Crazy Greeks

The Squeaker has fallen in love with Greek myths. We got a book of them out of the library, and though the book was probably too sophisticated for a child his age, he is hooked. While I read the stories, he wriggled and fidgeted, so I wasn't sure he was listening.

But then I heard him playing in his room, and Zeus and the Titans were key characters in his game. He is fascinated by the idea of the gods and monsters, though the details of their escapades are hard for him to follow, and I think his puzzlement leads to some boredom. (For example, all the stories about Hera's jealous rages make only the smallest impression. He wants gods battling monsters.)

The funny thing is that for some reason, he cannot remember the word "myths." He calls the stories "the Greek nymphs." :)

Squeaky Clean

The pipsqueak likes to clean. He'll run around the house clutching a paper towel in one fist and rubbing it busily over every surface he can reach -- the table, the floor, the couch. When he gets tired of cleaning, he'll eat the paper towel, so I have to be ready to intervene quickly. And yes, I know that means I should probably take the paper towel right away, but I can't bring myself to interfere with a baby who is so happy cleaning. So I let it be, and sometimes that means I end up wrestling him to remove paper towel bits from his mouth.

He also likes to vacuum. He has this push toy that is basically a rolling cylinder on a stick. When you push the stick, the cylinder rolls and makes a chime kind of sound. The motion of using it must remind him of vacuuming, because when I vacuum he'll run and get his toy and then stand right beside me, pushing it next to the vacuum cleaner. He'll carefully push it under the table and other furniture, and he'll even lift the rugs (which he sees me doing while I vacuum) so that he can "clean" underneath them. If I move the furniture back into place before he is finished, there will be howls of protest.

So he is a very busy bee these days.

Another funny thing about him is that while his brother loved to use the word "dog," and thus applied it to all animals, the pipsqueak likes the word "baby," which applies to everything with a face, including stuffed animals. The pipsqueak knows the word for some animals (cat, dog, pig, sheep) and he knows the sounds for other animals (baa baa, woof woof), but often, stuffed animals are "babies" anyway.

He is learning a lot of new words, and frequently uses the words he already knows. He tries to say "More, please," though it sometimes sounds very clear, and sometimes very garbled. He especially likes the hard "C" sound and the "ch" sound -- he'll try to say CAKE, CANDY, and COOKIES, and also chicken. It is so cute when he says "please" -- "peez!!" Needless to say, he usually gets what he wants.

The squeaker was sick last week. He had a temperature of 103 and didn't want to eat. But the real sign that he was sick was that no one was running through the house with a sword or leaping off my furniture snarling like an animal. It was so quiet and peaceful. He looked pathethic, though, snuggled on the couch in his blankets. When he fell asleep, the pipsqueak couldn't bear it, so he found some nice hard toys to thwack big brother in the head with. Poor squeaker.

Reflecting on No More Babies

Now that the pipsqueak is 15 months old, life gets easier every day. He's walking and beginning to talk. He can feed himself; he can even wield a spoon with some success. He can entertain himself with his toys, or even with whatever random stuff he finds -- a spatula, empty cardboard boxes, empty containers, a piece of string. He still nurses at night, but generally, we sleep pretty well.

There's a part of me that feels very wistful that there will be no more babies for us. I feel that this time around, I'm so much better at it than I was with the poor squeaker. I'm more relaxed and more confident. And three little ones sounds like such a good number -- two little buddies to grow up with, and a household where the kids outnumber the adults. Our boys are so cute, so clever, so fun that it seems a pity to stop at two.

But that's the way it is. This Friday, I turn 35, which was always the cut off point in my mind. It's a bit arbitrary, I know, and many women who are past 35 do have perfectly healthy pregnancies and babies. But I do not feel comfortable with the risks, myself. Plus -- and this is the bigger factor -- my husband anticipated that I might retreat from my certainty that two was enough, so he had a little visit with a urologist that meant more babies are not an option. He was sure he did not want any more, and because it was important to him and to continuing marital happiness, I agreed that it was for the best.

Part of me is relieved that the decision has been made. I find the first year with a baby extremely challenging. My mother made it look easy, but of course my memories don't go far back enough to include her days as an amateur mother. By the time I was 4, my mom had three kids. By the time I was 10, she was giving birth to baby #5. And before I started high school, she added babies #6 and #7. So she was pretty experienced even when I was quite young.

I thought motherhood would just involve stepping into a new role. I didn't expect it to be easy, necessarily, but I was surprised how very difficult the adjustment was. It wasn't just a new role; it was a whole new reality.

I've always liked my sleep, and I like regular, peaceful meals. I don't think I've had a good night of sleep in many years now. Since June 2003, I've been pregnant or nursing -- or both. Meals now consist of cutting up food in little bits for the pipsqueak, and providing something for the squeaker that he will eat. And cleaning up the post-dinner mess -- high chair, booster seat, table, floor, ceiling -- can take over an hour. In between, I manage a few bites while the pipsqueak squirms and throws his food and the squeaker spills his drink for the third time.

Because we co-sleep, I generally go to bed when the pipsqueak does, and that means I haven't really seen the moon or stars in years.

Most of the time, I feel pretty tired and worn out. Generally, I feel pretty happy, but I do sometimes feel wistful about my pre-parenthood days. On Monday nights, when my husband teaches at the university, I used to make myself my favorite dinner, curl up in front of my favorite movie, and then read late into the night afterwards. Now, Mondays involve only the struggle of getting the boys fed, bathed, and in bed by myself. It's much easier now than it was when the pipsqueak was a newborn, though.

The rewards of motherhood are extraordinary, and I do not regret the decision to have little ones. But sometimes, the day-to-day job of parenting feels overwhelming, and on some days, I marvel at how very bad I seem to be at it. I saw this mom in the grocery store with her three small children; one was tucked into a baby carrier, one was in the seat of the cart, and one walked along with the cart, holding onto it. The kids were quiet and well-behaved, and she went about her shopping easily. At the time, the squeaker was rolling under my cart while I was in the check out line, and the pipsqueak was throwing a head of broccoli he'd seized from the cashier's conveyor belt at the old lady behind us in line, who was trying to pinch his cheeks. She smiled at me kindly and said, "You sure have your hands full, don't you?" I'm not sure I ever answered her; I was busy dragging the squeaker back to his feet and frantically trying to push everything out of the pipsqueak's reach. I felt like the biggest amateur.

I'm always wishing I was a little more patient, a little more calm, a little less busy. I'm looking forward to having older kids, and to doing the kinds of things that you can't do with a baby. When I was growing up, we rarely ate at restaurants and we never travelled anywhere except the beach. Though I wouldn't trade my fun childhood for the ability to do these things, I am looking forward to doing these things with my own children. I remember sharing a room in a hostel in Amsterdam with a family of four, and I thought about how much I'd love to travel with my own kids one day.

I don't think I'd want to be plunged back into the endless morning sickness (or 24/7 sickness, for me!), the worrying about whether the baby is healthy, those sleepless early nights, or the constant nursing...and yet I also know that these stages pass so quickly. And even those times have their rewards -- feeling the first stirrings of that baby inside you, the excitement of anticipating a new little person, the exhilaration of natural childbirth. But of course, there does have to be an end eventually, and I don't think it would ever be easy to accept that end.

Still, it is peculiar to feel both wistful and relieved, sad and joyful. Parenthood seems full of these conflicting emotions.

Squeaker in Love

The squeaker has decided he LOVES one of the little girls at preschool.

He asked me if he could marry her.

He wants to take her a present. He thought and thought about his most treasured item, and decided he'd give her......a BONE from his collection of bones and fossils.

Oh my.

Unfortunate Fate of the Woof Woof

I am back at work today after several weeks off. It was hard to leave the boys this morning, especially the squeaker, who clung to me and cried. I thought his reaction was odd, since he’s been dying to have his grandma around again. He really misses her when he has too much mama and papa time. But he was up early this morning, and even his beloved grandma probably felt like a sudden change in routine, I suppose. They all went back to bed, and I suspect that when the squeaker wakes up at 8:30 or 9:00, he’ll be much happier. Grandma means making cookies and going out to lunch (Chick-fil-a!). Days with mama are not nearly as much fun, and he frequently tells me so. But lucky grandma does not have to vacuum or do laundry or clean the fridge when she is at our house. She is like a playmate for the squeaker.

The pipsqueak was happy to see her this morning. He was wearing these little blue pajamas that fit like long underwear, blue with little dogs on them. The dogs glow in the dark, which is a surprisingly useful feature when you co-sleep! Anyway, he was running around the living room, giggling like mad. He’s been using so many words lately – more, cookies, juice, up, dog, sheep, baa baa, woof woof, bye bye, pizza, cheese, bath, baby. Plus, he seems to understand almost everything we say.

For Christmas, my parents gave him this little dog on a string; when the pipsqueak walks along while holding the string, the dog wheels behind him making a little “yip yip” sound. He seems quite pleased with it. But while I was vacuuming earlier this week, the string got caught in the vacuum, and it quickly became wrapped around the spinning brush. The pipsqueak was watching, and I didn’t think he’d even realize what happened. But he did!

He hurried over to the vacuum. I was kneeling beside the overturned brush so that I could unwind the string. He fell to his knees beside me, his little face so sad, his mouth turned down. He tried to pick up the little dog and when he couldn’t, he made the saddest little “woof woof” noise. I tried to untangle the string, but the spinning brush had snapped it in two. So I unwound what I could and then replaced it. So now it is as good as new, but I keep thinking about that sad little face! How quickly little ones grow...