Week 27: Roller Coaster of Love

There are a lot of things you're prepared for, entering parenthood. The diapers, the mess, the kisses, the wonder of it all. But one thing I wasn't prepared for, and will never get used to; the emotional rollercoaster that crashes through our house everyday.

I wake up and find myself strapped into a never ending ride of highs and lows and everthing in between. I ask Emily to clean her room after lunch, and we begin to ascend up the first hill... you feel the jerky click, click, click. "But I don't waaaaant to, it will take fooooreeever!" click, click, click. "Emily if you keep arguing, then no TV tomorrow" click, click, click... then as Emily stomps off to her room sobbing and we fly down the first hill at top speed down, down, down...

Realize, too, that I skipped the ten more minutes of threats and resistance as Emily knows that since Will is asleep in my arms, my threats are pretty worthless.

But later, without fail, Emily will announce that "this is the best day in my life". And really, I so admire her courage and optimism. I know, as I curse as the pots stacked by the sink fall to the floor, that usually I focus too much on the negative. What if we all said this, this moment, is the best in their life, wow, what a way to live. Really.

The rollercoaster continues though, highs and lows. Will's new trick, high piched screaming while I slap together some tuna between two pieces of bread, not so much a high point. But Emily playing peekaboo with Will while he crawled around on the living room floor diaperless and his perfect baby laugh? Does it get any higher than that?

Week 26: Not Even the Trees

So, I'm questioning my ability to succeed in law school. Within one week, I have gone into a grocery store, done all my shopping, proceeded to the check out, only to discover that I've left my purse in the car. Twice.

The worst part? Calling the thing that I lug around a purse is being pretty generous. On its best days, it is a huge, black, bottomless pit, and on its worst, it's a huge, black, bottomless pit, overflowing with diapers, blankets, toys, hats, and god knows what else.

My point? My bag is something you should notice you're missing. Should.

But enough about my absent mindedness! This is called Kate's Baby Journal, not Kate's, I'd-forget-my-left-arm-if-it-wasn't-attached, Journal. So, back to the subject everyone cares about; the baby.

Poor Will got five shots yesterday. The part I felt the worst about? He actually stopped crying between each shot, only to get stabbed in the leg again. Such a brave guy! But I felt like such a meanie, signing him up for a flu shot on top of everything else. Well, I figured it was better to do it all at once when he's already upset, rather than make a trip back to the doctor's office for more fun with needles. But again, there's not much to report, other than that Will is absolutely perfect in every way. He weighs 19.8lbs and is 27 inches tall. Apparently, he's slowed down in the weight gain, only 88 percentile, wich is normal for breastfed babies. It also might be due to the fact that Will is on the move constantly now. And of course, he's into everything, and after everything that falls into the category of not a baby toy. Computer mouse, camera case, remote control, water bottles, cooking spoons, and the bottle of baby tylenol, are a few of his favorite things to get into.

So, this is my request to toy companies. Forget Elmo. Forget the bright colors, forget rattles. Please, please just make a toy that is realistic and looks like a baby could electrocute themesleves with it. That's what they want. Really. Give a baby a nice, safe teething ring, and where does it go? Straight to the floor. Now, hand him your cell phone, and he'll examine that thing for hours. Okay well, not hours, but minutes, maybe even several minutes.

So, we went to the store to pick out a baby gate for the top of the stairs, and stood there, overwhelmed by the different kinds of gates, materials, and methods of doing what I thought should be simple en0ugh. We left with what seemed like a good choice, only to bring it home and discover that the wall slants out, and leaves a good two inches gap between the upper bumper of the gate and the wall. Then I figure that we can instead put the gate in the doorway just to the right of the top of the stairs, still allowing free movement through the upstairs without allowing access to the stairs themselves. No again. Although the wall seems to be straight at this spot, the gate itself is a few inches too small for the space. So, we've resigned to putting the gate in the doorway to our bedroom, since that's where Will hangs out mostly anyway. But who knew such a simple task would turn out to be such a problem? I can't wait to live on one floor again.

So yes, in a few short months we'll be living back on the west side of the state, after a long five years over in Pullman. It's bittersweet for me, though I'm so excited to live closer to our friends and family. It really does seem like just yesterday that I moved over here with Emily, only 13 months old. Pullman itself is a wonderful town, with many shops and things to do with kids, and so many parks. But we've outgrown it, and living not only just feet away from the university, but also in university housing has worn on us the past few months. We want to get into our own place, where we can paint the walls, have all of our living room furniture in, the living room (right now it's spread between the dining room and living room, each too small to fit both a couch and a chair), and actually have space outside, away from noisy neighbors. Well, we're moving into a duplex, so don't know about that last one, but still. We're going to have an actual yard. With trees. Coming from Western Washington, the lack of both trees and water over here is very unsettling.

But the best part, really, is being closer to the kids' grandparents, who miss them so much. Well, that and Ian and I might be able to go out alone once in a while. We'll see though, remember we're the same people who sleep in the same bed as Will because if he was all the way down the hall in his room all night, "we'd miss him too much".

Week 25: Wonder Baby

I'm driving to Moscow, eight miles down the road, to do a little grocery shopping. Emily's at school, so Will's in the backseat alone. Suddenly, I hear the distinct sound of a toy hitting and rolling across the floor in the backseat. I'm not even kidding, but instinct takes over, and my arm shoots behind my seat in search of the lost toy.

It's strange to me how much I've just picked up where I left off with Emily. From the first night in the hospital with Will, snuggled up in the bed with me, everything has been very much like, well, like riding a bike. It's probably that way for most second-time parents, but it just suprises me in funny ways. It also suprises me at how easily Will has been incoporated into our lives. The other day, as I nursed Will to sleep in my arms while typing away at the computer, Ian joked that Will probably thought the computer was his brother. And while I'm not saying that isn't true, it does illustrate quite nicely how Will has found his niche in our lives.

Of course, having a baby at home isn't all peace and tranquility. Up until this point, Will has been a great sleeper. Emphasis there on has been. He's still a pretty good sleeper, when he's asleep, but lately Will has been waking up about an hour after he falls asleep, supposedly for the night, and having a Will party for a few hours. Well, not exactly a party, since he's been pretty angry about the world during those hours, it's been pretty hard on both Ian and me. Sunday night he woke up around 10pm and didn't doze back off again for any substantial amount of time until 2am. And in addition to being awake, which is bad enough for tired parents, Will also would tolerate nothing but being rocked while standing (note to self: swaying back and forth while sitting in bed does not count, as much as I wished it would).

So, the reason for all this misery? We don't know. Could be teething, could be gas, could be constipation... we're really just baffled. Will hasn't wanted to nurse during these night wakings, which is frusterating not only because it's the best way to get Will calm and on the way to sleeping, but also because I can usually get in some sleep at the same time!

My best guess is that he's teething, since when we poured some tylenol into him, and the situation improved. And last night, even though Will did wake up, was much better. There are no teeth sprouting up yet though, so I'm not getting too optimistic.

Another reason Will might be waking up at night is that he's learned a new trick (and we can't help but cave into the cuteness). Okay now, if I hadn't heard it myself several isolated times, I wouldn't believe it. I have a hard time believing it even though I have heard it. But Will, he says "mama". Clear as day, undeniably says "mama". That's it, we can probably go ahead and declare him a genius now.

But really, do babies even do this? I've never heard of a baby saying anything before at the earliest 9 months. Emily didn't even babble the Mm sound until probably 11 months or so. And what Will's doing, it isn't babbling, like say "mamamamamama" would be. It's a distinctive "Ma - Ma". And the look on his face, priceless. First he makes the movement with his lips with no sound, concentrating intensly. Then, he'll say "Ba-Ba", and you can see him thinking "nooo, not quite", then he tries a few more times before getting a distinct "Ma-Ma" and his face breaks into this wide, proud grin. So cute!

Will is also making steps toward sitting by himself. He can sit for a few seconds, hunched forward with his weight on his hands, until he gets excited or tries to reach for something, and he topples over, usually head first into the floor, where he proceeds to roll accross the room. Will is actually getting around quite well without actually crawling. He usually can get where he wants to go by pushing with his feet and dragging himself accross the floor with his elbows. He just doesn't seem as motivated to sit as he was to roll over, perhaps after he masters moving around by his own free will, he'll take the time out to learn to sit. Until then, I think he'll continue to compulsively roll over.

So it seems, all of a sudden it's time to start thinking about gates, locks, and things that keep babies safe. But as I look around the house, I think, is it even possible?

It's terrible, really. Cherios, water bottle caps, rubber bands, chunks of dirt, are all on the floor, pretty much constantly. I keep thinking of that commercial about the vaccum cleaner that "doesn't lose suction", as I run our vaccum cleaner over the same cherio ten times and it persists, taunting me on the floor, you know you'll have to bend over and pick me up, mwahahaha! And that's not even counting the stairs, cubbords, computer wires and toys that need to be baby-proofed.

A small part of me was hoping to put off baby-proofing until we move, but with Will so determined to get mobile, I can see we need to do something around here. I just have nightmares about our tall, tipsy, bookshelf with heavy things on it, like books. And our stairs, which have, you guessed it, thirteen steps exactly. Seriously, I'm not all that superstituous, but really, thirteen? As if stairs weren't dangerous enough?

But really, I'm sure Will will be fine. The house will be safe enough for the time being. (Realize that evan as I write this, Will is inching his way accross the floor to the rock Ian painted when he was small that we use as a doorstop. I just it was non-toxic paint...)

Week 24: A for Effort

Last Tuesday I spent three hours without children. Three hours without children and doing something mentally stimulating. I judged a round for this year's mock trial team up on campus, wich was very much fun.

It also got me remembering that despite all the grief over applications and stress over LSAT scores, I'm doing this because it's fun.

But last Monday was Halloween, and both kids were just as cute as, well a flamingo and a frog. Unfortunately it was pouring down rain, so after dashing around the neighboorhood a bit, we headed to the mall in Idaho and joined in the slow line of parents and children shuffling around the mall, holding out bags of candy. But Emily had a fantastic time, and was a wonderful and funny flamingo. I hadn't planned on dressing Will up, but at the last minute I dashed to ShopKo and found a darling frog costume, which was a) the only one in Will's size that wasn't very, very girly, and b) half price because it was so late. But it was perfect, and I'm glad he dressed up for his first Halloween. Even if Ian and I had a good laugh about how the costume ended up looking a bit more like a murloc than a frog, and also making all kinds of angry murloc sounds from the backseat as we drove around in the dark past his usual bedtime...

But I felt bad, two nights of disrupting Will Baby's schedule. He really is mostly quite a trooper, very flexible (a word not usually used to describe babies!). And by the time I came home after the mock trial scrimmage and having to swing by the store to buy Star Wars after, Will wasn't too happy with me. He spent the rest of the evening clawing and mauling me as we tried to watch Star Wars. And between Will and me asking "What planet is that?" "Why are they doing that?" and "Is the Chancellor really the Emperor?" (I hadn't really seen the last two), I'd be suprised if Ian really got anything out of it.

We didn't get too many trick-or-treaters, since we were gone most of the evening, but Emily enjoyed handing out the candy, like a real grown up kid. She really is such a big, big kid now, I'm amazed every day.

Also, my concerns about Emily's teacher conference were totally unfounded. Turns out, she's doing fantastic, top of her class in almost all areas (except for letter sounds, as I suspected). I ended up going myself, since I am, lets face it, much more on top of what Emily is doing in school and her homework and whatnot. But I was glad. I was glad to hear that she's doing so well, since I already knew how much she enjoys school (and of course, it's always good to hear someone agree that your child is bright, kind to others, and generally wonderful to have around). So all that worrying for nothing! We passed!