Recently Typed Questions

Q. Why can't I comment on your post? Were there idiots? Did you close comments because of idios? Where are the idiots? I will totally beat up those idiots.

A. No, noooo! No idiots. Nothing but hundreds of wonderfully kind, understanding and helpful comments. I think my lack of a post title freaked something out and sent the sidebar down to where the comments should be and basically I broke the webbityblog and it's all my fault and I AM A COLOSSAL FAILURE WAAAAHH.

Q. Uhh.

A. I am kidding. Obviously, this is all Denis Leary's fault.

Q. Soccer. SOCCER?

A. AH KNOW, RIGHT? We thought we were signing him up for a little "run around the room for 45 minutes after lunch like lunatics and maybe practice kicking balls and then come home and take a reeeeeallly good nap for Mama" thing. And that's what it seemed like in the fall, when he went, and he loved it. Soccer was seriously the one thing we could get him to talk about. But then, without telling us they changed things up and were TEACHING soccer, as an ORGANIZED SPORT.

To three-year-olds. Good luck with that, bitchcakes.

The big thing, apparently, was that the playroom where soccer was held was separated from the libary/music room by a curtain. And Noah freaking LOVES the libary/music room. And was fascinated by the curtain. And spent a lot of the soccer session trying to peek behind the curtain. And then OTHER KIDS would try to peek behind the curtain, and for some reason Noah was pegged as some kind of Big Curtain Instigator and therefore "not ready" for the rigors of the little fake soccer class.

The fact that, okay, but he really loves the IDEA of soccer, and is never going to understand WHY he can't go anymore, and sees his classmates going unless I pick him up early, just didn't seem to phase anyone in the slightest. Which: Damn. That's heartless, a little. After we pitched a fit they offered to give Noah one more chance, provided one of us was there to observe his behavior. I decided that honestly, I'd rather not give them a chance to kick my kid out a second time and declined.

You might wonder why the school wouldn't just maybe think about putting up a fucking baby gate or something. You might just want to stop with that crazy, out-of-the-box thinking, there.

Q. So. Seriously. Why not just pull Noah out of school completely?

A. Trust me, I would love to. I kept him home today, just because I felt like it. And it feels damn nice. He's wearing stripe-y pajamas and no socks and watching Lazytown.

And...that...right there. See, I do work from home. Sure, it's "dicking around on the Internet" work, but the money I make is essential to our family. Preschool is the only childcare I have. When Noah is home and I have to work, he entertains himself pretty well, but sooner or later I need to think and keep his butt in one room and keep his hands out of the baby's eyeballs and off my computer, and I turn on the TV. And yeah, it's all Noggin and that's "Like Preschool On TV!" and crap, but still. It feels like a situation that short-changes everyone: Noah, Ezra, me, my employers.

Also, Lazytown is a really fucking weird show. Dear God.

So until I can find an affordable part-time nanny (after I talk to you about my trust issues!) to come here a few mornings a week or another school, we do kind of need to keep him where he is. And not surprisingly, I've yet to come across any preschools in our price range that have immediate openings. Welcome to suburban Washington, DC: Home of the Waitlist.

Noah also cannot attend Gymboree or other supplemental classes like that, right now. Trust me on that one. They are a trigger for some of the most spectacular sensory meltdowns you have ever seen. At least after preschool I'm the only nervous, jittery person in the car. 45 minutes at The Little Gym and we're BOTH crying.

Jason drops Noah off in the mornings, and gets a completely story: Noah runs in, all smiles and no hesitation. The other kids are happy to see him. "Noah's here!" they say. He might not really understand how to talk to them like (GAH GAH HATE THIS WORD) "typical" kids, but he's not spending the day locked in a punishment cage, ostracized from the community.  He LIKES school, which I think is a good indicator that when we do find the right situation for him, he's going to kick supreme amounts of ass.

I do think he's smart enough to know that he's a little different, and I HATE that a school we thought SEEMED so laid-back and on-board with the whole "we just want him to have fun and play with new toys and work on sharing and eat graham crackers and juice at an adorably small table" idea of preschool has ended up having zero tolerance for any kid who is a little different. Who thinks circle time is boring ("poor attention span!") and has trouble not playing with awesome-looking toys that are RIGHT THERE ("poor impulse control!") instead. Where a refusal to wash his hands before snack is like, a major problem that must be reported to me immediately, and when I suggest that "oh, you know, the other day he turned on the hot water by himself and I think it burned him," I get nods and murmurs of understanding but still, could we be sure to "work" on "handwashing" a little "more" at home?

I started the year by attempting to be really honest with his teachers about Noah and his quirks, and I almost feel like we're being punished for that, because now nothing is allowed to just be a "three-year-old kid thing" but are all Signs of the Autism Apolcalypse.

Wait. What was I saying about why I can't just pull him out immediately? Christ.

Q. It really sounds like PDD-NOS/Asperger's/full-blown autism/absolutely nothing! Have you gotten him checked for PDD-NOS/Asperger's/full-blown autism/absolutely nothing?

A. Yes. Currently our "diagnosis" remains off the spectrum, as Sensory Integration Disorder. But as anyone who has gone through this process knows, it's a ridiculously bizaare thing to really pinpoint with a lot of accuracy. His speech therapist admitted that he just "has a lot going on, all over the place," without clearly being This or That or What-the-Fuck-Other.

There's a big difference in how Noah acts at home (where his first evaluation took place), to how he acts at a small doctor's office filled with toys and nice grown-ups getting on the floor and playing with him (where the second one happened)....to how he acts out in the world, at the mall, at birthday parties, at the playground, at school. Some days, I think the SID/SPD label is right. Other days we see symptoms that suggest something a little more pervasive (stimming, panic, obsessive/compulsive tics), and other times he is a perfectly delightful, perfectly non-label-worthy three-year-old. (I know some of our family members think we are nuts, because they always see Awesome Noah. Who is awesome, no doubt.) We're allllll about the context over here.

His evaluation through the school district should include someone coming to observe him at school, yes. That's taking awhile, mostly because we suck and dragged our feet on getting the paperwork in, because We Are Still Kind Of Bitter About The Early Intervention Thing, and then I didn't send in the right proof of county residency and then we didn't put enough postage on the damn thing. So yeah, that one is my bad.

Also under consideration: paying out-of-pocket for a Big Full Neurological Everything evaluation through a local non-profit, signing up to be part of a study at NIMH, a weekly "social skills" session at a special-needs school, in addition to speech therapy with a focus on oral motor skills and conversational speech. And of course, continuing to simply love the stuffing out of him, no matter what.  We are lucky to have an unbelievable number of options around here, both public and private, but...sometimes when faced with SO MANY OPTIONS it's easy to get a little deer-in-the-headlights over knowing where to go next.

Q. I don't know if this is assvice or will help, but my kid...

A. Yes. Please. Go on! I can't even tell you how helpful your stories are. For everybody, I think, who is still going through the interminable process of trying to get answers, to sort through what's a problem and not-a-problem and, like, A Problem. I've read a slew of your emails and comments out loud to Jason, because OMFGTOTALLY.

Yesterday's post was one that I've been holding back for awhile. I thought maybe it was better to keep my neuroses to myself, for once, for now. I really, really want to be careful, obviously, with how Noah is presented here, and that the stories I tell are more about my relationship and journey as Noah's mother and all the ups and downs, and not like: my kid is weird and I didn't sign up for weird.

Every day that I didn't write that post, I felt worse. More anxious, more like my nerves were twisting and tightening into a ball in my chest. I couldn't get my thoughts in order until I typed them out.

I don't want to cure him or fix him or change him. There's no diagnosis that could possibly ever make me feel differently. I want him to be happy, and to thrive, and be surrounded by people who also value his happiness and understand that different is awesome in its own way. And who will help him thrive, just as he is, because he is more than capable of that.

I hit the publish button yesterday with a lot of trepidation...and then sat there and watched the comments and emails pile up, each one written by someone who values Noah's happiness and understands that different is awesome in its own way, with their own story of a deeply-loved child whom they helped thrive, and it was just...awe-inspiring, really. Thank you so much for taking the time to reach out and hold my hand and throw a few virtual punches on behalf of my son.

(That said, I hope it's not a total fucking cop-out if I don't open comments today. I'm STILL reading through comments and emails from yesterday and have so much to process, honestly -- links to follow, book recommendations to check out, follow-up questions to ask -- that I kind of feel like I need to hit the pause button this weekend on the feedback. I do hope you understand, although of course my email and Facebook wall are always open.)

(Plus, my in-laws are coming tonight, and I need to vaccuum out the chocolate-chip cookie crumbs from the sleeper sofa.)

I told Noah's preschool that we were dropping his enrollment back down to three days a week. And that no, we would NOT be taking advantage of the whole $50 early-bird re-registration option for next year, thanks. And then I reminded them that my account should have a credit for the cost of the after-school soccer program. You know, the one they kicked him out of.

It felt...ugh. Yeeshh. Uhggzzzaaaaa. I can't seem to spell the sound I'm making right now.

It felt like...colossal failure? Maybe? Not by Noah, of course, but by us, for making such a poor decision about his school in the first place. And by them, for telling me when I registered that they were familiar and capable of handling Noah's needs, and then proceeding to be unable or unwilling to make ANY allowances or adaptations for him. (Seriously. Kicked out of a soccer class for three-year-olds. Because apparently the point of the class is to really learn the rules of soccer and how to dribble and pass properly and Noah...wanted to run around the room? And kick the soccer ball wherever he wanted to kick the soccer ball? Dear Lord, you'd think he was still TWO, or something.) By all of us, since the year started out so promising and I can't figure out who is expecting too much and who is selling him short or if it's just a mess of All Of The Above.

His teacher never fails to tell me that oh, Noah reminds her SO MUCH of her autistic son and you know that thing he's doing right now is classic PDD and not just SPD and he doesn't talk to other kids and still won't sit for circle time and basically consistently paints such a bleak picture of him that lately I can't even deal with it -- I run into the classroom, shove his arms in his coat and hightail it back to the car.

We're doing our best, I tell her. I've taken him for evaluations, I'm on the waiting list for more evaluations. I've read books and websites. We've changed his diet and our discipline techniques and we talk talk talk talk talk to him all the time about what is expected of him at school. No, the school district hasn't called us yet. No, our insurance hasn't given us the green light for speech therapy yet. I'm not trying to hide from scary truths and I'm not trying to seek absolution for parenting shortcomings in the form of a handy-yet-squishy diagnosis. I'm just trying to parent a boy whom I love more than life itself, who day by day becomes more and more of a mystery to me, because I just don't have any answers.

At home, he is wonderful. He is funny and verbal and affectionate and imaginative. He loves music and books and being loud and being tickled and chased and stomping around the house like a dinosaur, or humming the Peanuts theme while dragging a blue blanket behind him "like Linus." He tells us he loves us, asks nicely when prompted and never fails to say thank you. He can tell us when he's sad or scared and remembers that he rode on Daddy's shoulders when we saw the fireworks last summer. We watch him at home and scrunch up our foreheads because doesn't he seem fine? He's fine, right? What the hell?

***

He is also a little ticking time bomb of meaningless routines that we're constantly trying to avoid disrupting. Don't try to put his coat on anywhere but by the front door. Don't serve that kind of juice in that kind of cup. When one of these routines is ignored, a switch gets flipped.

I tried to take him to the playground after school on a rare warm weather day, and while I told him where we were going and prepped him with some social stories about waiting for a turn on the swings and having to go home when Mommy says so...I forgot to warn him that I would be taking a right turn off our usual drive home. I made the turn and he screamed. And screamed. I pulled up to the playground -- a playground he's been to, a playground I swear we've driven to -- and I pointed at the slides and tried to calm him down and he screamed and screamed and screamed. I tried to get him out of the car and he kicked at me and screamed some more. My face burned as I felt all the heads in the vicinity turn to look at us. Mothers, nannies, some random landscaping guys. I tried to hold him and quiet him and tell him that everything was okay. His eyes darted around in terror and his body was stiff. He screamed even louder, and Ezra's face crumpled in his carseat and suddenly I had two hysterical children and Noah started repeating that he wanted to go home, over and over again.

I gave up. I drove home. I begged him to tell me what was wrong. I begged him to look at me. Are you scared? Are you sad? He wouldn't answer, except to say that he wanted to go home. We are home, I said. Mommy brought you home.

No, he said. I want to go home. I want to go home.

Okay, I said. Go home.

And then I went into the bathroom and shut the door and stared at the mirror with a baffled look on my face, because seriously. What the hell?

***

As hard as it's been to accept the fact that hoo boy, did we ever fuck up the preschool choice this year, that letting him graduate from the early intervention system was a huge -- YOOOOGE! -- mistake, the hardest thing right now is to accept that oh God, we have so many more choices to make, and what if we screw up again? The clock is ticking and time is critical and preschools need application fees and deposits and would we get those deposits back if he ends up qualifying for public services? If he doesn't qualify does that mean he should really stay mainstreamed? Or should we just pursue a private special needs school, even though I have NO IDEA how we'd ever pay for it? They cost more than my college, and we have Ezra now, and he'll need school too, and who knows what will be best for him and OH MY GOD, who the hell ever put ME in charge of raising TWO human beings?

Every day, I drive by a Montessori school that has offered Noah a space for next year. They need to know our decision in two weeks. I look at it -- a lovely school, with multi-age classrooms and no circle time and lots of one-on-one activities and Noah would be free to fixate on whatever he fixates on and I know a lot of sensory kids do really well with Montessori -- and then my chest tightens and I have trouble breathing because what if it's not right either? What if we're still where we are now next year, with a school that has essentially written our son off as just too special needs, as just not their problem, even as the school district punts us back into the mainstream because Noah doesn't meet their standards either? What if what it what if aeeeeeeiiiiiii.

I haven't had an anxiety attack since before Noah was born, I told Jason the other night. But now I'm getting them practically every day when I pick him up from school.

It's just because we don't know, he told me. At some point we'll know. We'll get an evaluation that actually looks at everything, not just speech or this or that. Then we'll know what we need to do.

And then Noah wandered in with his teddy bear. This is Corduroy, he said. He lost his button. Jason didn't say anything, but swooped them both up and held them tight.

***

For now, what I think Noah needs is a couple days off from school and circle time and expectations that he just cannot meet right now, for whatever reason. Mornings where he can eat Cheerios in his jammies and not worry about someone trying to put his coat on in the living room instead of the foyer. Yes, he needs socialization (believe me, I'd yank him out of the school completely otherwise) but I also think he needs a chance to relax, to be his little quirky self to his heart's content.

A couple days a week where he can stay where things make sense, with a person who -- despite all her worry and hand-wringing and total lack of qualifications -- looks at his face and still sees nothing but infinite ability and possibility.

Delicious Whole-Grain Baby

So after all of that, this happened.

In part, I caved because Ez suddenly seemed ravenously, inexplicably hungry all the time and seriously tried to throw himself headfirst into Noah's plate of macaroni and cheese. It was also because there wasn't anything good on TV that night.

After the initial WHAT THE EFF? reaction, I must report that Ezra seriously loves oatmeal. Loves it. Two bites in and he had the whole spoon thing down and two nights in he knew when it was cereal time and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WOMAN, WHERE IS MY CEREAL? He's also skipped his 2 am feeding three nights in a row, although this morning we had our first real solid-food-poop diaper and oh. Man. I'd TOTALLY blocked that part out.

(He still loves the boobs, of course. This morning I had a dream where I kept trying to readjust my bra over and over again because it was stuck to me, like a suction cup, and I couldn't figure out what was going on until I woke up and realized that Ezra had somehow scooted up to me and latched on. He was also sound asleep. Take that, spoon! I am still totally his favorite.)

Speaking of Signs That I Am A Little Senile, after our first cereal feeding I gazed upon his messy, sticky, drooly, crusty outfit and thought, hmmm, what we really need here is some kind of protective space-age coverage device that would prevent some of that mess! What a fantastic, magical invention that would be!

Then I remembered that it's called a bib, you fucking jackass. The end.

Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming Of Me Falling Down For Your Amusement

Okay. So. THANK YOU. I needed that. All of that. Especially the joke about the pirate's balls. Which I think got posted a good four or five times but all that did was prove that yes, IT'S STILL FUNNY because I laughed every time I read it.

Although getting me to laugh didn't prove to be that hard, as actual official Laugh Out Loudage was achieved by the third comment. This one, by Margo:

My cell phone had been missing since Jan 12. I found it on Wednesday! I found it in my purse.

Seriously. I keep going back and rereading that, and laughing every time, because it's so perfect. Even the punctuation amuses me to no end. Margo, you are a goddamn comic genius. Go start a blog.

Anyway. I am not so very sad today, and feel a little silly about it now, because I got myself into a funk over a little rookie mistake known as TOO MUCH GOOGLE. I needed to step away from the Google and the computer, and put my hands in the air like the contestants on Top Chef do when Padma screams TIME'S UP! KNIVES DOWN! STEP AWAY FROM THE UNCLE BEN'S MICROWAVEABLE RICE BOWL IN A CUP CHALLENGE!

Stupid Google.

After I got done diagnosing my firstborn with All Sorts Of Things, and then deciding against Those Things and reading about Oh My God, There's This Whole Other Class of Things, I got a call from a really great neighborhood preschool -- a preschool Noah had been accepted to last year, but we turned them down because we were silly and thought that preschool shouldn't like, cost that much -- and they offered him a spot for next year. I'm...hopeful. I think it will be a much, much better fit for him. Provided we don't qualify for the special needs preschool through the district, which. I don't know. I don't want to think about that yet, because it might make me go back to Google. And the Things.

Plus the district evaluation isn't going to happen for another four zillion years, since I needed to send in more paperwork and I did and then the paperwork got sent back to me today because Jason only put one stamp on the envelope and it needed two stamps and I bet his bad postage estimation skills had to do with a poor preschool choice by his parents way back in 70's.

HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS FUNNY? SLAPSTICK!

So just when I decided that Friday wasn't such a bad day after all, I fell down the stairs.

I was padding around the house in my bedroom slippers and thank goodness I was holding a bag of dirty diapers and not something important, like the baby or a glass of wine, but I just slipped on a step and my feet went flying out from under me and BANG, butt and then BANG, knee and then BANG, elbow and the next thing I knew I was at the bottom of the stairs moaning in pain and then Jason peered over the railing and was all, "What happened?"

(See? More preschool-level concepts that the man will probably never master in his life, no matter what.)

This is my leg. I never would have thought that I bump my upper thigh into things that often, but it turns out this bruise is like a paper cut that you are constantly made aware of by things like...sitting down. Or rolling over in bed. Or your preschooler's battering ram of a head. Or pants.

Oh, and speaking of pants, last night I managed to trip and sprain my big toe while putting on my pajamas. And to think, my mother was so disappointed when I quit ballet lessons in kindergarten.

(Don't tell him I'm a klutz. Or that he's wearing Christmas jammies in February, I CANNOT DO LAUNDRY UNTIL MAH INJURIES HAVE HEALED.)

Your Turn

I'm kind of blue. But I'm kind of not in the mood to talk about it. Yet. (Everything's totally fine, though, promise. Just motherhood and worry and my sweet little Noah and my stupid little feeeeeeeeelings but I think it's better if I just shut up about it, for once, for now.)

But still. I'm sad, a little.

Say something funny.

A Post About Boobs. But You Know, the Lame Mommyblog Functional Sort of Boobs.

Ezra had his four-month check-up yesterday (hmm, feels like way too many hyphens in that sentence, but no matter), and unlike last time I cannot directly compare his stats to his big brother's, because I never blogged about them. So I don't know them. So I was either completely over documenting Noah's babyhood by four months or at least briefly pretending to for the Sake Of My Poor Mommyblogged-Out Audience. Or....(scans blog archives once more)...ah. Yes. Month four was the month of the rotavirus. Over and over again. So I was simply too busy vomiting. I remember now.

(I also remember why it became imperative that we move to a place with more than one bathroom, as I never, ever wish to repeat the math of Two Sick Adults, One Toilet again.)

Anyway. I believe Noah was somewhere in the 15-pound range, and really long, like 95th percentile long. His doctor was all, "Have you started him on solids yet?" And I was all, "Yesssss," because the Internet had yelled at me for starting him on solids. And the doctor was all, "Good!" and proceeded to rage against commercial rice cereal for the next like, 20 minutes.

Ezra weighs 15 pounds, 9 ounces and is 26 inches long. 75th percentile, more or less. They didn't give me the percentile for his head measurement (16 3/4 inches), but did comment that wow, it really IS the most perfectly round head ever. He's like a cantelope, attached to a ham.

I also got the green light to start him on solids, if we feel like it. (Our doctor uses a "six months or 15 pounds or doubled birth weight or whichever comes first" guideline, which I know is not what every doctor recommends, but oh hai, welcome to motherhood, the land of a million magical and conflicting opinions about every fucking little thing you do,)

I came home and ground up some oatmeal in the blender (one chronically constipated kid is ENOUGH, thank you, rice cereal)...and then poured it in a plastic container and put it away.

Not quite ready yet, let's stick with the six-month plan, I thought. But unlike last time, when my instincts told me yes, Noah was ready, whatever, I'm not sure this is so much my instincts but a small, quiet need to Not Be Done Exclusively Breastfeeding yet. And yeah, I'm aware that of all the neurotic things I've said on my website, that's gotta be up there in the top five, at least.

I'm not too worried Ezra will wean himself -- despite being "ready," I don't even think he'll be that interested in food, and don't even get me started on the crazy hoops we go through to get him to accept the occasional bottle. ($13 bottles that look like boobs, people. I tried to give him one last night out at a restaurant because I wasn't wearing an easily-opened top and had some about-to-expire breastmilk in the fridge [he won't eat anything that's been frozen and thawed, or even not super-freshly pumped, which I finally figured out is likely excess lipase, gah], and I swear, having that bottle out on the table felt more suggestive than opening my bra in public ever has. He also still wouldn't take it, and I ended up stretching out the neckline of a brand-new dress anyway.) I am pretty sure we'll be nursing for as long as I could ever possibly want to nurse, which I think is somewhere north of a year but south of "able to unbutton my shirt and ask for it."

I'm not worried about my supply or allergies or anything like that. No, this is just me selfishly clinging to a passing phase of infancy, when I was all he needed in the world, when I truly got to be his everything. When I could see his rolly thighs and those numbers on the scale and proudly think: Me! All me! I did that! He used to be a zygote and now! LOOK AT WHAT MY BODY CAN DO! (thumps chest, swaggers away, awwwyeah)

I've started and deleted a "In Praise of Breastfeeding" type post several times -- partly because I don't want to make anyone feel badly because they couldn't or didn't.

And partly because the only commenter I've had to ban since Ezra was born would only show up on posts whenever I said ANYTHING positive about breastfeeding, and who would leave rambling comments about what a load of shit it all was and seemed to think I was some kind of anti-formula zealot. Quite refreshing, honestly, from the days when I regularly got comments about how my low supply was all in my imagination, and supplementing with formula was just an excuse for laziness and didn't I know that all I had to do was <insert solution that I'd already fucking tried, thanks>.

(Oh, and whatever -- Ezra HAS had formula, every now and again, thanks to the lipase/storing problem combined with growth spurts where he drinks every blessed drop and there's nothing left to pump. Oh my God, the horror! And whatever, etc.)

But. I've loved nursing this baby. I get why women get so passionate about it, even though that passion rankles those who had troubles, because it can sound like a judgement. "Yeah, it was all perfect sunshine and rainbows for you, but it was hell on earth for me and STOP JUDGING STOP JUDGING I FAIL, OKAY? GOD." I am so not judging.

But.

I love his face when he knows he's going to eat -- big eyes, open mouth, excited breathing and arm flailing. I love how he sighs contentedly after a few swallows. How he looks up at me with wide, adoring eyes. How he takes a break to smile at me right before nuzzling back against me. I love how, when he's really good and hungry and I'm taking too long for his liking, he lets out a squawky, impatient shriek. When I think about everything I have done with with only one hand over the past four months -- phone calls, bills, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, this very entry -- I laugh, and I love it.

I know it's not something I'll probably ever talk to him about -- what young man wants to hear about breastfeeding from their mother, oh my goooood -- so I'm very cheesily treasuring and relishing this relationship for now, for as long as I can. I wanted to do this for him, but never reaized how much it would be for me, too.

Oatmeal, anyone?

Ezra's Lullaby

(A work in progress)

(New verses added nightly)

(Sung to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey")

(And whatever, like people on American Idol write their own songs or anything EITHER)

High-maintenance baaaaby,
Why won't you sleep?
When you stay up all night,
You're kind of a creep.

High-maintenance baaaaby,
Why do you cry?
You're fed, changed and swaddled,
What the eff else can I try?

High-maintenance baaaaby,
Why do you sob?
You're making me look very
inept at my job.

High-maintenance baaaaby,
Why do you fuss?
Something something something.
Duck-billed platypus.

High-maintenance baaaaby,
Wants nothing but boob.
And play World of Warcraft,
And go pwn some noobs.

High-maintenance baaaaby,
All covered in cheese.
I'm going to eat you.
I'll start with your knees.

LOLZ

Well, NOW how am I supposed to get anything done, ever?

Yeah, this blogging thing was fun and all but TICKLISH BABY GIGGLES YUM GOTTA GO BYE.

(This is technically the second time I got him to laugh. The night before I coaxed some giggles by screaming "GRILLED CHEEEEEESE!!!!" right in his face.)

(What?)

Capturing the Moment to the Extreme

Let me back up and expand on something that I talked about yesterday, because nothing makes for a more exciting blog post than a story that you already know the ending to.

It happened a few weeks ago, when I was still staying at my parents' house, on the night before my dad's surgery*. My mom had returned to the hospital after dinner for one last private visit. I was alone in the house with two children, my dog and my mom's three cats, cleaning up the kitchen after yet another successful Crock Pot meal (seriously, yo, I rock the Crock). Noah was watching WALL*E; Ez was on a quilt on the floor and completely enraptured by the ceiling fan.

The movie came to a scene where alllllll the little future babies go sliiiiiding across the slanting deck of the ship -- a scene that always causes a brief fit of alarm for Noah. (SPOILER: EVERYBODY DIES AND IS EATEN BY ROBOTS.) He asked to give Baby Brother a hug.

Awwww, I thought. He wants to make sure HIS baby is okay! How sweet!

I gently propped Ezra in the chair next to Noah and, with my Sappy Preshus Family Memory Alarm going on at top volume, ran to grab the camera.

I was happily snapping away when this happened:

No, he's not kissing him.

Yes, he's biting him.

Yes, I yelled at him OMIGODWENEVERBITEBABIES WENEVERBITEANYBODY WESPUTTERWHATTHEHOLYOMG GOTOYOURROOM.

No, he's never done it again.

Yes, I kind of love this photo now, and think it will make a hell of an addition to a wedding day slideshow, hopefully during the best man's speech.

*Dad update: He continues to improve, slowly but surely. He's been moved out of the ICCU and into a step-down unit, although he still has some pnuemonia and breathing troubles, which are likely the result of a brand-spanking NEW diagnosis of emphysema, despite the fact that he quit smoking over 25 years ago. People, allow me to go out on a crazy limb here and say something super-provocative: Smoking is bad for you. I know! Me and my off-the-wall theories. I bet one day some science will back me up. Anyway, at some point he'll be moved again to an in-patient therapy/cardiac rehab place, and then! At some point after THAT, he'll go home.

The Baby Who

I dressed Ezra in a certain blue stripey fleece sleeper today, and had to step back from the changing table for a second, like, "whoa, which baby are you again?"

OH RIGHT, THE FAT ONE.

And of course, I mean that in the nicest, most delicious way possible.

 

You're also the baby who won't smile directly into the camera, which means a lot of ridiculous behavior on my part and blindly-snapped, blurry photos.

Every once in awhile, I catch you. Sort of.

You're the baby for whom that whole thing about a "regular, consistent bedtime routine" nonsense actually WORKS, and after months of us basically keeping you up until we went to bed, in hopes of delaying your buttcrack-of-dawn waking, we've finally figured you out, a little bit. A bath and a book with your big brother at 8:30 (plus a little boob while we read Dr. Seuss), a tight swaddle and in your crib by 9, and lo. You stay there, and you sleep. Until the buttcrack of dawn. When you wake up anyway. Eh. But then there's more boob and more sleep, off and on, until dawn has officially yanked her trampy low-rise pants up over her buttcrack and it's time for us to start our day.

You're the baby who doesn't demand much, besides our constant attention. You want to be held and nursed and held and nursed and talked to and tickled. You're the baby who LIKES my singing, who LIKES the back-and-forth of pretend conversation, where we coo and you coo and we say, "my goodness, and then what happened?" and you smile and try so hard to tell us what happened, who LIKES all the baby toys and loveys that your brother ignored.

You're the baby who HATES the swings that your brother loved, who is indifferent Brown Bear, Brown Bear, his most favorite book in the world, but who loves the books with the photos of baby faces, except for the pages where the baby is crying. Those pages make you sad.

You're the baby who will only take a bottle if I'm not around. And by "around" I mean "NOT IN THE HOUSE." You're my champion, my baby bird, the baby who righted the one small pang of regret I have from your brother's babyhood, and I'm so happy we can do this for each other.

You're the baby who patiently indulges your big brother's affections, whenever he randomly attacks you with a hug and a head pat and accidentally drops a metal car on your face. You're a mystery to him, I think, as he's sometimes not sure what a "baby brother" really is. He thinks All Babies are baby brothers, and I'm not sure he's aware that you will grow up and be a person he can talk to and play with and who will steal all his metal cars. He bit you once, not so much out of anger or meaness but curiosity. Would it hurt? (Yes.) Would you cry? (Yes.) Would you taste like an M&M? (More like a pork chop, I'd say, from experience.)

You're the baby who, just like your brother, takes my breath away on a regular basis, because you are so lovely and miraculous and mine. The baby who, despite being wanted and tried for over and over again for months and years, showed up when we least expected you, whose tiny, near-microscopic presence on an ultrasound felt like a complete surprise, whose presence now still feels like winning the lottery. Because oh, how we love the baby -- the son, the brother, the person -- you are.

(LOOK. YOU AM SQUIRREL. HAAAA.)