One Year Old

My little guy has officially departed Infancy.  We celebrated with cupcakes on the actual day--he shook his head with a vigorous "no" when offered some to eat but smashed it with a ferocious zest.  The next day was our Easter egg hunt, where we had a cake and singing and he got to wear his little birthday hat.

And this week, in addition to making stumbling attempts to walk (kind of halfway between cruising and lurching, but no fully independent steps yet), his language seems to have jumped forward.  (I'm using the term loosely.  Extremely loosely.)   Basically, this morning when I was feeding him some sharp cheddar cheese and slicing it off the hunk with a knife, he got a little ahead of me, and he started calling, "Muh! Muh!"  and putting his hands together in a loose imitation of the baby sign for "more" that we've introduced in a rather inconsistent fashion over the last few weeks.  When I asked, "Are you asking for more?" and made the sign back, his face lit up and he did it again.  I know that it's something all babies eventually come to do, but it nonetheless made me feel a little like Anne Sullivan.

Then tonight, when I was changing his diaper, he was fighting it and crying because he hates being immobilized--he's so strong that he can actually turn himself over 180 degrees while I'm holding his feet, like a little twisted breadstick.  I finished changing him and picked him up, and he stopped crying and signed "all done."  He did it several times until I said, "All done?" and he was all smiles at being understood.

Even more sweetly, at bedtime he was holding onto the tube of baby toothpaste (because that child loves him something in a tube).  I had him in my arms, trying to get him to sleep.  He reached up with the tube and I realized he was offering it to me to chew on, so I dutifully clamped down on it, and he was delighted.  He put it in and out of my mouth, so pleased (with those big daybreak grins) that I had accepted his invitation to share in this most pleasurable experience of tubal enjoyment.  Finally, wanting him to settle down to sleep, I said quietly, "All done" and made the sign, and he gently took it away from my mouth where he had been offering it and held onto it quietly to go to sleep.  My little love.  I went back into his room later to get it out of his bed, and it was still warm from where I had slipped it out of his little baby hand.

Developments

Last week, Little Guy learned how to:

• Shake his head, very emphatically, while emitting a grievous sound ("Bwhaaaa!") when taken away from something he wants, when offered one spoonful of food too many, when confronted with a wipe for his nose, when carried upstairs (for diaper changes or naps or other insults) while others are having fun downstairs.
• Raise his arms straight above his head and pull his shoulders inward to make it almost impossible to lift him when he doesn't want to be carried.
• Arch his back when an attempt is made to deposit him into his carseat.
• He also recognizes the words/phrases: Cheerios (looks at pantry expectantly), all done (calms down when you tell him you're doing doing things he doesn't enjoy), Gillian (looks for her), Daddy, yogurt (big smile--yogurt is the new banana.  Bananas are so two weeks ago.).

Moments

I am generally bad at the application of unguents to self and offspring.  It's just one of the forms of personal maintenance that I don't enjoy (I hate feeling greasy), so I always put it off and end up never getting around to it.  Gillian is prone to chapped lips in the winter, which against our warnings she would then chew on and make worse.  Then, in the car today, the announcement of a discovery--

Gillian, in a voice of astonished joy: Mom!  When I eat my lips, new lips grow!

-----

Allison Clare does not like when Gillian shares news that is not news to Allison Clare.  Stuff like, "The day after this day is Lorelai's birthday party!"  Or "We are having noodles for dinner!" Allison Clare replies with an exasperated, "I already know that, Gillian!  Please don't tell me things that I already know!"  Sam and I have explained many times that she should still listen and answer kindly and that after all, Allison Clare frequently tells us things that we already know.  Still, it's clear that she still feels the same way about it all.

Then, a couple of days ago, Gillian announced to Allison Clare, "Sis, today on the way to school, I saw three  UPS trucks!"  (Gillian loves UPS trucks.  I think because they bring presents.)

Allison Clare turned face to face with Gillian, looked at her for a long moment while digesting this, and then said slowly and thoughtfully, "I did not know that, Gillian.  Good job."

Taking Stock

First, a disclaimer: In an age of irony, I try to be self-aware about things I post on the Internet.  I wish I could say that this were solely out of a desire for a searching humility and godliness, but the truth is that it's also because I'm vain enough not to want to be caught in a pose of smug self-satisfaction, exposed in what my students would call a humblebrag.  Sometimes I get the distinct feeling that expressions of gratitude are kind of show-offy--"I am so grateful to be married to the perfect person and to have these beautiful, gifted children!"  I even think, in my darker moments, that some expressions of gratitude seem to exist so that people can not only boast about their blessings but also boast about their own gratefulness. (If you know the Flannery O'Connor story "Revelation," you know exactly what I'm talking about.  If you don't, you must stop reading this blog and go read that story.)

But I realize that this attitude of suspicion and judgment is no good.  Who am I to judge?  And what does it kill in me to do it?  Besides goodwill toward my fellowman, it also makes me nip or examine to death the expressions of, yes, gratitude that would otherwise flow from me.

And I do long to be truly and deeply grateful.  Raising children who have whole rooms full of toys and closets full of clothes and plates full of food at every meal and snacktime, and seeing them complain about things like the brand of cheese stick they have been served makes me aware of how breathtakingly ungrateful it is in our human nature to be, and it seems to me to be a sin of the first order, perhaps the original sin, not to have been grateful for all the fruit of the Garden but to have pouted and rebelled over the single forbidden one.

So:  I'm in the last few days of my 30s, which is the last decade in which one can be interpreted as young in pretty much any context.  There was a time when I was young to be a professor--no longer.  Now the only thing that could happen to me that would make someone say, "But she is too young for that!" would be to die, and I'm really hoping that I can get another couple of decades under my belt before that happens.

As I kiss my 30s goodbye and welcome my 40s, I have to say, I feel happy and, dare I say it, so, so grateful--enough so that I feel like I need to say so.  When I turned 30, I was racking up years in graduate school, working on a dissertation that made me miserable, emotionally attached to someone bad for me, facing down brutal job prospects.  Not that it was all bad--I had great friends, fun activities (oh, for the days of going to Barnes & Noble for 6 hours with JS or spending an entire weekend in PJs watching movies with Clare!), a comfortable home, the best local church I've ever belonged to.  But I felt unmoored and massively stressed over all kinds of things that were completely out of my control, and I knew that there existed the distinct possibility that the things I wanted in my heart of hearts might never be mine.

And the thing about my thirties is that one after one, God gave them to me:

• Sam--a good man, a real man, a man of unending kindness and fundamental decency and incontrovertible stability.  A partner, a partner in crime, a best friend.
• Allison Clare--the child I didn't know if we would have, given so quickly and miraculously, who arrived with enough personality to teach me how to mother her (and how not to) and who is joyful and affectionate and forgiving and funny and fun and who is tough enough to just yell back at me when I lose my cool.
• Gillian--the daughter I hardly dared hope for; when the ultrasound technician told me that she was a girl, my eyes filled, and I whispered "Really?" because I had so longed for our family to include sisters and was overwhelmed to believe that such a wish could come true, that I could be so blessed not only to have one little girl but to have two.
• Joshua--my triumph, my third child, the one we might not have had, the one who makes our family truly complete and who opened my heart to the joy of a boy, the one with whom my cup runneth over.

And a job that is flexible and challenging and even inspiring, for while there are things about my job that I don't like (I witness insults to the English language daily), I also get to know people younger than I am who are brighter and tougher and more accomplished than I ever was, which both humbles me and fills me with hope.

And I hope it doesn't make me sound materialistic or smug to say that I love our house.  I even like my car.  I would never have bought a new car; it seemed like an indulgence.  (If I had not married, I'm pretty sure I would have become one of those old women who surprises everyone by leaving millions to charity upon her death.  I pared my expenses down extremely low.  How low?  I kept my thermostat at 50 the first winter I lived in Western PA.  It's a longer story than that, and I don't think I was miserly but I pretty much had little regard for my own comfort; it just didn't register as that important.)  Our house and my car are completely the result of my marriage because Sam is someone who believes strongly in investing in his own comforts and mine.  And I like them.  I'm not going to go around claiming that I never knew my worth before or felt that I didn't deserve them, because I didn't feel that way before. I just didn't spend money on those kinds of things, and Sam does, and it has made my life more comfortable and easier, and I'm thankful.

And I think that my 40 years on this planet have taught me that all that we have, we can be assured of for only the present moment.  Tonight I go to bed in a warm house full of people I love; who knows what tomorrow will bring?  All I can know is that I am so thankful to have them all for now, so thankful that whatever lies ahead for me in this life, I will have had all of this.

My Monkey Goes Bananas

Actually, there may be one thing that the Little Guy loves as much as a bath: bananas.  On Tuesday of last week, I'm pretty sure he said his first word--I was getting breakfast and he was wiggling like crazy in his high chair.  He does this little rowing motion with his hands and kicks his feet when he wants something or is excited and happy, so he was doing that, going pretty nuts, and I asked if he wanted a banana while I was holding one, and he looked and said, "Buh.  Na.  Na."  I think.  If so, it would be his first spontaneous word, though he often repeats sounds that we think are dada and mama.

And the next day, I was cleaning up from breakfast when he suddenly started grinning ear to ear and looking at me like I was making some kind of big joke and he was waiting for me to get it too.  I was  trying to figure out what he thought was so funny, and what was it?  I was holding a stub of a banana left behind by one of the girls, and I think he thought I was teasing him with it.

If he's fussing in his high chair, and I ask if he wants a banana, he freezes and stares at me, then gives me his slow, "you're not just teasing me, are you?" smile. Then he kind of snorts and laughs and slaps his palms onto his tray.

And Sunday, when we went to the grocery store and I paused in pushing the cart and left him face to face with an entire wall of bananas--oh my goodness, how thrilling for him!  He was wiggling so much I thought he might levitate.

At last, a Waterbaby

My husband grew up afraid of water.  Born in landlocked Ohio to parents from the hills of Kentucky, he had little exposure to oceans and lakes.  I, on the other hand, grew up half an hour from the coast, learned to swim at age 3 or 4, and spent several hours every day of every summer in a big pool that we belonged to.

Our children haven't been exposed to swimming as much as I would like.  At the college I attended, you had to pass a swim test (a lap up and back, and then treading water until you'd been in the pool for a total of 15 minutes).  Legend had it that some alum had drowned or almost drowned, and the requirement was a stipulation of a bequest to the college.  And even though it seemed kind of odd, I remember thinking that it was a good idea--that everyone should know how to swim.  

So, I've always wanted my children to learn to swim.  However, it's hard to take young children to the pool when you have more than one, especially if your spouse is water-averse himself.  I signed the girls up for swim lessons about two summers ago.  Allison Clare enjoyed the lessons but refused to put her face in the water, and thus stalled out in progress.  Gillian, who was just two at the time, did not enjoy the lessons at all.  Both of them could go underwater for a few seconds by the end of the course, but neither could really swim.  I'm hoping to try again, and every now and then I torment them by nagging them to try various things in the bathtub.

The baby, however, loves the water.  He is fascinated by it, and loves nothing more in life than to lean over the side of the tub and try to slap the surface of the bathwater when his sisters are bathing.  In fact, if he is being entertained elsewhere in the house, hears the sound of the water, and realizes that a bath is taking place, he shrieks his head off (he's a mild fellow otherwise) and screams and writhes until he gets away from whoever is cruelly holding him back.  He darts down the hall on his belly and into the bathroom, his movements silent and swift like Spiderman climbing a wall, except horizontal.  He pulls himself up on the tub and tips himself with his head bent way down into the tub--more than once I've had to catch his feet to keep him from completely diving in headfirst.  When the girls are out, I put him into the tub for a few moments, and getting him out of his clothes is the worst part of all because he is screaming the high-pitched squeal that one only hears otherwise in moments of actual pain--that's how much it hurts him to be held back from the bath.

Once he's in, he slaps the surface of the water until he makes huge splashes--I'm pretty damp by the time he decides he's had enough.  I love toweling him off then and getting his diaper and jammies onto him as he gets ready for bed--he's so sweet and happy, and he's getting really into books now.  Clare gave him Oh, the Thinks You can Think!, which was a Dr. Seuss book that I'd never heard of, and he adores it.  He slaps the pages with his palms and looks wonderingly at the book and then laughs and tips his head back to look at me to share his surprise at the pages, and then turns them and laughs again.  My sweet angel baby, lover of books and baths.