Instead of milestones, I used to dwell too much on "lasts." One night will be the last night he wants me to sing him the ABC song and tuck him in. One day she will not be so eager to do ... well, everything. One day, one day.
I'm kind of a Debbie Downer. Or, I can be. I fight the tendency with a little help from my friends, who see things so much clearer than I do on a pretty standard basis. They are master redirectors, pep talkers, empathizers. How I fell in with them in the first place I'll never know. For a long time I suspected them of some hidden agenda, but I've pretty much let my guard down and no one has yet poisoned my drink. (Unless they're doing it slowly, the better to watch me suffer.) Ha! I kid!
Milestones abound in these parts of late. Alexander the Kirk is reading, really reading, books at a steady clip. That happened overnight and it still takes my breath away.
Princess Katherine is trying to crawl but has so far only succeeded in finding reverse gear. Tonight we found her head sticking out from under the couch. She had backed the rest of her trying-to-be-reasonably-mobile body under the couch. Oh YES I got pictures! And because she's one of the happiest babies in the world, she wasn't a bit concerned about her predicament but found it hilarious.
Other milestones: Alex bikes without training wheels. We finally realized we just had to let go and he'd get it, and he did! There were a few "I'm never going to be able to do it" meltdowns, a few threats to skip the infamously bratty birthday child's party completely, one or two discussions about how training wheels are not the mark of failure and will not doom him to the entire school's contempt, but in the end it didn't matter, because he got it. Debbie Downer SMILED.
Katherine eats peas. Regular ones, like what we're having, as long as I mush them up and look away so I don't have to witness the messy struggle that ensues as she tries to command her motor skills to not only grasp a squished pea in her tight little fist, but bring it to her mouth and then -- this is the tricky part -- OPEN, so that she can use her tongue to maneuver it inside. And then we all hope it stays there instead of falling out when she realizes she's succeeded and opens her mouth wide to grin at us (See what I did? See? See what I-- oh.) PLUNK. It's almost painful to watch. Minus the almost.
I'm staying busy and fighting the procrastination bug, which has been scarce since I had a real job (oops, an office job) ... because what was I going to procrastinate? But now there's daily work and longer-term deadlines, and I'm learning to juggle them all. A roll of duct tape is at the ready for that nagging voice that tells me none of this is a promise, none of it is forever.
Because nothing is. But I'm practicing living in the day, in the hour, in the moment. When you don't do that things happen too fast. Like your babies start riding bikes and crawling under couches, and you missed it because you were lost in the what-ifs of the future. I can't do that right now. I won't.
To borrow and paraphrase a phrase from the late, great Lost, what happens, happens.
All we have to do is be here when it does.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Little Hurts
I'm sitting here on my bed, pondering the two spots of blood that Alex dripped there today when he came in from outside, sobbing hysterically that he'd fallen on the ice and it hurt everywhere EVERYWHERE! And to be honest, it looked pretty bad. Not like one of those barely there scrapes he likes to flaunt and crow about and use up too many Band-Aids for (so that when you ACTUALLY have a bleeding wound from slicing your finger damn near off while chopping potatoes that no one wanted to eat afterward, you have to bind it with Scotch tape). His poor little thumb took the brunt of the accident, skin pushed up and aside to reveal a smoother layer of wannabe skin beneath. And lots of blood. Enough to where, when he started to panic, I lied unabashedly and without a second thought about how when the blood soaks through the Band-Aid, it's just proof that it's doing its job and healing the injury.
He lay next to me in bed (where I'd been napping lightly when he woke me up with that cry that every mother knows, the cry of her child in pain, so different in timbre, texture, and effect than any of those other cries we know so well) until he got himself under control. I think it was the idea of showing it off to Steven that finally won him over. "He'll be really impressed," I told him. "Daddy is easily grossed out."
A smile. That's what I was going for, and I got it. Plus a "Thanks, Mom" for fixing the hurt finger and kissing it even though he's probably too wise-beyond-his-years to think that my kisses have healing powers anymore (if he ever believed that).
It was nice, after our altercation yesterday, when I cut him off mid Mario Kart and told him he was done for the night because I'm not going to have that "Don't freak out when you lose" talk with him again and I have to stick to what I'm calling my Zero Tolerance policy for video-game-related outbursts. At this point I pretty much hate Mario, which is sad, since he was my friend growing up, too. And there are toothmarks in my old NES controllers to prove that I was every bit as irrational as Alex can be when I lost. (But we want better for our own children, don't we?) His "I'm not liking you ever again, and I don't love you anymore, either!" was vitriolic, uncertain at its core, and absurdly short-lived. If I thought it was a useful skill I'd show him how to REALLY hold a grudge. (I don't think it is.)
Today I fixed his finger, and he let me kiss the wound and hug him and treat him almost like a baby, although I was sworn to secrecy about how much he actually cried. So, for the record, he was an almost-silent trouper.
Our princess is growing so fast it's mind-boggling. Someone asked me today, while I was lugging the poor baby through the third store of the morning on a desperate search for biscuit cutters and a rolling pin for a photo shoot I have tomorrow, how old she was. My immediate response, shy by just a few days, of "Seven months," shocked me even as I said it. How can my little girl be over halfway to a year old? How can she be the age Alex was five hundred years ago? They JUST put her on my chest and covered us both with that hot blanket and marveled over the way she just went right to sleep there, two minutes after birth. Not just. Seven months ago. Yikes.
Steven wants her to crawl. I think he is mistaken about the importance of crawling to motor development. It's not necessary, and it's certainly not convenient on the range of handy skills they learn like sitting up, holding their own bottles, putting pacis back into their mouths without assistance ... I think she will be a roller. It seems to require less effort on her part, and my Kat she is lazy. But she has figured out that three rolls off her play pallet on the floor will get her over to the dogs' bed, where she can poke and prod Jack and try to suck on Charlie's tail while they give me silent looks that say, respectively, "Seriously?" and "Is this OK?"
I have work coming in from several corners and am endlessly grateful for all of them. I'm also grateful for a long weekend, Steven's clean bill of health from the orthopedist, and the fact that the biscuits I made for tomorrow's shoot didn't turn out terribly ugly. And that I have a girls' night on Friday, and a husband who is all for it.
He lay next to me in bed (where I'd been napping lightly when he woke me up with that cry that every mother knows, the cry of her child in pain, so different in timbre, texture, and effect than any of those other cries we know so well) until he got himself under control. I think it was the idea of showing it off to Steven that finally won him over. "He'll be really impressed," I told him. "Daddy is easily grossed out."
A smile. That's what I was going for, and I got it. Plus a "Thanks, Mom" for fixing the hurt finger and kissing it even though he's probably too wise-beyond-his-years to think that my kisses have healing powers anymore (if he ever believed that).
It was nice, after our altercation yesterday, when I cut him off mid Mario Kart and told him he was done for the night because I'm not going to have that "Don't freak out when you lose" talk with him again and I have to stick to what I'm calling my Zero Tolerance policy for video-game-related outbursts. At this point I pretty much hate Mario, which is sad, since he was my friend growing up, too. And there are toothmarks in my old NES controllers to prove that I was every bit as irrational as Alex can be when I lost. (But we want better for our own children, don't we?) His "I'm not liking you ever again, and I don't love you anymore, either!" was vitriolic, uncertain at its core, and absurdly short-lived. If I thought it was a useful skill I'd show him how to REALLY hold a grudge. (I don't think it is.)
Today I fixed his finger, and he let me kiss the wound and hug him and treat him almost like a baby, although I was sworn to secrecy about how much he actually cried. So, for the record, he was an almost-silent trouper.
Our princess is growing so fast it's mind-boggling. Someone asked me today, while I was lugging the poor baby through the third store of the morning on a desperate search for biscuit cutters and a rolling pin for a photo shoot I have tomorrow, how old she was. My immediate response, shy by just a few days, of "Seven months," shocked me even as I said it. How can my little girl be over halfway to a year old? How can she be the age Alex was five hundred years ago? They JUST put her on my chest and covered us both with that hot blanket and marveled over the way she just went right to sleep there, two minutes after birth. Not just. Seven months ago. Yikes.
Steven wants her to crawl. I think he is mistaken about the importance of crawling to motor development. It's not necessary, and it's certainly not convenient on the range of handy skills they learn like sitting up, holding their own bottles, putting pacis back into their mouths without assistance ... I think she will be a roller. It seems to require less effort on her part, and my Kat she is lazy. But she has figured out that three rolls off her play pallet on the floor will get her over to the dogs' bed, where she can poke and prod Jack and try to suck on Charlie's tail while they give me silent looks that say, respectively, "Seriously?" and "Is this OK?"
I have work coming in from several corners and am endlessly grateful for all of them. I'm also grateful for a long weekend, Steven's clean bill of health from the orthopedist, and the fact that the biscuits I made for tomorrow's shoot didn't turn out terribly ugly. And that I have a girls' night on Friday, and a husband who is all for it.
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