Month: December 2011

jimi hendrix said it best

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest
 when he said:

Wild thing.



You make my heart sing.



You make everything.

 
Groovy.

 I have been calling Theo my little wild thing here lately, and rightfully so.  He is something else.  I love asking him, “Theo are you crazy?”
“I cwazy.”
“Theo are you silly?”
“I sih-yee.”
“Are you wild?”
“I while.”
“Are you happy?”
“I hat-tee.”
This right here?  This makes my heart sing.
.
My babies, playing together.
My babies, plotting against Niko together.
My babies, digging for toys together.
My baby, crawling.
My baby, in Santa jammies. 
Because it really is the small things in life, you know what I mean?  I find myself feeling full of joy for no reason at all sometimes.  No reason other than what you see in these pictures.  Everyday things.  The little things.  The wonder in their eyes.  Their fascination with ordinary things.  I find myself getting really excited about future Christmases – those precious few that they do believe in Santa.  The mornings when they stand by the bed, begging us to get up and open presents. 
Yeah.  I think that will make my heart sing, too.
~C~

hey Dexter – stop breaking my heart.

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

I’ve talked before about how I think, no I’m pretty sure, like there’s a really good chance, that we’re done having babies. 

Having that feeling of semi-certainty (it’s really more certain-feeling than I’m making it sound … I’m just having a hard time with it today), makes days like yesterday even harder. 

2 days before Dexter’s 6 month birthday, he got up on his hands and knees for the first time.  2 days before his 7 month birthday, he figured it out and crawled.  Really, really crawled.  Officially crawled.  One hand and knee together, then the other.  And again, and again, and again.  And there he was.  Crawling. 

In the moment, I cheered and yelled for R to grab the video camera.  I’m not sure if we got any footage of him doing the real deal or not, but we at least filmed him on the day it happened.  Then, something else happened.  The stinker crawled right over to me, where I was sitting on the couch, and grabbed my pajama pant leg and began pulling himself up.  I yelled for R again, “he’s gonna do it! Come here!”  And there he was.  Standing.   

He did that twice and did the real crawls maybe 5 or 6 times. 

Theo was 9 months old before he crawled and about 9 months and 2 days old before he pulled up.  Obviously, I knew it wouldn’t be long til Dex started doing that once he really started crawling.  I just didn’t expect it to be minutes.  With Theo, I had a nervous breakdown when he didn’t meet every milestone right on time with boatloads of enthusiasm.  With Dexter, I’m begging him to slow down.  He’s my last baby (probably) and I want him to stay that way as long as possible. 

Not gonna happen.  I was fine with the crawling and pulling up, we all knew it was coming soon since he’d been practicing and perfecting his moves for the last month.  I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

Dex barely napped all day.  I guess he was too excited about his newfound independence because every time we put him down – swing, bed, in the carseat on the way to Target – he slept, but only for a few minutes.  By 745, I knew he had to be exhausted.  So I nursed him.  I cuddled him on the couch.  He was distracted by the tv, so I took him to his room and rocked him (or tried).  We just put his Christmas tree up in his room and he was mesmerized by the lights (damn LEDs are so bright, aren’t they?)  I held him tight and rocked back and forth, back and forth.  He stared at the lights and tried to wiggle free from my arms.  I rocked harder and held him tighter to no avail.  My head was pounding so after about 10 minutes I said to him, “Dexter, I give up.  You’re stronger than me tonight,” and laid him in his bed.  I patted him a couple of times and walked away, fully expecting him to start fussing.  I turned his monitor on and waited for his cries, my signal to go back in and try again. 

Nothing.

(But silence). 

10 minutes later I poked my head in his door and squatted down to look between the slats in the crib.  No movement.  I crept in, closer and closer, until I could see his eyes.  And there he was.  Sleeping. 

I went back out to the couch to report my findings and a wave of sadness swept over me.  My baby didn’t need me anymore.  I told R that I remember feeling like I won the lottery the first time Theo went to sleep on his own without fussing.  This time it felt more like someone stole the wind from my sails.  I want my baby to stay a baby, but it ain’t happening.  Man.  This whole babies-growing-up-real-fast thing blows.

feeling a little useless,
~C~

how i do 2 under 2

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

It’s no secret, we’re nuts.  We had our babies 14 months apart.  Not on purpose, mind you, but that’s what happened.  My greatest fear upon learning that I was pregnant again was not being able to physically manage babies so close in age. 

Some days, managing is all I can do.  Other days, I laugh at how scared I was. 

There are logistics involved, ya know?  Like how do you get the toddler and the infant out of the car at the babysitter?  Do you sit the baby on the ground while you get the toddler out?  Or do you get the toddler out first and hope he doesn’t run away while you’re getting the baby out?  What if it’s snowing?  Then what?  You can’t sit the baby seat in the snow.

What do you do with the danger-seeking toddler while you’re nursing the baby?  Especially if he’s in that it’s-fun-to-run-on-the-couch stage. 

Well, you manage. 

You tell your car-loving toddler to admire the tires on your vehicle while you get the baby out. Or put him in.  Or you sit him in the yard and ask him to tell you about sticks and leaves.  I’m not sure about the snow thing, we haven’t gotten there yet.  But I can, if necessary, carry them both and all their bags.  It ain’t easy. 

If you’re smart, you buy a baby jail.  I think I already alluded to us not being that smart (this post, second sentence).  We didn’t buy a baby jail.  When Dexter was first born, I would put Theo in Dexter’s crib and sit in the rocker in Dexter’s room while I nursed.  Theo would play with toys.  It was about 1 minute before Theo showed me how easily he could throw his leg over the side of Dexter’s crib.  So I sit on the floor of Theo’s room and talk to him while he plays.  With the door shut.  If we don’t do that, he will flee the room I’m in as fast as he can and climb a cabinet or two.

It’s all about restraint.  When I was on maternity leave, I thought I would go crazy every day I was stuck inside the house by myself with them all day long.  So I strapped ’em in.  Carseats, shopping carts, the stroller.  Anywhere I could put them where they couldn’t get away from me.  Bonus, they were stimulated by the new environments around them.  I was shocked that it was usually easier to manage them out of the house than when we stayed home. 

Then there’s restraining them at home.  The swing.  The high chair.  The baby carrier (can’t find a link to this).  The bouncy seat.  The bumbo.  The jumperoo.  Lots of places to sit these kids where they can’t get away from me.  Hey Theo, sit in your booster seat at the kitchen table and read a book or two while mom attempts to throw something together for lunch.  Hey Dexter, sit in the Bumbo and grasp for Puffs while I update my blog do something really important.  Yep, restraint.  And yep, those are the actual products that saved my life  we use/used.  The swing in the link is a newer version.  I recommend all of these!

I do have some concerns about what I will do when Dexter outgrows his baby carseat.  Because once Dexter can sit in the shopping cart child seat, where does Theo go?  Not in the big part of the cart.  Oh, no.  I can see right where that’s headed.  Maybe I’ll just have to take my double stroller everywhere and pull a cart behind me?  Still haven’t figured that one out. 

What I have figured out though, is that it’s one day at a time.  Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out when we get there.  It’s not so bad.  I kinda wouldn’t have it any other way.

xo,
~C~