Now With Pictures!

I'm experimenting with programs to add pictures, so we'll see how this works. Here's Will on the beach, and yes, he's eating sand. 

Spring and Fall

The first day of spring, sun beating down and thawing joints after a long and cold winter, flowers blooming, birds singing, and Emily screaming in terror on the beach.  What may have incited such a reaction you ask?  A tiny, tiny crab.  To be more specific, a tiny, tiny, dead crab.  We’ll just say that marine biologist may not be in the cards for Emily.  

Meanwhile William sits on the sand, smashing sand between his fingers, throwing it, and ingesting only a little.  He loved the beach.  He loved pointing at the birds and the hugeness of the water.  And Emily eventually warmed up to it, sort of.  She wouldn’t touch the starfish, but was willing to let Will touch it.

These children of mine, they couldn’t be more different.  (Okay, and I’m going to write a bit about how they’re different, but keeping in mind that I’m not labeling or stereotyping, just, you know, writing down some observations, just so we’re clear)  We often joke that if we lived in the wild, Will would probably a little bit better suited for survival.  Example: We met my mom for lunch today at a Chinese restaurant, and while Emily sipped tea and white rice, William gobbled down dumplings from the soup, slurping them down as fast as he could, reminding me of how the handlers at Sea World throw fish down Shamu’s throat.  But did Will stop there?  Oh no, he shoveled rice and garlic chicken into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in days, and I think my mom was a little worried that he hadn’t.  Finally after eating all of that, they brought out fortune cookies and oranges, and will snatched one in each hand and sucked the orange dry.  Where does it all go?  

At ten months, Emily could crawl down stairs, gingerly going backwards, feet first, and one step at a time.  Will on the other hand, still doesn’t know how to go down stairs because he refuses to do anything but go head first.  He climbs on everything from the dishwasher door to the coffee table, which climbed up on last night while it was upside down on the ottoman, he stood there, naked, hanging onto the table leg, dancing up and down and screaming with pride.  Meanwhile I hear Emily say, probably a million times a day, “WILL NO!!!”, usually as he’s doing something like scaling the desk in her room.  

In other ways, they’re pretty similar.  While Will doesn’t hate strangers as much as Emily did at this age, he’ll still give a cold stare when he’s fussed over in public.  Also they’re both big people watchers.  Put them in a store or restaurant and they’re entertained.  Will almost gets whiplash when someone walks by, and I don’t know how many times I’ve had to remind Emily not to stare.  

There’s a lot of talk about not comparing your children, and I try not to, I do.  But it’s almost impossible not to.  Emily is pretty much my only reference for children, I try though to appreciate their differences and similarities, and love them both for their fun quirks.  I love that Will reaches out and grabs life with two hands, and I love that Emily dips just her toe in to test the water.    

But speaking of grabbing life with both hands, Will has started to do a lot more with his.  He can now wave hello and point with a lot more discretion, even point at someone if you ask where they are.  And if you ask where William is, he throws both arms in the air like a referee declaring a touchdown.  And he’ll also give the biggest grin, which includes four brand new nubs of teeth on the top.  Maybe not so coincidently, he’s been a lot happier since those four teeth poked through.  You can’t really see them just yet, but they’re there.   Of course Emily is so proud of Will’s new teeth and tricks, and William just feeds off of it and shows of more.      

In the future, I hope that both of these kids can learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  I hope that Emily can use her cautiousness to watch out for Will, and keep him from falling sometimes.  And with the arrival of spring, I can’t wait for the weather to get even warmer so we can enjoy more days on the beach exploring, and out in our own yard.  And maybe as Will begins to learn to walk, falling often, Emily might learn that it’s okay to fall, she’ll learn to ride that big bike of hers.   Maybe.


    

Reality Bites

We’re driving along in the car, and suddenly, BAM Mt. Rainer, pristine and white against a perfect blue sky.  Emily shouts, “Look Mom!  A Mountain!”.  

“Yeah hon, that’s Mt. Rainer”

“No, a mountain!”

“I know, Mt. Rainer”

“That mountain, right there!”

Then I figure out that I’m not explaining myself, that Emily has not been around mountains enough to know that they’re named.  I tell her it’s the mountain’s name, and finally everything is clear.  

And then I know what she’ll say next before she opens her mouth, “Mom, your dad climbed mountains, right?”.  Her only association with the mountains is also one of her only associations with my father, who passed away eleven years ago.  She knows he built the dresser in her room, that he played guitar, and that he climbed mountains.  It was difficult telling her a few years ago, when looking at old family photos, that my dad had died.  Mostly because I didn’t want her to know that not only do people die, but that people we know have died, and sometimes parents die.  

I wish I could shelter her from the harsh, cruel world forever.  I wish that’s she’ll never be picked on, singled, out, or hurt.  Already I see it happening.  A boy shouts at Emily and me, in the school’s library, “Hey, she looks like a boy!” (Emily’s hair is short).  And I fight the urge to backhand that little brat.  I choose to ignore, and he says it again, as if I hadn’t heard.  I stare at his parent, who is oblivious to her child’s behavior, and choose to say quietly, “Well, that isn’t very kind”.  Did I handle that right?  Should I have talked to his mom?  Should I have given Emily the chance to speak up for herself?  

I talked to Emily about it later, and she agreed that it wasn’t nice of the boy, and didn’t seem to be fazed.  I hope, more than anything, that Emily will always have the self confidence to let things like that roll off her back, and just be the wonderful person she wants to be, even if I have to hold my tongue as she walks out of the house with a corduroy jacked paired with stretch pants and an orange sarong wrapped around her neck like a scarf.  Although we do have to enforce wearing underwear (Emily would rather not), I’ll let going without socks slide, since I’ve never cared for the things myself.

It’s so interesting to see the kids’ personalities come out.  I’m curious to see what Emily will turn out to be.  And then there’s Will, who has just started to show his little personality more and more.  He’s started to have a bit of a temper, and gets quite indignant if we, say, close the door to the bathroom so he can’t get into the garbage or throw himself into the tub.  And then this week, when I was gone for a while, he screamed for an hour straight for poor Ian, who was already dealing with Emily, who refused to clean her room (I can dimly recall some pretty huge standoffs with my parents over my room.  I can say that now I get it, I do.  

But that’s the negative, Will has also started pointing now, which is pretty neat.  He can tell use, sort of, what he’s thinking about, or what he’s curious about, which really is everything.  The kids’ favorite new pastime is playing “cooking” which involves dragging every pot I own out of the cabinets and pounding on them for a while.  It’s a good game, and I don’t discourage it, I like to see them playing together and using their imaginations.  

Whatever their personalities turn out to be, I’m glad they’re able to just enjoy being kids, that they can just be themselves. Will, sitting on the floor, grinning up at his big sister as she waves a twisty straw in the air, and talking in her sing-song pretend voice.