Dear Noah,

On Saturday, you turned 2 years and 3 months old.

You sing your ABCs almost every day. If we sing along, you make it through the entire song with pretty good accuracy. If we watch you sing, you generally skip from about G to W, belting out the “next time won’t you sing with me?” And then you yell “Yay!” and clap enthusiatically.

You love identifying letters, especially when they’re written in bright colors. “That a D! That a red B!”

Even more than letters, you seem to love counting. You can reliably count objects, in real life or books, to about 6. And you can reliably count to 10 if you are counting for it’s own sake, not concrete items.

You love testing your independence, wanting to brush your teeth, cut your food, turn on and off the lights, and put on your shoes yourself. “I do it! I do it! I try! I try!”

But when you hit a wall — too many new people or experiences, or too tired — you hit it hard. Then all you want is for me to carry you, your face buried in my shoulder.

I think you’re at your best balance of loving and independent when we’re out in public in a place that’s new to you. You’re willing to hold Mommy’s hand, and even Grandma’s. But you gleefully pull us along to see the next exciting thing, whether that’s crossing the street or seeing another animal at the zoo.

Incidentally, speaking of the zoo, it would be totally ok with me if you quit talking about seeing the elephant pooping.

Your mommies love you.

love,

That Mommy

This evening, after dinner, Noah and I took a walk around the neighborhood.

He told me no less than 10 times, “Mommy! We got to watch where we’re going!”

Definitely channeling Jill.

The thing about babies and little kids — or maybe it’s just Noah — is that some things seem so innate that the “nature” side of the “nature vs nurture” debate can start looking eerily obvious.

For example, especially around the eyes and nose, Noah looks just like me. And he’s every bit as conversational as I am. He’s a better dancer, but we know the donor was musical, and although Jill is also a great dancer, she doesn’t dance much around the house.
Now that Noah has started expressing himself with sentences and concepts that he generates, Jill’s influence is shining through loud and clear.

For example: On Saturday, as we were driving into our neighborhood, we saw the mail delivery truck. It was pausing at every mailbox, as they do, instead of driving or stopping like a regular car. Noah announced from the backseat, “He needs to watch where he’s going!”

Sunday, we drove separately to church. (Jill & Noah went to Sunday school; I skipped everything but the annual block party after services. Sometimes you just need alone time.) When he and I got into my car to come home, Noah announced, “You need to clean up your car, Mommy!”

I actually asked him if This Mommy taught him how to say that. That question, unfortunately, was just a little too subtle. And coming from a boy who has recently begun hurling objects to register his extreme displeasure, somewhat ironic. But that’s being two, nature, but not in the context of this discussion.

While I don’t think this is nature or nurture either, it is hilarious. Jill has taught Noah a knock-knock joke. We are 99% sure he doesn’t actually get it, but he laughs uproariously while they tell it together. When they told it to me over dinner last night, I fell in love with both of them even more than I had been. Which I did not know was possible.

And speaking of nature — and possibly a little nurture — you know you’re pregnant when bacon cheeseburger hamburger helper sounds like a good idea. (Need I even add that it no longer sounds like a good idea?)

In other news, some of the really fun pregnancy symptoms kicked in this weekend, like round ligament pain and waking up 2-3x/night to pee.

Fruit & Veg Count, 5/4: 1 cup mixed roasted veggies (carrots, asparagus, broccoli), 1/3 cup collard greens, 1/3 cup sweet corn, 1 cup fresh strawberries.

These last few posts have been really depressing, but I do have some funny things to share.

• Noah has decided that he will only eat coffee yogurt. This would be fine, that’s my favorite flavor too, except that for some reason none of the grocery stores in my area ever have enough. They have between none and yesterday, 7 cups. Over the weekend, I found 5. For a 2-3 yogurt/day toddler, plus his pregnant mommy, that’s a 2 day supply!
• Every evening after dinner, if the weather is nice, Noah gleefully runs outside to “play soccer” with me for 10 minutes. For some uniquely toddler-logical reason, the soccer field of choice is one particular neighbor’s driveway. Noah may be the most charming soccer player in history — every time I retrieve the ball from a shrub or under another neighbor’s car, Noah says “Thank you Mommy!” And every time he retrieves it, he pauses and says, “Ready. Set. Go!” before kicking it “back into play.”
• The only thing more sweet and adorable than Noah kissing the baby sister in my tummy and then insisting “I have baby sister in MY belly button!” is his newfound love for hugging both mommies at the same time.

Noah seems to be going through a bad relationship with his bed. Not only has he been popping out of it on a frequent basis in the evening after bedtime and crying like he’s being tortured when we declare “bedtime” or “naptime,” but he’s perfectly willing to curl up and “sleep” on the couch with me. Or on the mattress next to his bed. Sometimes even on the floor.

This morning, I woke up to find him snoring on the floor in front of the gate at his bedroom door.

Incidentally, while the whole broken arm and split lip thing take their toll on parental confidence, seeing your child prostrate on the floor in the “I came looking for you, Mommy, and you weren’t there” position has a uniquely heart-wrenching impact on one’s sense of parenting ability.

Has he been there for the last 6 hours? Or only the last 1? I have no idea.

Fruit & Veg Count, 4/28: 1/2 of a large banana, 3/4 cup of carrots.

Truly, this weekend was positively Alexandrian in stress. Worse.

Friday night, Jill and I got a babysitter and went to see Bruce Springsteen in concert. The show itself was great, high energy and fun.

But we were sitting in a peculiar section made from temporary aluminum risers.

They wiggled.

It was like being on a boat.

Between the reverb from the music, the constant, irregular shaking of the seats, and the stale beer and wine fumes, all my motion-sickness-combating strategies worked for about an hour. I went home and overpaid the babysitter due to miscommunication with Jill about what we were supposed to pay her. Jill and her friend Rob stayed and tried to do some band-stalking after the show, without success.

Saturday morning, Noah fell and split his lip at music class. He cut the inside of his lip against his teeth, falling against a low ledge. In case you were wondering, lip wounds bleed like you would not believe.

We were scheduled to get Noah a haircut after class, and while he seemed to be perking up and ok after about 15 or 20 minutes, I couldn’t face taking him alone, especially in my blood-soaked shirt.

Naturally when I called Jill, she was in the shower. By the time I actually reached her, I was the hysterical one, not Noah.

Still, the 3 of us went to the haircut place anyway, and had Noah’s usual drama-filled haircut, with much crying and clutching of Mommies.

Then it was time for home and lunch and a nap. We learned beyond a doubt that Noah, who will happily eat 3 full-sized containers of yogurt in one sitting, will reject them out of hand the moment he encounters any “stuff” in the yogurt. Like a piece of strawberry, for example.

I was totally drained by the morning and needed a nap too.

Initially, Noah went down willingly. Jill left to run some errands, and approximately 2 minutes later, 20 minutes into nap-time, Noah got up with a poopy diaper. He had a second one 5 minutes after that. And a 3rd major disturbance that I don’t remember the details of, about half an hour after that.

I woke up from my nap around 5:15 pm. Noah was still sleeping. Normally he wakes up around 3 pm.

We got him up, much to his irritation.

It was around this time that Jill had her delayed reaction freak-out over Noah’s busted lip. It was pretty badly swollen, with a nasty laceration inside his mouth. And although it hadn’t been actively bleeding since shortly after it happened, there were a few patches of blood-tinged drool stains on Noah’s sheets.

The evening was blessedly uneventful, with Noah eating 3 cartons of smooth yogurt for dinner.

We put him to bed half an hour or so late. From 8:30 pm to 12:30 am, Noah got up out of bed crying at intervals between 5 and 60 minutes.

At 12:30 am, Jill got up and took him downstairs for a snack and to try to burn off some of his wakeful energy.

She reached the end of her rope at 1:15 am and handed him off to me.

When he declared at 3:15 am that he wanted to play baseball, I realized I was close to losing it too. No baseball, and in spite of vigorous protests, I restarted the usual bedtime routine. Minus This Mommy’s ordinary role, which also added to Noah’s agitation.

Three stories later, Noah willingly went to bed, and slept until 7:30 am.

I had to teach Sunday School yesterday, and took Noah in early with me.

Unfortunately, our new paid caregiver agency blew it’s last chance to keep our contract by sending only 1 person, not 3. And she was late. Our preschool coordinator was out of town, so no one had the agency’s phone number to get hysterical at them. Also, no one had unlocked the doors to 4 of the 5 rooms. The only unlocked door was to the room with what I can only describe as peculiar and sensitive lighting. When I arrived, the coordinator’s 4 year old daughter and her mother in law were sitting in the one well-light corner of the room, behind a curtain, wondering what to do.

I left Noah with them and went to deal with all that, plus set up my room and get ready to teach.

Did I mention that up to this point, I also hadn’t eaten anything? BAD idea for a pregnant lady.

Eventually, we got the doors unlocked, combined the preschool and pre-K classes, got the paid staffer and her 6 year old daughter set up in the baby room, and had Sunday School.

I even made it to “big church” (aka the regular service) on time, having gotten the extended care volunteers settled in and able to identify all the 2-4 year olds.

It was Youth Day. All 4 high school seniors active in the youth group got to deliver sermons.

In the middle of Sermon #3, one of the extended care volunteers appeared at my elbow. “Noah is crying hysterically. We haven’t been able to distract or calm him down for 10 minutes,” she whispered.

Jill had driven separately to church, in case that isn’t obvious from all the above. I turned to her and whispered, “I’ll go get him and take him home. See you later.”

Indeed, he was still hysterical, sprawled on the floor and sobbing when I arrived.

Eventually Noah calmed down, although he had a relapse when I abandoned him in his car seat to get in the driver’s seat of the car without him. Fortunately, my stash of Fig Newtons helped quiet the situation.

When we got home, I took him directly upstairs for a nap.

Hah!

Although Noah did play quietly in his room for about an hour, there was no napping. He and I finally dozed off in front of the tv — some totally unfamiliar baby boomer cartoon program involving racing to Hackensack — around 3:30.

Again, we woke him up close to 5 pm, because we had dinner plans with the 3 other families with whom we are splitting season tickets to the new Atlanta WNBA team.

Fortunately, the other kids in those families are 3, 3, and 5, so no one wanted a late evening. And the hosts had a train table, so Noah played happily the entire time we were there. He paused for less than 5 minutes to inhale a hot dog, and was diverted for another 5-7 minutes by a cool trampoline with handlebars and buttons that played music.

Bedtime went almost as badly as it had gone on Saturday.

Finally, I just curled up with Noah on the mattress next to his bed. We snuggled quietly for almost 45 minutes, with him patting my face, arms, or neck almost the entire time. Finally he was willing to get back in his Thomas bed alone, where he fell asleep quickly.

I went to bed about 10 minutes later.

In the background to all of this, and on a good note, Blur has been kicking up a storm. I’m pretty sure she gave me a solid head-butt yesterday as I got into the shower.

I’ve been thinking a lot about rituals lately, especially as they relate to babies and welcoming them into the family and community.

I’ve always felt that rituals were important. That’s a big part of why Jill and I had a big(ish) wedding that was very traditional in most ways.

When Noah was born, we knew that we wanted to have him baptized. That was something that drove our decision to find and join a church.

But in the chaos of new motherhood, it slipped from “important ritual of welcoming and acknowledgment” to “when can we check this off of our to-do list?” We didn’t even think to invite our families, and we were honestly stunned when their feelings were hurt.

It really wasn’t until the actual experience of the service and the baptism that we got in the moment and realized what we were doing.

Our church doesn’t do individual Godparents at baptism. The entire congregation agrees to take responsibility for each child baptized into the community. The other children play a special role, promising to help the new child when he or she falls, to play with them, and to be their brothers and sisters in the church family. And at the end of the baptism ritual, the minister walks the baby through the congregation, so that everyone has a chance to “meet” or at least see the newest member of the community.

Seeing and experiencing that as a visitor to the church was one of the things that drew us to joining. (Although that was below the church’s very public commitment to gay and lesbian civil rights, the fact that we knew a couple of current members, and that there were a lot of other young families and children around Noah’s age.)

Of course in our family, there will be another big welcoming day, a vitally important legal ritual: When Jill’s parenthood of the new baby is legally recognized through adoption.

Last time, our plans were thwarted and made insane. Where we originally imagined a beautiful ritual to be celebrated with family and friends, instead we found ourselves forced to move to a new county, to incur thousands of dollars of unexpected costs, and to deal with a much more delayed process than we expected.

While dealing with that, the last thing we wanted to do was plan a celebration — again, until it was actually happening. The reality of the moment was beautiful, and we wished we had our family and friends there to celebrate it with us.

Obviously, there are a lot of lessons learned from our experience with Noah — we want to make sure we don’t forget the celebratory welcoming aspect of these rituals as we go through them with little Blur.

I’m just not sure how to keep all those chaotic and exhausting feelings sufficiently at bay to remember. Any suggestions? (Bear in mind that you can’t file a petition for adoption until after the baby is here, so we can’t schedule any of that part in advance.)

Also, am I insane for fantasizing about doing both in rapid succession, ie, seeing if we can get the adoption hearing scheduled for a Monday or Friday and then scheduling the baptism for that Sunday? (Obviously we would only do that if we got assigned to a good judge in our current county of residence, not if we have to move again.)