Birthing Beautiful Ideas

I realize how potentially dangerous and frightening the following situation is, and how frighteningly dangerous one or more of the soon-to-be-described events could have been.  Everyone is safe, so I think it’s permissible to write about it all here and use humor as my motherhood-catharsis.

Yes, that’s the sort of week I’m having.

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If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you may have heard me say a thing or twelve about the obscenely chaotic time we’ve been having in our house, courtesy of our resident two-year-old Houdini-howler-monkey, A.

It all started last Friday night after Tim and I had put the boys to bed.  First I heard a thud, and then a thumping, and then a constant pitter-pattering.

When I went upstairs to see what the ruckus was all about, I discovered that my dear, sweet A had managed to clamber out of his crib and sweep tornado-style through the room and all of its contents in the moments between my hearing the thud-thumping pitter-pattering and my doing something about it.

I had figured this day would arrive sooner or later–he is quite the climber, after all–so I wasn’t entirely shocked by what I saw.  I very calmly rocked him, read him one more book, sang him one more song, and snuggled him under his blankets for a good night’s sleep.

Minutes later, the thud-thumping started up again.  And then again.  And then again.  And for the next three hours, Tim and I took turns placing A back in his crib.

It’s an understatement when I say that our patience had been whittled down to a nub by the night’s end.

At one point, we did have the bright idea to place a baby gate at A’s doorway.  But then he took a half-filled box of diapers, turned it upside down, and scaled the gate.

We removed the diaper box, but then he found a canvas toy bin, turned it upside down, and hopped the gate yet again.

And after we removed everything remotely resembling a box, A took to climbing up and over the gate all on his own.

Oh A, how I admire your determination.  All. That. Freakin’. Determination.

I know what some of you are thinking right now: what’s a little climbing?  He was excited!  Thrilled with his new-found freedom!  Let’s celebrate his curiosity!

But let me just put his brand of excitement into perspective for you.

Did you guys ever see that after-school special in which the main character (played by Academy Award winner Helen Hunt!) tries PCP or angel dust (or are they the same thing?) and then FA-REAKS out and plunges out the second story window at her school?

(Hey look, someone uploaded the video on YouTube!)

A looked a lot like Helen-Hunt-on-drugs that night.  And to that, I ask WHO THE HELL GAVE MY BABY DRUGS?!?!

Oh wait.  He was high on the sweet taste of freedom.  WHO THE HELL TOLD MY KID TO CRUSH HIS FREEDOM AND THEN SNORT IT UP HIS NOSE?!?!

Tim and I gave up somewhere around midnight.  And A gave up (in a pile of utter, wild-induced exhaustion) around 12:30 a.m.  And he started back up again at 6 the next morning.

If A were a child who didn’t need much sleep, I wouldn’t have been all that worried.  (Join hands with me and celebrate his beautiful, sparkling curiosity and lust for life!)  But both of my boys are 12-14 hour sleepers.  They are “high energy” kids, both physically and intellectually, and if they don’t get enough sleep in any given 24-hour period, they begin to melt into puddles of whiny frustration.

Isn’t that what all people do when they don’t get enough sleep?

In any case, somewhere in the midst of trying to sidestep the puddles of whiny frustration scattered about the house, Tim and I had the scintillatingly brilliant idea to transition A into the “big kid bed” that was waiting for him in his brother’s room.

That’s exactly what they needed!  The crib-climbing was a sign!  It was so obviously time for them to begin sharing a room!

Someone?  Get me a drink.  And a magic “DUDE, you gotta start seeing things more clearly” device.

Trying to get the two of them to sleep in the same room was like trying to dress a bunch of feral cats in baby-doll clothes and sit them around a teeny tiny table for a tea party.  Ain’t gonna happen.

Soon, naptime was shot to hell.  (M, who’s four, generally doesn’t sleep during “quiet time,” but he does often benefit from a quiet hour or two in his room while his brother is sleeping.)  And sooner, bedtime was completely obliterated.

And much to our dismay, the kids were averaging a total of seven hours of sleep per day.

If you are a parent (or even if you’re not), you know that this is not. good.

So, geniuses that we are, we began getting A (2) to sleep first, and then letting M (4) stay up until A was in a deep sleep.  And it was working.  It was really, truly working for a couple of naptimes and bedtimes.

Until A woke up at four this morning and started getting his groove thang on once he spied M in the bed next to his.  (“M!  M!  Wake up!  WANT TO PLAY?!“)

And then it took us nearly two hours to get him and his tired, tiny, grooving butt back to sleep.

And then?  THEN?

People, I was in a deep, deep sleep.  It was the deep, deep sleep of sleep-deprivation.

And that’s why I didn’t hear A wake up and climb over the baby gate in his doorway.

That’s why I didn’t hear him walk downstairs, saunter over to the kitchen, and scoot a kitchen chair over to the counter so that he could grab and eat one of the banana muffins that we had made yesterday in my attempt to do something low-key yet fun with the kids–you know, something where A could mash something (i.e. bananas) other than my brain matter.

That’s why I didn’t hear him as he spilled a container of Milakai Pudi (I.E. “FRESHLY GROUND PEPPERS WITH HOUSE SPICES” FROM A LOCAL INDIAN RESTAURANT) all over the banana muffins, all over the counter, all over (and inside) my purse, all over the chair, and all over the floor.

That’s why I didn’t hear him when he scooted the chair across the entire kitchen and over to the pantry to search for more food.  (I sweartogod, we feed him.)

But I did hear him as he let out a blood-curdling scream after he RUBBED HIS EYES WITH HIS SPICE-COVERED HANDS.

A couple of eye-flushes later, he was ready to take on the world just as he had been for the past five days: wearing his new-found independence like a gold lame’ jumpsuit.

And I’m just begging that he soon learns that the entire family (A included) is ready to take on the world with just a little more sleep.

nothing like milakai pudi and banana muffins to perk up your morning.

it's amazing that i've been able to construct complete sentences today.

I think it’s fair to assume that my kids aren’t the only small children who spend a few mornings (or afternoons or evenings) each week wanting food, food, and more food every three-or-so minutes.

I get it.  They’re growers.  Sprouters.  Calorie burners.  Bottomless pits.  Grazers.  Ravenous bipedal cattle.

But even though I get and accept all of this, I’m not about to pretend that it’s always fun to play octopus-arms with my fridge and pantry as I pull out raisins, then cheese cubes, then graham crackers, then juice, then cereal, then strawberries, then bananas, then sweet potatoes, then peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then milk, and then eggs for approximately three hours each morning, all while listening to the boys’ nonstop “I’m hungry” refrain.

(I’m not bitter.  I’m just exhausted.  And not entirely selfless.)

So I finally did something about my selfish exhaustion last week–something that not only stopped the boys from asking me for more food every thirty seconds but also offered them a splendid array of vitamins, minerals, and all-around yumminess:

I set out a “food rainbow” around 9 a.m. and let them snack and graze on it all morning.

“What the heck is a ‘food rainbow,’” you might ask?

Food rainbows are something I made up for M a couple years ago, back when he was in one of those phases where he would fixate on one or two types of food and then ask for them (and only them) for an entire week.  (Trust me, you do NOT want to be on the other end of a diaper after a child has insisted on eating blackberries and black beans morning, noon, and night for two days straight.)  To ensure that he would get a variety of foods during these phases (without coercing or cajoling him), I’d choose five differently-colored foods, set them out on a plate (sometimes even in the shape of a rainbow), and call it a food rainbow.

Ta-da!

(You might be amazed to learn what you can accomplish with a small child when you re-brand certain foods, tasks, or activities as rainbows, games, carnivals, or vampire slayings.  Notably, that last one might only work in my house.)

In any case, just as these rainbows once saved M from eating a diet comprised solely of apples and Cheerios, they now save me from having mornings comprised solely of getting food, food, and more food for the kids for hours on end.

And that’s just about as glorious as a real rainbow.

yes, there are goldfish crackers in this rainbow.

The boys and I were thrilled to see a robin building her nest in a bush outside of our dining room window earlier this summer.

She fussed and fretted and built and toiled, and then she laid four turquoise eggs and settled in for a few days.

A and M were lucky enough to see the eggs hatch into chicks, and the chicks grow into larger birds, and the birds make their first wobbly attempts at flight.

We even got to watch the mama (and, we think, a few other robin-friends) bring worms and berries to the last little timid bird in the nest as s/he waited…and waited…and waited to take flight.

It was sweet, and lovely, and even miraculous.

And looking at my sweet and lovely and miraculous little boys, growing up in the “nest” that their father and I have built for them, I can’t help but feel a strange sort of kinship with that mama robin.

Newly hatched

Worm-fed and growing

Mama's here, little one

Waiting to fly

Dear Alec,

It’s your second birthday today–a day that many consider to mark the beginning of the “terrible twos.”

And I’ll admit, there have been some meltdowns, and some temper tantrums, and some roller-coaster emotions in the house over the past few months.

But when it all comes down to it, there is little about you that I would describe as “terrible.”

Unless, that is, I were to describe your terribly sweet charm–the way you pat me gently on the back when you give me hugs, as if to say, “it’s alright, Mommy, it’s alright.”

And then there is your terribly astute sense of humor–the ways in which you have learned to the fine art of making people laugh, and knowing what makes people laugh, long before most children do.

Or your terribly keen sense of how things work–the way you figure out how to do things (like dress yourself) and build things (like block towers) and get things (like the toy that is just out of reach) and imitate things that Daddy and I do (like using a potholder to pull food out of your toy kitchen’s oven).

And then there are the seeming contradictions in your personality, like your terribly fierce independence and your terribly loving bond with me; your terribly shy nature and your terribly uncanny ability to MAKE YOURSELF HEARD when you need to be heard.

You are terribly and utterly marvelous, you know.

You have transformed me from the moment of your birth, and life has been terribly wonderful ever since.

I love you,

Mommy

In the past couple of weeks, A (almost two) uttered his 100th word.

And how do I know this?

I’ve kept track of both boys’ first 100 words.  Or at least an estimate of their first 100 words.

Yep.  Some may find it dorky and even a bit excessive, but I think (in my dorky and prone-to-excessiveness sort of way) that it’s a really cool document of my kids’ first linguistic adventures.

And what’s even cooler is the way that their individual lists demonstrate just how unique they are.  They had (and have) unique interests and loves and favorite foods and favorite toys and experiences and personalities, and their first 100 words are a testament to this uniqueness.

Just see for yourself.

*

A (who will be 2 next Tuesday)

1. Mama (8 months)
2. hi
3. meow
4. kitty
5. Mikey(one of our cats)
6. woof
7. eyes
8. Miles
9. Daddy
10. here ya go
11. boo (word for pacifier)
12. book
13. banana
14. yeah
15. no
16. Papa
17. Gamah/Grammy
18. juice
19. bye bye
20. ow
21. uh oh
22. thank you
23. shoes
24. moo
25. boot
26. yum
27. why
28. cookies
29. hot cocoa
30. neigh
31. where
32. all gone
33. choo choo
34. hot
35. jelly
36. mai (word for blanket)
37. up
38. cup
39. crayon
40. grape
41. truck
42. bear
43. cake
44. kick
45. ship
46. cow
47. spider
48. avocado
49. clean
50. bite
51. wow
52. crap (his word for “cracker”…teehee…)
53. bamboo
54. help
55. Caillou
56. Paul
57. cheese
58. game
59. pirate
60. ear
61. nose
62. mouth
63. couch
64. yak
65. cold
66. bed
67. light
68. Ni-hao
69. door
70. go
71. flower
72. tv
73. cereal
74. fire
75. train
76. sheep
77. car
78. baby
79. scrub
80. Jim
81. Kellie
82. Annie
83. Oliver
84. Noah
85. ice cream
86. jam
87. raisin
88. iPod
89. poop
90. toast
91. helicopter
92. airplane
93. ewww
94. cold
95. foot
96. toes
97. I don’t know
98. firetruck
99. man
100. drum (22 months)

*

M (now 4 1/2 years old)

1. Mama (9 months)
2. cat
3. hi
4. moo
5. Dada
6. Cookie (for Cookie Monster)
7. ball
8. teeth
9. cheese
10. cow
11. book
12. nose
13. cracker
14. Claus (for Santa Claus)
15. bye
16. Pa (for Great-Grandpa)
17. juice
18. Paul
19. milk
20. hot
21. yes
22. no
23. elf
24. knock knock
25. bear
26. goose
27. up
28. clock
29. baa
30. man
31. hop
32. hat
33. neck
34. duck
35. coat
36. dog
37. neigh
38. baby
39. cold
40. goat
41. poop
42. brush
43. Miles
44. owl
45. mouse
46. snowman (or “ho-man”)
47. quack quack
48. Ernie
49. Elmo
50. bird
51. nuts
52. Bob (from a Sandra Boynton book)
53. happy
54. genius (in reference to a book)
55. arm
56. mouth
57. banana
58. peach
59. Bert
60. knee
61. hug
62. neat
63. spice
64. cloves
65. hoot hoot
66. tweet tweet
67. map
68. backpack
69. done
70. help
71. Ma (for Grandma)
72. Grandma (for Great-Grandma)
73. pool
74. cute
75. uh oh
76. plum
77. bread
78. chicken
79. Airen
80. Rachel
81. eyes
82. hands
83. on
84. off
85. hair
86. head
87. couscous
88. dance
89. Midgies (for one of his grandmas)
90. berries
91. please
92. elbow
93. call
94. again
95. penis
96. hippo
97. blue
98. pink
99. purple
100. green (16 months)

Continuing his streak of awesomeness, M (4) offered up some fantastic birth-funnies yesterday.  And yes, conversations with him are really, truly endlessly entertaining.

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M: Mommy, which babies lived in Grandma’s tummy?

Me: Well, me, and then your aunt Kellie and your aunt Kinsey.

M: Oh, cool.  So they swam in the swimming pool in Grandma’s belly?

Me: (chuckling)  Well, yeah, sort of.  Babies actually live in what’s called amniotic fluid when they’re in a mommy’s tummy.

M: (with a look of concern on his face)  You mean that they live in blue water?!

Fillin' up the ol' uterus for the little fetus swimming pool

Me: silence

M: silence

And then I noticed the object at which he was staring.

Me: Oh, M, that’s windshield washer fluid!  That’s a lot different from amniotic fluid!

M: (laughing) Oh good!  I was worried!

Me: (also laughing)  Me too, sweetie!

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Me: M, what did you think of the midwife rally today?

M: It was neat!  I liked playing with all of the other kids.  And mommy?  What does a midwife do again?

Me: Well, midwives help to deliver babies…

M: (with his signature look of perplexity)  You mean that they drop off babies in the mailbox?!

Me: (thinking for a moment)  They what?

M: Babies get delivered in the mailbox?!

Me: Oh, no!  Our mailman delivers the mail to our mailbox.  A midwife catches a baby when it’s born.  And some people call that delivering a baby.

M: That’s pretty funny, Mom.

Me: (chuckling) It sure is.

Scenes from earlier this week:

M, creating his Buffy masterpiece.

Me: M, I love your drawing!  Can you tell me about it?

M: Yep!  See, here’s Buffy.  And here’s Giles.  And here’s Faith.  And here’s…(continues to point out nearly a dozen characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Me: awestruck silence

M: Isn’t it great, Mommy?

Me: It.  Is.  Awesome.

He asked me to label each of his drawings. I did so with geek-filled glee.

No, we don’t allow our four-year-old to watch Buffy.  But he did come downstairs one night while we were watching an episode, and he became so intrigued with what he saw and proceeded to ask so many questions about the show (every single day for the past four weeks) that he can now recount the main stories of nearly every season of the series.

Seriously. Nearly. every. season. of. the. series.

I just can’t get over the awesomeness of this awesomeness.

Edited to add: My husband has informed me that I spelled ‘Drusilla’ incorrectly.  Shame on me.

Dear Miles,

Every day, you do something that makes me proud of you.

You dress yourself, and I swell with pride over your independence.  You write your name, and I marvel at the fact that your small hands were once so teeny tiny that they could barely have gripped a crayon.  You smile, you giggle, you play, you befriend, and I am simply proud to be the woman you call “Mommy.”

I try to make myself proud too.

In fact, for my birthday this year, I created a list of 29 things I want to do before I turn 30.  One of those goals was to teach you how to read.

I thought we’d make each other proud–me, carefully showing you how the letters came together to make words and the words came together to make sentences, and you, finding your way slowly through those letters, words, and sentences.

But then you did something that astounded me.

Something that continues to make me joyfully, exceedingly proud.

You started reading.  Fluidly.  Fluently.  Seemingly all on your own.

You are four years old, and you are reading.

I’m not exactly sure how much or what sort of credit I can take for this accomplishment.

Did I really teach you how to read?

Yes, I started reading to you even in those first few weeks of your infancy.  Yes, you’ve seen me (and your father) reading books, magazines, and newspapers galore.  And yes, I’ve helped you sound out and identify the occasional word or two (or twenty) over the past few months.  I’ve even stood by with a mixture of bemusement, wonder, and exasperation as you insisted upon memorizing the entirety of Neil Gaiman’s The Wolves in the Walls!

But now I know that you aren’t simply mock-reading.  You’re not just listing off a few words and sentences that you’ve memorized in your favorite books.

You.  Are.  Reading.

And you’re reading everything.

You read books.  You read your favorite books, those ones with the worn and cracked spines.  You read new books, ones you’ve never seen before.  You read street signs, cereal boxes, and DVD cases.  You read the silly words on your t-shirts and the silly color names on your crayons and you make me so, so proud with every word you utter.

And my pride is matched only by my excitement for you.

Miles, do you know what this world of words has in store for you?

You are going to find words that will keep you up all night.  Words that will find you under your covers with a flashlight so that you can just finish that one last chapter in the book you can’t put down.

You are going to find words that will break your heart–ones whose melancholy isn’t because of the sad story they tell but because of sheer poetic beauty that they contain.

You are going to find words that make you laugh, and words that make you cry.

You are going to find words that teach you something, and words that make you want to ask more questions.

Your mind, your imagination, your heart, and your soul are going to be blown away by all of these words, my sweet boy.

And me?  I’m just proud to be the woman who can continue to stand back and watch you discover these words.  All on your own.

Love,

Mom

(Now commences the twelve seconds out of the past month where I will not blog about VBAC, the NIH Consensus Development Conference, or the gazillion ideas that I have to change the world of maternity care in the United States.  Enjoy.)

There are times when the fact that I have neither octopus arms nor eyes on the back of my head really makes parenting two little ones a killer.

Just consider this little episode from today.

This afternoon, M (4) asked me to make him a baked sweet potato for lunch.  Somewhere in the midst of concealing my excitement (didn’t this kid just tell me two weeks ago that sweet potatoes were Satan spawn or something?) and mashing the potato with a fork, A (21 months) asked me to get him some more juice.

Silly me thought that I would carry my unwavering torch of parental justice (fool that I am) and finish addressing M’s desire for food before addressing A’s desire for more juice.  It was a simple equation, really: M asked for food first, A asked for a drink second, I thought I’d M’s request first, and then meet A’s request second.

LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

No one was starving (both kids had recently eaten snacks), no one was dehydrated (A had just finished off a cup of milk not twenty minutes beforehand), there was no blood, no imminent death or danger, and the Earth was still spinning on its axis.  So I told A that I would be happy to get him more juice as soon as I was finished getting M his sweet potato.

He let me know he was “displeased” with my decision with one of his shrill whines that I think is roughly translated as, “WTF, Mom?!”  And then I had the audacity to tell him (in, I sweartogod, my very best June Cleaver voice) that “this was fair since M asked for his food first, sweetie” and that he “would get his juice soon!”

And then I went back oh-so-carelessly-and-mindlessly to mashing up that sweet potato.

I turned my back on the spurned almost-two-year-old.

And when I turned around, I kid you not, my little angel was standing by the pantry in a puddle of maple syrup, his head cocked back, mouth wide open, holding an open and upturned bottle of Aunt Jemima the same way a college kid holds a bottle of Tequila on a spring break trip.

And if that sweetie-pie had the dexterity to give me the finger, I’m sure he would also have been flipping me the bird and sneering, “I’ll give you juice, Mom.”

Ay-yai-yai.

Anyone know where I can get those eyes on the back of my head?

As of today, Tim has been working full days for forty days straight.

That’s right, forty.

Four-teeeeeee.

And you know what that means?

I’ve been responsible for full-time, daytime parenting duties for (yep) forty days straight.

Because of circumstances far beyond my control, I have not had one parenting break, not a semblance of the ebb and flow of our usual co-parenting arrangements, not one guarantee of a “day off” in the entirety of those forty days.

(For those who haven’t yet felt the magnitude of my whining, that’s the same number of days that Noah and his wild menagerie spent on that ark of theirs.  And to that I ask, “Where the hell is my dove carrying the olive branch already???”)

Just give me some intravenous vodka now.

It’s not that I don’t love spending time with my kids.

It’s not that I don’t get any time to do meaningful work of my own.

It’s not even that I haven’t devised games and outings and activities and playdates to mitigate the drudgery of forty break-less days of stay-at-home parenting.

It’s just that…I’m used to doing this whole parenting gig as a co-parent, and when my co-parent is MIA, I begin to feel as if I’m drowning a bit.

I perceive each whine more piercingly, each missed or refused nap with excessive dread, each second that Tim’s arrival home is delayed with increasing panic or frustration or even despair.

My toddler crushes a handful of Goldfish crackers in his hands, sprinkles the crumbs on the just-swept floor, and I feel as if he has smooshed my brain like a hunk of Playdoh between his fingers.

And yet I sit here, with a roof over my head, a heater that works reliably in this reliably cold winter, a refrigerator stocked with nutritious food, an income that allows me to purchase nutritious food, a car that I can drive to purchase that food, at-home access to the internet, an education that gives me the privilege-that-should-be-a-right of demanding transparent and evidence-based care from my health care providers, two children who are healthy and (for the most part) delightful, a partner who is respectful and loving and kind, a marriage that I enjoy, a family who loves me unconditionally, friends who support me unbelievably…

…AND A SET OF IN-LAWS WHO ARE GRACIOUSLY WELCOMING MY CHILDREN AND ME INTO THEIR CHICAGOLAND HOME STARTING TOMORROW SO THAT I CAN GET A MUCH-NEEDED WEEK OF PARENTING BREAKS!

(They’re also coming back with us to Ohio the following week so that they can watch the kids while I attend the NIH VBAC Consensus Development Conference in Bethesda, Maryland!)

I know.  I’m exceedingly, undeservedly lucky.

And if I just think about that luck for a moment, just let it seep into my perspective on my life right now, it makes my whining about these forty days seem petty, even childish.

It makes those crushed crackers seem less like an evil toddler’s brain-squish and more like what they really were:

“Oooooh, Mommy, these crackers feel so silly and funny and strange in my little hands!  Look, just look at them!  Look at me play!  Just look at how happy I am, doing something so silly and funny and strange!  And aren’t you so lucky to be so silly and funny and strange with me?!”

Yes, I know.

I’m exceedingly, undeservedly lucky.