Week Ten: Sociology 101

I'd like to say that I have art on the wall to nurture a love and appreciation for the arts in my kids. I'd like to say that we're following some sort of plan to stimulate and educate these kids of ours. But then sometimes I wonder if it's not just better to let them discover the wonderful things in this world naturally. Take Will for instance, I have four paintings (okay, well, prints) on our living room wall, one of which is Picasso's Blue Nude, one of my favorite, favorite paintings in the world. The subtle tragedy and sorrow have always drawn me to the woman in the painting, and I can still sit, looking at it and just get lost in the shades of blue and simple outline of the human figure. But I digress. Will loves to sit in his chair and just stare at wall with the paintings, cooing, squealing, and smiling. Hey, who needs a mobile?

Speaking of culture, we also all went to see the musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown this weekend up on campus. Imagine, two months old, and already going to the theatre! Will made it through most of the show, and actually sort of watched the second act, but Emily is such a little citizen now. She sat there with her legs crossed, program in hand, and only got a little bit shy when Charlie Brown was saying a monologue and she thought he was talking to her. After the show, we went to the cast party at Ian's coworker's house (she was the assistant director) and Emily actually got to meet all the actors, which was really cool for her. These are the times that I truely appreciate living in a college town.

I guess I haven't talked too much about how Will lately with my anxiety about Emily starting kindergarten (and turning five in five days!). But he's doing great. He seems enormous, I've had to drag out the 3-6 month sizes already (well that's all pretty relative, but still!). He's also a pretty happy guy which (and I realize that I shouldn't compare, but I think that's the nature of the second child) isn't at all what Emily was like. Emily was, and still is, tempermental. It was a major event when she would coo, making this sweet little "ahh", and that was it for the week. But not Will. Just take his diaper off and he's so happy he carries on and on about it with these loud "Ohh" and "Arrg" sounds. Pretty much the only thing he's not happy about is waking up and being put down. At least that he has in common with his sister.

His great attitude is really making me dread his checkup this week, where he'll get the onslaught of shots, for, what I'm sure seems to babies, no good reason. Think life got a little bit better outside the womb? Finally getting control of those hands? Ha, how about several sharp jabs to the leg with an enormous needle? It's so hard, this road to personhood.

I'm actually finding myself trying to come up with questions to ask at this checkup. You do sort of feel like a bad parent when the doctor asks "So, do you have any questions?" and you have to answer, "Nope, none at all" and you find yourself looking at your mate like "God honey, my mind's a total blank, how about you?". In today's world of stress-parenting, it really seems like you should have your list of questions prepared, memorized, and laminated for god's sake.

So, needless to say, we're not exactly holding up flashcards for the baby, but I'm also not sure we're at the other end of the spectrum. But really, Will is obviously growing, he's a great eater, and I'm really not all that concerned, he seems to be doing great, so if it ain't broke...

Week Nine: First Love

It's Saturday afternoon and we're attempting to do as little as possible with two small children around (One of the very first casualites of parenthood: the Lazy Saturday). Some of Ian's friends from work invite us on a picnic, and Ian asks Emily if she wants to go. She asks of Reed, one of the guys that work for Ian, is going to be there, and we realize she might have a little crush on him. Mostly I think she pretty much loves anyone right now that isn't either Ian or me. She spent the afternoon playing with Amanda, who is incredibly more patient and willing to pretend than I am. Thus we've begun the downward spiral toward uncoolness. So I've realized that although I'll always be Emily's mom, and we will always have a special relationship, I'll never be the center of the universe I was when she was small. This is a huge contrast to Will's development as he is just starting to fall in love with us (and espeically me).

After four years of clashing with Emily on everything from not getting what she calls "colorful cereal" to washing her hair, I had forgotten about baby love. I forgot about that unique way a baby looks at you, the way their entire body wiggles with joy when you talk to them, and how you live for the smiles that light up their entire face. And while there are so many more reasons to appreaciate Emily now - her fascination with other cultures and art, her love and compassion for others, and her desire to help - there is something that was lost between us from that first tantrum.

So, although Emily and I will never have that part of our relationship again, I really enjoy the person she's growing up to be. Yesterday we walked down to the park and library downtown and got Emily her first library card, and she picked out a book about Japan to borrow. She really is quite worldly, this kid. But it wasn't until we sat on the grass to read this book out loud in the city park and there was an elderly Asian man cooling himself off in the kids fountain that I became aware of how, um, the book seemed to overly simplify Japanese culture. Hmmm, so much for worldly I guess.

And then there is Will, who even as I'm typing this, flashes one of his whole-body smiles every time I look over at him. He seems to have fallen desperately in love with all of us, when he's in a good mood (which, is actually most of the time) he will coo and smile whenever one of us pays attention to him. Just last week after going to get ice cream with Ian, Emily came into the door and as soon as Will heard her voice he started smiling. This is great news for Emily, who has invested so much time into him, waiting for some kind of two-way interaction. It's weird to actually see their budding relationship, independent of us parents, and it makes me excited to see what kind of friends they'll become.

Of course the downside to Will's new love for everyone is that he wants to be around everyone all the time. But it's not always enough just to be around someone, he'd actually much rather be held by someone, thank you very much. That's all well and good most of the time, but lately it's been in the 90's and having someone else's sticky skin on mine is pretty much the last thing I want.

But for now, I'll enjoy the pure spotlight of Will's adoration, even as I peel his sweaty self from the crook of my arm. And I know I'll enjoy the kid he'll become someday, but there is nothing quite like being a baby's first love.

Week Eight: The Stress of Small Person Maintence

What is the deal with sleeping through the night? Seriously what is with all the pressure? I open my email today to find my weekly Babycenter newsletter with the headline, Sleeping through the night: Is your baby ready? It is also one of the first questions people ask, following up such vital statistics such as gender and age.

The short answer is that Will is definitely not "sleeping through the night", and I don't even have that expectation at this point. Will wakes up a few times during the night, makes some grunting noises, and then as I feed him in our nice warm bed, he drifts right back off to sleep (and so do I). Ian asked me one morning this week, "Did Will wake up last night?", and I thought about it and said "I guess he did, but I don't really remember". What I don't understand is the pressure about sleeping through the night. I think that maybe if all the parenting resources never mentioned the whole thing, we'd all assume whatever our baby was doing is normal without the expectation of anything else.

Okay, now for those of you who know me as the "nap nazi", you might be saying, "ha! Just wait until he's two and you're still rocking him to sleep just like Emily". And I'm not saying that won't be the case, that these "bad habits" aren't hard to break. But my god, in the big picture, they're babies for such a short amount of time, why wouldn't we want to spend our nights snuggled up with our little guy, so when he wakes up to nurse at 4am, just as the sun comes up and light begins to fill our bedroom, I can stroke his soft hair and stare at his perfect little eyelashes.

Because these moments truly are so fleeting, and although I often wished I had a nickle, god, even a penny, for every hour I spent trying to get Emily to sleep, I now can tuck her in, say goodnight, and I don't see her until Ian kisses her goodbye in before he goes to work at the god awful hour of 5:30 and she says, half asleep, "Bye Daddy, can I go back to sleep now?".

Because seriously, aren't we parents under enough stress as it is? I guess, aparently we're not, since most of us actually seek out information that make us feel inadequate. Emily had a playdate this week with Blue, who attends a montessori school. Her mom was telling me about an article she just read about parent stress, and how kids that attend an "educational" preschool actually preform worse than kids who don't. Oy.

The Return of the Emils

Yes, I'm back to being a parent of two again, after a very relaxing week with just Will. While I did miss Emily and the house just seemed so empty without her, it was so nice going a week without having to argue about hair brushing.

Now that we're just a few weeks away from her fifth birthday, she's so excited. Kindergarten is rapidly approaching, and since making friends doesn't come easily to Emily, I thought some role playing might help her get comfortable. We were taking a walk yesterday up to campus and I try it out. I tell her how to introduce herself, "Hi my name is Emily, what's your name?". So I tell her to pretend that she doens't know me and try it out. She says "I already know you, you're my mom". Hmmm, I remind her that we're pretending and try to ask her, to which she replies, "You know my name". Okay, I explain the whole thing again, and she just says "Oh, no thanks". Well at least I tried, she's just really not a conceptual person. I just feel so bad that she doesn't have many friends, it's kind of the nature of living in a college town, people move away. Last summer there was a pack of four and five year old girls running around. This year it's pretty much just Emily and a lot of older kids. And I'm really, really not sure about her playing with them.

Hopefully she will transition into kindergarten and make a few friends there. I just hope so much that she's not the odd-kid-out. Remember when you were in school and there was always one kid that nobody ever wanted to play with? My fear is that Emily's quirkyness will not translate well to the plaryground. Meanwhile I'm trying to walk the thin line between talking about kindergarten so she's excited and not talking about it so much that it stresses her out. Believe me, the last thing I want is Emily in tears, asking if she can just go back to her old school.

I tell you, people stress way too much over the baby years. Breast vs. Bottle, Vaccinations, "Sleeping through the night" - ha, just get over it and enjoy the years when your only worries are whether the baby is fed, rested, and (relatively) clean.

Week Seven: Traveling Man

We live in Pullman, eight miles from Moscow, the next largest town with grocery stores, a (very very) small mall, and many more resturants than Pullman. We live right off the "Moscow-Pullman Highway" and so it takes about five to ten minutes to travel between the two towns. Will has, more than a few times, screamed the whole way to and from Moscow. Not fun. So needless to say, I was dreading taking the 300+ journey back to the western half of the state for the first time with Will to visit for the holiday weekend.

I was in for a suprise though when Will barely complained the whole way over there, and didn't even make a peep the whole way back. We drove over 1000 miles total over four days, and in all it was quite enjoyable (although sitting in traffic for two hours trying to go over the Narrows Bridge was certainly not the highlight for anyone). At this age, Will actually does quite well traveling, and a bonus was that there was always someone to hold him.

That said, he is happy to be back home. It's so weird that he already knows the difference. He's turning into such a little person already! Lately he's been noticing the squares of fabric I put on the wall above his changing table and he gets all excited and smiley when he's having his diaper changed. I am still worried about him being color blind (my dad was), but I think this means he canat least he can see some colors, so that's good.

Will is also turning into such a little kitten. Last night I was putting some oil on his head (he has the worst case of cradle cap) and I started rubbing his tummy, arms, and legs with it and he absolutely loved it. I think if he could purr, he would.

In other news, Emily is spending the week at my mom's, basking in the undivided attention, I'm sure. It's so weird not having her here though, and I'm getting even less done than I ususally do. When there's no reason for me to not sit and play with Will all day... well, that's what I do. Well, to be honest, that and watch TV since the University started providing cable (which we didn't have before). So, it's a bit of a vacation for me as well.

Yesterday I got a letter from Emily's elementry school, so we know which one she is attending and she's going to PM kindergarten. There is even a school supply list, which I got a little teary reading. Wow, she's getting to be such a big kid, I don't know how I'm going to handle it. Back when Emily was Will's age people told me, "they grow up so fast", and I thought ha, not fast enough! But now I realize how true it is. Ian and I were in the parking lot at Babies R Us this weekend and we saw this toddler dancing around and waving, totally uninhibited and happy, and I thought, my gosh, that's going to be Will before we know it! So while I'm looking forward to Will's cute toddler stage, I really just want him to stay little. Despite that, all these baby milestones still make my heart swell with pride. He reached out for a toy hanging from his car seat, and I was so happy for him to finally get some control over those weird limb things sticking out from his torso.

Even though these milestones take both kids closer to kindergarten, or even (gulp) college, I'm still so amazed at these little people's ability to move on to the next new trick. Emily writing a string of letters and asking "what's this say", and Will straining to get his fist in his mouth and only managing to punch himself in the face. If only I had half their energy and spirit.