Babies and Shopping and Sears, Oh My!

October 23, 2012 by ·

What’s the best part about having a baby? Going shopping!

Okay, that’s not the best part. The best parts are the snuggles and the newborn smell and the tiny fingers and watching your older child become a big brother. But going shopping is pretty good too, especially when it’s your second boy and you have an excuse to buy new stuff. (Actually, having a teeny tiny baby is sort of an excuse to buy new stuff, because he swims in the stuff his older brother only wore for a few days, but anyway…) [Read more…]

Filed Under: Stuff I like · Tagged With: ,

Pride and Potential

October 19, 2012 by ·

Honour your children, they suggested. Share how they make you proud.

Easy peasy, as Connor likes to say. (He stole my expression.)

He’s always up for anything involving construction paper and crayons.

“What are you good at?” I asked.

He didn’t hesitate in his answer.

child with sign

I’m good at building LEGO.

He’s so good at LEGO it actually freaks me out a little bit. He’s going to be smarter than I am. He might be already. He’s good at a lot of things, but the confidence he gets from LEGO is a joy to see. He can do it well and he knows it. And I’m glad he knows it.

“What else are you good at?”

I thought his answer might be painting. (“I have paint all over my hands because I’m an artist like my dad,” he told me the other day.) Or baking. There are lots of things he could have chosen.

child with sign

I’m good at cleaning up my toys.

But he chose this. It’s his job and he does it (though he occasionally complains about it, and fair enough). But he does a darn good job of cleaning up his toys.

“What’s something about you that makes you really nice?” Last question.

child with sign

I help you change the baby.

He thought for a split second. Helping change the baby is not just something he likes to do, it’s something he does because he wants to be helpful. And I so admire that about him. He’s a really good big brother.

And then there’s the baby. What to say about the one I’ve only known for a couple of weeks but who has changed my worldview? If life is made up of a series of steps along a path leading us to who we are meant to be, he is a significant one in mine. In him lies so much potential.

newborn with sign

I’m brand new and full of potential.

Both for him and for me.

Filed Under: Happy things, Hello, Inspiration, Motherhood · Tagged With: , , , , , ,

No Longer Only

October 18, 2012 by ·

I have said, “Be gentle,” approximately 962 times in the last two weeks.

“Gently, please.”

“Do it gently.”

“C’mon, buddy. I really need you to be more gentle.”

Whatever form it takes, it’s tough to say and tough for him to hear.

It isn’t even usually related to Connor’s interactions with Ethan. C is pretty gentle with him, for the most part, though he does need to learn that there’s a time for patting the baby on the head and when he’s nursing isn’t really it, especially when it involves Connor climbing up on my lap to reach that little head.

No, it’s me he’s rough with. And Rich sometimes. And of course the long-suffering dog. Running jumps and flying leaps that are problematic for a mama with various sore body parts. Hitting because he’s excited or mad. Throwing things.

He’s bored, a little bit. We’re doing our best to combat that, but there’s bound to be a transition period and he’s smack-dab in the middle of it.

I feel bad for him. He so badly wants to help and be involved, and we’re letting him do all kinds of stuff. He’s the official diaper getter, wipe distributor, and nursing pillow finder. He takes the dirty diapers and throws them away before I’m even finished putting the new one on. He puts the soother back in, pulls Ethan’s hat up off his eyes and sings to him when he’s fussy.

He’s just the best darn big brother and I’m so, so proud of him.bathing-newborn

Last night we gave Ethan a bath, and Connor really wanted to help. But he’s just a bit too enthusiastic and after being redirected when he was splashing too much and asked to wait while Dad did some rinsing, he slunk off and turned on the TV. His head drooped and he sunk down into the couch cushions and I almost couldn’t bear it.

I went to sit with him and talk to him about how we want his help and how he’s doing such a good job, but he wouldn’t hear it.

“I’m not a good helper.”

And my mama heart broke wide open.

It’s hard to convincingly tell your biggest boy that he is a good helper when you’re crying like a hormonal mess, but I tried. I told him he was a really, really good helper and I’m so glad we have him and he’s just the best big brother we could hope for.

He’s just not our one and only anymore. And right now that’s tough for everyone.

Filed Under: Hard things, Motherhood · Tagged With: ,

The Sound of Silence

October 15, 2012 by ·

He is quiet. So quiet that it’s easy to forget he’s there. I did forget once, until I heard a squeak and thought What’s that? and remembered the baby.

I hear footsteps in the hall upstairs. The other one is supposed to be in quiet time, though with him there really is no such thing. He is not quiet. Never has been.

The silence of this new baby is unexpected.

***

We had just come home from the hospital. The baby was quiet. Sleeping. Sitting next to me at the kitchen table, Rich sent the signal across the room and the first notes danced from the speakers.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again

It’s been on his playlist for a while now but in that moment those notes got caught in my chest.

Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping

The day-two tears rose, pushing past the music and breath and lump in my throat. I didn’t allow them a release.

And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

No words, no questions, no what ifs. Just a time remembered when things weren’t so silent.

***

This time is different. Of course it is. This is a different baby, something I’m reminded of every time I pull off his little hat to reveal the blond hair underneath. It has a reddish tinge. We don’t know who he looks like.

I am different. I have done this before.

Some of this new-baby stuff has come back to me like the flash of a time-travel machine, leaving me in a time and place that’s disconcertingly the same but not.

Some of this is new. Feeding one while entertaining another. Really tiny clothes. The soreness.

But mostly it’s the silence that’s different.

It won’t always be this way, I know. He won’t always be a textbook eat-poop-sleep baby. Day 13 today, but how long will it last? That question sits with me now, tapping at the window of my silent experience.

He is mine. He feels so very mine, even though I hardly know him at all.

I’m trying to just enjoy the silence.

***

Lyrics: The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.

Filed Under: Motherhood, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , ,

Grace in Small Things: #8

October 11, 2012 by ·

sleeping newborn

I need to write, but I’ve been choosing sleep.

I don’t know what to say anyway.

I need to write about Ethan’s birth, because I think it’s a story that needs to be shared. I need to write about this first week, because I need to make some sense of it. I need to remember all this by writing about it here, but that will have to wait.

For now, a gratitude list:

  1. Newborn smell.
  2. Little boys who have become big brothers and really, really like helping.
  3. Sisters who never fail to step up.
  4. Husbands who get it.
  5. Peri bottles. (What? Whoever invented these deserves an award.)

***

In other news, I’ve got a post up at Just.Be.Enough today. It’s about feeling like I’m not as much of a mom as those who take care of two kids on their own. I wrote it before Ethan was born and I’m not sure how I feel about this now, but it’s still something I’m pondering. Come read. 

Filed Under: Happy things, Motherhood · Tagged With: , ,
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