome honking noise for a goose you were not going to get what was going on. My heart just broke and I could not stop crying thinking about it. And so I got it right then. I got that doing anything for your kid idea. I got that I could lay down my life for you and not give it a second thought. I got that I would move mountains, toss cars aside or wrestle large animals for you just to keep you from getting hurt.

Of course, after all that the surgery was easy as pie. They gave you a tranquilizer and you got really loopy and I wished, like a terrible mother, that I could get a few of those tranquilizers to give to you on days when you will not sit still for one second. Then they put you in a little wagon and took you off to surgery and 25 minutes later you were done and awake and really mad because I couldn't get you your milk fast enough. But what is most amazing is the change in you. You were talking some before but now you repeat words or try new words all the time. You chatter about five times as much as you use to and it's not like you weren't a chatterbox to begin with.

Every night now when I get you out of the bath I wrap you up in a towel and take you downstairs and I ask you what the dragon says and you let our these fabulous roars. It is unlike any of your other animal sounds and it makes me laugh every time. I love that we have funny parts to our routine because the sameness of everyday is sometimes more than I can bear: the monotony of the five bazillionth diaper change, the boredom of making you scrambled eggs again, the endless fights over brushing your teeth, the days of block building and book reading and crayon coloring stretch on and on and I admit to myself that parenting is sometimes incredibly boring. But when you do these unexpected things like running to me when I pick you up from day care yelling, "mama! mama!" or briefly lying down with me on the couch, your little body relaxed for just a few seconds, it makes it all worthwhile. I read the best post on Design Mom about being a mother the other day and the author, Kristen Frantz, managed to describe motherhood so perfectly that I cried. I wanted to write something like that to you this month in honor of Mother's Day (which was awesome because I got a hand colored card from you,) but I couldn't find the right words so I am glad she could say it for me.

"What can I expect from becoming a mother? Disappointment. Frustration. Surprise. Joy. Love. Love. Love. Do I have what it takes? Sometimes yes, so much so that you will astound yourself. And sometimes no, this job will ask for more than you can give. What does it cost? All of you. And you will never regret it."

I never regret you. Even when you make that face.

You can vote! Oh, wait, that's 18 years old.

2010-04-20T11:28:00.000-06:00

Are you really a year and half old? I like these milestone dates because it makes you seem more like a kid than a baby and it is easier to tell someone you are a year and a half old rather than 16 and 3/4 months or 82 bazillion weeks old. And now that you are eighteen months old you are officially smarter than a chimpanzee. I read in some book that until kids are eighteen months old they are basically the intellectual equivalent of a chimpanzee. Let's hope you go up from here.

I will admit though that you have learned so much in the last month. You are pointing out numbers and letters and delight in saying, "O," "eight" and "six" especially. The other day you finally started saying your name, "uke." You do not seem to know how to deal with the letter L as you leave it out of almost every word that requires it. You surprise me all the time by saying words I didn't know you knew. Today it was "airplane." You will now put your shoes away when asked and look delighted as you set the shoes just so in the basket. It is beyond adorable. You are learning how to feed Buddy dinner and absolutely love to take the cup of food and dump it into his bowl. You also immediately sit next to his food bowl when I ask Buddy to sit, which never fails to crack me up. I can honestly say the we did not set out to have a kid so we could have someone to do all the menial chores around the house but I can also tell you that as soon as you are tall enough to take out the trash and rinse the dishes, hot damn, we will be in business.

Your bedtime routine has become so much more fun since we moved you downstairs and you have a playroom outside of your bedroom. Your dad comes home and you immediately race to the bottom of the stairs, look up at him and say, "Dah! Dah!" Your dad and I sip our well deserved glasses of wine and you run around entertaining us. Some nights you and your dad throw the basketball into your little basketball hoop and with every shot you make you yell as if you are in some kind of slam dunk contest. Other nights you attempt to climb onto one of the chairs with accompanying grunts of, "ooo," as you struggle with all your might to swing your legs onto the seat of the chair. Your smile when you make it is one of pure triumph along with a look of, "where can I go from here?" You also love to pretend to push us over. We sit on the floor and you come rushing up, stop short a few inches in front of us, pause dramatically and smile and then throw yourself into our arms. As soon as we fall over, you roll out of our arms and then immediately pull our shoulders up to sit up and start all over again. You are becoming very dictotorial about what you want us to do whether it is to sit in a chair, stop singing or dancing (I like to call you the Baptist preacher as you emphatically admonish me, "No! No! No!" when I try to sing to you) or to stand in a certain place.

The best thing that has happened this month is that spring is finally here. Even Easter wasn't immune to this long dragged out winter as we woke up on Easter morning to a couple of inches of snow on the ground. Thankfully, it all melted before our egg hunt with your friends in the afternoon. All of you were bundled up - the little girls' adorable dresses covered by equally adorable spring coats - and the grownups shivered and marveled at all of you running around collecting eggs. A year ago most of you were barely crawling and to see the change was nothing short of mind blowing. I don't think I even mentioned Easter last year because I was so exhausted by the six month old you but this year I couldn't imagine not getting a little basket for you. Watching your dad help you hunt for eggs made me tear up because I used to think Easter was a pretty fun holiday with adults but it was about a thousand times more fun with you.

Three days a week I drive you to day care so you can spend the day running around and playing and I can spend the day running around doing errands and enjoy leaving all the baby gates open so I can walk through the house freely. The street we take is lined with trees that for the past six months have been bare of leaves and the lawns have been covered in snow and slush and are generally quite brown and sad. Two weeks ago the forsythia started the show and made bright splashes of yellow against the brick houses and fences and then the other morning, seemingly overnight, the trees exploded into bloom. I was afraid last week's snow storm would knock those fragile buds off the trees but these Utah trees know what they are doing. Watching spring come is one of my favorite activities and this year it is all the more joyous because you so love being outside. When I mention we are headed outside you immediately rush to the backdoor and yell, "side. side. side" Once I help you down the steps you squeal and head off to look at the birds in the snowball bush that now sing all day long and then you yell something that sounds like, "chalk" and grab the chalk and start very efficiently marking the garage door, the garbage cans, the chair and my car when my back is turned.

In the spring your dad and I spend a lot of time just walking around the garden assessing what to grow and what we have to do. We peer into the ground to see if the asparagus is coming up, watching for signs of life on the branches of the raspberries, greedily looking forward to the day that we can get all the tomato plants in. Last year was so much harder because you were six months old, not mobile and got really angry and irritated if we left you alone in your pack n' play in the middle of the yard for too long. Now you toddle across the yard as fast as you can so you can get into the garden and play your favorite game of picking up rocks and tossing them through the fence. I also introduced you the other day to your sweatshirt pockets, which you had apparently never noticed and you discovered how much fun it is to put rocks in your pockets. When I brought you inside later I found approximately ten rocks stuffed into your pockets. All I ask is that I never find any living creatures.

The other evening we walked out to the garden and you stood in front of the chives - the only thing that is growing right now - and pulled the tips off and pretended to eat them. You spotted an airplane and pointed it out to me and then immediately started waving goodbye to the airplane. You like saying goodbye to things and people although if asked to wave goodbye you will think about it for about 30 seconds and look at your hand as if it is supposed to wave by itself independent of any action you might take. After tasting a few more chives you walked over to me where I was sitting on one of the raised vegetable beds and climbed into my lap and we sat like that for a little while in the warm spring evening in the sunshine. You chatted softly about this and that and I smelled the newly thawed dirt and your sweet little neck and birds sang somewhere and dogs barked and the neighborhood kids yelled a block away. I am so glad winter is over.

Well hello 17.

2010-03-19T13:49:00.000-06:00

Whew, deep breath.

Kiddo, in the last month our good friend and neighbor, whom you know as Marlo's mom and someday when you are talking will know as "Mrs. Armstrong" as in "yes ma'am, no ma'am, thank you ma'am. Can I get you another gin and tonic ma'am?" happened to link to out little site. She's got a wee little following of her own and holy moses kiddo. Let's just say a lot of people have seen your picture in the last few weeks. So I'm a little stressed about this month's post. And I might have lost a lot of sleep over it while I tried to pretend that we didn't have thirteen whole followers and eighteen comments. But we are glad they are here. I might have also lost that sleep because I had to re-ferberize you out of wanting some milk in the middle of the night. I had forgotten how stubborn you can be when you really want something because the first night you cried from 12.30 until 4.30 in the morning. It also happened to be the night of daylight savings so I can tell you first hand that nothing interesting happens at 2.00 in the morning on daylight saving's night. Nothing.

But you are oblivious to these external changes and these months are starting to meld together in that there is a sameness to a lot of days with little breaks of excitement when you do something new. For example. you will now hold up your index finger when I ask you how old you are and say something akin to, "one." I know you still have a bunch of growth spurts and developmental steps ahead but now that you've hit the big one - walking and you are slowly starting to talk the little things don't seem as big. But of course they are to you. The fact that you can say apple and point to the banana and say "Bah!" on every single page of Goodnight Gorilla is, of course, a huge deal. You are thrilled with this new word apple and I don't think I ever knew that it showed up in so many places. You will be watching Sesame Street or Caillou while I rush around doing the dishes and suddenly you will yell, "App!" and point to the screen and then repeat it over and over. And just last night you leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. A real kiss with pursed lips and a little smack. I thought it was specially for me until you also kissed the laundry detergent bottle this morning.

You are learning to press your parents' limits. We have forbidden you to play with the fireplace because you have nearly succeeded in pulling the cover off of the fireplace. We don't like that brass cover either so maybe you are just sending us a message to redecorate already. But now you sidle up to the fireplace and when we say, "Luke. No." in our most impressive low parent voices you simply place your finger on the fireplace and then slowly smile at us. The smile says it all, "I'm not playing with it, I'm just touching it. You didn't say I couldn't simply touch it." How is it that you are splitting hairs at seventeen months? It reminds me of the part in The House on Plum Creek when Laura and Mary roll in the haystacks after their Pa said they couldn't jump off the haystacks.

Those are the funny moments. The not so funny moments are when you throw all your food on the floor while looking me in the eye and laugh. And then I get you out of your high chair and you proceed pick up the food you just dropped on the floor and throw it over the baby gate. Those are the times when it is all I can do not to start screaming not because you haven't eaten - I'm getting used to your hunger strikes - but because it seems so disrespectful. I know you don't really get that I breaded those chicken strips and then fried them to perfection just for you. This is too much to ask of you, I suppose, but you clearly get that you are doing something wrong and you are getting pleasure out of making me want to cry. Those are moments when I do not like being a parent. And you won't get that until you are a parent.

In school you have moved up from the baby's Honey Bee room where you were clearly the biggest kid on the block - as evidenced by your class picture populated by seven babies and then you, lounging in the middle of the group looking very cool and grown up. In the toddler's Tator Tot room you eat your snacks at a little table with all the other one year olds and take your nap on a cot. I am not sure I can conjure up anything more completely adorable than you sleeping on a cot. I keep asking your teachers to take a picture of this phenomenon because I cannot wrap my head around the fact that you sleep somewhere without bars and you don't just get up and walk around the room.

Now that you are with bigger kids you are coming home with more battle scars. The other week you came home with a cut under your eye that made you look very badass. Apparently some kid scratched you when you took his toy. I tried to find some sympathy for you but honestly, you took the kid's toy and you shouldn't have done that. It is a funny thing having a boy. There is this part of me that wants to protect you from everything, even from yourself, as you attempt to go down the stairs without me or try to crawl through the dog door but then I think maybe you have to learn how to stand up for yourself. Would feel the same way if I had a girl? And then I wonder sometimes if I don't protect you enough. Are you scared at play group sometimes because some kid has tried to pull your hair? I hope not.

Your other big news is that we moved you downstairs into your new room; the room that you will most likely occupy until you leave for college. It is bigger than your old room and I think you like the space because you spend a lot of time running around it. I was a little bit worried that we might have missed the window for you to transition to a new space and that we would have to wait until you were thirteen but you fell asleep that first night in your new room without missing a beat. So now your father and I have the entire upstairs to ourselves again in the evenings and let me tell you, it's a little strange. I didn't think I would miss your presence, your little sleeping presence just across the hallway, but I do. I have this overwhelming urge to go and check on you in the evenings because you seem so far away.

This last week has been really difficult. Your dad has been in Hawaii for work all week and it's been just the two of us. You are growing four new teeth at the same time, are on the brink of another ear infection and have generally been in a contrary mood. You even had a breakdown at Little Gym, which never happens. This has been more than a little challenging for me, someone who often times has very little patience with motherhood as it is. I've really had to look hard to find the good and charming things about you. I drive around with Kanye West's Stronger on repeat even though most of the lyrics are not an anthem to parenthood. However, "that what don't kill me will only make me stronger," strikes a chord when you throw your fifteenth tantrum of the day.

I know this sounds terrible, but it's true. There is this wonderful video online about being a mom and there is a line that says, "Motherhood . . . it's the best there is, and sometimes it's the worst." The whole video makes me cry every time but that line runs through my head many times a day because it is so true. Raising you has been the hardest thing I have ever tackled in my life. So I wake up everyday mustering my wits and I keep coming back to something you recently started doing when I get you dressed in the mornings. After I have wrestled you into a diaper, pulled a shirt over your head and managed to get some pants on you, I stand you up and you wrap your little arms around my arm to balance as I put your shoes on. It is such a tiny brief moment in the day but it never fails to make me smile; those tiny skinny arms wrapped around mine. It gives me the strength to go on and tackle everything else.

You are Sixteen Months Going on No.

2010-02-05T11:09:00.016-07:00

Another month. Another few milestones. Another few moments of soul aching loveliness. Another few reasons to burrow my head in the pillow and scream in frustration.

You have unfortunately discovered the word no and consequently you say no to everything; even things you actually like. Even when your dad and I nod our heads and enthusiastically say, "Yes!" you shake your head right back and say, "No!" But it's more like, "Ney," with a twist of whine thrown in for good measure. I grit my teeth and try to be zen about the fact I have years of this in front of me although the no's are not nearly as frustrating as the collapse to the ground move you make when you don't want to go somewhere. I have watched this maneuver for years in other kids and dreaded its appearance because there is nothing more fun than gathering up a heavy writhing mass of toddler who doesn't want to go somewhere.

The weather around here has been unseasonably, unsettling, warm. The tulips have been working their way out of the ground for weeks. I would love nothing more than to wake up to find a foot or two of snow on the ground but you are still in love with the driveway and all of the delights it offers so I've made an uneasy peace with forty degree weather in February. I bought a kid's snow shovel for the non existent snow and for a few weeks you would carry this shovel everywhere. A friend joked that while I fretted you didn't have a special blanket or stuffed animal you had instead bonded with a plastic snow shovel.

The shovel also accompanied us on walks around the neighborhood. This phrase, "walks around the neighborhood" sounds much more impressive than the reality. Your idea of a walk is to stop every three steps to examine a blade of grass, pick up a stick, pat the fire hydrant or shove a rock in your mouth. Our walks are accompanied by a relentless barrage of "et's dat?" "et's dat?" "et's dat?" and I describe telephone wires, houses, driveways and fences to you. It is tiring but I feel so guilty if I don't tell you for the hundredth time that that object you are so curious about is a tree and that a tree grows branches. But every once and while you put your hand in mine and we stroll down the street together and those are moments that you imagine all of parenthood will be like. As a parent I know now that 98% of parenting is nothing like you expected but that 2% makes all those no's and tirades over nothing worth it. To feel your hand gripping mine as we walk down the sidewalk is even more endearing than those first times you squeezed my finger when you were an infant.

You are really into animal sounds now having added cow, horse (hey!) monkey, and sheep (always a whispered baa) to your list of sounds. This past week after a trip to the zoo you also learned elephant (a loud screech) and lion/tiger/bear/any loud animal (a near silent roar.) You love to ride your rocking horse and slap your stomach for giddyup. You also rub your belly instead of your chest for "please," which is hilarious and incredibly endearing. You figured out that I let you do some things if you ask nicely so you use it for everything - getting me to open a door, asking me to let you out of the supermarket shopping cart and reading you another book. When I finish reading the book you immediately make the sign for more. This just about kills me seeing you carefully touching your fingers together making a sign I started signing to you when you were about six months old. I honestly never thought you were ever going to get it.

For as much as you are always on the go, you love to lounge. We got a kid's chair for you to sit in when you watch Sesame Street and I think you love having a chair of your own. As bedtime approaches you start throwing yourself on blankets and pillows and against my shoulder sighing and smiling and pretending to sleep but as soon as we ask you if you are going to sleep on the floor you pop right up ready to read another book or throw another little person down into your Fisher Price castle dungeon. Your dad thinks it is funny that there is no right of due process in Fisher Price land.

All of these seem like large accomplishments but the largest and the one that came with the most drama was giving up your bottle. OK, I have to admit that you still get a bottle at 5.00 in the morning, which is the only way you sleep past 6.30. But you gave up your pacifier over a year ago and you haven't, as I mentioned above, really bonded with anything like a blanket or animal (despite my best efforts to make you love your lion) and unless you were way down the tantrum path there was nothing that a bottle couldn't make better. But you are getting ready to move into the Tater Tot room at school and apparently you cannot have a bottle there so we embarked on this journey, which took weeks and weeks. And weeks. And a lot of deep breaths. And wine.

My first attempts to get you to drink out of the tilty cup were enough to make me okay with you moving off to college with a bottle clamped firmly in your teeth because you lay on the floor and screamed for 20 minutes straight. Props for endurance. But then I started to notice you would not put up a fight of any kind if I simply handed you the cup while you were watching Sesame Street. Yes, I am probably contributing towards your obesity and sheer laziness when you are 15 but it worked. There are plenty of times when I put the cup on the floor and you literally spin around so you sit with your back to it and then every time you sneak a peek to see if it is still there you let out a howl of protest but I just ignore you and walk into the other room. And then I hear you pick up the cup and slurp away. Victory.

So you don't take a bottle anymore when you go to bed at night, which means that after we have gone through our ritual of a bath, pajamas, tooth brushing, book reading, kissing dad good night and waving goodbye to Buddy, we go into your room and turn off the light and turn on your ocean wave sounds and I put you on my lap to sit for a bit before I put you in your crib. Some nights you wiggle around and cry a little and it takes a long time before you find a comfortable position and then I rub your back for awhile and whisper, "I love love love you," in your ear. Other nights you just lean against me and it's the leaning nights I love best of all. I'm not going to lie to you. I thought I really loved you when you were born. And I thought that I loved you even more as you grew and started smiling at us and even started crawling towards us or saying Mama or Dada. But it is when you lean against me at night as you are falling asleep that I cannot quantify my love for you. My head swims and my heart swells and I marvel for the millionth time that you are this imperfect and yet, perfect, little person and you are ours.

p.s. You are famous. Sort of.

Fifteen

2010-01-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I should be in a better mood as I write this since it is 5.30 in the morning and you have reverted, once again, to waking up at 3.45 in the morning demanding a bottle. I was too tired this morning to let you cry it out and instead gave in. And gave in again at 4.30 when you were up again cheerily greeting me with an uh-oh as I searched in the dark for your bottle. I think of you as a fairly good sleeper but these constantly changing wake ups drive me crazy.

Let's move onto other topics shall we? You are 15 months old and in the last week or so you seem to have put your temper tantrums on hold, if only temporarily. Sure there are a few meltdowns everyday but you seem somewhat happier. You climb on everything. You are so close to being able to climb on the couch by yourself; a prospect that dismays me to no end. You throw your hands up to signal a touchdown no matter what sport we are watching on television. And when you take a swig from your sippy cup you exhale with a soft "Haaa," instead of a resounding "Ahhhh." It is absolutely hilarious and you do it over and over to make your dad and me laugh. You are so annoying sometimes but so much more of a little person and engaging than you were just a few months ago that it makes you a lot more fun to be around.

Your newest love is walking up and down the driveway. This delights you to no end. I drive the car up to the garage and get you out of your carseat and set you on the ground. You get so excited that you stamp your feet and laugh hysterically and then you head over to the very dirty snow and proceed to eat it. Or you inspect some ice. Or you watch the water coming out of the drain pipe. I will walk down the driveway and look back and you look so tiny dwarfed by the car and the garbage cans and the house. Inside the house you fill up your spaces but outside I can see you for your actual size in the world and you are so little it startles me and twists my heart.

Christmas was a whirlwind of activity. Your aunt Emelie and uncle Isaiah and cousins Avery and Birch all drove from California through the night to get here at 7.00 in the morning. It was so exciting to answer the door and find them all on the doorstep. The house also filled up with your grandparents and your Aunt Anne and Uncle Tommy and resembled a three ring circus for a few days as you all played with your new toys and went sledding. You absolutely loved sledding and in the days since our first attempts you have gotten better and better at sitting on the sled and not falling over as we pull you around. I think that might be your favorite part of the endeavor. Your father and I got you a bike for Christmas, which you seem to like, but you like eating snow even more so going down the block is a slow business as you stop every foot or so to swing your leg over the bicycle seat and get some more snow to shove in your mouth.

We made another trip to the ER this month after you cut your eyebrow open on a cabinet handle. This trip was not nearly as awful as last year's. For one, the injury wasn't as bad. You were laughing and charming all the nurses by the time we got to the ER and for two, I think your dad and I are getting a little better at this parenting deal and able to take things in stride a little better. Yeah us! Thankfully no stitches were needed. Or rather the doctor told us if we cared about a scar we could get stitches but if we didn't they could just clean out the cut. We chose option B and headed home. I hope you won't hold that against us years from now.

You continue to be a chatterbox. I will pick you up from day care and be told that you spent the entire day saying, "hot." You also say hat, head, bye, ball (more like bahl, which is also your word for bottle) and make little animal sounds when prompted. What does the chicken say? Bah-bah-bah. It is so cute. You also make b sounds when prompted by Sesame Street, which makes me feel better about plopping you down in front of the television for an hour every day. When I read you Good Night Moon, you put your finger to your lips and say, "shhhhhh" pages before I get to the old lady whispering hush. Sadly, your concept of shushing doesn't extend to actually being quiet when I ask you to pipe down in the grocery store.

When you get hurt you refuse to be held. This is frustrating for me because I just want to make you feel better but I can understand it. When I get hurt I get really mad and don't want to talk to anyone either. But when you aren't angry or hurt about something you are getting so much more affectionate. If I lie down on the floor you immediately come over and pull up my shirt and blow raspberries on my back. You are very business like about it and it is so funny. You come walking over periodically as we are playing on the floor to fall into my arms and give me a kiss or a hug. When your dad comes home at night you get so excited that you toddle down the hall as fast as you can to find him. He bends down and stretches out his arms and you walk over arms outstretched to give him a hug. Then you back up a few feet, stamp your feet in excitement and run in for another hug. And another and another. It just kills me.

14-are all teens this hard?

2009-12-18T06:53:00.000-07:00

A year ago you were just a teeny tiny two month old and now look at you. Actually, you were not so teeny at two months. Back then you were still in the 80th percentile or so for weight and now you are hovering around the 25th percentile. You have stretched out and you have these small legs with perfect little calf muscle that are so strong. The only part of you that is very big is your belly and that's only after you've eaten and it is quite rotund and quite hilarious.

You can now point to your belly when we ask you, "Luke, where is your belly?" You pat your stomach and rub it carefully and proudly, like a satisfied eater. Then we ask you were your nose is and you always point to our noses instead. And last night you correctly identified your feet. It is so exciting and sweet to see you actually putting words to objects. Some days you don't say mama at all and other days it's mamamamamama and nuhnuhnuhnuh, which seems to be your word for pay attention to me or I'm irritated about something. I can sometimes feel your pain but I have to be honest and say it's incredibly annoying too. Being at the grocery store with you writhing around in the shopping cart whining nuhnuhnuhnuh makes me want to tear my hair out. Patience is not a virtue that your mother possesses.

You also don't let us read you books anymore. You want to do this on your own. I will start reading a book and you will yank it out of my hands and immediately start turning the pages, studying the pictures and babbling to yourself. I treasure the rare occasion when you stand next to me, hand on my arm, supervising as I read a book to you and recall when you were just a teeny tiny baby and I used to put you on the floor on a blanket and read Lord of the Rings to you and you wouldn't protest at all.

You are walking about 90% of the time. The only time you crawl is after you've fallen and need a walk to climb up so you can resume walking around. But even that is coming to an end as you are learning how to stand all by yourself from a sitting position. You love to walk from the living room to the kitchen to your room and back. I only wish it was summertime so you could walk around the back yard because I think you get bored with your walking circuit. But no matter, you are walking! It's so amazing to see. I was sitting at Little Gym the other day with your friend Claire's mother and we both marveled to see all of these little kids walking around like little people. I can clearly remember when you and your friends were barely moving around the big red mat just learning how to crawl and now you are all moving in a hundred different directions.

You have spent a good part of this month growing some new teeth, which has been a real struggle for all of us. Your teething combined with your ever growing frustration with all the things you cannot figure out yet plus all the things I won't let you do is sometimes more than I can handle. There have been lots of blocks, Legos, Fisher Price little people, books and other toys thrown in outrage. Lots of back arching, wailing and rolling away during diaper changes. Sometimes I just have to walk away because I don't know how to deal with your temper tantrums and other times I feel compelled to pick you up and hold you because it has to be really difficult to be 14 months old and on the cusp of so many things. It must be hard to be able to wave and say buh bye but not be able to fit Legos together. There are so many things I wish I could help you with but you have to figure them out on your own.

The holidays are coming and Christmas is just a few days away as I finalize the post. Last year you were still so little that Christmas with you didn't feel like as big a deal. It was sweet but you really weren't doing much. But you are so much more grown up this year and so much more a little person that everything feels so much more Christmassy and I feel like sometimes I can barely stand the sweetness of it. I have faltered singing Christmas songs to you in the car and nearly started to cry picking up your first bike the other day. Your very first bike that will be waiting for you on Christmas morning under the tree. I hope you love it. I hope you love all these traditions we are starting to create with you. I hope that you'll love It's A Wonderful Life as much as your father and I do. I know that someday you'll roll your eyes at having to go pick out a Christmas tree with your parents but I'll remember this year when we went to the tree lot and you walked around in your snow boots and your bear hat and sat on the ground trying to eat peanut shells and looked at all the trees surrounding you. And I'll remember going to your first Christmas program and seeing you on stage in a little angel costume staring at all the bigger kids singing Christmas carols. I'll remember standing there smiling and laughing at the sheer cuteness of it all surrounded by parents with cameras and video cameras and feeling so fully like a parent. Those are memories of Christmas I hope I'll remember for a long, long time.

13. Enough said.

2009-11-07T12:51:00.009-07:00

Your first birthday seems like it was two years ago instead of just one month ago. Time felt like it contracted and slowed down to the speed of caramel dripping in the last month. Maybe it is because we have been through so many crazy weather patterns that it doesn't feel like a mere month has gone by - snow then beautiful Indian summer days then frost warnings then warm again. Fall has finally come and gone but did so with the most gorgeous display of leaves I've seen in years.

You seemed to sense you turned one and decided that a few days after your birthday you would announce with great fanfare the arrival of the Temper Tantrum. Sure you could be fussy and whiny and twisty when annoyed but you have now taken your temper tantrums to a whole new level. These entail throwing yourself on the ground at the slightest provocation and screaming your head off or crying hysterically. They extend into the middle of the night when you wake up mad as hell that you aren't getting the bottle you think you need and you throw yourself around the crib like a fish out of water wacking your head against the rails and giving yourself little bruises. These tantrums are sometimes amusing but a lot of the time frustrating and distressing for your parents. What happened to our relatively sweet tempered happy child? Many many discussions and emails with other parents later, we have figured it out: you are one and there is nothing we can do about it.

But the month hasn't been all bad, in spite of the fact you decided to wake up nearly every other night around 1.00 or 1.30 or 2.00 and cry for hours on end. (We finally invested in some ear plugs and great god they are awesome - you will read this someday and be appalled that we wore ear plugs so we didn't have to listen to you but you will also have a child of your own someday and then realize why we did it.)

We dressed you up as a little polar bear for Halloween and you looked unbelievably adorable. We all stayed home and watched the Utah game and handed out candy, which is my favorite part of Halloween. It was a much better Halloween than last year when you were still screaming through the night. The downside to Halloween was that it signaled the end of daylight savings and we gained an hour. My whole life I have enjoyed this additional hour and now it's ruined. I think every single one of my parent friends agreed with this assessment because Facebook was filled with status messages like "So and So hates daylights savings." "So and So has been up since 5.00 am and I am going to die." The extra hour was brutal for everyone. You were up at 7.00 but it felt like 6.00 to us. You took a horrible nap and woke up at 12.30. This meant we had seven hours until you went to bed, which felt like 7 million hours. In desperation we went to the Zoo at 3.00 in the afternoon and rode the train for the first time. You absolutely loved it and laughed hysterically the entire ride.

But the biggest news is that you are walking. When I started writing this post this afternoon you had taken five steps at Little Gym that morning, your highest total to date. Until today you still cruised around the edges of everything and lunging forward to the next stable object to grab onto. But in the last few days, you had started to cautiously step out into the ether where there was nothing to grab onto. But you got up from your nap and Claire and Abby and Gwen and Chloe and their moms came over to kill a few hours and you actually walked. You took about ten definite steps with about half of them this adorable side step. Valerie and Amy and I all cheered and clapped and it seemed sweet that they were to see you achieve this huge milestone because they've known you since before you were crawling. And then after they left you tried out walking again. And again when your dad got home and we cheered some more. You look more and more pleased with yourself as your worry about falling seems to fading rapidly.

So I am trying to really fix in my mind how adorable you are when you crawl because you won't do it for much longer. You have been a champion crawler since the day you finally figured it out. You are so fast that sometimes you trip over your hands in your haste to get somewhere and your little bottom swings back and forth and when you are excited you laugh hysterically as you crawl towards something you want.

Thanksgiving is a few days away and last week at Little Gym your teacher asked us to tell everyone what we were thankful for about our kiddos. I was first and so I blurted out how thankful I was for all the ways you have changed my life for the better. But your dad and I are thankful for so many other things about you. We are thankful for your wonderful laugh and your smiles when we play with you. We are so glad you are healthy most of the time and seem like a pretty happy kid. We are thankful for the big kisses you give dad when you go to bed at night, for the hilarious things you do like wiggling into our laps when we read to you. We are thankful for you making us into a family. Everything seems sweeter and more poignant and more achingly joyous this year with you in our lives.

One Year. 365 days. 12 Months.

2009-10-20T15:59:00.012-06:00

No matter how you spin it we now have a one year old. You, our little bear, are one year old and oh how our lives have changed in a year. I used to drive around and hardly ever glanced in my rear view mirror - I'm really more of a side mirror kind of girl. I used to use salad spinners for their intended purpose, along with strainers, wisks, kitchen bowls and tupperware containers. Empty gatorade containers, egg crates and toilet paper rolls just went into the recycling. I used to walk from room to room without a thought in the world about shutting a gate behind me and used to walk up stairs without viewing them as a) dangerous or b) a way to kill time letting you climb them. I used to leave papers and remote controls on the edge of tables and never thought about the contents of a kitchen drawer.

No more.

However, in return for all of these sacrifices and so much more, we have you. Luke, you are the best kid. Sure you still don't sleep through the night on a consistent basis and you have started throwing the most hilarious temper tantrums when we dare to take anything away from you. (Just for the record: you go from sitting to throwing your face to the floor and sliding your legs out and moaning and crying for a minute or two before you realize that we are not going to give whatever we took away from you.) But beyond those minor/major irritations you are a funny, sweet, adorable, wonderful little boy.

You babble all. the. time. You talk through books, while you are playing, in the car, while you are eating, watching television, sometimes when we are drifting off to sleep and it is so cute. You still won't name animals when I ask you what a cow says but you do say "uh oh" when you drop things and at other random times that don't usually call for an "uh oh." You also seem to be getting the idea that we actually have names - mama and dada and you sometimes identify us correctly.

You are getting closer and closer to walking, cruising along the sides of everything - couches, chairs, cabinets, the fridge, your toy boxes, your crib, the wall and anything else that will hold you up. You have started to briefly let go of your supports and sometimes stand on your own for thirty or so seconds before you realize you are standing, dislike the sensation and sit down and crawl away.

This month you also got really sick. This was far worse than any cold you've had and we finally figured out that you had a double ear infection but not before your temperature soared to 102, you threw up all over me (an experience I had been dreading but found far more miserable for you than for me) and you spent three sleepless nights crying and fretting and worrying your parents to no end. We spent a lot of time on the couch watching Sesame Street because the television seemed to be the only thing that would calm you down. You would just sit and lean your overheating little body against us. After a week of feeling miserable and missing day care, Little Gym and playgroup you seemed to be on the mend. It was a long week.

But thankfully you got better in time to make a quick trip to Moab with us for our friend Megan's wedding. It was held along the banks of the Colorado River in the morning and you had a blast playing in the sand. You crawled all over kicking up clouds of sand in your wake leaning your head down sometimes to lick the sand much to our chagrin. In the evening we went to the reception where you sported your cousin Avery's seersucker suit. It warmed my preppy heart. After dinner the three of us danced on the dance floor under the stars, your dad and I holding you close and you threw your head back and laughed and wiggled trying to dance your own little baby dance.

A week later we celebrated your birthday with a lot of people. I invited nearly 40 people never thinking that everyone would come. They did, which I guess is a tribute to what an awesome kid you are. Thankfully it was a gorgeous fall day and we all sat outside and ate the amazing food your dad made and we laughed as you ate your birthday cupcake and I looked around the backyard and it was full of people who were all there to celebrate you. I often think of the four of us: you, your dad, Buddy and me as this small, but perfect, little family. But in reality our circle is so much bigger and all those people sitting in the backyard on that perfect October afternoon were a reflection of how much you have brought to us, your father and me. We love you so much and cannot wait to see what the next months and years bring.

11! 11!

2009-09-17T07:10:00.004-06:00

The house is very quiet except for the hum of the dehydrator, which runs day and night now drying out all the peppers your dad grew this summer. It is quiet because you started day care a few weeks ago and seem to be loving it. I was quite weepy the first day I dropped you off, which surprised me considering how excited I was to have some time to myself. But I dropped you off fearing the worst, hovering on the edge of the room waiting to see you start to cry and it never happened. I should have known better. So I told you I loved you and headed back out to the car where Buddy was waiting. He accompanies us to and from day care and you start laughing every time I carry you out to the car and you see him sitting patiently in the front seat waiting for us to go home. But I sat in the car that day and cried. And then I went home and my ears rang in the silence.

But you seem to, by all accounts, love day care. When we walk in all of the teachers say, "Hi Lukey!" in their soft lilting Spanish accents and you smile at everyone. When I pick you up in the afternoon - and discover yet again that you have failed to nap or taken another 45 minute nap in the span of seven hours - you come crawling across the floor towards me as fast as you possibly can laughing and gasping to tell me all about your day. I can hardly wait for the day when you can actually tell me about it. I suppose by then you will not be nearly as excited and your answers will be more like, "Nothing," "I don't know," and "Maybe."

It is the first day of fall here so I am a few days late on getting this post up. The air turned cool on Monday and the leaves are turning in the mountains. I remember how fall came while I was in the hospital having you last year and now here we are staring down the last month until your birthday. In the meantime, we have many other birthdays to attend since it seems that all of your friends in play group and Little Gym were born within a week of one another, with a few outliers in August and then of course you, bringing up the rear as the baby of the group.

In the spirit of fall, we have taught you how to throw your hands up in the air when we yell, "Touchdown!" It is one of the first things we have attempted to teach you that you have actually done. So much of your learning comes from you going at it alone. You have figured out how to roll over, crawl, stand up, side step along the side of the couch, pull all of your books out of their boxes, throw your food on the floor and pull it out of your mouth, climb the stairs, push your walker, pull the night light out of the wall, slip your arm through a sleeve (the cutest thing in the world), pull wipe after wipe out of the dispenser, and hold your bottle all by yourself. But this is something we taught you and it clearly delights you to see us laugh so we are hoping you will thrown your arms in the air when we go to the Utah football game this Saturday and not cry when an entire stadium roars.

You and I headed to California again at the end of August when your dad left for his long-awaited and much-anticipated trip to Alaska to fish. Someday he will tell you all about the beautiful river he fished and all the fish he caught and someday we will all go fishing by the ocean in Alaska. But this trip he took with friends so we headed to California to see Avery and Birch, Emelie and Isaiah and Nan and Charlie. We went to the California State Fair and had corn dogs and saw lots of livestock and maybe in a few years we'll go back and you can go on some rides. You had a wonderful time playing with your cousins, each day you all played a little more together although a lot of your time was spent looking in awe at these big kids running around while you played in the Fisher Price mecca that is Nan and Charlie's family room.

You are starting to put things together now, which is so incredible to watch. You can stack blocks on top of one another, something that a month ago you still hadn't really mastered. When the blocks fall down, as they invariably do, you say, "ee-ah," which I think is a pre-cursor to "Uh-Oh." You really like the sound of it because you often crawl around saying "ee-ah, ee-ah, ee-ah," over and over. You can also now sometimes line up the holes on the blocks with the pegs on your wooden train. When you cannot, you get really frustrated and try to push the blocks onto the pegs without regard for where the holes are. Your frustration also manifests itself whenever I take something away from you that you want. You sit and bow your head and push your hands into the floor so that your back bows out and you yell or cry and throw a little fit because suddenly you cannot do what you really wanted to do. It is exasperating and humorous all at once.

You babble and talk a lot of the time, but you are particularly chatty in the mornings after you have had your bottle. You lie in my arms and stare out the window and whisper your talking sounds and I respond and you consider the changing leaves out the window and talk a little more and this goes on until you are ready to wiggle off my lap and start another day.

10 has two numbers in it so you must be grown up

2009-08-19T06:23:00.011-06:00

Ten! I was on the phone with your aunt Emelie the other day telling her how I write these posts to you every month and trying to think of what you accomplished this month. Accomplished sounds too corporate; as if we had some target for you to hit like the economy slowly coming back to life. This month seemed like a month of fine tuning and getting ready for even bigger things.

We got you a walker, which is counter balanced with my old law school books. Some days you love pushing it around and you look adorable slightly hunched over it like a little tiny peddler selling your wares. Other days you are much more interested in playing with all the post-it notes still sticking out of the sides of the books.

You are getting really good at feeding yourself. You pick up blueberries and cheese and crackers and stuff them in your mouth. You carefully dissect a piece of banana and then also smash it into your mouth often smearing the remains across your cheeks and hair. We still often lock in a battle of wills over who is going to hold the spoon for the yogurt or guacamole. I think it is a draw most days with most of the food going in your mouth but a great deal of it ended up all over your face. You are not a fan of being cleaned up at the end of a meal but you scurry into the bathroom as soon as you hear the water running for a bath just to watch the water coming out of the faucet. You stand there giggling and laughing and grinning but as soon as I put you in the tub, you are standing up all over again to explore the sides of the tub. It is rather frustrating and so baths are usually a quick affair. I cannot relate to the baby books that say baths are relaxing for babies.

I don't know where you are going to start talking but you say dadadadadada all the time and just in the last week you have added mamamamamama to your repertoire. Last night your dad put you to bed, something I know thrilled you to no end, and after he wrestled you into your pajamas, you crawled into the kitchen saying mamamamamam. It was endlessly cute. If prompted enough times, you will say Dah for dog but I don't think this qualifies as a word. You will also kiss us on the cheek, sometimes, when asked, "Can I have a kiss?" You oblige with a big open mouthed slobber that is more of a lick than a kiss.

The summer is starting to draw to a close, which is bittersweet because we've had such a fun summer. We've gone to the pool where you spend most of the time climbing out. We go to playgroup every week in a little park near our house. All the babies crawl around and all the mothers sit and chat, occasionally rescuing one of you from a scuffle over a toy. A few weeks ago we all went to Alabama and Georgia to see your grandfather and to attend a huge family reunion. You spent two days in Birmingham crawling all over your grandfather's kitchen being licked by his adoring dog Gypsy. I think this was a welcome change for you since Buddy usually gives you the cold shoulder. Then we packed up the car and headed for Amicalola State Park in Georgia where we met lots and lots of Reymanns almost all of whom had been getting photo updates of you on a near weekly basis, which was a surprise to me. They were all delighted to meet you and you were for the most part in a good mood for most of the weekend. We then packed up again and headed to Atlanta to stay the night with our friend Andre whose house was full of his daughter Sophie's toys. You were in absolute heaven and for nearly three hours you played to your heart's content with relatively little oversight from us.

You are very into your books these days. You love looking at a little photo album of pictures of you and your dad and sometimes you'll point at Dad when I ask you to. You also love to pick out one book and as soon as I am finished you pick it up and hand it back to me. This morning as we read Freight Train for the 80th time this week, you climbed into my lap and leaned back against me, your hand resting on my arm as I read. It is so rare that you sit still for more that five and 1/2 seconds that I deliberately slowed down my reading because I wanted the moment to last and last and I held you close. I spend a lot of times wishing for you to grow up so you can walk and talk and do so many other fun things but this was a moment when I was perfectly content for you to be just as you are.

Nine Oh Nine!

2009-07-21T21:41:00.010-06:00

Luke you have now spent more time out in the world than you did inside my belly, which seems amazing to me because it seems like you have been with us for so much longer than nine months.

You are crawling everywhere and fast. I turn my back and you are down the hall giggling and laughing at your cleverness at getting away from me. You are also all about pulling yourself up on everything - drawers, chairs, your crib, the couch, the wall (I think you might be Spiderman), up a closed door, the laundry basket, tables, out of the pool, anything that can get your to the standing position. You are starting to take very tiny hesitant steps to the side but when I hold your arms and ask you if you want to try to walk you immediately sit down and crawl away. It seems that you are going to walk on your own terms. I am fine with this as I am in no hurry to see you walking.

You have started to wave; at least we think you might be waving as you are waving just one hand and it doesn't look like you are flapping your arms the way you usually do when you are excited. You also pound your high chair tray and yell when you want more food. On the rare occasions that you are really hungry you sit with your mouth open waiting for me to spoon more food in. It is adorable although sometimes I fear I may be sitting at your table in college spooning food into your mouth because teaching you how to use a spoon is an exercise in extreme frustration.

You are getting so much more independent. When we go to Little Gym now you don't stay next to me the entire time, but instead head straight to the center of the circle to empty out the box of rattles and bells. Or you go around visiting with the other parents. At playgroup you cruise around climbing over the other babies as they crawl over you. Sometimes you circle back around and check in with me but most of the time you are just happy to check out all the cool toys that you don't have at home.

We went to Sun Valley last week and fulfilled a long cherished wish of your dad's to take you fly fishing. Fly fishing with a baby, it turns out, is much more difficult than fly fishing with two adults mainly because we have to plan so meticulously around your naps and meals. But last Saturday we were able to pull it off and we felt like rock stars. As soon as you awoke from your morning nap, we wisked you into the car, went to lunch where you were remarkably laid back in your high chair and then we hustled to the Big Wood River and packed you into the Ergo. Your dad and I took turns casting while you sat on the bank and ate your first handfuls of sand. You were a great sport watching your dad fish and were so excited when he caught a baby fish and brought it over for you to see. As we were headed back we stopped at one more spot and I actually managed to catch a lovely brown trout and your dad waded in to help me land it leaving you safely on the shore. I turned around and looked back to see you happily sitting on the bank eating a rock. There we were, the Reymanns, fishing. Fishing as a family.

Eight

2009-06-05T15:24:00.003-06:00

Eight is great. Or so the phrase goes. I'll go ahead and say that month eight was way better than your seventh. I cannot believe how much happened in the span of 30 days.

You grew a new top tooth, or are in the process of doing so. It's about 1/4 of the way out. You can now pick up your cheerios with your thumb and forefinger most of the time. You are eating all sorts of new and wonderful things. And you are crawling. Yes, crawling. It happened last week. I put you down on the floor and suddenly out of the corner of my eye you were a few feet from where you had started. I couldn't believe it so I tried it again and there you were crawling. You don't consistently crawl in the strict sense of the word. Sometimes you hop forward pushing yourself forward with your legs like a little rabbit and you still cruise around on your stomach. You are not very open about crawling with anyone outside of the house. I took you to Little Gym this week ready to show off your new skills and you just sat and watched all the other kids crawling. You'll show them when you are ready.

There is so much more. You are talking. You look at your dad and say "Dada," which is really sweet and awesome. You also say Dada for a lot of other things too. The only time you say Mama is when you are wailing in your crib in the middle of the night. You started making a "b" sound so I think you are working on Buddy's name.

This month we took not one, but two, trips to California. The first was a sweet gift from your dad who was worried about me because I wasn't making any friends and feeling lonely. You are a great companion but pretty limited in conversation skills so Dad sent me off to California to see my sister, your aunt. It was a tough trip for me because I had the worst migraine of my life but you had a great time playing with your cousins. You were especially enamoured of Avery who lavished you with attention much to the great disappointment of Birch who would like nothing better than some attention from his older brother. But somehow you knew I needed to rest and you started taking longer naps, which I was very very grateful for.

Then two weeks later we were back on the plane, this time headed for Sacramento and a night with your grandparents without us. I gave your poor Nan lists of things to do with you, how to feed you and cloth you and put you to bed. I worried that you would cry the entire time we were gone harkening back to when my parents left me years and years ago and I stood at the door and cried all day long. My poor grandmother. You seemed to behave a lot better and were all smiles when we came home the next day from Napa having celebrated our second wedding anniversary a little early at the French Laundry. It's a good thing you have no idea what you missed out on or else you might never forgive us.

You are on the go from the moment you wake up twisting and turning to see Buddy who prances and paces waiting for us to feed him breakfast. You are constantly moving across floors going after all the things you aren't supposed to touch like wires and dirty shoes. You writhe around swiveling your tiny baby hips every time I have to change you. Trying to get you to sit still is an almost impossible task. But today you were not in the mood to take a nap and I went in and got you out of your crib to give you some more of your bottle and when you were finished you were still awake but sleepy and I held you close and you didn't wiggle away and I just sat there rocking and feeling the full weight of your little body in my arms, your breaths moving in and out, your head resting against my shoulder and I smelled your sweet baby hair and felt overwhelming love for you, my darling son.

The Seventh Month

2009-05-02T21:43:00.008-06:00

Seven months! This was really a mixed bag.

I am writing part of this as you watch Italian for Babies. We watch it every single day and you are so funny because you laugh in the same parts every day - when the video shows the a boy waving flags and the voice over says "Bambino!" and when the video shows a little baby having a shirt put on, which is funny to me since you cry every time I put a shirt on you. No matter. You seem to really like the show (thank God for On Demand) and it gives me exactly 13 minutes to unload and load the dishwasher, get a cup of coffee and eat a quick breakfast because amazingly you stay put and watch the whole thing every time. The rest of the day you are on the go constantly, or rather you are wishing you could be on the go. You scootch around on your belly and are now getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth trying to put two and two together and figure out this whole crawling thing. I think it's a few weeks away but we've really got to start baby proofing this house. We are so not prepared.

This was a big month for you as you now have two teeth, the growing of which has clearly not been any fun for you and not much fun for us either. But your bottom two teeth have broken through and they are very very sharp. You like to scrape your teeth along the edge of a really old remote we discovered for you thereby nullifying all of the work we do to make sure your toys are chemical free. Your favorite toys these days are a tupperware cup, the lids to your food jars and those remotes. I try to remember this when I am tempted to buy you some adorable handcrafted new toy on Etsy.

A few weeks ago we started going to The Little Gym to the Little Bugs gym class for babies ages 4 months to 10 months. I wasn't sure how you would like it but you love it. You love jumping and flipping backwards, you sit back and just watch all of the other babies sometimes tentatively reaching out to say hello to one of them.

You are developing a personality slowly but surely and sometimes I am not sure I love all of it. You definitely have a will of your own and so many meals become a battle of who was going to put the spoon in your mouth, me or you trying to guide the spoon in. When I won't let you hold the spoon for fear of you jabbing it into the back of your throat you then show off your stunning vocal chords and scream. Loudly. A lot.

But meals are funny too. Sometimes you just lay your head down and start sucking on the tray of your high chair, which always makes me laugh because you always lower your head very slowly as if you are weary of the whole meal ordeal. One day after a particularly trying battle of wills you laid your head down and I just started to laugh because it was the only thing I could do. You picked your head up and looked at me and something seemed to click into that little baby brain and you seemed to get that you were making me laugh and you laughed hesitantly and put your head down again. I laughed harder. You looked up and smiled, this time a little wider and put your head down again and I just cracked up. You looked up again and this time joined in and soon we were laughing together, which was sweet and wonderful. I feel like I spend so much time trying to entertain you, coax a smile when you are sad, making you laugh when you are tired and this time you were making me laugh. It was wonderful and a small moment to hold onto in a tough month for us.

You do so many other things that drive me crazy like pinching me when you are excited, something I feel terrible about faulting you for but it hurts. And you are terrible at just drinking your bottle that it makes me want to tear out my hair when you push the bottle away for the 20th time during a feeding. And you still have an ear piercing, mind numbing, blood pressure spike inducing scream that makes me want to shove hot needles in my eyes.

I have to be honest being a parent is so much harder than I ever imagined and you are, on balance, a pretty good kid. I read so many mommy blogs that paint this rosy picture of motherhood and I wonder if they ever have a bad day. Are they really that much more patient than I am? And then I think about you reading this someday and I hope you never think that your dad and I ever went through a day without loving you. You challenge us in so many ways and have forced us to change our lives in every way possible and this has been hard for us but even on the hardest days, on the days when I don't think I can take it another minute, I can look at your sweet face, into your huge blue eyes, watch you joyfully flip over on your stomach and break into laughter when you see Buddy and fall in love all over again. And again. And again.

Six Months! 26 Weeks! Half Way Through the First Year!

2009-04-23T13:19:00.005-06:00

Instead of attacking the enormous pile of your laundry that needs to be folded (I cannot wait to task you with this chore) I am instead sitting down to write this month's entry before a few more weeks slip by and suddenly you are seven months and then suddenly you are ten years old.

This month it seemed like you grew by leaps and bounds. A visit for your six month checkup told us that you are now 26 and 3/4 inches tall and 17 pounds 9 ounces (You feel more like one hundred pounds when I am carrying you around) and your head is still huge. It seemed like you stretched because your belly, while still quite large, doesn't seem quite as rotund as it used to be.

You now must be on your stomach at all times. Every time I put you on the floor to play you flip over like a little fish and then ooch around on your belly like a minute hand on a clock. Then you get really frustrated because you cannot get where you want to go and let out an ear-splitting scream. So then I flip you to your back and the cycle starts again. You also now immediate roll onto your side when I put you in your crib, which is the cutest thing ever. You seem to becoming so much more of a boy now. Perhaps this is terrible of me to push you into these gender roles so early in your little life but when I put you in your activity center you grab one of your other toys and just start pounding the living daylights out of it. You also really like throwing things on the floor I think just to hear the crash.

Buddy is still your best friend and when we go downstairs to feed him you are both so excited you don't know what to do with yourselves. Buddy hurles himself into the air while you wriggle around in my arms letting out little gasps of excitement, kicking your legs in glee and burrowing your face in my shoulder. You repeat this same routine when your dad comes home from work, like you cannot contain how totally thrilled you are to see him. The other day you had a fever from your shots (at which we both cried, again) and I knew you really weren't feeling well because not even Buddy could cheer you into a smile.

Your other big new trick is getting to eat new foods every few days. Admittedly this is a bigger deal for me than for you but your dad and I love food so much that I am anxious for you to love everything. So far you have refused nothing except peaches, which surprised me because your dad and I love peaches more than any other fruit. But we'll try them again some other day.

And at last the weather is warm enough that we can start going to the park. I was so nervous the first time I put you into a swing last week because I was afraid you wouldn't like it but I need not have worried because you absolutely loved it. You laughed and laughed and then just fell into this blissed out state as you swang away. A few days later your dad and I took you back to the park with a picnic lunch and after showing your dad just how awesome the swings were we spread out a blanket on a grassy hill with a view of the mountains, put you down beside us and we had our first picnic. Just the three of us being a family.

Five Months Old

2009-03-18T11:21:00.008-06:00

Everyone said that you would be off to college before I knew it and while you are not exactly packing your bags (you still don't want to roll over from your back to your belly) I cannot believe how fast this last month flew. Suddenly time seems to be moving more quickly. Perhaps it is because spring is coming and there is more light and the birds are singing now when I get up in the morning to nurse you. Perhaps it is because you are doing new things all the time and that makes the days go by faster. You are now eating rice cereal and sweet potatoes. The first few times we tried this most of the food ended up on your face and your bib but you seem to be getting the hang of this eating thing and now you bite down on the spoon with vigor. Your father and I are planning the garden, starting seeds and counting the days until we can eat our first tomato. I cannot wait to start making you new foods in the coming months.

We finally decided to bring the Ferber hammer down a few weeks ago because I was tired of nursing you four to five to six times before you would finally fall asleep for good. So we bit the bullet a few Saturdays ago and I nursed you, feeling rather weepy because I knew you were not going to be happy when you realized you weren't going to be getting out of your crib again until the next morning, and then put you down awake. You instantly started crying but I steeled my heart, walked out of the room, set the timer for one minute and poured myself a glass of wine. One minute, three minutes, five minutes and ten minute timers went off and still you cried. Then about six minutes into the ten minute mark your father and I looked at each other and muted the television and all was quiet. You had actually gone to sleep on your own. It was like magic. We sat down to crab, garlic bread and more wine. You are the light of our lives but you sleeping through the night is so fabulous and we feel so lucky to have such a good little sleeper.

This past month you finally found your feet and now the moment I put you on the floor you throw your legs up in the air and reach for your feet. At night you love hanging out in your diaper and sucking on your toes as I read to you. You are working on sitting up too. Most of the time you fall over after a few seconds of balancing but sometimes you manage to balance forward on your hands and make little grunting sounds as you work to stay put. Somehow tiny bits of your personality are starting to come out. You seem pretty easy going but also so intense sometimes. You will hook your finger behind your pacifier, pull it out and examine it for minutes at a time with a furrowed brow as if the pacifier contained the answers to a complicated math formula. You study new peoples' faces with similar concentration. You also now recognize Buddy and I think you might love him more than anyone else in the family. You just light up when he walks by and when he actually deigns to lick your hand you giggle and wiggle around in happiness. Buddy is still working on loving you but the other morning he came into your room and lay down on the floor next to you and you both just looked at each other and it was perfect harmony for a little while.

Luke - Four Months Old

2009-01-29T10:23:00.004-07:00

Well once again I am a bit late on getting your monthly update written but this was a tough month for you and me and your dad. You continue to get cuter by the day and you laugh and laugh. Your dad is the best at getting you to laugh. He can just look at you and you'll start cracking up. Last week we discovered that if your dad said "Howdy Partner" you would laugh as if this was the funniest thing in the world; and so over and over and over your dad said, "Howdy Partner" and you cracked up. It was the sweetest thing ever. I tried it later and you barely cracked a smile so it's something you and your dad share, which is I suppose the first of many many things you'll share. And this is something I am so happy about. Your dad is such a great dad and I know he cannot wait for the day he can hand you your first fly rod and start showing you how to fish; how to pick a fantasy football team, how to chop an onion and so many other things he does so well.

You are working on trying to sit up and for a few weeks you were really starting to try out your voice - yelling just to hear yourself yell, shrieking happily and babbling. You have clammed up recently but I hope the babbling comes back because it was so funny to hear.

These are all memories I am glad I am writing down because I have already forgotten so many details of your first few weeks and there are so many sweet things to remember. But this was a tough month too and I want to remember those too. You still struggle with milk proteins and we had to go get your blood drawn, which was sad for both of us. But while we waited in waiting room, a song suddenly started and I could not figure out where it was coming from until I looked into a far corner and there was a hospital volunteer singing with the loveliest voice I'd ever heard. I suppose she was there to have a calming influence on the scared kids and parents waiting for blood draws and it worked. I sat and held you close and we both listened to that gorgeous voice singing some unknown song. It was one of those rare moments in life when you feel like you lucked into something totally unexpected and beautiful. I was once sitting in an airport terminal and a bluegrass band got out their instruments and put on an impromptu show for the other people at the gate and you felt just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

And then two weeks ago I walked out the door to open the gate and slipped on the ice and dropped you. I won't go into detail but it was truly the worst moment of my life seeing you fall and hit your head. An overnight trip to the hospital followed and you were put into a neck and body brace and poked full of IV's and wires and were an absolute champ about all of it. I just sat and held you and cried and cried. Somehow over four months you have come to fill our lives so completely that the very thought, the most fleeting thought of not having you filled me with a sorrow I'd never felt in my life. It was a pain like no other and I hope never to experience it again. I was reminded over and over that night of a line from Annie Lamott's "Operating Instructions." something like "If I could have just one crummy tiny wish in this world it would be for my son to outlive me." I realize this is pretty sad and scary stuff to put into this otherwise light-hearted blog, but it was my first really hard lesson in parenthood and it is lesson I want to remember on those trying days when you are cranky or you don't want to go to bed or you are screaming your head off in the car. Those are such ridiculously small inconveniences and an easy price to pay for all the other thousands of other happinesses you bring into our lives.

Three Months Old

2009-01-20T08:11:00.009-07:00

Luke, you turned three months old yesterday. I missed your two month birthday. I am not sure why - maybe it was because it was the middle of the holidays and we getting ready to go to Sacramento or maybe it was because we were both sad after your first round of shots. I've never seen you cry so hard. And so I cried too.

The trip for Christmas was so much fun and you were an absolute champ about traveling. I had been worried about flying with you from nearly the moment I found out I was pregnant. And I know I'll spend your entire life wondering how you will react to certain situations, but in this one, as we took off from Salt Lake, you were completely passed out sucking on your pacifier and were as good as gold - both ways. You were the baby that everyone complimented us on when we got off the plane. It was as if you assessed the situation and decided you would hold off any breakdowns until we were off the plane. We were so proud.

You smile all the time now. When I walk into your room in the morning, you turn your head - the rest of you still swaddled - and break into this huge grin when you see me. It is so unbelievably sweet and gratifying. You like to stand now also all the time. Lying down is so six weeks ago. You stand in our laps and whip your head around on your newly strong little neck looking around all the time. You are just starting to begin to be able to hold things. You tentatively reach for things and just two days ago you started to pull things into your mouth. This isn't surprising because you spend a lot of the day trying to stuff your hands into your mouth. This seems to be a source of happiness and constant frustration to you; I really cannot figure out which. And tonight, as if you knew how happy we all were, you laughed and laughed when I stood you on my lap. It was the most wonderful sound.

So yesterday, January 19th was your three month birthday and today, the 20th is the three year anniversary of your parents' first date. This is pretty important and almost as important, is the fact that today is Inauguration Day. Barack Obama is going to be sworn in as President today and I am sitting here watching the coverage on television. Your Aunt Anne is there and someday she'll be able to tell you what it was like to be there on the Mall today, this most amazing day. But we are watching it on our couch, which seems fitting since we have watched the entire election on this couch - through my entire pregnancy, election night when your father and I cried and held you close marveling that Obama had actually won. And now it looks like millions of people are converging on the Mall and I have cried many times already watching these thousands of people who are so excited and so happy even in the face of this awful economic crisis we are in, this terrible depression that is closing in on so many lives. But in this moment it seems as if these worries are set aside even for a few hours. The pictures are amazing. There are people as far as you can see. But I am so grateful that you are here with us in this time in history. We have such hope.

Luke-One Month

2008-11-19T09:28:00.005-07:00

Luke is one month old today. One month ago David and I were still reeling from a 30 hour labor that ended in a c-section. That Friday night induction that turned into a Saturday morning with contractions coming every minute, the arrival of Rachel our doula, the decision to get an epidural after seven hours of contractions with absolutely no progress on my part (what do you mean I'm still just 1 cm?) the epidural itself, which was one of the most intense and sad moments of my life, fourteen hours of pitocin and four epidurals later a c-section, chronic dry mouth I was sure I was going to die of, and finally a little baby boy with his stomach and lungs full of meconium, David hurrying to stay with the baby while I got stitched up, lying there in amazement that I had a son and still unbelieving that I had had a c-section. Feeding him for the first time, finally finally getting to bed at 5.00 that morning after his first bath, done inexplicably at 4.00 in the morning, but revealing blond golden hair. Those long days in the hospital filled with visitors and still not believing we had a baby. His second night spent in the nursery freaking us out because he was running a temperature and not eating. Many many hours and many shifts of nurses coaxing him to latch on and feed. Finally getting discharged and going home, discovering that autumn had arrived while I had been in the hospital. The joy of being home greatly tempered by days and nights of no sleep and a very cranky baby and a freaked out mother. And then, somehow, we got to know one another. Suddenly you were sleeping for more than 30 minutes, you were recognizing our voices and you were losing that swollen newborn look and filling out into your own. I know your face will change over and over as the months and years go by and you'll get cuter and cuter, if that it is at all possible, but you are so adorable right now. Sometimes you surprise us with a smile, something you started doing around three weeks. We like to think they are real smiles, but perhaps you are just content or just gassy - both are possible. You are gaining weight like crazy, having regained your birthweight and then putting on another pound in your first two weeks of being here. You shake your head like a crazy person when you are really hungry and you gritch and fuss when you are leading up to being really hungry, but these are all worth it when you finally sigh with content and fall asleep on our chests, your little stomach moving in and out with your tiny little baby breaths.

election eve

2008-11-03T16:09:00.003-07:00

I am not sure when I am going to make this blog available for general consumption, but it is Election Eve and I cannot believe we have finally finally finally almost made it to November 4, 2008.

It seems like a million years ago that David and I sat on the couch and watched returns for Iowa come in and I watched Obama speak for the first time. I was sold. Completely sold. David had been talking him up for months, but I chalked that up to the fact that Obama had been his Constitutional Law professor back in law school. (I know! How cool is that?) and I still wanted to support Hillary because I still loved the Clintons. But Obama spoke that night and I cried. For this first time in a very long time I actually felt hope for our country. I actually felt a small flicker of pride in our country, something that had burned out in me in 2000. I felt like this candidate could actually do something for us all. And perhaps it was naive to think that then, and perhaps even more naive now, in the face of this crushing economic failure, but I have watched Obama give countless speeches since January and I have cried every time. Sure the pregnancy hormones probably had something to do with it, but each time I heard him speak I was amazed again. His speech on race, after the Reverend Wright debacle, took on race in a way I had never heard a politician do. His acceptance speech at the convention was the last word in acceptance speeches - gracious, humble and a powerful attack on his opponents. I stressed over every debate, sweating every "um" he uttered but I shouldn't have worried. He easily carried the day.

So here we are. Here I am. Sitting on the couch with this precious two week old baby sleeping next to me and tomorrow David and I will go vote for Obama because it's the best thing we can do for Luke, aside from the tangible stuff like yet another diaper change or another round of feeding. It's our best chance to elect someone who cares about the future of this country and cares enough to fight for our country and our world and by voting for Obama we might be able to change the course of history of the last eight years so that Luke will have a country to be proud of. I want him to be able to grow up with the kind of patriotic pride I had when I was little. The kind of pride that led my sisters and me to hang flags out of every window of our house on the Fourth of July. The kind of pride where the putting your hand over your heart for the national anthem meant something to you, not just an empty gesture like a flag pin because everyone else is wearing one.

I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve, wishing and hoping and praying for that puppy under the tree: half scared that it won't be there and half-excited because it just has to be there.

Please. Please. Please. Let him win.

Diving Into Parenthood

2008-10-17T12:56:00.002-06:00

It is almost 1.00 on Friday, October 17, 2008 and in a few hours I will call the hospital and they will tell me when I can come in to start the induction process. This process will hopefully lead in short order to a baby. Our baby boy. I cannot begin to take in the magnitude of that statement and how much our lives are going to change in the next 24 to 26 hours.

How will I spend my last few hours of baby-free life? I am going to the post office to send a very overdue birthday present to my sister, to the library to drop off some books I know will be overdue if I don't drop them off now and to the dry cleaners. Good times. Good times.

On the one hand it's a kind of nice to finally have a timeline for this birth and know that he'll be here within the next day or so, but on the other it does not lend itself well to sleep at all. David and I both spent most of last night tossing and turning with a single thought going through our heads, "Holy Crap. What the hell are we getting ourselves into?"