as we go

The kids are back in school after their year-end break: Isla in a new class at kindergarten, and Auden, suddenly, impossibly, a First Grader. He barely made the cut-off date, starting just days after his 6th birthday. 

Now he walks to and from school with a group of other kids in the neighborhood. Even though we've been inching toward this kind of independence -- by sending him to the corner store for tea and snacks, and by not having heart attacks when he walks to the park by himself -- I am still finding it almost preposterous that we have reached this stage. I'm guessing the stomach roiling subsides after a while?

Isla likes to run around outside too, and hide in the narrow spaces between houses, in doorways, in the maze of narrow streets around our house. When I find her, she squeals with laughter, looking mischievous and triumphant. 

This is probably the safest place we could possible live, but I still have to fight a rising panic when I'm not entirely sure where they are. 

The other day they packed their carry-on suitcases full of toys and wheeled them out to the street, stopping at one friend's house, and then another, which I didn't discover until after I had gone full bore, riding my bicycle through the neighborhood, calling their names.

What kind of double-edged sword is this, anyway? The minute they stop needing me at their side every minute, I become freakishly masterful at conjuring catastrophic What-Ifs. 

Here they are, discussing their plans to travel to Bulgaria.

I want them to have this freedom, I want them to discover things on their own... Especially here, where they own what they find in a different way: words, connections, patterned pottery shards embedded in the concrete on the road to the park.

I suspect there's no other way to offer this except to practice as we go. So if you want me, kids, I'll be in the kitchen not having heart attacks.

*

dear you, dear me

Dear Auden,

You know what I just realized about blogging, after all these years? It's that I've been trying to hew to a formula and the formula is bullshit. The markers and milestones and cheesy "letters" are bullshit. The trying to record my relationship to you in a way that is lyrical, genuine, and also amusing... it's bullshit.

I realized that tonight as I went in to your bedroom to check on you, and you had fallen fast asleep, and I put my hand on your bare chest and felt your heart thumping, and I marveled at your slim shoulders and the curves of your nose, your cheeks, your perfect sleeping mouth.

I felt fiercely in love you with right then, and I realized I had been unknowingly assuming that that kind of fierce love was reserved for infants, or maybe just specifically YOU as an infant. It was as if I had been subconsciously telling myself that I could never have your infancy back, and with it, the raw and enormous and lucent love that sharpened those months.

Isn't that silly?

I still love you that way.

It's just easier now to get distracted by every-day logistics, new challenges, your healthy and infuriating defiance. And it's not your birthday or any other milestone, but right this very minute I am watching you grow, I am watching you sleep, I am watching you kick and tumble, I am watching you become yourself with the same amazement and pride that I felt four years ago.

This thing of being your mother is so huge. I am humbled and exhausted and pried open.

*

But all of this writing is really for me, so maybe the formula should be more like:

Dear Robin,

You know what you did today? You fed and dressed your children; you scrubbed poop out of a jute rug; you went to your two classes and bent your mind around the art of Dynastic Egypt and then around the mathematical rules of angles that compose a two-point perspective drawing.

You squabbled with Jason about discipline and consistency in dealing with tantrums and tearful snot-smearing bids for attention at the breakfast table, then you apologized, and Jason took the kids to school and you had a nice breakfast alone. You felt guilty about this transition to full-time day-care for Isla; you vowed to be more present and more patient.

You lost your patience about that whole poop-in-the-jute-rug thing.

You took the kids to a PawSox game, their first-ever baseball game in a real stadium, and watched as wide-eyed amazement gave way to sheer glee which then devolved into sugar-and-popcorn fueled shenanigans, but all of which was purely awesome to experience vicariously.

You got frustrated about painting; then you finally resolved the piece and rejoiced and called your dad.

You took a call from a friend who was struggling, and you gave her the very thoughtful and loving support that you yourself needed to hear.

You had a hard morning, and then a good afternoon; or maybe a good morning and a hard afternoon, where you couldn't quite put your finger on what made it hard, but you were distracted and let the kids tear up the house and draw on themselves with marker while you tried to talk yourself out of quietly falling apart.

Still, you managed to put together a healthful and delicious dinner, with all of the places set and silverware and drinks out and everything, and after dinner you took the kids to the park, where at first you felt like a lump of pity-clay because of that Hard Afternoon, but eventually you warmed up and played monster, chasing and tickling. You delighted in the crazy goofy dances Auden was doing to evade your grabbing monster hands; you threw your head back and laughed because he was laughing so hard -- and there is nothing at all in the world like the laughter of your son... that one particular laugh, the one when you tickle him just right, the fullest and realest and laughingest laugh, the one that rises like a wave, going up and up and up, until it crests and tumbles out over everything -- which of course was the perfect balm on your over-worked and worked-up thinker.

You will do anything for that laugh, even when it's no good getting Auden all riled up like that, and the fall-out is that you are done playing sooner than he is... But you realized today that you won't always be able to make him laugh that way, or to laugh at him doing his monkey dances in his little lithe four-year-old body, and how gorgeous is this one night, with its air so soft and your heart so tender.

*

two and some change

Isla, my sweet,

You turned two a few thousand moments ago, during which time I have been caught up in my usual whirlwind and too busy to write. Plus you keep changing, and I forgot that all this amazing growing up happens at two -- TWO -- so suddenly you're ferociously independent and stubborn and dramatic and some of the whirlwind is your making, my darling.

So don't think we didn't notice that you turned two. Or that you didn't notice, either: all the presents you got were immediately dubbed your "happy birthdays" and if anyone asked you how old you were, you emphatically stated, "Ah FOUR." We celebrated by taking you bowling with our friends, and you said, "Ah knock-a down-a PINS!"

I wish I could bottle up and preserve your little voice, how it sounds right now -- and the way you say certain words, like "more", which sounds like "murr" but rounder and sweeter in a way I just can't imitate. Pockets are "pocksit" and blankets are "blanksit," and if there are more than one, there are "one two free four five sick seven eight nine TEN! Dat how many, mama?"

You are very patient with us when we ask you about things:

"Called RED, mama."
"Called juice, papa."
"Called cra-cra, mama."
(Jeez, don't we know by now?)

You are adorably affectionate:

"Ah laafv yoo OH much, mama."

And you are suddenly well-versed in the art of the stall at bedtime:

"LAST book, papa. Dis a LAST book."
"You sing murr song, mama? You sing a song an' DEN stay a me?"

You just started saying "because," which, you seem well aware, makes your sentences so sophisticated. But you pronounce it "pahcuz," so it just sounds ridiculously cute:

"Ah gatta get it, mama, pahcuz I gatta see it."

Speaking of sophistication, you say words like "actually" and "frustrated." Maybe you really did turn four? My sense of time is totally skewed, so it could be possible.

You love ballerinas and princesses, and The Little Mermaid has been playing on endless loop for the past week, but you also like pirates and monsters and super-heroes along with your brother.

Most of the time you play along patiently when he wants you to be his squire, or Rogue, or a Sentinel, but you have a fierceness about playing -- and being -- your own way, too, which usually manifests in spitting matches or in arguing about every last detail. You don't even know what you're insisting on, but you know you must insist:

Auden: "It's a shark!"
Isla (wearing a shark shirt): "No is NAHT a shurrk!"
Auden: "Yes it IS, Isla!"
Isla: "No is NAHT!"
Auden: "YES IT IS!"
Isla: "No is naaaaa-ottt!"
Auden: "AHHHRRGHH MRRRFFFHHHHGGGG!"
Isla: "No is naaaaaa-ott!"
And on and on. It would be cute if it weren't so annoyingly absurd.

You eat like a sumo wrestler and still weigh only about 22lbs. You are a tiny little lithe thing, and you love climbing and hanging from monkey bars. We've been going to open gym at a gymnastics club, where you "hang onna bars and jupp onna trampLEEEN!"

You are smart and goofy. You get the hiccups when you laugh. You hug everyone with your whole body. You like to hide under my covers in the morning, pretending to be a cat.

ABC's? SO two thousand moments ago.

The other day we went to the park with some friends, one of whom is six years old. You were watching her play, and you said to me, "Mah grow up like Jane, mama?"

Not just yet, okay?

Doing my best to keep up with you,
Mama

*

the play-by-play, the re-cap, the commentary

I do not recommend moving with small children. Stay put, if you can.

If you can't, rally all your friends and family to help you; you will not make it without them. (This is, of course, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who was there to celebrate and then cry a little and then toss a box into the truck -- and everyone else who made it so hard to leave in the first place)

Actually, packing up was way less stressful this time around, both because of all the help and because we got a realistically-sized truck. What, you don't remember? The move from Milwaukee, when I Tetris-ed all our belongings into a truck that was about 7 cubic feet too small? Okay, me neither. We're seasoned movers, now.

The kids were so excited about the truck, especially Auden:

Who was then devastated when he learned he wouldn't actually be driving it:

So we let him control some other things. Random, Canadian-rest-area things:

We stopped at Niagara Falls on our road trip, and of course it was breathtaking and appropriately rainbowed, but it was so hot, and the kids were so out of sorts, and it was SO PACKED with people, that it ended up being a quick and kind of hectic event. Not the least of my stressors: the fact that Isla kept wanting to climb over the railings and get a closer look at three billion gallons of rushing water:


Way more exciting than some ol' waterfall, THE CANADIAN MOUNTIE. "He's a CANADIAN, mom":

Also way more exciting, the Hotel room in Niagara. There was a PHONE. And a SAFE. (I swear, we do take our children out of the house now and then):

From there we went to Albany, NY, where we stayed with my brother & sister-in-law. They made us fresh pesto from their garden and took us to a little nearby lake to cool off. I drew a picture for them so they wouldn't feel too lonely after we left:

And I drew a picture for Auden, too, because he is now obsessed with knights and commands me to draw them or be subject to hysterical wailings:

Actually, this knight thing has bypassed "obsession," I would say it's more of a "lifestyle" now.

A little background: we took a trip to Chicago before we moved, where we saw an exhibit of suits of armor at the Art Institute. Jason saw how completely enthralled his son was, and made plans the next week to go to Michigan's little Renaissance Faire, where he could watch real knights, really jousting. Oh, friends, it's been All Knights, All the Time since that fateful day.

Which kind of works in our favor in some ways. Because the portable DVD player that we bought specifically for this trip? Not a hit. WHAT. WHY. I don't know. But the playmobil knight guys that we bought ahead of time to strategically release at the point of maximum road-trip boredom? LOVE. And the fact that there's an old armory in our neighborhood that looks like an honest-to-god CASTLE? Well, here, look:

Castle, your knight has arrived.

And Providence, your Danelys have arrived:


Our flat is the second floor of that enormous house, built in 1890. Right next door to a Guatemalan restaurant. Which sounds good in theory, or it did to me anyway, but in reality sounds like an awful squeaky exhaust fan right in our windows. I've gotten used to the carne asada smell (I suspect all our clothes and furniture have gotten used to it, too), but that damn fan... Grrrrr. Grrrmmmmppphh. Mrrrppphhhgg.

Before this turns into horror-movie-material neighborly resentment, though, I should say there's lots to love about our spot. There's a park around the corner, we're within walking distance of downtown, there's all sorts of urban weirdos and artist-types around, and the flat itself is really sweet. So we'll stay. And I'll figure out a way for the fan to go, because I CANNOT MOVE AGAIN ANYTIME SOON, DO YOU HEAR ME, FATE?

Ah, it's good to be settled in. How's your summer wrapping up?

*

a slice

Oh hey! Not much, what's up with you?
.
I've been hiding out, trying to force February to pass through sheer force of will, but the shortest month just takes its sweet time no matter what. There have been many colds! Some puking! Some snow falling and then melting! I know, it's pretty special.

It takes a crazy amount of energy to get out the door every morning, and I'm blaming it on winter. It's like herding cats, and then trying to force them into snowsuits and boots. And strapping them into carseats. And then they're crying and whining cats. I get my undies all in a bunch and invariably I am close to blowing a fuse before we even make it to the car. We're going somewhere that you LIKE, dammit, hup hup hup!

But more than I am sick of winter I am sick of hearing myself whine and complain. I'm worse of a toddler than both of 'em put together. So I'm going to highlight some of the better things that are happening around here:

Auden talks to toilets. At some point one of us must have called the automatic-sensor toilets "robots," so now that's what they are, and they should be properly thanked for their services. Yours truly provides the voices, and you can imagine how awesome it is to be a talking robot toilet in a public restroom. If it's the kind of toilet with a good old fashioned handle, it's a "manual robot." In fact, a lot of things are getting that descriptor lately: his phone is now his "manual phone," his step stool is a "manual stool," and the other day he even told me he was going to clean up a mess with his "manual teeth."

Isla is signing like crazy, but most of her gestures are basically variations on a finger to her mouth, which makes them kind of like the signing equivalent of homonyms. Kitty? Finger to the mouth. Horse? Finger slightly higher on the cheek. Water? Finger in the mouth. Mama? Palm to the mouth. Other signs, like fish and dog and giraffe, which have nothing to do with the vicinity of the mouth, she executes with dramatic exaggeration, the way they always tell you to MAKE THINGS BIGGER WHEN YOU'RE ON STAGE! BIGGER! EVEN BIGGER! It's hilarious and mind-blowingly cute.

She adores books, as long as they have animals in them. Preferably barnyard animals. She hasn't said any recognizable words yet, but she's trying her best to crow like a rooster: "cock-a!" she says. "Cock... cock-a!"

For a little while there was some confusion about head-shaking. If she wanted something she couldn't have, I'd shake my head and say no. She must have associated the head-shaking with her wanting of the forbidden object, so in another context if you asked her if she wanted something, she'd shake her head but actually mean yes. It was kind of like a "Who's On First" routine of befuddlement. But now she's figured out how to nod, and she does it with her whole body. It cracks me up every time, not least because it's awesome to communicate so directly. We can have whole conversations now!

Speaking of conversations, we had this one in the car the other day:

me: "Auden, is Isla asleep?"
Isla: "Daahhhhh!"
Auden: "She's awake!"
me: "I heard."
Auden: "What'd she say?"
me: "I don't know, what'd she say?"
Auden: "She said, 'cugger jugger' and then I laughed about that funny joke."

There's a lot of utter nonsense in Auden's vocabulary, probably because he watches too many Japanese movies or too much Spiderman or because he's almost three. He'll prattle on in Lewis Caroll stream-of-consciousness, describing what his characters do:

"And they fradelay with me, and they gauduban with me, and they listabye with me a little bit."

(And the mome raths outgrabe!)

Or he'll whip them out like insults:

"Come on, you nokker!"
"Move over, you slubber dugger!"

And my personal favorite, an exclamation that I've adopted for my own personal use:

"Cunger my nungers!"

It's surprisingly versatile.

You took EVERY SINGLE BOOK off your book shelf and piled them on your bed? Cunger my nungers!
It's almost March? Why, cunger my nungers!

Every so often, Auden and Isla will actually engage and play together. Mostly it's just toy-stealing and pushing, but then there will be moments like this:



I need to remember these particulars, otherwise I'm only going to look back on this winter and see my unending funk, accumulating and thawing and accumulating again. The things that seem so huge will not matter. The small things will be tilled into loam. And of course I'll marvel at how fast it all went.

Jason's friend, newly a father, summed it this way, "Each day lasts about 1,000 hours and is over in 45 minutes."

So, how about you?

*

your trip around the sun

Isla, it was a slow magic trick that brought you from here:


To here:


Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

9 months

Isla, sweetness.

Okay, I guess technically you're closer to ten months, but I'm too busy (with you) to write (about you) in a timely way.

But I'm saying nine months because you really did start walking at 9 months, and no one can believe it because you are so tiny. You clear the dining room table as you gleefully stagger through the room. Your preference is to be holding something in your hand while you walk, especially if it makes noise. You love to be chased, which is hilarious because you can't run, and you can't even walk faster, so you just flail your arms out in front of you and giggle madly when I'm on your heels. You show the same utter delight in climbing the stairs.

You have discovered that the adults keep anything worth having up on high shelves, so you demand to be picked up, and then you point with your tiny finger at everything up there that you like, huffing excitedly with your mouth in a perfect "O".

You love to tumble. We have to have at least one good wrestling session per day, and it's preferable if we also do some contact improv on the bed. You love it when I push you with my head; you laugh so hard you give yourself the hiccups, every time.

You love reading books. I feel guilty now that I waited so long to sit down & read with you, because it's face-meltingly adorable how you growl at every picture of a lion that you see. Auden never had the patience you have; you like to read them again and again and again.

You love eating, too! You would probably subsist entirely on Goldfish Crackers if I let you. But you like vegetables, too. And I'm not sure, but I think you deliberately signed 'milk' today.

The sleep issues are marginally improved -- now you're only waking once or twice a night. I am no longer tearing my hair out, determined to DO SOMETHING about it. It helps that I don't mind letting you cry a little. I have reached the Grim Acceptance phase of this struggle, and am just counting my blessings that you nap well. I can put you in your crib, sing a song, and then walk out of the room. Compared to the excruciating rocking-strolling-singing routine required to get Auden to sleep, and the expert ninja moves I had to do to avoid creaking floorboards that could disturb him when he finally was asleep, well, I still feel like I've won the baby-sleep jackpot.

It's weird to feel already like your baby-ness is slipping away. Today I saw a new-born at the library, and felt momentarily wistful for that time. You're so feisty now, so busy and so determined. It's pure joy to watch you learn and show me what you know. Just don't lose those yummy squishy thighs anytime soon, they are like desert to me.




What's next, cartwheels?

I love you, baby girl.

love,
mama

*

catching up, now with pictures

this post brought to you by my mom who took the babies so I could complete a sentence for a change

Well!

It's now exactly one month after the move, and I just had my first moving anxiety dream. It was remarkably similar to the move itself: packing the truck to its gills and looking ruefully at the pile of stuff that had yet to be packed. In the truck. That was already stuffed. Like, take-the-paper-towels-out-of-their-package-and-cram-them-into-the-few-remaining-spare-inches kind of stuffed. So, duh, subconscious mind, that one's not hard to de-code. Funny how there's always a lag-time with dreams, though. I heard a story once about a guy who was paralyzed in an accident, but had walking dreams for 11 more years.

I even managed to cram houseplants into the cab, ask Jason!

I know moving is not exactly trauma, but throw in a toddler, a baby, a stay of unknown duration at your parents' house, a future of uncertain job prospects, and the dramatic hyperbole of an underslept mother, and wheeee! It's a close second!

Auden was the age Isla is now when we first moved to Milwaukee, and like she is doing now, he elected to start crawling during that major transition. It seems fairly obvious, looking back, that a move on top of a major developmental milestone WOULD throw him off kilter for a while, further fragmenting his already-fragmented sleeping habits. So, I kind of? Knew? To expect that? Again? But still, after these four weeks of multiple night wakings and nap schedules full of holes, I'm feeling punchy.

We thought Isla was teething, what with waking up every two hours some nights, so we tried dosing her with baby tylenol and swabbing her gums with baby orajel, just in case. To no avail. I would have thought the second time around I'd feel better prepared, more magnanimous, more tolerant of what will surely be a BRIEF DISRUPTION in the big scheme of things. But no! I'm just as ornery, just as prone to 2am second-guessings and giving-in to feedings. Isla, you were supposed to be my good sleeper! Blowing raspberries in your crib at 5am is NOT OKAY.

One can only imagine what she and Auden are dreaming about.

On the bright side, though: we've been spending weekends at the lake







Grandparents are manna from heaven



We get to have date night now

We stayed out until 9:30!

And my new best friend, a hip mama I met at the Children's Museum (what? moms pick up other moms at parks the way hipsters pick up other hipsters at alt-indie-margin-outlier-rock shows) is lending me her double stroller which is VASTLY preferable to the pack-mule configuration I was assembling, righteously, before.

Gateway drug to minivans!

Also, there is much cuteness: Isla pulls herself up on everything


She loves being manually rolled and tumbled, and does a fearsome jowl-shaking strong-man impression where she threatens to bend the very bars of her confining sassy seat. Auden knows all the lyrics to "Book of Love," by the Magnetic Fields; the opposite of "opening" is "closening"; and girl is pronounced gee-yul.

Coming next -- God Does Have a Sense of Humor: Poop edition.

Hope you're doing well! Hope you're not moving! Pray for me!

*

four months

Dear Isla,

You are an exquisite creature.

You are four months old, and you have filled out deliciously. You are plump everywhere: rosy and glowing and sweet. I cannot stop myself from nibbling your cheeks, your neck, your thighs, your fingertips.

You coo and squeal and laugh. You regard me with a gaze so intimate and straightforward that it stops me short -- you are more than a cooing squealing laughing baby, you are a tiny god of infinite gazes, sagacious and wise.

You are a prodigious sleeper. Do you know how glad I am of this? I don't even know how to measure the gladness. It's a lot. When you wake up in the morning you don't even cry, you just murmur sweet little baby sounds from your bassinet and get happily tangled in your blanket.

You are rolling over now, which is hooray for you, but beginning-of-the-end for me. We won't be able to negotiate this, I can tell. You can't help yourself. But I think you like the rolling better than the resulting belly position, if your bellowing into the rug is any indication.

You have a sudden and urgent need for toys, and will grab for things with your whole body. Also, the hand-mouth reflex? OBJECT DETECTED IN HAND! OPEN MOUTH! CONSUME! CONSUME! Cracks me up every time.

I understand it, I want to do the same thing to you, you yummy baby.

You love Auden. You follow the sound of his voice; you giggle when he jumps, you guffaw when he rolls on top of you. I don't think he's quite as enamored of you, especially now that you are a threat to his monopoly on toy ownership, but I know he has his own fondness for you. Hidden under impulsive smacks to the face. Okay, forget it -- boys are jerks, it's time you learned.

You love music and singing, you are ticklish on the chub of your upper arms, you are fascinated by the pattern of the couch upholstery and greet it eagerly when I'm trying to feed you. You'd rather stand than sit, and I foresee some frustrating days of crawling ahead before you can run. I guess your papa and I are not capable of making babies that sit still and cuddle.

I'm watching you unfold with the same bittersweetness I felt with your brother. Can't you just slow down a little? Am I allowed to be wistful already for those blurry early days of you? There will never be another time like this, so I'm paying grateful attention to most every minute.

I continue to be under your spell, kissing and goofing endlessly to make you smile.

love,
mama

two years

Dear Auden,

Everyone keeps asking me how you're doing and my response is usually, Well, he's two. This gets a knowing nod. We all know what TWO means.

You can certainly be obstinate and assholish. (Which, I have to say, I now understand as the inevitable consequence of your wee human ego, budding and flourishing as it must, and not the result of bad parenting) You like to run away when it's time to put on your socks and shoes, you like to shuffle your feet and flop on the couch when it's time to clean up. You are loathe to interrupt any activity, especially if it means having to come inside, having to eat, having to go potty, or having to take a nap. You like getting what you want, exactly when you want it. If I take too long getting your milk or if I attempt to linger over the newspaper at breakfast, you will let me know. You issue constant and varied cries of MOMMY, to the point where I'm starting to suspect you of using a highly sophisticated kind of toddler Morse code: mommy mommy MOMMY MOOOOOMMMMMY mami-mami-mami MAHHHHH MEEEEE. Mah. ME. Mommy.

(Sometimes 'mommy' doesn't have enough syllables, so you yell MOMMMIE-AHHHHHH)

If I could decipher the meaning of it, perhaps it would not threaten to unravel my sanity on a daily basis. No, that's not true. Obviously, I understand all too well: you need attention, my love. You need a running commentary on your important attention-worthy actions: Are you driving your dump truck? That's a big dump truck! What goes in the dump truck? Rocks? Where are your rocks? Wow, that's a lot of rocks. You are strong!

You especially need attention when I am dressing Isla or nursing Isla or holding Isla or paying attention to Isla.

But.

There are many many more moments of the delightful variety, when you impress me with tenderness toward another child, or use a word I didn't know you knew, like 'fixing'.

Or when you lift your shirt to nurse your giraffe, or when you deliberately fall off your push-car and ask yourself, "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

You are totally potty trained, which, even though I was present for all the messy work that entailed, seems like it happened magically and all of the sudden. It's awesome. I'm disproportionately proud of you for wearing underwear, especially since a two-year-old in tighty-whities is among the cutest things in the world.

For a while, Papa and I kept a list of all the new words you were saying. But now it seems like your vocabulary increases exponentially every day and involves whole phrases and imperatives and plurals -- as in, "one bus! two buses!" You are SMART, kid. You count to fourteen. You know the whole alphabet. We can't keep up.

You keep up with us just fine, though. Maybe a little too well. As I rummaged in the fridge one day, I bemoaned the lack of anything to have for lunch, groaning arrghhhhh.

"Dammit!" you chirped, helpfully.

Today we were reading a book and in it was a person wearing a mask. "Mask," I said. "Mak," you said. "Mask," I repeated. "Hard one!" you said. Yes, sweet boy. That's a hard one to say. But it doesn't slow you down AT ALL. You talk about everything, nonstop, and each expression gives me another peek into the kaleidoscope of you.

Kid, I knew you liked trucks, but now that you have entire truck books memorized and are talking about jack-hammers and I-beams, I can appreciate just how intense that passion is.

I want to always make room for the spark in you, whether it's rascal or genius. You are an amazing puzzle. You are two. Happy Birthday.

love, mama

my big little guy

Dear Auden,

You're 19 months old today and I am totally in love with you right now. We've got a good thing, you and I.

We've got inside jokes and special games; I know that you're going to look for the hammer in this book about trucks, and you're going to match the cement mixer on the cover with the cement mixer inside that book about trucks; I understand you when you say "wee wee" for fire trucks and "no no" for tofu and "ani" for elephants; I know just where to tickle you to get the best belly laughs.

I didn't know toddler-hood was going to be this much fun -- I was so worried I wouldn't know how to handle you that I overlooked the possibility of knowing you even better now than I did a year ago. I didn't know how delightful it would be to hear you pronounce your first words, or how rewarding it would be to observe the keenness of your memory. I didn't know how entertaining you would be, singing to your trucks and hamming it up in the tub.

You made up a sign for turtle of your own accord -- it's intuitive and perfect. You sit your stuffed giraffe on the potty as your proxy and make great farting noises for him; you also like to put your slippers (that you refuse to wear) on his feet. The other day you were eating a piece of bread and I watched as you broke off a tiny piece to feed to one of your cars... it was heartbreakingly sweet.

Papa taught you how to say "what?" and made a funny game where he answers "I don't know!"

You babble words and sounds in little strings of syllabic associations: mama, mommy, mani, bunny, bapi, potty, papa, bapa...

You call your grandpas "bama," and your grandmas "nana."

The sound of your voice alone makes me laugh:



I think I'm getting better at letting time pass, at allowing you to grow at the breakneck speed you employ for just about everything. But I suspect too that being a mother means always harboring an ache for these sweet uncomplicated days and all the ones that came before.

But let's charge ahead! I'm with you now and no matter what, loving you up the best I can.

Love,
mama

*

one year, in pictures

one year, in words

Auden, my darling son.

You are a year old today, a length of time that is as meaningful as it is arbitrary.

We like it when things come full circle; we like to point at a map and say, I was here.

And so I was. We were. A year ago I was entreating you to come out, so exhausted of sleeping on my side, and of heartburn, and of the hugeness of you inside me. I promised you lots of kicking room, I ate spicy food, I cried. And then, when you were ready, you came, and you became our son.

I had a dream a long time ago about you, except in that dream your name was Bella and you were also my lover. The telling seems perverse, but I must have known somehow that my love for you would be that fierce, so intimate and raw and consuming.

We are creatures: in the most primal acts we discover our capacity for the divine. In those early days after you were born, I smelled like blood and you smelled like blood and we were irrevocably linked, my body still your home and your body finding equilibrium among the light and the dry air.

Over these months the seed of you has sprouted -- your personality is unmistakable -- and as much as I try to teach you about words and sleeping and what not to touch, it is you teaching me how to unfold, be patient, stay open to new growth.

Sometimes I worry that I am not enjoying you enough, the way you are at this very moment, because every moment is changing. My heart aches and I can't bear to think of you as a toddler, as a teenager, as a grown man with a baby of your own. I told you all of this when you were seven months old, back when that seemed like eons since those huge bleary incomparable days of your newborn-ness.

And so I want to preserve it all, like every parent does, in words and pictures and force of will, the feeling of you being my son. The things I love:

The very boy-shape of your head, the way you point and ask "ah? ah?" and I know what you mean, the way you are thrilled with yourself for learning to blow your whistle, the way you love books now and wait for the tiger pages so you can growl, the way you are too busy to eat in your chair and so take your food on the run like a pint-sized marathoner, the pursed-lip face of concentration you get when you're screwing the cap on and off, on and off, on and off the water bottle, the way you insist on still biting my chin with affection (even though now you have teeth).

Last week you even slept through the night, three nights in a row, all on your own. I really love that.

In this past year I haven't been able to finish a book, or a painting, or most of my sentences half the time. I have felt panicked, delirious, wise, giddy, angry, and damn strong -- often in the same day. I have felt debilitated by the exhaustion, and the weight of being your non-stop everything. I have felt resentful of the marionette strings of domesticity, I have felt constricted by your nap schedule (or lack thereof), I have felt unfairly wrenched out of my former life as a book-finishing, painting-finishing, out-to-dinner going, lazy-Sunday-morning-breakfast-eating, witty-conversation-having, quiet-observing non-parent.

You changed everything.

I traded all those things for the unalloyed pleasure of silky baby skin, staggering-drunk-zombie baby walk, exquisite staccato baby laugh, the inquisitive impatient wiggling goofy gorgeous go-go-go of YOU.

So I celebrate your first year, and my having survived it. Happy Birthday, sweetness.

*

seven months

Dear Auden,

It's been a busy couple of months, huh? That's nearly a third of your life! We uprooted you from our little apartment among the eucalyptus trees and never-ending sunshine, visited all the grandparents in a whirlwind, and slept in enough different beds to confound your little sense of direction. Then we landed in a new house, a new city, a new way of doing things that involves sleeping alone and being entreated to swallow foods of perplexing flavor and texture and not being allowed to grab at all those lovely speaker wires.

Sometimes I forget that you are just a baby. Sometimes I get so caught up in wanting you to take a nap, or lie still for a diaper change, or to stay out of the garbage can for crying out loud, that I forget to honor the gorgeous spark of curiosity in you. You! The you that you are becoming, separate from me, with your own will and your own way.

You are ticklish under your chin. You giggle when I shake my hair in your face. You put everything into your mouth and test it with slobber (plastic kitchen funnel, okay; cell phone, didn't make it). You like to hold my fingers while you fall asleep in the sling, and I marvel at how warm and silky-soft your little hands are. You have a sense of humor now -- you laugh at papa's funny faces, you squeal with delight when I magically reappear from behind a door. You blow a mean raspberry.

You have been crawling for over a month, and are now a pro at pulling yourself up on anything -- steady or not. You have also mastered the one-hand-assisted stand, which lends itself to grabbing at yet more (wires, buttons, books, CDs, plastic bags) toys, and is also useful for crouching down to retrieve dropped things. You are an intrepid adventurer, and have no patience for my limitations, and no regard for danger. Or gravity.

You have discovered the joy of your own voice: you can make it yell, you can pitch it high in an eeeeeeeeee of pleasure, you can do a syllable that sounds like blah blah blah blah. You have also discovered the strangeness of water, and watch with wonder when I pour it on you in the bath. Then you slap it with your hands. Then you flail your legs and splash furiously and breathe in excited huffs when it gets all over your face.

My heart aches at how quickly this time goes. Every day you do something new, adding tiny layers of experience and recognition to your world. And while I celebrate your growth -- what choice do I have? -- part of me wants you to stay small, to always fit in my arms, to always burrow your fuzzy head into my neck when you're tired. Even on days that are hard (and there have been plenty of those), I find solace in the fact that this is the only day like it that I have with you. That doesn't exactly make me less tired, but it makes me more grateful, more attentive, more painfully open to the fleetingness of your infancy.

My sweet, beautiful son, I love you full to bursting.

love,
mama

*

mobile

Oh boy. We have mobility, folks:



We're in trouble. But how cute is a baby in a hoodie?

*

rollin'

So, it turns out that tummy time is just a gateway drug. Auden is now getting into harder stuff:

He pulled this one on Saturday, and even though he ends up burrowing his face in the ground and getting a little stuck, he is quite determined. But now he can do it with considerably less yelling.

And for Fenna... horse lips!

Someday I'll get back to writing thoughful and poignant tomes about motherhood -- and maybe even art! -- but for now it's just video.

*sigh*

*