The end of one adventure

I am, at this moment, at the end of one adventure, and about to embark on a new one. The new one is that of being a stay-at-home mom. It's what I’ve longed for and daydreamed about, what I’ve prayed for, planned for, saved for, hoped for, waited for. This new adventure is what I’ll soon be immersed in, head to toe, with all my heart—and tears and sweat—and to say that I’m ready, that I’m excited, is not even to begin to touch on how I feel.
    But the old adventure was a good one. At this moment, my foot is still lingering at the exit and I still have my eyes on the old adventure.The old adventure—that of being a working mom—had more blessings than I could have imagined at the outset. These blessings are in my mind right now; I’m flipping through a mental photo album, slowly, lovingly, gratefully.
    To the company where I worked for the last five years—I love the people that I saw every day within your walls. I’m listening to their voices in my head right now, and thinking of their smiles and their laughter. I love the office with its windows and its plants.
    To daycare: I will miss your bustling halls at pick-up time. I’ll miss the artwork on the walls. I’ll miss reading the board outside Ginny’s classroom, finding out what songs she sang and art she made and lessons she learned. I’ll miss the teachers, still smiling at the end of each day. Ginny was so happy there for two years, and Andersson was happy there for his couple months. I felt such peace and gratitude leaving my kids there during the days.
    I am saying goodbye right now to much that was important to me. Some things that were hard. Some things that were wonderful. So much that I’m grateful for.
    The old adventure is over—the orchestra has stopped playing, but the song is still hanging in the air, and I’m listening wistfully to its echoes.
    The new song’s about to begin.
   
    I think it’s gonna be AWESOME.

The cruelty of teething

When Zuzu was teething, I remember thinking, why does this have to be the way we get teeth? It’s terrible. One by one all these little knives have to slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, slice their way through a baby’s gums. Like Zuzu, Bear started teething around four months. And he will be teething off and on for the next … year? It doesn’t seem fair. These are babies. Why do they have to endure this?

Last night I noticed that his gums were bleeding. Okay, okay, so I guess you have a reason to be so cranky, little man.

It is one of my failings as a mother that I never kept track of how many teeth Zuzu had. When people asked, I should have been able to say, “seven.” Not: “between four and ten?” Even when she only had two teeth, I had no idea if the tops of any others were poking through. After all, you can’t tell a nine-month-old to open wide so you can inspect their gums. You have to stick a finger in there, and I promise you it’s going to get chomped on.

So I probably won’t be better with Bear. I’m already not better. His top gums feel pokey, but—how pokey? Tooth pokey? Or just pre-tooth pokey?

You’d be surprised how often teeth are remarked upon in babies. Once your baby has sprouted teeth, everywhere you go it’s “look at those toofers!” We heard this so often with Zuzu that my brain began to think toofers was a real word.

Back to how long teething takes. We’ve had a month of buckets of drool, irritability, bad sleep, and cold symptoms that may or may not be teething-related. And all we’ve got to show for it is pokey gums.

I want two teeth, then a break. Who do I take this up with, the tooth fairy?

Barn Heaven

When Grammie and Bapa (Anders' parents) said they wanted to take Zuzu to Govin's Lambing Barn a few weeks ago, I thought it would be fun, but I didn't think it would be THIS fun. I pictured a little pen with maybe like 10 lambs. But I began to readjust my expectations when we were approaching the farm and saw parked cars lining the roads for what looked like miles. This place does some serious business at lambing season.

Inside, it was barn heaven for a little kid like Zuzu (and several hundred others). There may have been more animals in one place than I'd ever seen, let alone Zuzu. Some were in pens and some were wandering free. Chickens just roamed around at your feet. There were sheep, and the sheep had lambs, lambs, and more lambs, bleating and suckling from their mothers, some white, some black, all different and extremely cute. There were goats and more goats, and piglets being put in people's laps for photos.

Bapa was on camera duty, which was fabulous, as he took the job seriously and captured some great moments.

My favorite part was the chicks. A toddler-height pen full of the fuzzy little guys. You could just reach in and grab one and hold it and no one cared. Everyone was doing this. A million kids were doing this. Govin's hires the most laidback staff. It was so fun.

And at the end, Grammie took Zuzu for a pony ride!

How Does Zuzu Like Having a Little Brother?

“How does Zuzu like having a little brother?” That’s the most common question I was asked after Bear was born. It’s a sweet question, people wanting to be inclusive of Zuzu in the midst of the baby excitement. And there’s reason to be curious. I’d heard from a couple sources that two is the hardest age for introducing a sibling. One-year-olds are too young to resent the change, and by age three they can understand what’s going on better than two-year-olds.

So how does Zuzu like having a little brother? It’s more fun to answer that question four months later. At the time, all I could say was: she’s very sweet with him, and thankfully has never lashed out at him, even in the tough moments when she was feeling needy for our attention. She may have been mad that I wasn’t holding her, but she’s never once acted mad at Bear for existing, which is what I’d kinda been preparing for.

From the beginning she liked to take care of him, the way she cared for her dolls. She was anxious to return his pacifier to his mouth after it had been spit out. She would bring him toys and blankets. She asked to hold him, so we’d lay him across her lap.

But still sometimes I’d look at her and wonder if she was ever thinking, “This baby thing was fun for a while, but can’t we send him back to the hospital now?” Did her heart claim him as her brother, or was he just a creature living in the house? I couldn’t tell: does she love him yet?

One evening recently I began to think I could answer that question. I was holding Bear in my lap while Zuzu played, and he was watching her every move. She looked up at him and said “come on!” and took his hand. I held him while she continued holding his hand, and we walked like this through the house to her bedroom. She then invited him into her cardboard fort, so in he went. Zuzu was in raptures that he was in there with her. She laughed every time she looked at him. She showed him toy after toy. And he smiled smile after smile. And my brain was full of dopamine and I almost couldn’t cope with how happy I was, even though I was straining uncomfortably to keep Bear upright in a cardboard box too small for me, and it had otherwise been a tiring, whiny night. That moment erased the tiring whiny part.

Zuzu looks for Bear when she gets up in the mornings. She lies next to him on his blanket when he does tummy time. Twice I’ve entered a room to find Zuzu hugging Bear while he’s in his bouncy seat. He was crying both times because her version of hugging was more like smothering, but hey, that’s what second kids get to deal with.

She enjoys him. Unprompted, she will smile and chuckle at something he does.

Recently I was tucking Zuzu into bed and said, “God made the whole world, did you know that?” She nodded. I said, “He made trees and birds and flowers and water and the sky, and God made you!” she looked up at me. “And God made Bear!” she said.

It’s been over four months since he was born. Has she already forgotten being an only child? Does she remember the newness of Bear, or does she feel like he’s always been around?

Daddy and I were in the living room together a couple nights ago, listening to Zuzu’s happy voice as she played in her bedroom. We both said we were looking forward to hearing the children’s voices together, when Bear is old enough to play.

Sibling love. It was one of the greatest gifts of my childhood, and now it is one of the many delights of motherhood.

2.5 & .33

Here is an unfinished draft of a blog post I was composing a year and a half ago:

Okay, so the reason I was reminiscing about what it used to be like with Zuzu is because now that she's 9 months old, she's so fun, so fun fun fun, that I can't believe I didn't think the early months were boring.  And I really didn't.  I have continually been delighted and fascinated by her.  At every moment I have wanted her growing-up to slow down, not speed up.

But seriously.  She used to just lie there.

Now: she crawls! She stands! She laughs! She claps! She plays!

I wish I'd kept writing, so I could relive more of the 9-month-old version of Zuzu. So here are a very few bits and pieces of what the kids are like right now, more for my sake than anyone else's.

Zuzu is now two and a half. There is a poem that has been written about her:
          There was a little girl,
                 Who had a little curl,
          Right in the middle of her forehead.
                 When she was good,
                 She was very very good,
          But when she was bad she was horrid.

I don’t like the word horrid applied to Zuzu, but it’s all true, even the curly hair, and especially the fact that she’s everything rolled up in one person—the very very good, and the very very naughty.

She likes to do things on her own, and I love letting her do things on her own. It makes life easier for me when she can get a cheese stick by herself, instead of waiting for me to finish nursing Bear so I can open the fridge for her. She can dress herself, and definitely has strong opinions about what to wear, but the results are not always fit for public.

She chatters fluently, and likes to be understood. She will often repeat a statement until we have correctly interpreted it and repeated it back to her. (This can get a little nerve-wracking if we have no idea what she’s saying, but usually we can figure it out quickly.)

Right now it is very interesting to her to categorize things. Wet and dry, bright and dark, girl and boy.



Bear is four months old, and still at the just-lying-there stage, but just-lying-there is obviously a matter of perspective. He:

• kicks his legs like he's trying to break down a door
• stares intently at people and objects. One of his favorite objects to stare at is a two-tone blanket my sister gave me that has words written on it in big capital letters. This blanket, when not in use, is usually folded up and draped over the couch in the place where I sit holding him all the time. Therefore, when he's on my shoulder getting burped or whatever, he's facing the blanket. And when I crane my head to look at his face while he's in this position, I find him in deep, wide-eyed concentration. Besides the blanket, he loves looking at many objects, but I think he likes people best
• coos in the most beautiful sing-songy voice, gentle and sweet and happy
• gives big open-mouthed smiles
• laughs! Not long laughs, short bursts of laughs
• wraps his fingers around anything they touch with a vice-like grip

And much more than this, like drooling and chewing on his hands, etc. He still has some of his newborn hair, but it’s light brown now, and new hair is coming in that seems to be dirty-blondish like Zuzu’s. He’s a big, solid, heavy, sweet, wonderful little baby boy.