Ezra. You are sunshine and stubbornness. Independent, yet anything but a loner. A mimic, but with your own ideas about anything. Easygoing right up until the moment you've been pushed just far enough. Fearless, except for when you are not.
You still seem so small to me, but your personality is as oversized as the 2T hand-me-downs currently are. You make friends everywhere you go, charming adults with your smile and cheerful greetings and offers of plastic cupcakes or empty teacups. You are easily the best two-year-old conversationalist I've ever met, chatting about everything from shoes to elbows to WALL*E to choo choos to meatballs.
You can kick a ball or hit it off a tee with a bat, you think stretching your arms behind you while crouching before tossing them up in the air counts as jumping, you can walk down the stairs alone, slowed only by your tendency to stop and applaud for yourself. You watched some big kids breakdance once and now like to put your head on the ground and kick your feet when music comes on. If your big brother can do it, well dammit, you're going to give a good try too. You love to climb and run and scream and laugh and dance.
I've already had some twinges of regret over the past two weeks that you will probably not remember the time when you were our baby, our youngest. When you were the one doing everything new and different and for the first time, the unsteady rocket-powered center of our world. But you were our baby, my baby, the little boy with the smile that made all of us smile, the one who -- no matter how tired or stressed or out-of-patience I felt -- could instantly lift my mood just by lifting you out of your crib. "Uppy!" you'd say.
"Wuv woo," you also say.
"Ock and ting!" you demand at bedtime, referring to a new step in the routine that you now insist on. We curl up together in the old rocking chair, wrapped in a blanket, and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You put your head on my chest and hum along, and like everything else you do in the world, it makes me simply, beautifully happy.
A lot of families, as part of the path to diagnosis and treatment, videotape their children's behavioral...quirks, I guess. Tics. Possible symptoms. Just so the doctors or therapists or evaluators can "see" what you see at home.
We've never done that, at least on purpose. Noah's school does a lot of videotaping for therapeutic/assessment purposes, but I've always just INTENDED to capture the normal happy fun stuff. I say "intended" because if I go through old videos of Noah I'm often kind of retroactively shocked by something we inadvertently captured that's like, "THAT. RIGHT THERE. THAT TURNED OUT TO BE THING." Noah tip-toeing across the living room; screaming in terror the first time we put him on a teensy pedal-less baby tricycle; telling some great-sounding story that we would only later realize was little more than an echolalic script.
We're still in insurance limbo. We haven't heard the results of our last and latest appeal, which will dictate whether we get to 1) file a grievance with the state, or 2) finally get a couple months' of bills paid right before filing for YET ANOTHER request for an extension of benefits, bwaaaaaaaaahhhhzzzzzzzbbbtttt etc. I also need to go back to the school district with proof that Noah does indeed regress without extended school year options, and that his fine motor skills are not the only area of OT concern. I also just need certain people to see it, to believe it.
So I've been videotaping him.
This is Noah trying to sit still and watch a movie. This is Noah starting out like any typical, high energy kid, before his movements become less and less controlled and more and more compulsive. This is Noah after I try to curb a single stimming behavior involving his fingers in his mouth, after he's past any point of self-regulation or ability to chill the hell out. This is not Noah performing, or having fun, or being like this on purpose. This is two minutes and 17 seconds of what he's like almost all the time now.
This is Noah without occupational therapy. That's it. This is nothing. This is fixable.
I'm not imagining that two minutes and 17 seconds of our life will magically convince anyone who actually matters to help us fix this, but don't worry. I've got more. Ho ho ho, motherfuckers.* I've got more.**
*Not you guys, of course.
**Not all for you guys, of course. Just this one and then I'll mostly drop it. I'm really just threatening invisible insurance and IEP people with the equivalent of sitting through a 587-slide presentation on a road trip to Mount Rushmore. I AM SUCH A BADASS. MIGHTY TARZAN CHEST-THUMP!***
(I wrote -- and intended to publish -- this entry on Friday, but Vimeo was taking FOREVER to do whatever technogidgetgabble it does to videos and I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for it and then I got bored and decided to bump this post to today. Which is why I am not bitching about HAVING NO POWER AGAIN, thanks to a fucking TORNADO, like WHAT THE HELL, first a tiny earthquake and now a tornado and I swear to God, there better not be a mildly-inconveniencing volcano next week that like, singes and ruins everybody's hair before BlogHer or something gaaaaah.)
A couple months ago, in a burst of GREATEST MOTHER EVER-fueled delusion, I came across this printable craft thing on Disney's website: a 3D paper version of the house from UP.
Why would this particular papercraft make me the GREATEST MOTHER EVER? Oh. Oh ho ho ho.
Exhibit A:
So yeah. Noah kind of loves the house from UP. He adores it. He builds version after version out of Legos and Duplos and one day we came home from camp to find that the babysitter had cut his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich into the shape of a house, complete with a little door and chimney, and Noah screamed like it was the Virgin Mary appearing in a bowl of tomato soup.
Of course, the house from UP is not available in a handy and overpriced plastic version. (You know I checked. A lot.) This little cardboard cut-out version was the closest thing I'd ever seen to an actual, playable house-from-UP toy. And all I needed was a printer!
And...well, some cardstock. Where the hell do you buy cardstock? What is cardstock? Do they sell it at Target? Do I have to go to a craft store?
(Note: The last time I went to the craft store was when I was in search of a large decorative jingle bell and leather ribbon that sort-of resembled the one in Polar Express, because if there is an obscure prop from a not-widely merchandised children's movie you can bet fine cash money that my child will become completely, utterly obsessed with it.)
But I found and purchased some cardstock. Then I realized the instructions mention a craft knife, which I did not have, but what the hell, I bet the kitchen scissors will work okay. And glue. Surely we already have glue?
We did not, as it turned out, have any glue other than an ancient bottle of super-adhesive Gorilla Glue, which I was pretty sure is not the ideal choice for this sort of thing, but it was too late, Noah had spotted the print-outs in front of me and was already well into a shit-losing fit of anticipation.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I spent four and a half fucking hours building that house. I spent an hour alone just cutting all the pieces and the insufferable little tabs out. I glued two of my fingers together and lost layers of skin from pretty much all of them. I ultimately ended up reinforcing the insides of that motherfucker with Scotch Tape. It was the most lopsided, pathetic little house you have ever seen.
Noah loved it.
For 15 minutes, anyway, which is how long it took Ezra to get his hands on it and crush it like a balled-up TPS report.
Noah was inconsolable. So I promised to make him another house, just as soon as I procured some better glue.
The next house was made with Elmer's glue and while I got the construction time down to an even two hours, I was still unable to get the front and back wings of the house to line up properly. That house lasted a few days, at least, before Jason's uncle unwittingly placed it within Ezra's reach and he decided to suck on the chimney for awhile.
By the time I made the third house, I'd upgraded to a deadly-serious pink hobby knife and a special precision-tipped scrapbooker's glue pen, which solved most of the architectural issues but added an hour back onto production time. This house lasted yet another week before Noah insisted on taking it to camp for show & tell. His friends loved it. With a vengeance, unfortunately. Noah was once again despondent, because he'd TRIED to take care of it, he TRIED SO HARD, Mommy, but Miles grabbed it during snack and decided to make it fly and then it fell and the one side is all dented and GRUINED, MOMMY. MY HOUSE IS ALL GRUINED.
And then, with honest-to-God tears in his eyes: Please make me another Carl's House, Mommy. Please.
*sighs*
*looks wistfully out the window at beautiful sunny afternoon*
*loads up the last of the cardstock into the printer*
See y'all in a few hours, I guess. This one better be the best one yet.
Okay, so this is lame and mommy-indulgent and all of 19 seconds long, but I am uber-compelled to show off Ezra's newest (food-related, of course) trick:
It's not fair, this past year. It whizzed by in crazy-fast-forward mode. Blink, three months. Blink, six months. Blink blink, 10 months. And now here we are. 12 months. One year. On the cusp of toddlerhood, with his true babyhood vanishing into the few fat rolls he still has on his legs.
His delicious, crazy little legs -- he's so ready to walk but can't quite get that last bit of balance going, though he's down to needing a single solitary finger against the wall or furniture or hooked around mine.
He can suddenly do so many things, and I have no idea when he started doing them. He signs what he wants, he plays pattycake and soooo big and waves hello and goodbye to everyone he sees, he dances, he sticks his tongue out and furrows his brow while concentrating on his set of nesting cups, he mimics sounds and can point out Mama and Dada and Noah, he picks up a comb and immediately tries to attack his brother's hair with it. It's ridiculous, the little things that stun you, but there it is. He knows what a comb is for. Wow.
Of course I miss the baby. The newborn, even. I look at these year-old videos and oh, that squooshy little alien face, with his bleats and baahhs at all times of night. But...now he knows what a comb is for. He knows who I am, beyond the keeper of the milks. I know who he is, beyond the blank canvas of he is my baby and I love him.
He is my baby. My son. My boy. My daredevil, my clown, my social butterfly, my smartypants spitfire.
Oh my God, you guys. I have a FOUR-YEAR-OLD. And in less than two weeks I will have a ONE-YEAR-OLD. I should have planned things better, because this double whammy of birthdays is turning out to be hard on the liver.
At this rate I will have hardly any babies left at all. Damn you January and your mysteriously fertile properties!
PLUS I have to do a whole other stupid video montage every year, like, five minutes after I finish the first one. That's not QUITE so terrible, as I do really enjoy making you guys cry. Suckers!
Speaking of the upcoming Ezra edition, based on our gobs of footage and photos, it appears we have not actually taken that poor baby out of his high chair since he was about six months old. I'd say a good 75% of it involves him eating. Rolling over? First steps? First words? Eh, sorry Ez, I don't quite recall. But holy shit, check out this 20-minute clip of you eating corn on the cob. So glad we didn't miss THAT tremendous milestone.
So now Noah is four, fully four, and can officially start attending The Preschool this afternoon. Right now, the only thing I am stressing about it that no one told me the code for the front door, meaning I'm in for one mildly inconvenient and awkward moment of waiting for some to notice us and buzz us in. Oh noes! I think this is progress on the neurotic mess front, as I could easily be wigging out about the logistics of getting Noah off the school bus, into the house, eat lunch eat lunch eat lunch, pack his backpack a second time with a different set of classroom requests and requirements, get everyone in the car and drive up there and then drive back and still somehow keep Ezra's nap schedule intact so I can get work done before driving back up there to pick Noah up and also I haven't been away from him that long in years oh my God, STOP TALKING, SELF. YOU SHUT UP NOW.
Noah is excited about the second school, which we've dubbed "Camp School" around here (not to be confused with "School Bus School"). School Bus School is, of course, The One With The School Bus School Bus School Bus, while Camp School is the one with the motherfucking BALL PIT, motherfuckers. As far as Noah is concerned, that right there is a well-rounded education.
Okay. So. I would love to KEEP TALKING, but I seem to have a window to take a shower here. First day of school: I shower. Second day of school: Not so much, or ever again after that. So today I will uphold that proud tradition. Clean hair! Makeup! Actual non-elastic-waisted-pants! I am simultaneously excited and utterly exhausted.
Here, Noah (WHO IS FOUR), with your feel-good up-with-people message of the day.
Make your own kind of music. No matter what. Even if nobody else sings anarrrrg.
PS Hey, so Mamapop is up for an award, if you'd like to vote for us. We're up for Best Pop Culture Blog...in Maryland. Can you really argue with that? I mean, FINE. TAKE PENNSYLVANIA. AND VIRGINIA. MARYLAND IS OURS.
It's funny, as he gets older, my determination to stay away from mushy, embarrassing sentiment wavers more and more. He's no longer a baby or a toddler but a KID, and yet when composing this entry in my head, my first impulse is to fill is chock full of pet names and flowery goopy declarations of love and pride. "Mo-oo-oom," I can already hear him saying...but when? Two more years? Longer than that? Less?
We spent so much time this year focused on the future. Worrying about it, planning for it. Determined to prepare him for the next step, the next year, the next experience. We became Mama and Papa Bear, growling at anyone who dared question the potential of our cub, demanding that the forest clear a safer path for him...while also tearing our fur out because holy crap, this is hard.
And yet, oh, this boy. He is still my heart. He is still so smart and adorable and funny. He is such a kind, loving big brother and a kind, loving person. He surprises me every day, every hour, sometimes, with the things he says and thinks and can suddenly DO, just like that, and I am awed to be tasked with a child with this much potential.
"Are you happy?" he asks, whenever I look upset or worried. "Are you happy, Mommy?"
It has been brought to my attention that reader Kari declared yesterday's post "the EXACT OPPOSITE of birth control," and that many, many of you agreed with that assessment.
Did you not read the part about the screaming? The terrible, terrible screaming? That he does in lieu of using anything remotely close to the English language? All the time, for everything and sometimes for no reason at all?
Oh, I see. The photos of the happy, angelically cute baby distracted you from that part. Well then. I'm afraid I'm going to have to break out the big guns. For your sake. For the overpopulated planet's sake. YOU MUST HEAR THE TRUTH.
I think he's saying he would like more cantaloupe. Or maybe more souls. Could really be either.
ANNOYING DISCLAIMER: I gave him more cantaloupe. I did not purposely withhold cantaloupe for the purposes of this video, or sit there eating cantaloupe in front of him like Kate Gosselin.* He was simply expressing his supreme displeasure over my refusal to give him more than one piece of cantaloupe at a time, because if I gave him six pieces of cantaloupe he would shove all six pieces of cantaloupe in his mouth at once and then SCREAM ANYWAY because there wasn't any more cantaloupe on his tray.
*To my knowledge, Kate Gosselin has never eaten cantaloupe in front of Ezra either.
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.)
