A Reasonable Fear

Gabby woke up screaming the other night. I went into her room and held her, and when she had calmed down a bit I asked, "What's the matter, sweetheart? Did something scare you?" (I asked this because she'd had a nightmare about a peacock the night before).

"I'm scared, Mommy."
"What are you scared of?"
"I'm scared of boogers."

Which was her way of telling me that she had a stuffy nose and couldn't breathe, and that she found that sensation a tad unsettling. But honestly, a fear of boogers seems completely reasonable to me at this point.

It's been a pretty awful, booger-filled winter around here. We've all had one cold after another. Poor Dylan has had a stuffy nose and grunky eyes for, let's see now, about 60% of his life thus far. And we all had RSV, which, if I recall correctly from the in-depth research I conducted with the help of Dr. Google and Web, M.D., stands for either "Really Shitty Virus" or "Rapidly-Spread Virus," or maybe it was "Remarkably Sucktastic Virus." Anyhoo, it appears that approximately 99.98% of all children in this area have said disease at some point in the last three months. (And by the way, what's with all these childhood diseases that we didn't have when I was a kid? Or did we have them and just called them something else, like "nasty cold and fever that lasts three weeks"?)

I suppose that means the preschool years are upon us. Those happy, golden days of wonder, Popsicle stick art projects and eternally runny noses. I can't wait to see what these years bring.

And meanwhile, I'll stock up on Kleenex.

Oy, The Guilt

Well, I had some Big Grownup Fun this weekend. In a bar. Where they serve (shhhh!) -- alcohol! In glasses! Made of glass! And the only other people there were other grownups! And my husband, whose name, as it turns out, is not "Daddy"!

Like those sweet young innocents of yore, or of cheesy movies, we stayed out 'til ten o'clock.

We had a wonderful time, and got to see some dear friends. We laughed and shared stories, and cussed freely, and felt like sane adults for a brief, shining moment. The kids, although both recovering from nasty colds, were both fever-free and in the capable hands of an experienced and loving nanny. They were both blissfully asleep when we got home.

So why do I feel so guilty?

Poetry Corner

Inspired by the recent Haiku contest at my friend's blog, Breakup Girl.net, here is a Mom Haiku for you all:





The most beautiful
phrase in English: Machine wash
warm, tumble dry low

Seriously, given the amount that Dylan spits up, that phrase brings a tear to my eye every time.

Dylan At Two Months

I guess I haven't formally introduced my son here yet. Friends-in-the-computer, meet my son, Dylan Gregory Dadslast. He's a big boy -- 9lbs, 1 oz at birth and growing fast. The boy enjoys his milk, I'll say that much. His size gives him a critical advantage in withstanding the overeager affections of his big sister, who loves nothing more than to throw herself on him in a frenzy of kisses, shouting "I KISS HIM! I KISS HIM!" in his tender little ear.

Dylan is two months old today. At this early stage, it's hard to tell what he's going to be like, but so far the signs are good. He's got a pretty easygoing temperament and when he smiles, which he does often, he smiles with his whole face, and sometimes his whole body, kicking and wriggling and flapping his hands around.

He spends lots of time in a state of quiet alertness, just taking it all in with a rather amused look on his face.

Like all infants, he is capable of great fits of screaming, but they usually end once he's managed to coat my hair and all my clothing with a well-aimed stream of spit-up. (Who knew? Spit-up makes your hair shiny. Smelly, but shiny.)

And he sleeps for long stretches at a time -- a quality that may grow wearisome if it persists into adolescence, but which, for now, I consider a state of grace.

The Sweetness Of It All

Well, obviously I haven't had a ton of time to post lately. If there is anyone still out there listening, sorry to leave you hanging. I've been a bit busy lately.

You see, I am now a mother of two. I have kidS, plural.

How odd. Not long ago I didn't think I would ever have a child, let alone two of them. And now, here I am, a completely assimilated citizen of Normalville, running around preoccupied with preschool applications and spit-up stains and oh-gracious-how-are-we-going-to-fit-two-carseats-two-strollers-and-two-grownups-in-one-Mini-Cooper (that's a story for another day).

It's amazing how easy that assimilation has been, how readily I've become just like every other stressed out mom, too easily distracted by the piles of laundry, too easily annoyed by a fussy baby or a whiny toddler, too ready to threaten to sell them to the gypsies -- this, after all we went through to have them. I often chastise myself for that.

Before I had kids, when we were struggling and wishing for them, I often imagined the special, precious moments, like gazing at my children asleep, watching them take their first steps, baking cookies together, hanging their art projects on the refrigerator. And yes, those moments are beautiful and rich. But the other moments, the stressed-out, hair-tearing moments, the exhaustion, the exasperation that comes after trying to explain for the umpteenth time that YES, we DO need to brush teeth EVERY NIGHT, the sore boobs from nursing the Giant Insatiable Baby, those are also very much a part of parenting. Those are the moments when it is indisputably real, and oddly enough, that is sometimes where the real sweetness resides.