Misheru

*thanks to Dooce.com for this idea*

Dear Maya,

Another month has come and gone, and, unlike the first two months when your brother was born, the time has flown by. This month you’ve awakened even more, reaching for the bright toys we put in front of you, smiling at your daddy’s funny faces, and cooing when we talk to you.

This month you met some very important people in your life — grandma and grandpa.

You don’t know it yet, but they are big suckers. They will buy you toys and cute clothes and pretty much everything unnecessary you could ever imagine. Also, as soon as you are old enough to talk, they are going to try to convince you to do what your mother can’t or won’t do — move back to Idaho. You just wait and see. The indocrination will begin soon.

I’m glad I’m writing these letters to you because, looking back, I can’t remember much of Ben when he was your age. I am glad for all the pictures I took of him and for my blog entries during that time, because it reminds me of all the various stages he went through.

I know I will feel the same when you are bigger. You are growing so fast! This month you reached 13 pounds, adding half of your birthweight on in just 4 weeks.

You have beautiful blue-green eyes, and everyone keeps asking me if they will stay. I don’t know but I hope I remember just how they look, with deep blue-grey rims fading to a clear sea green near the iris. Your hair, too, is growing in. So many people liked to pat your soft head that the hair fell out there sooner than the rest, making you look like you had male pattern baldness for a while. We laughed about it, knowing it wouldn’t last, and now you have soft, dark hair growing all over your sweet little head.

We can already tell that you’re a very determined person. Today I laid you on your tummy in the center of the bed to play in your play gym while I answered the call of nature. I laid you on your Boppy pillow and made sure you were as far from the edges as possible. I heard you fussing whilst I was in the bathroom, so I kept calling out to you that I would be there to pick you up soon, but clearly my high-fiber diet wasn’t working and so it was a few minutes before I could get to you. In those few minutes you had launched yourself over the pillow and inched your way across the entire bed until you were at the corner of the bed closest to the sound of my voice. I was shocked and surprised; a few more minutes and you would have inched yourself right off the bed. I did not expect a 2-month-old baby to be so strong and so determined; it was like climbing a mountain to reach the mama voice. Clearly you wanted me, and you wanted me now. This kind of will and determination scares me a tiny bit, but it also makes me glad. It is obvious to all (the doctor included) that you are nothing less than one heck of a strong baby and a real fighter.

Click on Picture to See Video

This month you started doing something else — showing your feelings. Now, when you are frightened by a noise or your tummy obviously hurts from gas, you don’t just cry — you cry and throw your tiny arms around my neck and hold on tight. I don’t remember Ben doing this, although I’m sure he did at some point, so it amazes me. You also clearly have a preference for the smell and feel of mama; when I am next to you, you sleep better and fuss less. One thing I do remember when Ben was your size is that he clearly preferred Marti, and I worried a little that he would never want mama (oh, how wrong was I!) so it’s very sweet to me that you prefer mama this time. Probably you will forget this and adore daddy later, the way Ben forgot and became close to me, because that’s usually how these things work. For the present, however, I am basking in your baby-love.

I have to go back to work in a few weeks. I am trying not to think about it. All I want to do is lie around and adore your lengthening dark lashes; I want to worship your tiny toes, stroke your soft, chubby legs, do silly things to make you smile at me.

I never want to leave you, even for a moment; your daddy and I sometimes fight over who gets to hold you.

You are the sweetest, smartest, most beautiful baby ever made in this world, and I believe that with my whole heart.

Love,

Mama

Maya hates chocolate. Every time I eat chocolate, it makes her tummy hurt. She’s gassy. She cries. She toots for hours. I am getting to the point where I either have to give up chocolate or bottle-feed.

Hmmmmmm. Very difficult decision.

My house is, again, to the point where I wouldn’t want a health inspector to stop by. It’s Monday, so I planned on cleaning - I mean, why waste a good weekend cleaning? - but of course Maya cried all day and I spent my time jiggling, burping, feeding, walking, rocking, jiggling, burping…

Finally at 4 o’clock she fell asleep momentarily and I decided to rush to the supermarket. Problem is, I hate going out looking horrible, or worse, for my kids to look unkempt. I looked at Ben. He was wearing yesterday’s clothes. So was Maya. So I sent Ben to take a shower and Maya and I went into our shower.

Ben asked to take a squirt gun into the shower and I said, sure, fine. So he did. But then he kept making excuses to come out of the shower. He wanted to fill the squirt gun. The cap was on too tight. So finally I uttered these words: “If you get out of that shower again, you are going to be in big trouble!”

Ben is an obedient child. He got into the shower and didn’t come out. I came in to wash his hair and he asked if I would pick up the “thing” over there. What thing? I ask. A bug? No, the thing. That brown thing. On the drain. I don’t see anything, I say. The brown thing! He points to a bit of brown hanging onto the drain cover. That thing? What is it? He thinks for a moment. Chocolate, he says. Chocolate? Yeah, he says. Remember the other day I was eating chocolate in the shower? No, I reply. Well, can you pick it up? No, I say. I’m holding the baby and washing your hair. I have no extra hands.

I notice Ben is totally freaked out by this “chocolate” and I start to get suspicious. He gets out of the shower and I decide I will pick it up, after all. So I get some toilet paper, pick it up, sniff, smell nothing, and throw it in the toilet. It’s sort of soft and gooey, but then again, it was warm water. But then I’m thinking…it was the wrong consistency. Not like chocolate. More like…fudge.

Ben, is that poop? I ask.

It’s chocolate.

Is it poop?

Yeah, it’s poop.

It’s poop?! (I try to recall: did my fingers touch it?)

Yeah, it’s poop.

You pooped in the shower?

You told me not to get out again and I had to go.

Ben, that doesn’t mean you can’t go potty! You can always go potty! You pooped in the shower!

Yeah.

My. Four-year-old son. Pooped. In the shower. Noooooo!!!!!

Even obedience has its downside. Ben was dutifully re-washed (in a different shower), Ajax with bleach came to the shower’s rescue and we changed Ben’s sheets. Needless to say, I never expected my 4-year-old to obey me to the letter, up to and including pooping in the shower. I didn’t yell at him, of course, and I think he was relieved to confess. The chocolate story was getting hard to hold up, since I control the chocolate in this household. But he did lay down for a nap. It was a little traumatic for him.

I guess the moral of the story for me is to avoid chocolate…of all kinds.

Here’s a recent picture of me, mother of two now, in our messy den.

Currently we are on vacation. This means we are spending long hours in the car, being irritated with each other, versus long hours in our air-conditioned home, where, when we are irritated, we can go into separate rooms and scream or cry in peace without the other person being less than a foot away.

“We” no longer includes just Marti and myself. It also includes Ben, and, more recently, Maya. Now, you may be thinking, “How can Maya be irritated? She’s still learning the difficult art of getting her fist into her mouth.” But yes, Maya has needs and opinions, and, in her opinion, she does not like long hours in the car, despite giant butterflies, rattles, singing aquariums and other baby bling purchased expressly to irritate her while she’s trying to have a good, strong cry in a small space. She has very good lungs, and she plays them at full volume. It’s sort of like an AC/DC concert in a very small space, except that the sound doesn’t vary much. Okay, it’s very like an AC/DC concert in a very small space.

We left bright and early Saturday morning to drive to L.A. to visit our cousins (yes, we warned them). I had the brilliant idea that we should get up super early so the kids would sleep the first few hours. We aimed for 3 a.m. but woke up at 4 a.m. and left by 5:30 a.m. The kids slept faithfully until we actually placed them in the car. Then they woke up and were tired and grouchy. Ben couldn’t understand why we kept not arriving at Uncle Rene’s house. Does daddy know where he’s going? We’re going to Uncle Rene’s house, right? So why aren’t we there? Are we still going to Uncle Rene’s? Does he need to look at the map, because daddy doesn’t look confident that he knows where he’s going. And that was just the first 30 minutes.

It took eleven hours to make the 8-hour trip to L.A. Luckily, most people were trying to get out of L.A. for the holiday weekend, so we chuckled merrily at the long lines of traffic going the other direction. Suckers. Who doesn’t want to spend their 4th of July weekend in the beautiful city of Los Angeles?

We stopped at a rest stop about 4 hours into the trip, primarily because Maya wouldn’t stop crying. This was because we were clearly torturing her by being nearby and yet not holding and admiring her, or at least slipping her some nourishment, such as breast milk. It was also because she had pooped about half her bodyweight all over herself, her onesie and her carseat. She also got a little on her diaper, mainly to make us feel better for making the effort of putting it on her.

As we pulled into the rest stop, I looked over and saw a familiar sight: a long line of women waiting outside the women’s bathroom, except that this time it was in the middle of the desert. Ignoring the line, I pushed my way into the bathroom, holding a dripping, poopy Maya in front of me. The line parted like the Red Sea. After I changed Maya on the countertop, I briefly considered bolting into one of the stalls to pee really quick, but I was afraid the other women would stampede and crush the life out of me if I cut in front of them like that. So, I meekly went out, gave Maya to Marti, and walked into the men’s bathroom, which of course had no line. I mean, what else is my women’s studies concentration good for if I can’t even pee in peace? The men in the bathroom stared at my breasts. I’m not sure if that was because they were surprised a woman was in there, or because I’m a D-cup, or because I have breasts, period.

Just for the record, I did not use the urinals. There are limits, even to women’s lib.

Regardless, we did arrive safely in Los Angeles and had a lovely time at Marti’s cousins’ house. Maya and I fell asleep in a hammock chair in the back (she seemed glad that I finally figured out that she needs to sleep with me at all times, preferably with a breast actually in her mouth in case she should fancy a drink. Silly parents, needing her to cry two solid hours in the car in order to figure it out). The next day we drove to the beach, and Maya declared that she does not like cold ocean water. Ben of course collected lots and lots of shells, preferring the old, polished bits of shell over new intact shells, which sometimes had disturbing things attached, like seaweed. Or sand. Heaven forbid.

We all got covered with sand and a tiny bit sunburned in spots where the sunscreen didn’t get rubbed in, and we drove back to Rene’s happy and tired.

It was nice, though. Just like a vacation.