my world, my true

At almost 3 years old, Knox knows about familial relations.

Knox (playing his piano): Okay, I am going to sing a song about when Mommy was born.

Me & Tarrell: Oh sounds good, lets hear it!

Knox (singing): Mommy was a wittle baby in my tummy…

Me: In your tummy?

Knox: Yes, sometimes you were so tiny you could fit in my belly and den you comed right out when you were born!

Me: Wow, so you’re my Daddy or my Mommy?

Knox: I’m your Mommy!!

Me: Aww, that makes me love you even more!

Knox: Yes, and sometimes you were so wittle that Lately thought you were a baby just like her!

Me: So is Lately my sister?

Knox: Uh-huh! She is!! Lately is your sister & I’m your Mommy. That’s how you were born!

It’s crazy how much changes in just one month. Lately went from being my quiet, sleepy girl to my very loud fussypants. Though she has her rare moments of looking around curiously and silently observing her big, new world, she really seems to just dislike being awake these days. 

She just prefers to be upright on Mommy’s chest (while her little digestive system figures out how to work properly), so she basically lives in the sling or Moby wrap while she’s awake. She sleeps swaddled on her side pretty well, and, she’s actually a pretty good sleeper - that’s one thing she’s stayed pretty consistent about so far (I’m sure I will be putting my foot in my mouth very soon just for saying that!). The past few nights she’s done a 6 1/2 hr stretch after I first put her down at night. She likes to tank up for the 2-3 hours before bedtime - she eats constantly (and whines and cries a lot) and then just passes out for a while.

She’s just started cooperating with me enough to allow us to go out. She really hates the car seat and unless she’s been fed and allowed to sit upright for a good while, she will squeal and squirm until I get her out (she cries so hard it scares me sometimes!). 

One thing that always melts my heart, though, is how she is already responding to Knox. Regardless of how grumpy she is, she almost always tolerates him holding her (which he asks to do A LOT). I can see the sibling bond growing so strongly already and it makes me so excited for the future. 

But, regardless of how upset or fussy she can be right now, I try to remember that she is so new to everything in this world, she’s adjusting to things that I take for granted, like breathing air, even. Her cries break my heart and I can’t bear to let them last too long which is why she’s spending most of her time in the sling while I fall in love completely and hopelessly every time she calms down and lets her tiny head rest safely on my chest, tightly secured to my body and we become one again, like we were just a month ago.

Lately Violet

May 6, 2012 2:24 a.m.

7lb 14oz, 20 3/4”

On May 5th around 3:30 a.m., I awoke to some stronger pains than those I had been having off and on all week long. After days of wishing they would progress and push me into labor, I was filled with hope and anticipation as I quietly began timing them while lying in bed next to Tarrell, who was still sleeping soundly. I savored each one, staying in the same position for a while, afraid they would weaken or disappear if I moved at all. With each pain, I felt closer to her, I loved that this was one more thing that only we would share, only we could feel this and experience it all together. Though it would be the end of our time as one, it was the beginning of many more amazing, incredible events that we would face together.

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My favorite time of the day.

I love doing the bath and bedtime routine. It’s something that’s grown into such a special time for the two of us. If there is one thing I can say that I really hope doesn’t change too much after the baby comes, it is this. It’s my goal to be able to  continue to share this time with him, even if baby has to join us every now and then or baby and Daddy even…whatever has to happen, we’re gonna make it work! I want to chase down those heavy-eyed sleepy snuggles as long as I can and make them last.

Every single day these days I am totally amazed by something this guy does. For example, as he was getting out of his bath tonight, I showed him that his towel had a “roar” (dinosaur) on it. He was quick to point out that it was a “stegos.” Yes, it was a stegosaurus. He was right. A few weeks ago he began identifying dinosaurs by name (I say the name, he points to it) and demanding to know the name of every dinosaur he sees. We’ve been checking out tons of library books to dig deeper, as I only knew a handful when we started - so we’re both learning lots these days. 

We also started swimming lessons and he is very much in love with the “big pool.” He has a healthy fear of being submerged, but he did put his face in the water this week and I was so proud. He will jump in from the side to me, kick, blow bubbles, “swim” using his arms in freestyle form while propped on my knee, hang on to the wall (like a monkey) and climb out using the ladder. 

He has picked up a few new interests recently including sharks and fish as well as counting. Until very recently he counted using only the number 2 for everything. “2, 2, 2, 2….” while pointing at objects. He recently started counting to three and wanting to count different things, especially in books. He’s also mastered my iPhone and has some favorite games like this one.

The magical world of imagination has definitely taken over all else for him these days, though. He loves to make his dinosaurs, stuffed animals, dolls, and even stickers and cut outs of drawings talk to each other and do silly things. He keeps himself very entertained in the car and gets very intense about these interactions. They normally whine things at each other such as “Mama, Mama!” and “Baby, Baby!.” But they also get in fights and scream “Nooooo!” so loudly it often scares me. They have very deep voices (for the adults) or very high voices (for the babies) and they say “Hi!” all the time…sometimes they just tell each other “Hi” for ten minutes straight. It’s probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I love being a part of it and watching him explore his imagination and express himself so much everyday. His personality is beaming and it’s the best personality I’ve ever come across. He makes us laugh nearly constantly, he gets angry when he’s frustrated, he’s smart, creative, charming, silly, energetic, gentle and so, so loving. The past 22 months have been amazing and it gets better every day. 

Getting ready for my second child was quite different than getting ready for my first, I must admit. I guess it’s because preparing for her arrival was not my main focus - Knox was. The time has flown by and now I could be meeting her in just a couple of weeks. I finally got it a little together and turned out a few projects from my to do list to personalize her nursery, which will remain a guest room for a while until she’s ready to inhabit it. Until then, she’ll either sleep next to me in her  Snuggle Nest (our lifesaver with Knox!), or here close by our bed, in the same cradle Knox first slept in which I also slept in as well as my dad. I’m such a sucker for the sentimental hand-me-downs & I love this cradle (which is still on the floor because my husband has yet to put it’s frame together).

 

So, here are the few little girly touches I’ve added, mostly thanks to my Pinterest addiction (don’t worry I will credit the really creative people who came up with these ideas). The wall color is Discreet White by Sherwin Williams, thankfully it was already painted that color - no repainting necessary.

Embroidery Hoop/Fabric Inspiration: Polli & Someday Crafts

Wooden Letter: Woodland Manufacturing (great site with tons of fonts and great prices!)

Handmade Doll: anadollies Etsy shop

Stool & Dollhouse chair: Antique store finds

Felt Heart Garland Inspiration: love from chloe Etsy shop

Bird Wall Decals: Leen the Graphics Queen Etsy shop

Free Girl/Clouds Print by Laura Amiss from Feed Your Soul: the free art project

Did you catch the little hints about her name? Don’t even try to guess it, I can guarantee you won’t be able to. :) I have to say it’s hard keeping it a secret, though, especially since we just decided on the middle name last week & I’m totally in love with this little lady’s name - it’s simply perfect & I can’t wait to meet her and call her by name!

So, there you have the few small things I’ve managed to accomplish. There are still lots more things I want to do to the nursery. I would like to eventually make it into a Montessori-friendly nursery, to some extent, by adding a mirror wall next to a floor bed (for naps & independent play) with a hook above it for hanging mobiles; as well as a long, low shelf for exploration of toys. I plan to make some other changes to both kids’ rooms to incorporate the Montessori philosophy that has become an integral part of our home. I guess this will come with time, I don’t foresee myself accomplishing that goal anytime in the near future - I’ll probably be just a little busy. I’ve come to accept that things have to happen gradually as we can make them work. 

How do you explain something so extraordinary to an almost-2-year-old? For the past few months I’ve been trying my best to come up with a way to make him understand what’s coming and I gave up and realized recently that it’s just too big for him to comprehend. Heck, it’s too big for me to comprehend, how can I really expect Knox to?

Most of our conversations about the baby go something like this:

Me: “Do you see Mommy’s belly?”

Knox: “Hm?” looks at my belly, looks at his own belly

Me: pointing at my belly “Your baby sister is in here.” 

Knox: stares blankly

Me: “Do you want your baby sister to come out of Mommy’s tummy & come live with us?”

Knox: “NOOOOO!”

Me: “Why not? She loves you. She wants to come play with you! She’s really nice.”

Knox: “Play? Nice?”

Me: “Yep, really nice.”

Knox: grabs nearest toy and clutches it close to his chest “No, MINE!”

Pretty unsuccessful so far, I’d say. Everyone tells me he will love her once she gets here, and I’m sure that will come. My goal for now is just to talk about her enough so that she exists in his mind, even if in some completely confusing way, so that her presence isn’t a total and complete shock to his world.

I like to imagine the two of them looking at each other with wonder and amazement. I see them messy-haired snuggling sleepy-eyed slumber party pals; fierce defenders, kissing each others boo-boos; dripping wet, sun-glistened playmates holding hands and running through sprinklers; giggling serious inventors of crazy imagination games;faces glowing and fists full of popcorn sharing movies and memories. 

I can’t wait to watch my family grow.

Hello, precious tiny one, rumbling roughly beneath my skin always. I’ve become so used to your silent poking that it’s hard to imagine your little newborn sounds, but I do try. I had forgotten how this relationship is formed between mother and fetus before the birth, and it’s strange how different it is from the one I have with your brother, who loudly calls my name now, with nearly every step he takes. And you, so serene, underwater swimming - clouded, but hearing it all. I wonder what you will think of this world you’re about to enter…will you already know it well, having listened in for so long now? Will you be calmed by all of our voices, knowing we are yours? So many guessing games I play everyday when I think of you. Even with your bouncing, knocking, bumping, pushing hard against my body,  I imagine you as such a peaceful little thing. This picture exudes tranquility at it’s finest, and that’s what it brings to me each time I look at it. I can’t wait to know you. I’m scared, uncertain, anxious about how your emergence will change this world we’ve made, I won’t deny that, but deep down it’s clear that your presence will be radiant. 

Little man is so much fun to be around these days. He loves to talk, loves to engage us and he loves to love. Of course, he is a toddler, too…he gets frustrated when he can’t tell us exactly what he needs or wants (even, and especially, when he’s trying his hardest I get just as frustrated trying to understand), but his meltdowns are usually short-lived and easily solved with the change of subject to of one of his favorite things. 

He’s just like his father in how much he loves the things he loves. His fascination with the moon is so much fun to witness. He loves looking out the bathroom window before bath time to see if it’s there looking back at him. He tries to find it outside during the day, and his excitement is unmeasured when he does. 

These days most of our conversations revolve around animals of any kind, or dinosaurs (“roars,” as he affectionately calls them). Every activity we do turns into something about animals. It is definitely his number one motivator. I can pretty much get the kid to do anything if I incorporate animals in some way or another. Daddy calls his food “dinosaur food” to get him to taste a bite, or if we first give a bite to an animal friend (toy), it’s almost always followed by a willingness to try whatever is presented.

His eating is inconsistent, but I would say pretty great for his age. He’s definitely a “grazer” most days, so when dinner falls a little later than he would like, his appetite is raging and he’s too impatient to wait for it so he often times ends up snacking right before it’s ready and not eating any of it. But, if we can get the timing right, and he’s hungry when dinner is ready, he’ll eat everything on his plate. It’s awesome. His favorite right now is “pasta,” and he requests it for any meal (pretty much any kind - of course spaghetti, but he also loves mushroom ravioli and cheese tortellini). 

He loves to color and draw with his crayons and has learned that they are only for coloring on paper and he also loves to draw with chalk on his chalkboard. Hours (and lots of paper) are spent at our house drawing, and his favorite is when Mommy or Daddy draw with him and, of course, he demands lots of animal drawings (cows are really hard to draw, by the way). He also loves play-doh and his favorite thing to do with it is mold it into animals and then play with the sculptures. I love how he gives all of the animals little voices and has them give each other kisses and hugs. Right now, he’s also really into having a Mommy, a Daddy & a Baby of every animal - I have been making 2 babies to show there’s room for one more. :) His other favorite indoor activity is matching games - with animals, of course. We received a bunch of these hand-me-down German-made wooden matching games/puzzles recently and they are all animal-based. He’s gotten really into them, it’s really fun to watch how smart he’s getting!

Lately we’ve been spending lots of time outside, as spring came early here. He’s loving the park a TON - looking for bugs, watching the ducks and geese (we don’t feed them because I’m too scared they will come too close to us and bite us…I’m a psycho when it comes to birds, and my poor child is paying for it! He’s just as content to watch them, though, I promise.), climbing on the equipment (but not really crazy about slides or swings), watching older children, pretending he’s a dinosaur and “eating” the leaves off of bushes, walks in the stroller (finally, he likes the stroller again!), looking for squirrels and dogs, blowing bubbles and playing in the sand. 

We’ve also recently made it a Saturday tradition to go get bagels (and “treats,” which is what he calls muffins or whatever baked good he picks out) for breakfast and then we go to the pet store to look at the mice, fish, birds, cats and lizards. This is definitely his favorite part of the week. The mice are his favorite (unfortunately for him, because there’s no chance I would ever bring one home!). 

So, there you have it. The love life of a 21 month old. Pretty intense if you ask me. He’s a wonder to watch and a joy to know. Every day I learn something new from him and I look forward to spending every chance I get from here on out learning more and hopefully teaching him a few things along the way.

I’ve never been very good at being away from the people I love. It seems it’s something that has been a part of my core since birth. My mother tells me that I was so attached to her (my everything; all that I knew), I would scream and cry when she shared me with anyone else. I only wanted her. It even took me a while to warm up to my dad, according to the tales, and longer, still, to my extended family (who appropriately nicknamed me “Yellin’ Ellen” in response to my loud and stubborn refusal to enjoy being with anyone besides my mom). 

As I grew older, I continued to be painfully shy as a child and even on into my teens. I know my mom tried her best to help me overcome this insoluble reticence, but I was who I was. I, of course, formed relationships with other people besides my mom over the years, most of them were close family members. But, I trusted few, and my emotions were wild when I was asked to do so with someone new.

I was in the third grade before I walked independently into school daily without begging my poor mom not to leave me there, tears raining down my face. I made her walk me into the classroom everyday, rather than be dropped off in front of the school like all of the other children. I did have a few friends - playmates, I suppose. However, I was still heartbroken at the thought of being left at school, away from my family all day.

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted a little girl. All of the baby dolls that I received for birthdays and Christmases were girls, and all of them were adored and played with almost constantly, including the porcelain doll who was supposed to live on the shelf, whose hair I brushed to complete ruin, whose body was chipped and scratched, and whose eyelashes remained on only one eye. It was not just her, I loved all of my dolls to near absolute destruction.

Poor little “Lori” (please excuse how creepy she looks in the picture above), who had the simultaneous honor and tragedy of being my favorite baby, is the only one I still have to this day. She had it the worst, as you can probably see. Her head became detached from her body long ago, it now hangs sloppily and literally by a thread, falling off when she is moved too swiftly in one direction or the other. Her plastic fingers are almost completely gnawed off, jutting out from her palms like little splinters; her hard skin from head to toe is stained haphazardly with many different shades of ink, marker and crayon and shaded by years worth of being dragged carelessly through food, dirt, water, sand, grass, rocks and anything else I trudged through as a child.  Lori was even lost as sea for a short period of time after I left her on the shore to be dragged out by the tides. I still find it so hard to believe that I still have her after all that she’s been through. 

Now that I have Knox, and especially now that I’m expecting my very own real life baby girl, these memories of my childhood have become a little haunting. I can’t help but get lumpy-throated as I pray and hope that my days of leaving babies permanently scarred are behind me. Maybe it’s because I have experienced life as a girl that I worry more about the wee one in my belly than I do Knox. I worry about how fragile she could be if she ends up anything like her mother, and, whether I can delicately guide her through middle and high school and lead her into feeling differently about herself than I did as a young woman. Will she end up like me, handing out test answers to the popular high school boys searching for some sort of attention or validation? Will she abandon the values I teach her when she enters a difficult and confusing stage of her life, or will she feel like she can come to me for help? How can I show her how to value, respect, forgive, honor and educate herself? Or is it just one of those situations that I have no control over and the harder I try to instill all of these important lessons, the further she will slip away from me?

I don’t think that I can accept that my influence will have no effect on her, so I have just determined that it will be my mission to spend her childhood figuring out how to best reach her, how to gently pilot her through those many bewildering years that will lead her into becoming the strong, confident, smart, self-respecting woman that I know she will end up being. 

I realize that it’s a a little premature to begin analyzing my daughter’s adolescence, but this whole time I’ve been blindly dreaming about my little girl, the dream never reached the point where she wasn’t a little girl anymore. The reality is that it is my job as her mom is to make sure that I don’t ever treat her like I treated my dolls. While it will be fun and harmless to play with her hair and dress her up, I think it’s important to keep close in mind that she is not a doll, and should never be treated as an accessory (even if reality television and smut magazines suggest otherwise). I’m not condemning cute outfits (I mean, my Pinterest board for her would be an absolute hypocrisy if I were!), I’m simply suggesting that perhaps I can pair her adorable wardrobe with some true substance. My goal is for her to never doubt that, regardless of what she’s wearing or how she cuts her hair, and that no matter how many mistakes she makes in her life, that she is always worthy of the love and respect that her father & I will never stop showing her. She needs to see that, as cliche as it sounds, she truly can do anything in the world if she’s willing to work for it. 

And, while I will always do my best to protect her, my little lady may end up splintered, dirty, crazy-haired and scarred. I realize I don’t have all the answers and that I can’t always be there to correct or prevent every mistake. But, I’ll drag her with me like I did my dolls, and instead of leaving her ashore and hoping she finds her way back to me, I’ll teach her how to swim, doggy-paddle and splash her way through those choppy waves. 

I hate that I haven’t written on here in so long. Life always gets in the way of my plans to keep my promises to myself. Write more. Take time to yourself. Reconnect with people you’ve lost touch with. Listen to This American Life. Be crafty. Read a book (and board books don’t count!), or even a magazine. Blow dry your hair. Bake bread. Go to church. Send birthday cards. Watch an entire movie from start to finish. These are all the things running through my head on a daily basis that I can just never seem to make happen. I have two blog beginnings in my draft box just sitting there. I’ve lost my verve to finish them. Most of my free time usually comes in increments of 30 minutes or less, which just isn’t enough time to finish anything I start…and I’m really bad about getting started on something if I can’t be sure I’ll finish it. But, lately, I’ve started a lot of projects that remain incomplete.

(Knox working on his favorite puzzle)

For example, I began working on a curriculum for Knox so I can start incorporating education (specifically Montessori style learning) into his routine. I feel like he is ready to be challenged more than I have been challenging him, but getting started on something like this is difficult (to say the least) and overwhelming. I’ve been researching the Montessori method in my “free time” and I’ve made some small changes to the house in order to incorporate some of the learning that he will be doing from now on. I rearranged his playroom and made it more of a learning area. I’ve put probably more than half of the toys we had out into storage to be rotated out regularly. I’ve also set up 3 different reading nooks throughout the house and have been doing my best to rotate the books weekly, which is difficult, even with trips to the library and used book stores. I’ve put a lot of great Montessori materials in online shopping carts all over the internet, but have yet to convince myself to spend that kind of money on “toys,” so I’m currently looking for used materials and making some homemade materials as well. He’s still a little young for a lot of the homemade things I’ve heard of, but I’m hoping that having them at his disposal will spark an interest and at least get him exploring them, even if he’s not using them correctly at first. I also designated a cabinet and a low pantry shelf to his kitchen utensils and healthy snacks so that he can begin to learn to help himself (note: these two areas usually end up in a giant mess on the floor, but it’s a start). There are still several changes I want to make and lots of materials I hope to provide him with over the next few years. 

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