Two Years

Dear Nate,

Today you are two years old. It's a bit unreal because on one hand, we've been calling you a two year old for a couple of months now because you really didn't seem one anymore, but on the other hand it seems like just last week that you were that little eight pound person they put in my arms in the hospital and I wondered what you'd be like, what our little family would be like.

And now we know. You are spirited and sweet, loud and funny, mischievous and fearless. This month you went on your first carnival ride - The Scrambler - and you didn't cry. You didn't look like you understood what the point was, but you didn't seem scared or even very phased by it. You didn't want to eat your birthday cupcake today because you still don't like cake, but you happily ate a cake ball and some cookies. To get that sugar off your teeth, you brushed with two toothbrushes, as is your norm these days. (You LOVE to brush your teeth and play with the water.)

You started today by waking up to your big birthday present: a train table. You then didn't walk away from that table for an hour and a half! Not that we doubted that you'd love your table, but that confirmed it since you never stay in the same place for more than a few minutes. You love to run, to kick your soccer ball, to race cars on the floor, to climb up on the furniture. And in the past week, you've started telling me that certain things you draw (scribble) are specific items - Mommy or Dada or Puppy (Buster) or Choo Choo (Thomas). That's extra fun.

Your favorite thing to say right now is "Cool!" which is hysterical. You know you're funny, too. Today at the park, an old man blew his nose really hard. You looked at him, said, "Whaaat?" and then blew him a raspberry. He didn't find it as funny as I did, but that's okay. It really was funny.

You're really sweet, too. These days you wake up in the middle of the night and come crawl in to our bed, snuggle up to me, and fall asleep until morning. You're a terrible bed hog, but I don't honestly mind most of the time (most of the time = when you're not kicking me in the ribs or lying on my face).

You're talking more and more. You have more words than I can keep track of now and you're learning your letters and numbers, too. You love to watch Blue's Clues and point out the clues and dance with the songs. You love to color (everywhere, I might add, which we have to work on) and you love to read, both on your own, and with me and Dada. When it's time for bed, you grab Curious George, and run to your room yelling, "A book! A book!"

First I have to change your diaper, though, which is a constant battle these days. You're definitely not ready for potty training, but you hate having your diaper changed so we're in a tough spot. Over the past week, you've started telling me when you go "pee pee" and then saying "pah-yee" (potty) so maaaaaybe we're getting there??? It'll be the biggest agenda item of this year, for sure.

We'll get through it and you'll be Mommy's little teammate, just like you have been for the past two years. You are so incredible and wonderful and Dada and I love you a million times infinity.

Love,
Mommy

You must change your life.

Tonight is the last evening of school for me for this semester and I am truly looking forward to it, mostly because one of the two classes I took this semester was frustrating in ways that I have not been frustrated by a class in probably over fifteen years. Also, while I love school, the time it requires puts stress on my family schedule and I'm looking forward to having fewer things pulling me away from Nate for a few months.

But I'm already missing the other class I took and it's not even over until tonight.

This semester I took a visual arts research methods course and it is not an understatement to say that it has possibly changed my life.

Being a writer in a community of artists has been enlightening. My academic pursuits have always been near the art world since writers often interact with artists in the larger cultural world, but it's been a while since I've even been in the world of writers. I was a literature student and college instructor after I finished my creative writing work and now I'm an education student and tutoring supervisor - roles that don't provide much (any) creative support.

My classmates in this research class are an amazing group. They actually create art. Maybe some of you know people who create art regularly and who consider themselves artists as an essential part of their being. Or maybe you even are one of these people. I don't interact with many artists in my day-to-day (non-online) life.

Sure, I know artists online, as well as musicians and bloggers and people who create things like invitations or photographs for a living. But for me, being with people who do this other kind of art - stuff involving paper and paint and sculpture and metal - has been life changing.

I had forgotten. I used to write poetry regularly. I have a B.A. in creative writing, for which I produced what would be a chapbook of poetry. I lived and breathed poetry every day because I was in constant production.

Today I produce family meals and emails and presentations and occasional blog posts. I find joy in all of this, but it's not the same. Other people produce poetry in cooking or baking; I do not. I enjoy it, but it's a little like paint-by-numbers for me - I'm just following what someone else designed before me. I'm not inventing.

But this class has lit (re-lit) the invention flame and even possibly altered the course and focus of my future dissertation. As I finished up my final projects for this class, I found myself feeling like it was all really a beginning, not an end in the slightest.

For class tonight, I made Joy the Baker's Lemon, Lime and Thyme sugar cookies and Chamomile Mini Cakes (cupcakes) with honey frosting (both from her cookbook). They seem like just sort of precious, delicate, to-be-savored-with-a-smile type of treats appropriate for tonight. I know I'm going to want to cry and hug my professor when I leave class tonight, but I'll just make sure she and everyone else has the sweet treats instead.

This poem pops up a lot in my life and in my head. It's one of those pieces that I get something different from every time I read it and this week is no different.

Archaic Torso of Apollo
~Rainer Maria Rilke

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see  you. You must change your life.

From the mouths of babes...

Or the mouth of one babe, in particular... There are so many things Nate says now that make me laugh or smile. On the talking spectrum, he's right where he should be, which means he knows a lot of words but isn't putting together sentences the same way I see little girls his age doing. He still babbles a lot and it's clear that he thinks he's saying sentences, and he talks ALL DAY LONG.

Wheeee!

Amongst all that chattiness, there are a few things that make Tom and I crack up to ourselves long after Nate's gone to bed.

Lock - Nate pronounces lock as "yock," which makes me snicker when I think about it. It's so cute sounding. And he is obsessed with locks - he wants to close all doors, all the time. He also wants to make sure I remember to lock the car when we park it. When I take him out of his car seat, he starts going, "Yock! Yock! Mommy? Yock?"

Sock - This one is pronounced with an "f" - fock. I think that says enough.

Backpack - Mack Mack - LOVE it. He now understands that the backpack is used to carry stuff, so he takes toys with him when we go to my in-law's house.

Fix it - This is a common request after he throws some toy and all the pieces come apart. "Mommy? Mommy? Fix it!" He also thinks putting the key in the ignition in the car is fixing the car. After I buckle him into his car seat (and he says, "Buckle! Buckle!"), he starts saying, "Mommy! A key! A key! Fix it!" I guess the car is broken without the key. Really kinda makes sense, right?

Cool - This is Nate's latest exclamation. He uses it correctly and appropriately, which cracks me up. He'll be playing with his toys, have one of them do something, and then go, "Cool!"

Oh Man! - This one definitely came from Dora the Explorer. Ugh. But it's just funny when he says it.

Night night - Every time Nate sees a bed, he says, "A bed! Night night!" (This was extra funny in IKEA the other day.) For the past few weeks, Nate has been waking up in the middle of the night, usually between 12:30am and 5am, at which point he comes to our room and falls back asleep with us in our bed. One night last week, though, he woke up at 11:30pm, when we were still awake. He stumbled into our room, squinting at the light still on. He walked over to our lamp, turned it off, said, "Night night!" and crawled into our bed and fell asleep. We were laughing SO hard; we couldn't help it. Even after we both also laid down, we kept giggling for a while.

A phone - Nate loves all phones. When we recently went to the Verizon store to get my iPhone, he just ran around going, "A phone! A phone! A phone! A phone!" because, well, you know - there were phones everywhere. He was out of control.

Mom - He usually still says Mommy, but sometimes he says, "Mooo-oooom." What??? NO. He better stick with "Mommy" for at least a few more years. (Somehow, Tom is still Dada, not even Daddy, even though Nate was saying Dada long before he was saying Mama.)

Uncle Kenny - It took Nate a long time to call my brother something considering he lives with us. A few times he tried to say Kenny and it came out "keh-yee" but I guess that didn't work for him because he's taken to calling him Kiki (kee-kee). CRACKS ME UP every time. I told my brother that I bet he never guessed in a million years that he'd be called Kiki regularly without some reassignment surgery.

Knock knock - Sometimes Nate will knock on Ken's door. Other times he just stands at the door and screams, "Knock knock! Kiki! Knock knock! Kiki!" Hysterical.

A - Everything is singular right now. Ken is "a kiki," every phone is "a phone," every cookie is "a cookie."

What - We have this little game in the car where I say, "Say whaaaat?" and Nate goes, "Whaaat!" And then we both giggle. I love it.

Blue - Pronounced "BOOOOO!" Even though he knows several colors (white, purple, red), he calls all of them blue right now. He also calls Blue from Blue's Clues "Boooo!" (It's also one of his favorite shows right now.)

Hold on - Every time we walk down our back steps, I tell Nate to hold on to the handrail. He always does, but now he also yells, "HOLD ON!" with every step down he takes. (I'm laughing just thinking about it. It's so funny. At least I know he's listening.)

Pizza - Pronounced "Izza!" (Eat-za) My parents babysat Nate last Saturday while I was at a conference and ordered pizza for dinner as a treat for Nate. When the pizza arrived, he yelled, "Izza!" and ran to the table and scrambled into his seat, sat up tall and said, "Eeeeat! Eeeeat!" He knows what he likes.

Climb - Nate has to use a stool to get into his bed (it's just a smidge too tall for him) and I guess I said, "Climb into bed" a bunch of times because now every time he does climb into bed, he says, "Climb! Climb!" He also likes to carry his stool around the house and try to reach new things (light switches, window sills). He gets up on it and goes, "Climb!" He also says it at the playground as he climbs the structures. It's hard to describe how he says it - it's kind of like "kyime." Very cute.

Color - Nate says "kuh-goo" to mean color or crayon. I have no idea why/how it works out that way, but I think it's adorable.

I really can't state enough just how much I love all of this. It's still challenging when Nate's trying to tell me something and I don't yet understand what he means, but looking at a list like this makes me realize just how much we actually communicate now and how awesome it is. This list is just a snippet of all the things he says - the funnier things. We really do have a chatty little boy, and it's fantastic.

22 & 23 Months

Dear Nate,

Today you turn 23 months old. Obviously, this means you'll be TWO YEARS OLD a month from today - but instead of getting wistful about that right now, let's talk about the last two months, which have been PACKED with all kinds of new adventures.

The biggest new adventure has been your big boy bed! Two weeks ago you started climbing out of your crib on a daily basis, so rather than risk having you get injured, we decided it was time to move you to a bed. There are built-in bunk beds in your room (the ladder has been stowed away since we moved in, though) so we moved you straight into a twin size bed instead of getting a toddler bed in the interim.

It's been a bit of a bumpy transition. You've been waking up at 6am nearly every day and won't go back to sleep unless I come in your room (instead you get out of bed and stand behind your closed door screaming because you can't open it). Little by little, I think you'll start sleeping later. Overall, you're doing really well. Nap time is still a struggle most days, especially Saturday, but we're working on it.

Then, of course, there was our trip to the emergency room this past weekend. But you are quite a little trooper. No one would know you had a dislocated elbow this weekend.

If we dig back a little further to last month, you had an even less happy encounter: the Easter bunny! Last year you were so happy to sit on that big, fuzzy lap. This year? Not so much.

But that's okay. I know it'll be better in a few years. You just love to be on the go now and don't appreciate being told to sit in one place for any period of time unless there's food in front of you. You still love to eat, but continue to be a bit picky. It's been challenging to find nutritious foods that you'll eat without hesitation, but we're learning. And you're still growing, so I think everything is okay. You weighed 33 lbs at the hospital this weekend and are wearing all 2T clothes and a few 3T shirts. All four of your two year molars are at least partially in, so you are officially done breaking in any new teeth until you get your adult teeth!

And you take great care of your teeth, too. In your Easter basket from Grandma and Grandpa, you got two new toothbrushes, which you demanded be opened immediately so you could use them - which you did. You spent the next hour walking around, using both brushes simultaneously. You LOVE brushing your teeth (although you mostly love playing with the water in the sink - but you do actually brush your teeth well).

Your first time walking Buster with Mommy... You were SO excited and happy!

Your vocabulary is getting bigger every week and you've begun to know some letters. Yesterday you (accurately) pointed out the letters A, B, C, E, K, M, and O - and even connected some words to them - "B! Boo! (blue)" "M! Me me me!" You basically point out these letters everywhere we go. I think your favorite colors are blue and green, although you call both of them blue ("Boo!").

Your favorite new item is the "mack mack" (backpack) the Easter bunny brought you on Sunday.

For the past two days, you've put it on and tried to leave with me when I left for work. I think maybe you think that owning a backpack means you get to work with Mommy? (Since I take a backpack to work almost every day to carry my schoolbooks in case I have time for them.) I think you'll be very excited to put it on Thursday to take it with you to Grandma's house for the day, even if you don't quite get the concept yet of using it to carry things with you.

Other things you absolutely love right now: playing with your LeapFrog tablet, helping Dada get the dogs ready for their walk, giving the dogs their treats after their walk, pointing out where our jackets are and which one belongs to who, pointing out the cars in the driveway and which one belongs to who, telling me that the door is for going "outside, away," saying, "Oh man!" ALL THE TIME, telling me where my coffee cup is ("foffee! foffee!"), telling me that every bed is "a bed, night night," eating raisins, asking for milk (even if it's water or juice), helping me unload and close the dishwasher, helping put clothes in the dryer... do you see a theme? You love to help, to do whatever we're doing, and to tell us the purpose of everything around. I love watching you figure it all out and how you surprise us with a new word every day sometimes.

I can't believe you'll be two years old next month, although we already say we have a two year old because you're such a big boy to us. We love everything about you. Even the 6am wake-up screams aren't so bad because when we open that door, you are so sweet and happy to see us and start your day or snuggle back to sleep. Every minute with you is a joy, truly. We love you!

Love,

Mommy & Dada

Nate's (and our) 1st trip to the ER

I know it was bound to happen sometime. Apparently emergency room visits are all the rage with parents of young children. However, the hubby and I have very little emergency room experience. I think I went once as a kid (twisted ankle) and I think the hubby went once (scratched cornea - yowch). So we were ill-prepared for this.

On Saturday, I was playing with Nate. He likes to stand behind us on the couch, have us hold his hands over our shoulders and rock front and back or side to side - kind of like a piggy back ride, but while sitting. After a certain seeming non-extraordinary moment, he said, "Ow" and pouted and was holding his wrist - so I thought maybe I had held too tightly onto his wrist. By this point, he was two hours overdue for a nap, though (he doesn't nap well, sometimes at all, on Saturdays) so we figured maybe he was cranky because of that and didn't really hurt much. So at 3pm, the hubby put him down for a nap.

We were scheduled to go to dinner at 5pm for my brother's birthday, so around 4:15 I went in to wake Nate up. As soon as he woke up, he started crying - hard. And he just kept crying. I sat in the glider with him and he was sort of clutching his left arm a little, but also not moving it at all. He would move his right arm just fine, but his left arm he kept bent and close to his body. If I tried to lift it (slowly and gently), he would cry, "Owww!" and then cry more.

So we called our pediatrician's weekend service and they said it sounded like "nursemaid's elbow" (which I had never heard of and had to Google) and that we should go to the ER, so we did.

This is where the lack of ER expertise came in because the hubby dropped off Nate and I while he went to go park the car (Nate was already feeling better by this time - his arm probably really hurt early because he spent over an hour sleeping on it, poor thing). I walked in and realized I had no idea what to do. It was nothing like it is on TV - no bloody people lying around, no gurneys running through. Plus, this was specifically the pediatric emergency room - so mainly there were kids and teenagers sitting around, looking bored, watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs on the flat screen.

Nate's "bracelet," Curious George, and my striped sleeve

So I walked up to the desk and probably just said, "Uhhh.. um." But they, of course, knew what to do - took our information, gave Nate a hospital bracelet (which he liked - he likes bracelets) and then we sat in front of the TV and I gave him the coloring supplies I had planned to bring with us to dinner.

"Kuh-goo!" (that's how Nate says "color" or "crayon")

Nate was really great in the waiting room. He was really interested in the automatic door (he's obsessed with all doors needing to be closed, so seeing a door that closed itself was a highlight for him). He said hi to the other kids and was just generally running around if he wasn't watching TV or coloring.

 
That looks like a toddler with a dislocated elbow, right?

We were eventually moved to the second waiting area, where we kept Nate entertained with episodes of Thomas on our phones. Eventually the doctor saw us, flexed Nate's arm three times and told us it was nursemaid's elbow. I asked her if she'd have to set it and she said, "I just did." OH. Well, okay then. No wonder Nate just cried for a minute (I figured it was just because it hurt).

Waiting for the Motrin to kick in so we can go home

She had us give Nate some Motrin and then we had to sit around for 20 minutes waiting to make sure he could use the arm (if he couldn't, it might have been a fracture). Nate seemed too nervous to use the arm. He'd use it when he wasn't thinking about it, but as soon as we asked him to, he'd refuse. Eventually the open door in the waiting room got the better of him, though, and using his formerly injured arm, he pulled it shut (one of those heavy hospital doors with a rubber doorstop). The doctor saw that and said, "Well, okay. I think you can go home now."

The next morning (Easter morning), Nate woke up like nothing had happened. He was happy and energetic and seemed to have no memory of being hurt. He was his regular self and was totally happy to open up his Easter backpack ("mack mack!") and eat some Easter treats.

So there it was. Nate's first trip to the ER. Our first parental trip to the ER. Fairly uneventful and not too scary (no blood or anything). Nerve-wracking, for sure, and it sucked that we had to miss my brother's birthday dinner, but at least it wasn't anything worse and we're very lucky to not have had to do this before. I would like to avoid doing it again but I have a feeling this won't be our one and only ER visit. At least next time we'll know the drill.