I woke up this morning to a muffled “Arf!” coming from Louie’s
monitor, which was sitting next to me on Gus’s bedside table.
The clock said 6:45.
Holy shit.
I bolted out of bed
with the realization that that bark meant our nanny and her three-year-old son
had just arrived and I was still half-asleep, laying in bed with my own
three-year-old, and inappropriately dressed (no bra!) for bidding good-morning
to this sweet young woman who cares for my boys while I’m at work.
Twenty minutes later, after splashing some water on my face
and putting my hair in a ponytail, and digging around for an outfit in my
laundry basket of clean clothes, I was out the door. It was that kind of morning.
I’m not getting a lot of sleep these days, all four of Louie’s
top teeth have been coming through (FOR MONTHS) and I feel like my body has
almost adjusted to functioning on a few hours of rest here and there, but yeah,
when my children do allow me to sleep it feels luxurious and there is no
inner-alarm clock that is going to wake me up when I need to get ready for
work. It’s like my body goes into
survival mode when those precious minutes of sleep turn into more than an hour
at a time, and I almost always wake up drooling and stiff like I hadn't moved
an inch since my head hit the pillow.
Life is really good these days, if I was sleeping more I’d say
it was excellent, but alas, I’ll settle for really good. It is fall, the season of new beginnings, and
every time I think back on how much things in our lives are constantly
changing, it’s also jarring how much at the same time, they stay the same. There’s no better way to describe the stage
of life we’re in.
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| Dan's 32nd birthday at the end of August |
Children change so quickly, they can grow inches taller
right before your eyes but you don’t even notice until the weather gets cooler
and you try to put the same pants on them that they wore four months ago. This happened over the summer with both of my
boys, and while it’s no revelation that children grow, it still surprises me
and I’m hit with waves of nostalgia mixed with stress thinking about finding the
time to pack away and pull out more tubs of baby clothes, more organizing of
the closets and dressers. It never ends.
Constant change, new seasons of life, growing out of
clothes, new milestones, but still it feels like we’re just chugging away and
the days blend and so often it feels like more of the same. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself, and focus
too much on the fact that it feels as if 90% of my life is spent in an outdated
kitchen I absolutely hate, preparing meals, pouring milk, chopping vegetables,
and wiping faces and counters and floors and high chairs. But that’s not really true, and that drudgery
is certainly not what I’m going to remember about these days (and years).
So here’s a snapshot in time of RIGHT NOW. The
Big and The little, though it’s
hard to know which are which right now.
Perspective in this stage of life is oh so wonky and undefined.
Louie, Louie, Louie. At
nine months old he is such a little wild man and he has captured my heart with
his antics. It is pretty typical for me
to walk in the door from work to a spunky little boy tearing apart the basement
with glee and meddling in whatever it is his big brother is playing with. Upon fixing his eyes on me he immediately breaks
down in such deliriously happy devastation (does that make sense?). He
crawls and climbs all over for me, eating my shoulder and face, burrowing his
head into my neck, a round and delicious ball of whimpers and giddy laughter. He is desperate to nurse, to reconnect with
his mother in the most natural of ways.
There is then about five minutes of nursing and snuggling (I
love these five minutes), and after such a dramatic reunion he is off again,
raring to go, ready to rip apart the puzzle Gus is working, dart towards the
stairs, crawl underneath the dog rubbing his head on her tummy, or rummage
through the bathroom garbage.
It’s a little frustrating adjusting to life with a baby and
his early bedtime. Gus has been a night
owl for some time now, especially on the days he naps, but as of late, by 6:45
Louie is very much ready to be in his pajamas and calming down ready for bed. Sadly sometimes I forget about Louie’s
bedtime needs, because we’re so used to planning our lives around when or how
much Gus sleeps. We had a family dinner
at my parent’s house on Monday night to celebrate my dad’s birthday, and I made
sure to get Gus a nap that day so he could handle being out later than normal,
because that is what we have become accustomed to doing.
But what about baby Louie?
Oh Louie, I often forget about his particular preferences for bedtime at
7:00, and it doesn't really matter how well he naps during the day, he needs that
early bedtime. Monday night he was just
FALLING APART and we weren't even through dinner. We passed him around, we changed scenery, we
handed him new toys, I even gave him bites of ice cream, but nope. He was done.
It doesn't help that my family is the loudest family ever when we’re all
together, talking over each other and chiding my mother for interrupting every
conversation that isn't about something she wants to talk about, all of which I
suspect over stimulates him and upsets his tired little brain even more.
So nine months in Louie is still getting a little bit of the
shaft as the second child, life doesn't revolve around him quite as much as it
did for his brother when he was a baby.
That’s okay though, I’m feeling less guilt about it as I realize it is a
fact of life for second-borns and it absolutely does not mean he is any less
loved or doted on.
Also, he has the added benefit of being a baby with a big
brother. Oh my goodness he loves Gus so
much. No one makes him laugh harder, and
no one is more interesting or exciting.
Their relationship is ever-evolving, and it is so fascinating
to watch. Slowly but surely, Gus is
getting more tolerant of having Louie all up in his face all the time. Louie almost always wants to play with
whatever toy Gus has, which is somewhat infuriating to Gus, but he is getting
so much better at controlling himself and not acting out because of it. He is learning to find solutions that don’t involve
pushing or grabbing things out of Louie’s hands, or rolling over him. He needs to be reminded sometimes, but
usually he is good about sitting at the table with a puzzle or something else
that can be “broken”, away from Louie’s destructive little paws.
Gus is very concerned about Louie choking on toys, doesn't matter how big or small the toy may be, though I think some of his concerned
exclamations of, “NO LOUIE, LOUIE IS CHOKING!” are a cover for, “NO!!! LOUIE IS
PLAYING WITH ONE OF MY TOYS!”
I’m on to
him.
In the car and at mealtimes Gus lives for cracking Louie
up. I love it, Dan and I both can’t help
the ridiculous grins on our faces when watching the two of them laughing
together.
Gus has seriously become a little boy overnight. He has so much to say, but he still very much
chooses when he wants to speak to you. We’re
still waiting for the day when he will CONSISTENTLY answer our questions and
have a conversation that is initiated by someone else. Like when I come home from work, I will ask
him how his day was, what he did with his nanny, what games they played,
etc. And usually, he ignores me. Then sometimes later he’ll tell me some of
the answers to these questions, but it’s on his time, on his terms.
So annoying.
Oh yes, he is definitely three years old.
This is a good thing though, because he is finally out-growing
some of those two-year old issues we had.
I know THREE brings with it many more frustrations, but the kicking/hitting/pushing
crap seems to have slowed down. Thank
goodness he is not that kid anymore. He
has his moments, and he is certainly a more aggressive and outgoing kid than
others we have met, but it’s very rare he pushes and hits anymore. And thank goodness he definitely doesn't do
it for absolutely no reason, like before.
I know that sounds crazy, there’s no good reason to hit, but he went
through this “stage” for about seven horrible months where he would just walk
right up to a kid and push him or her, completely unprovoked. Most people agreed that it seemed like he
wanted to make connections with children but didn't know how else to do it, and
we all hoped that as his verbal skills improved things would get better.
And that’s exactly what happened, and we are all so thankful
that that problem sloooowly faded away.
It was a long time coming. He now
plays nicely with friends, and while there are, of course, sharing “issues”,
that is something we will be working on for many years I would assume.
And I’m so proud of our Gus for rocking the potty training
thing. I know I complain a lot about how
horrible potty training is, but if I remove from the conversation the
inconveniences it has created for us as parents, and focus just on him, it
truly has gone so much better than I ever imagined. It blows my mind to think about where he was
at less than a month ago, I never would have thought he’d be out of diapers
like it was no thing in just a few weeks.
He still has the occasional accident, and the #2 thing is a definite
work in progress, but far and away, the kid’s maturity with the whole process
was such a happy surprise.
Of course there’s a new thing we’re dealing with now, something
that popped up about two weeks into potty training, when we were all ready to
pat ourselves on the back for kicking ass at it.
He is now afraid of going potty in public restrooms. Like, TERRIFIED. It all started with an incident with a
self-flushing toilet at school that scared him, and now here I am, regularly
parking in the back of parking lots so he can “potty in the bushes!” before we
go in, or on the way out. It sucks. It stresses me out, and it has caused him to
have to miss out on a fun trip to the Children’s Museum with my parents when
they had to leave after being there only an hour because he was totally
flipping out refusing to go and begging to go home and go potty. (And there are no appropriately private
bushes in downtown St. Paul.)
Poor thing, I feel terrible that he’s so scared, and I
waffle back and forth between being super sympathetic and honoring his feelings
of fear, trying not to push him too much, and then getting really frustrated,
annoyed, even angry that it is causing us to miss out on doing certain things.
So now we travel with a bucket in the back of the car, just
in case.
On Sunday we had a bit of a break-through at church when he
finally “went” there after a lot of cheering and promising of suckers and holding
our hands over our ears when we flushed.
There was much excitement and big hugs, and then after washing his hands
he ran out of the bathroom to the fellowship hall to tell daddy all about it,
yelling aloud for many to hear, “Daddy I go potty, see! It’s not scary at all!” The two older ladies
in the other stalls came out and congratulated him, and I heard them both
talking to each other about waiting to flush until he was done, because they
heard our very hushed and very important conversation about how loud and scary
the toilets are.
Ahhh potty training, it is a process, but I’m honestly just
so stoked Gus has taken to it as quickly as he did. I don’t think I give that kid enough credit
and I should probably try to focus on “building him up” rather than expecting
the worst. But then low expectations
have always been my parenting coping mechanism!
What would I do without them?
For this to be a true snapshot in time, I really should try
to mention something about myself that does not revolve around my children.
Let’s see…
Well my job is going well enough, I suppose, stagnant, but I
have no problem with that currently. Our
new nanny situation is working out fabulously and it is AMAZING to just leave
the house every morning, free and clear, no drop-offs, no begging Gus to go
find his shoes. Mornings and afternoons
are truly so much less stressful on both of us parents.
We haven’t been very good at doing the “date night” thing
for a few months, but it does seem like we've been getting out a lot, we've had
a few child-free weddings as of late, and are actually going to see a comedy
show this weekend with friends, which is somewhat unheard of. I may even wear a dress since I won’t have to
nurse a baby, that’s so gloriously freeing!
I’m thinking about doing some easy cosmetic house updates,
because I am so sick of some of the furniture/painting choices we made when we
moved into the house eight and a half years ago, but it’s really difficult for
me to dedicate much time or energy on a project like that when I’m so sleep
deprived and all I want to do when the children are napping or being watched by
Grandma and Grandpa is LAY AROUND. Or
see a movie or eat guacamole or drink wine.
Something like that. Paint the
dining room? Egh. I would prefer to wake up some morning and just
have it be done for me.
Anyone want to
volunteer to come paint my dining room in the middle of the night?
No?
