Welcome Home Mommy!

Our Mom's Weekend Out was a big enough success that there are already ideas going around about the next one.  The next time I've been gone for a few days, however, I would prefer a slightly different welcome from my baby boy.  As warm and as loving as the initial 'welcome back' moments were, the one that followed a few hours later, in the middle of the night, wasn't quite what I had hoped for.

Despite having been gone and having had the chance to rest for the weekend, I was exhausted by the time 10pm came around.  A good night's sleep and I would be ready for Monday.  Bring it on.  My Monday this week started at 5am when Ryder woke up crying.  As a mom you develop the ability to translate your baby's cries and though I was pretty darn good at it back in the day with Kai (these days it's a different story), I had to re-learn the whole science of cry-interpretation with Ryder.  You'd think I didn't get enough practice in with Kai, but trust me I did.  I think this was purely a case of selective memory.

So, 5am comes around and Ryder is up.  This time not with the kind of fussing that will stop, after which he'll fall asleep again.  It was a different cry.  One that told me, to go in and check on him.  And there I went.  Stumbling down the hall, into his room.  A little voice in the back of my head said: "check if he's hungry" and so I did by gently sticking me finger into his mouth. 

And bingo!!  There it was...!!

The cause of all evil.

The beginning of the end of baby-hood.

A tooth.

His first tooth.

Right at that moment my heart stopped.  I had dreaded this moment for so long and here it was.  It had come out of nowhere, with no lead in time (other than 3 months of drool, drool and more drool, but hey, drool doesn't mean much to me anymore).  At that very moment, at 5am on Monday morning, my baby made me realize (even more) that he was growing up. 

Given the fact that we are most likely not going to have any more children, that meant that the gummy smiles were gone.  Forever.  I loved them so much and it broke my heart to think that this was it.  That the last time I saw him smile, had been the last time I had seen his gummy smile.  I love gummy smiles.  And though the smiles with teeth are absolutely just as precious, there is something so very special about the gummy ones.  At least to me.

Some topical gel and Ibuprofen later, Ryder rolled over, cuddled with his blankie and went straight back to sleep.  Calm, soothed, and happy.

Mommy, on the other hand, let loose a few tears before she fell asleep.  It had been a bittersweet return home.  I am absolutely blessed and happy that my baby boy is healthy and is turning into a 'big' boy, however I am sad that yet another chapter of 'infancy' has been closed and is now behind me.  I loved his gummy smile and I just wasn't ready to let it go quite yet.  This just proves, once again, that our children grow up on their own terms.  As parents we do so much to encourage and support their growth, however, at the same time there is nothing we can do as they just do it on their own.

This feeling is similar to the one I had when I realized that Ryder wasn't falling asleep in my arms anymore. I know that these moments will be replaced by new ones that in turn will be just as precious, yet I cannot help but be a bit sad. 

Thank you Ryder, for reminding me to really live in the moment and to experience every single moment fully.  They are precious and before we know it, they're gone, to never return again.  Afterall:

The present is a gift, that's why it's called 'The Present'.

On Raising Kids...

This morning I was reminded on how much we look at 'the experts' around us to solve the challenges we face in motherhood / parenthood.  As parents we spend a lot of time trying to 'figure it out'.  Whatever 'it' may be.  And by the time we do (figure it out), our little ones have changed and decide to mix things up again.  We look at the people around us and compare our children to others:  "So-and-so walked at 10 months.  Why isn't my child walking yet?  He's 14 months already".  And there we go: we dive into the books, we call our pediatrician, and worst of all: we 'Google' our concern.  Though the internet is a wonderful place to get a lot of information, it can also be a place that can worry you for no good reason.

Long story short: we get so wrapped up in 'figuring it out' that we sometimes forget to just enjoy the moment.  I have written two posts about that since I started blogging and I often return to read them.
Living In The Moment
Enjoy Them, They Grow Up So Fast
It always puts me back with my feet on the ground, while it breaks my heart at the same time, realizing that my kids are growing up so incredibly fast.  (Sometimes faster than I'd like them to).

All this reminded me of a piece that Anna Quindlen, Newsweek columnist and author, once wrote and I wanted to share it.  I am pretty sure that some part of this will ring a bell for every.single.parent. who reads this.


On Raising Kids...

by Anna Quindlen

If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed. The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the black button eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lower lip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin.

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.

Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.

What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing.

Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every  part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, "Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame." The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?
 
But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make  while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6,  4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.
  
Even  today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be.
  
The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was  sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.

That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were....

Enjoy Them, They Grow up So Fast

I remember when Kai was born, hearing it over and over again: "Enjoy them, they grow up so fast."  I heard it so much that eventually, I started blocking it out when people went down 'that route' again.  Yeah, they were right, he grew up fast, but wasn't it awesome?!?!

Now that we have Ryder, things are a bit different.  Most likely we will not be having any more children, so this is it.  No more babies when Ryder grows up. I am making sure that I enjoy every moment of these days as tomorrow he might reach some kind of physical or developmental milestone at which point a certain stage or phase gets closed and will never return again.  As much as I enjoy watching them grow up, I have a hard time accepting that certain moments will never return.  Yes, they will be replaced by new moments that are just as beautiful and memorable, but it does mean that certain chapters come to a close.  That is life, I know, but that doesn't mean it's always easy to accept.

My Dearest Ryder:

Please take your time growing up.  I enjoy your baby-being and am not ready yet for all that is around the corner, for all that is about to happen.  You are dispensing so much drool, that I can almost call you my little waterfall.  Teeth are on their way up (or down - depending on their locations), but I am not ready for you to lose your gummy smile.  I remember my heart breaking when Kai cut his first tooth and I am just not emotionally ready for that to happen to you.  Hold off on that.  The whole teething process is no fun anyways.

Last night I came to the painful conclusion that you no longer 'fit' in my arms in the way that I have held you your entire life.  Every evening, rocking you to sleep with you literally laying in my arms, up against my chest.  Yesterday, you couldn't get comfortable anymore in that particular position, simply because you have gotten so long that your feet touch the opposite arm rest, which makes you want to push off on it.  Not only did it almost launch you out of my arms, but it also brought tears to my eyes.  I am now in the process of finding another position that is comfortable for you and soothing for me.  Yes, soothing as I LOVE holding you in my arms, watching you get comfortable and fall asleep.  I am simply not ready to give all this up.  You are only 4 months, you're still a baby and I want you to take your time growing up.

Take your time My Love, take your time.  For mommy's sake.

With all my Love,

Mommy

All those people were right: we should enjoy them as they grow up so fast.  It is just easier to brush it off when you know that a sibling will come at some point.  But at one point or another, we all get to this point where we realize "this will never return".  On that note, I join that group by saying "Enjoy them.  They grow up so incredibly fast.  They may have changed by tomorrow and today will never return."

May 13: Living in the Moment

Being a mom is so incredibly fascinating: for the past several nights I have continued to make anywhere between 4-8 trips into Ryder's room nightly to soothe, re-swaddle, 're-pop' the paci, change a diaper, help fall asleep - you name it, I've done it (except feeding as Ryder luckily doesn't need to eat anymore during the night).  After several of these nights in a row, during which sleep happened for me in intervals of no longer than an hour, I am exhausted; my body aches, I have a headache, cramps and am just feeling 'blah' (for a lack of a better description).  You would expect that the last thing I would want to have happen is to continue my little trips into the nursery during the daytime.  Don't get me wrong, I would rather not and I'd prefer Ryder took a good long nap to catch up on what he lacked during the night, but when I was on my way home from having visited a friend of mine who had had her little girl this past weekend and David told me that Ryder had been waking up and crying a lot, I realized that there was a part of me that was looking forward to taking that little munchkin in my arms, sitting down with him in the glider and soothing him until he would fall asleep in my arms.


When I walked through the door, I was welcomed by Ryder screaming and David flustered, yet relieved about my arrival.  Despite having 2 kids now and having had my fair share of crying / screaming and squealing, it sometimes still is a mystery why they cry or are so upset to the point that you think their world has come to an end for them.  And sometimes you just give up trying to figure it out and accept that they 'just cry'.  This was one of those moments.  I could contribute it to so many things, but it's not even worth it as that list is just too long.

Obviously, those first few minutes upon entering the room weren't that enjoyable: crying, squirming and pushing - no, not my idea of enjoying motherhood, but what usually follows is just amazing.  There is nothing better than holding your baby in your arms, watching him get comfortable, relaxing and eventually falling asleep.  No matter how sleep deprived I am, no matter how badly I should be taking a nap, I give that all up in an instance in order to feel the warmth of my baby on my chest, to hear the soothing sound of his breathing and to just observe and enjoy this precious little 'being'.


I have to admit that pretty much every day I look forward to the children taking their nap: kids asleep = mommy being productive.  'Cause let's fact it: on an average day the 2 hours that they are both down and the few hours after they go down for the night are the only hours that mama can really do stuff.  Unfortunately, those few hours are just not enough to make it through my never-ending list of to-do's.  In the beginning I would find myself get slightly bothered when, during nap time, one or both of the children wasn't taking their nap 'as they were supposed to'.  It meant that I wasn't getting my stuff done.  It's hard when you see your to-do list grow and grow and you are aware that the amount of time that you have in which to complete this ever growing list of 'to do's' is so very limited.  Then, when those few hours get reduced even more because one or both of them aren't napping, it is easy to become irritated, annoyed, upset, whatever you want to call it.  However, when I reflect on the past 2 years AND these past 3 months in particular, I have come to the conclusion that nothing is more important than taking that moment (or that hour for that matter) to soothe my baby, sit with him in the glider and just admire his beautiful chubby face while he relaxes and finally falls asleep (again).  These moments are limited.  They are gone before I know it and when they are, I will wonder "where did they go?  What happened to my baby and where all of a sudden did this toddler come from?"  I want to cherish these moments and have decided that no matter how much time I spend on my 'to-do' list, it continues to get longer and longer anyways.  Instead, I want to soak up these moments of togetherness with my baby boy, because before I know it, my baby isn't a baby anymore.