 |
As I'm putting Ollie to bed, I can hear the animated rise and fall of Ethan's voice. I go out to get some water and find Ethan and his daddy sitting at the table, Ethan eating a snack before bed.
"What are you guys talking about?" I ask, although Ethan's voice is the only one I heard. "It sounds important."
"It is. Really important, actually," Ethan says. "It's about Zelda number two." He spends fifteen minutes walking his daddy through the gameplay that he and his uncle Adam did last week while Noah was at work.
He's so bright. So vibrant. Becoming more complex every day. His inner life is leading him beyond what I know of him, and we spend all our days together. Just this morning we had a big conversation about the words we use and how they can hurt people after he said something in anger.
He's stepping into the role of big brother now that Oliver's personality is emerging. He sees that Oliver watches him, learns from him, delights in him.
"Mommy, when is Ollie going to be growed up?" He means when can Ollie talk and play with him.
The baby already dances and laughs and coos when Ethan's around. He's only five months, in the prime time for that delicious warm baby aroma that I wish I could smell forever, but I see him already looking outward, away from my breast and heartbeat, toward the big, bright, noisy, exciting world that Ethan is part of.
"Too soon," I say, feeling like the luckiest mother who ever was. Surely nobody loves their kids as much as I love mine. Because if they did, there's more love in the universe than I would have thought possible.
God, it seems, is gracious.
I've been feeling super wiped out lately, more than I should be considering Oliver sleeps from about 8:30 until at least 4:30 then goes back to sleep, but then I realized I've forgotten to take a vitamin for the past, oh, five-ish months. And the doctor told me I was low on iron way back then, so that explains my intense desire for Hardee's burgers as well as the fatigue. Oops.
Ollie is doing what infants do, namely growing way too fast and sleeping way less than desired (not to say he's a bad sleeper; it's just Mommy would love to keep her eyes closed for 8 hours straight).
Ethan is hilarious and challenging and quite the philosopher ("Ah, life is good!" he sighed from the backseat of the car this morning). At this moment he and his friend Leah are in the backyard playing, and they just came in to ask if I could give them a shovel so they could dig up some grass. And I'm all, do you kids have any idea how much money we've put into that turf? But then I'm like, Your Diego-themed shovel is over there. Because I'm too anemic to care. Or maybe it's just happiness.
 |
| And he was all, "I'm not supposed to poop my pants? Yeah, right." |
Our bedroom gets a tremendous amount of morning light, which makes our golden brown woven shades glow pleasantly. On the other hand, the single night we tried to sleep with just the white wood-slat blinds up, Noah and I woke at the crack of dawn—"What time is it?" I asked blearily. "High noon!" shouted Noah with indignation—which was obviously unacceptable. So up the shades went, and we've enjoyed the golden dawn ever since.
This morning, just as the sun was beginning to rise apparently inches away from our window and Oliver woke for his first breakfast, Ethan came wandering in and climbed up beside us. A few hours later, when Oliver was finished with second breakfast, his gas-induced crying woke Ethan, who was sprawled across three-quarters of our queen-sized bed.
"Mommy, stop!" Ethan shouted as I rocked Oliver. "He just wanted to look at me!"
He was right. Oliver had stopped crying.
What happened next was possibly the best moment I've experienced as a parent; certainly as a parent to two. Ethan began talking to Oliver, much like Elliot to E.T., covering everything from not pooping your pants to clipping vs. biting nails to the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk ("Fi, fie, fo, fumP!") and eating healthy food to grow big and strong. He explained how to wiggle your nose when there are "boogies and hairs" itching it, offered to make room on his bed when Ollie gets older so they could share it while Daddy reads them bedtime stories, and officially introduced Big Bunny, Sammy and Baby Bunny (who each declared their love for Oliver) and offered to let him play with them whenever he wanted.
"Mommy, look! He learned from me!" Ethan said, amazed, when Oliver's right shoulder shrugged up toward his ear. "I do that!" Oliver watched Ethan through the whole lecture, enraptured.
At another point, Ollie appeared to nod at the end of one of Ethan's micro lessons. "Look, he learned again!!"
As a reward for all his learning, Ethan wished to Santa—with the earnestness of a prayer—that he bring Oliver "Duklo" blocks for Christmas (since he'd "eat Legos").
"And if you don't bring them, Santa, that's a SERIOUS 1. If I get to 3, that's 15 minutes! And God is the boss of you!"
Threatening Santa on behalf of his little brother? It must be love.
I'm feeding the baby; Noah's putting away the laundry I've folded and sorted. Noah hates putting away laundry. Noah hates doing laundry, folding laundry, looking at laundry, the word laundry.
Noah: Which drawer does this shirt go in?
Me: Comfy t-shirts. Left, third drawer down.
Noah: And what about this one?
Me: Comfy comfies, left, second drawer down.
Noah: Wait, how many drawer divisions do you have?
Me: It makes perfect sense: Comfy t-shirts, comfy comfy shirts, comfy pants, comfy nice shirts, fancy shirts...
Noah: ...
* * *
Noah rides his bike down the street to a friend's house to ask for a particular drill bit he needs to finish assembling the boys' new play set.
Ethan: What's taking Daddy so long?
Me: To be honest, I have no idea.
Noah returns 20 minutes later.
Noah: He couldn't find the drill bit.
Me: That's too bad.
Noah: But I did ride his motorcycle a little bit.
Me: WHAT?
Noah: You rode a motorcycle once, right? With your roommate's dad? Anyway, he gave me a quick tutorial, and I may have ridden around the neighborhood.
Me: ...
An hour later, we're sitting around the family room. I'm holding the baby; Noah and Ethan are playing on the Wii.
Me: I love you boys.
Ethan: What? Me: I said I love you boys.
Noah: Mommy said she loves us. Even though I go out and wreck motorcycles instead of doing what I say I'm going to do.
Me: You WHAT?
Noah: Yeah, I laid it down. And a peg broke off the back wheel.
Me: ...
Noah: But he said they're really cheap to replace, so I shouldn't worry about it.
Me: WELL THAT'S A RELIEF.
Oliver's been having—how do you say?—Awful Poops since, basically, birth. At first it was probably because of my milk oversupply issue, and then we thought it was my flu medicine, but for the past few weeks, there's been no real reason for his gas and gas-related fussiness and, as Ethan refers to them, Ocean Poopoos (re: volume). The doc recommended BioGaia probiotic drops, which definitely helped with the frequency of the explosions, but still, something seemed off.
I took him in yesterday, and his tummy felt fine and bowel sounds were normal, so the doc recommended I do some diet elimination experimentation to see if something I'm eating is bothering his tummy.
She gave me info on the hardcore elimination diet, which she admitted was " really hard"—since basically the only thing I could consume for two weeks would be range-fed turkey and unicorn tears—"Or," she said, "you could try cutting out the two most common culprits."
"Which are?"
"Dairy and caffeine."
And I'm all, No you did not just. Those are my two favorite foods! What's next, my medical marijuana?!
The sacrifices I've made for these kids.
I love being a mother. I'm enamored with these two boys, and the things that bind us bring me a great deal of joy. They trust me implicitly and need me to the core of their beings, of which I am an essential guardian. In exchange, I'm given the unaccountable privilege of witnessing their lives.
* * *
I get fewer photos of Ethan these days. He's more aware of me trying to take candids and either hams it up or darts out of lens before I can snap one. More often than not, he sees me try to take a photo and asks that I take a picture of what he's doing or making instead.
Today I took multiple photos of him playing with Big Bunny and his knight's castle. Big Bunny was laying eggs on the tower. (Listen, I have tried repeatedly to explain that rabbits don't lay eggs, but he refuses to accept the fact.) Few of the photos came out, and even those that did seemed somehow off to me.
It was a gray day, so the lighting wasn't great. The camera on my phone isn't the best in the market. Still, I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.
* * *
Ethan still likes to snuggle, but now usually only under certain circumstances: when he's tired, when he's not feeling well, when he's cold, or first thing in the morning. Though the tactile pleasures of a child are wearing off—no more warm baby smell of him, no more constant cuddles—they are being replaced with vocabulary, imagination, independence. These are the things I write about most when it comes to Ethan: his courageous attempts at new words and phrases, his precocity, his creativity.
I think we did right by waiting so long to have another child. I got to enjoy every stage of Ethan's baby- and toddlerhood, and now that he needs me less every day, I have Oliver's baby scent and warmth and burgeoning personality to enjoy, with the added bonus of guiding Ethan into a new stage of learning and life.
* * *
After taking dozens of photos of Ethan today, I finally figured out what was off: me. Sure, many of them were blurred by the motion of his busy daily life, sure the lighting wasn't always great, sure the camera isn't the best. But none of that explained what I was seeing in the slideshow of snapshots.
When I look at Ethan, I see the full measure of him. Those are the same eyes that winked blearily at me in the hospital on our first night sharing the world. Those are the same cheeks that rested on my shoulders for comfort and sleep. Those teeth—one of which is now wobbly (!)—are the ones I nursed him through cutting, painfully and droolfully. No camera could capture all that I see when I see Ethan.
The photos I took today show a lovely young boy, coarsening hair and slimming face, elongating limbs and expanding mind. He is Ethan, flourishing.
I'm in that postpartum stage where my brain has been juiced and I'm working from muscle memory. I have little or no brain power for extraneous functions, such as remembering times. Or, like, words. My once decent vocabulary has devolved to, "Hey, could you get me that...uh...thing? You know. Thing." Add in nondescript hand gestures, and there I am.
* * *
Last week Noah received a text message from a random number. When he asked "Who is this?" the person wrote, "Justin."
"Which Justin? I know two."
"Justin L---."
"That's neither Justin I was thinking of. Who do you think this is?"
"Lexie?"
Noah explained he was a dude and definitely not named Lexie. Justin L. wrote back, apologetic. He and Noah exchanged another couple niceties, and Noah commented to me he seemed like a really nice guy. That's when it got weird. Not because of Justin L., but because of me. I've been deprived of adult interaction (except my Mom, but she doesn't really count. She's a weird blend of teenage boy [loves action movies and rom-coms; nothing too cerebral] and elderly computer user [doesn't truly understand Facebook]), and I'm so tired, I couldn't help but feel a connection to Justin L.
Noah and I made conjectures about who he might be, if we'd be friends. His number was local, so if he was a Wake Forest student or graduate, he'd either be from here or have stayed here after graduation. Because college kids are still on their parents' phone plans, with numbers native to wherever they're from. His diction suggested Gen Y; he threw in "it's all good" at one point, in an off-handed manner, as though he'd been saying it for a long time and it was no longer douchey, just a conversational throwaway. He seemed genial, perhaps slightly geeky. In short, just like us.
We spent fifteen or twenty minutes talking with and about Justin L., whose errant text perforated the comfortable routine of our evening in a not unpleasant way. This guy became part of our conversation, by virtue of a few typed words landing on the wrong digital target.
"Should I text him and ask him about himself, tell him my wife and I have a wager going?" Noah wondered.
"You could. Then again, that could be perceived as slightly stalkerish."
But if anyone would get it, Justin L. would.
In the end, we decided against it. But how to end this accidental conversation with no normal social markers, like saying "Oh here's my friend arriving now, here's my bus, my name's being called, it was nice talking to you."
Noah sent the last text: "Let me know how it goes with Lexie."
|
/>
