bonbon mini

Dear Max...

Every day I live a double life. In one life it's 2012 and I am changing your diapers and trying to figure out weather to sign you up for Tumblastics. In the other you are all grown up and I'm an old woman looking back on our early days together. At least once a year I used to ask myself a silly question. Why am I here? When you came along I got my answer: To love you and to make your life as wonderful as possible. 

But now I have other questions. Why can't I have a remote control that would stop time, run it in slow motion or even rewind, so that I can replay these incredible moments with you over and over again? Why are you so gosh darn beautiful? And can we always be as close as we are now?

I love that for the last 2 years, 3 months and 18 days you have slept in my arms almost every single day. I love when you come to the bathroom door and say "Knock knock mama". I love it when you point at my belly and say "Talk aba belly moment?" (which means talk to the belly for a moment). I love that you are outgoing like your papa and a tree hugger like your mama. I love it when you look at your papa and ask "Hi Papa. How doin'?" or when I drop something and you run over and say "You okay, mama?

In you I see it's not true at all what they say about human beings. We are perfect after all. Just as we are...

keeping the little one busy: waterplay...

We have a pretty serious anti-TV stance in our house. We actually don't even have a TV and we rarely download movies. Until I went on bedrest, we even had a rule about turning off our computers at 6:30pm and leaving them off completely on Sundays. But the possibility of the baby coming early put me into a state of desperation to get extra work done each day, which has meant 12-14 hour work days 6 days a week for the past 15 weeks. All while taking care of Max.

The underemployed mister has been around a lot to help and sometimes even takes Max along to jobs, but there is still a lot of need for him to play independently especially when it's just he and I. He has millions of educational toys, 2 indoor tricycles, books, and about 12 montessori trays, but he prefers our participation with almost everything and living the city life with no yard in sight...well you can imagine. Enter "The Screen". At first it was just Little Pim and Sesame Street podcasts, but like every addiction it grew. Next was Caillou, then Olivia...and just yesterday I realized Yo Gabba Gabba has taken over our lives. I know all of the words to every song in the second season.

So the mister and I decided it was time for an intervention. We unplugged mid-episode and listened to the screams. Today I faced a full day of work with a 2 year old by my side and no digital distraction and I wanted to share one of my secret weapons:

Random Waterplay! [distraction time = 1-2 hours]:

Fill a huge container with luke warm water and random objects. Squishy things, shiny things, things that are good for pouring, etc. The more random the better. You can also add a second container for transferring water back and forth, and tongs to practice object transferring. Place it on a trash bag on top of an old sheet on the floor. Or if you have a girl (ah, those civilized creatures!) you can probably get away with placing it on a kid size table or high chair tray.

the neat freak cure...

9 am:

11 am:

[organic pajamas are Skylar Luna soon to be at Miniluu!]

Well he hasn't completely cured my OCD but he's radically modified it. I now have a selective blindness in which I can only see non-toy messes like piles of laundry, dishes and mail. And it's generally confined to post-bedtime hours. Although I will confess to sweeping up to 3 times during the day when I'm not on bedrest...

in the words of a 2 year old...

These days Max says so much it's hard to keep up with these posts. The biggest change over the last couple of months is that he now say things that are completelty his own ideas based on what he experiences or remembers.

So now we're the ones learning from what he says, not the other way around. When a toddler says something to you, it's a peek into their mind and personality. It lets you know what they are picking up from the world around them and the ideas they are getting from what you've been saying. It's also just hilarious most of the time.

On the serious side:

We were reading one of his old books about big and small things. There was a picture of a big and small boat sailing near each other and he pointed and said "Sometimes big boats help people".

Now here I have to make an embarrassing admission. We watched Cast Away with him over the holidays. He actually sat and watched the whole thing quietly like a grown up. This sentence had me falling out of my seat because it was the first time he made a clear reference to a concept we'd never discussed. Plus watching him watch the movie I was wondering what he was learning from it and I loved the fact that he drew a positive message from it.

The same day we were reading Monica Sheehan's book "Love is You & Me". There is a page that says Don't ever give up hope because you never know what tomorrow will bring. A few pages later there's a picture of a group of children and animals and he pointed to a dog who looked sad and said "Don't ever give up hope!" I knew that he was able to understand the value concepts presented in his books but this was a heart-melting confirmation.

On the funny side:

I love the dentist! I love it! (As if I wasn't already in love with this child. He's truly after mama's heart.)

I love the toilet! I love it! (He is not potty trained by the way. When I went on bedrest we decided to ease off the training until the baby is here)

Sometimes when you say something he doesn't want to hear he waves his hand and says "Whatever, blah blah blah, mama." and waves his hand. This one had me going oh no! do I really do that? because the mister certainly doesn't and he has to be getting it from somewhere.

"Stop talking, mama." (Doesn't need much explanation. Part of me wants to say something about not interrupting, but the thing is he's usually right.)

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why we keep gender a surprise...

[Me in the 80's]

During both pregnancies we felt strongly about keeping gender a surprise until delivery. There are certain situations that are unique, where I think I would want to know, but so far neither of us has been moved to peek behind that curtain until the play starts. 

Mostly it's because it's just really fun not to know. I love listening to people's guesses. It lights up their eyes when they find out it's a surprise and know their guess is as good as ours. I loved to see how their guesses evolved with Max and strangely became about 90% accurate towards the end of the pregnancy. By the end everyone thought it was a boy, and I even had a guy riding by in a cab in midtown lean out of the window and yell "It's a boy!"

I enjoy carrying, listening to and bonding with the baby without any expectations about gender to influence that. It's so rare in life that we connect with people without already knowing a bunch of superficial details about them that in the grand scheme of things aren't important.

It also gives me 9 months to outgrow the inevitable "preference" and keep my heart open to this new person. In both pregnancies in spite of my intellectual effort to stay neutral, in my heart lived a preference. In both pregnancies my momtuition about what I was carrying has matched that gut preference, but there is always a chance that even momtuition can be off.

There is also this weird superstitious, protective part. There are so many expectations we face as a result of our gender and part of me likes to protect the baby from having to "perform" before the debut. Even if only for 9 months of his or her life.

 

All that said since, barring various miracles this will be our last child, in the beginning I felt a strong preference for a girl. I would love to have the chance to raise a girl and not having a girl means saying goodbye in a semi permanent way to my own girlhood. It means not being able to coach a little lady through the tougher things like adolescence, dating and career decisions and maybe helping her avoid at least a couple of the mistakes I made.

At the same time, being raised as an only child by a single mom, boys were pretty much aliens. So to support and watch growing up from the boy side is a lot of fun and gives a feeling of balance in my life story. Plus being a "boy mom" is something I know, whereas being a "girl mom" equals new territory.

Either way I feel 100% ready for and open to whoever is hiccuping in my belly right now. When I was wishing on stars last spring, this little soul was listening and decided to answer our prayers by joining our family and for that I'm eternally thankful. Boy vs girl has zero importance in the big picture of our life.

That said I'll let you in on a secret. We both thought Max would be a boy, but this time our camps are divided. The mister thinks it's a boy and I totally think it's a girl.

[Baby shoes by Zara]