Where's daddy?

This afternoon, Declan hollered his favorite word: Daaaa---yyy! I think he was talking to me, since we've both been responding to this precious display of name-calling with enthusiasm. So to confuse him further, I said "Where is daddy?" which is, unfortunately in this situation, the same thing I say on Saturday mornings around 7:30 a.m. when I've been up with the dink for two hours and I'm ready for daddy to take over. And the dink knows what that means. So he pointed to our bedroom door, just like he does on Saturdays, for me to carry him into our bedroom, let him turn on the light, and throw him on the bed to lift up sheets and covers and pillows to find daddy and wake him up. Actually, we do this routine during the week as well. So "where's daddy" was not the right thing to say to a poor little doo looking for his da-da. I tried to amend it by saying "Daddy's at work," but the dink was undeterred. "Uh, uh,"--it's his most commonly uttered sound. I mean his neverendingly uttered sound that manages to get him whatever it is he wants. So we walked into the bedroom and I put him on the bed. He slowly lifted each pillow on the bed with a mischievous grin, as if he expected daddy's big smiling sleepy head to emerge from underneath.

But of course, daddy didn't emerge. And dink moved on. But later in the evening, he practiced his newest string of syllables that resemble something we say--i ove ou. He probably said it fifteen times, sometimes to me, sometimes walking down the hall, and a couple times, to the ever-present yet missing man of the house: i ove ou daa--yy. Out of sight, working late hours at the office while me and dink snuggle and act silly and cook all sorts of things in the kitchen, but certainly not out of mind.

Walker

A few weeks ago, the dink finally traded in his roughened knees for his walking shoes. It was about time! I was never sure if I should be concerned that he had been in the “walkers” class at daycare for three months and was the only kid still crawling, or if I should be impressed at his complete lack of concern for what all the other kids were doing. Either way, it’s just like all of those other baby issues that seem so important and relevant when you’re going through them, but then fade so far back into your mind once they’re over that you can hardly remember they ever existed. Watching your baby grow into a little person certainly makes you live in the moment—life is what we’re experiencing today.

Reunion

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed when I think about writing about the dink—of how to capture so many moments and feelings and experiences in enough words. It usually feels like such a tall task…which is why I avoid it as much as I run to it. But then sometimes, like yesterday, just one little moment in my life as the dink’s mommy can say it all.

Last week was Christmas, and even though I had planned to take vacation days Mon-Wed before the two-day work holiday so that I could finish shopping and work on one of my home improvement projects, I ended up staying home with a sick baby. The dink had his sixth or seventh ear infection—I lose count—raging in both ears. They developed less than a week after finishing ten days of antibiotics from the previous one. So he was in crisis mode, dealing with a wet cough, runny nose, and pressing his big hands against his painful ears. We watched Baby Einstein more times than I’m proud of, made furious, brief trips to choice stores for last-minute gifts, and spent a lot of time in each other’s arms.

The week got better as Christmas Eve arrived, and J was finally home to share the load and add his own excitement for the holidays to the mix. We went to my parents in the country, stayed the night and most of the day on Christmas there, and then to J’s parents in the country to finish off the weekend. The dink was feeling pretty lousy the whole time, but slept well and showed enough excitement for his duplicate gifts—three riding toys and three sets of Mega Bloks—to make everyone say what a sweet, joyful baby he is.

My favorite part of the holiday was our homecoming. Like the dink, I get homesick even when we’re visiting family, and arriving at the house at noon on Sunday just in time for the crappy Saints game was the highlight of our trip. Coming off of a two-hour car nap, the dink was wildly calling the cats as soon as we pulled up in the driveway. He exclaimed when he saw #2, bouncing up and down on his knees and waving his hands high above his head. He crawled madly through the kitchen, greeting his fridge toys, his musical train, and his beloved, beloved pots and pans. And he panted at J’s legs in the living for about half an hour, watching daddy operate the remote so skillfully, quickly changing channels and taking the batteries in and out for the dink’s enjoyment.

Then Monday came quickly, and J dropped off the dink at daycare for the first time in ten days. I wasn’t surprised when I picked him up to see him in his teacher’s arms. She said that he had been kind of sad that day, and she didn’t know. I said it was because he had just spent ten days with me, and she laughed. But then the dink proved my point better than I could have ever explained. He came into my arms, put his head on my shoulder a minute, then looked up at me, smiled, put each of his hands on my cheeks, leaned in for a kiss. I might feel better about leaving the dink every day if I had that kind of reunion to look forward to.

Baby steps

The dink took his first steps a few days ago. Three tiny, one-inch, consecutive forward movements toward something...not me, but something that gets him going in the kitchen like a beater from the electric mixer, or the open door of the dishwasher. He seemed proud, but not totally committed, like he did it without really trying too hard, propelled by the weight of green beans, pasta, rotisserie chicken, and half a can of pears in his near-bursting tummy. If only the dink attacked all of his physical milestones with the gusto that he eats his dinner!

I actually like the way he takes his time. Completely unconcerned with the other "walkers" in his daycare class, biding his time on his butt, perfecting the one-legged, one-handed scoot, which is used when he wants to get somewhere relatively fast but needs to protect a particular item held in one of his hands. He seems just concerned enough with people around him to try to mimic the fun things they do (pointing the remote at the tv, pressing the pin code pad at the grocery store), but then unconcerned enough to tell people no sometimes when they want him to perform on demand (high fives, bye-bye waves, blowing kisses). And certainly undisturbed by the fact that he's had the physical agility to walk for months...because he likes where he is, on the floor, tugging at my pant legs, sliding easily on the terrazzo in our kitchen. And I guess he's teaching me something about taking life slowly, waiting until you're ready, not putting undue pressure on yourself...I think I get it now, what they mean when they say "baby steps."

Hello, Seahorse

The other night, I was playing with the dink in the bathub. Amidst a congregation of rubber duckies, winnie-the-pooh, empty travel size shampoo bottles (the dink's favorites), and God knows what else, I pulled the purple and green sea horse. Making him dive in the two-inch bath water and sail past the dink's avid eyes, I use my best sea horse voice to make him say, "hello, dink, I'm Mr. Seahorse." And then to the dink--say hi to mr. sea horse, dink, say hello...Hello! And I hand the soggy toy to the dink, who holds it up to his ear and does his best imitation..."heee---uuuoo". Should I be ashamed of this?

From a month ago

Yesterday evening I was trying to unload the dishwasher in a hurry before I put the dink to bed, since the clanging of the dishes makes so much noise. He was fed, bathed, and smiling, playing with the fridge toys Aunt M gave him. I was on a roll, grabbing dishes in both hands and throwing them into the appropriate drawers and cabinets. And I guess the dink wanted to help, because he crawled over to me and perched on the outside of my left leg. The dishwasher was on my right. I grabbed a 2-cup Pyrex measuring glass in my left hand and a small glass bowl in my right. I turned to the left, about to reach over to a cabinet, when I realized he was beneath me. And then I lost it. I wish I had a video of what happened next because I’ve lost all sense of memory since.

Somehow the Pyrex crashed into the bowl, glass on glass. Then they became airborne for a split second and finally crashed a millimeter away from that little dink, shattering into about a million pieces. I looked down in shock and saw the dink literally sitting in a sea of glass—countless slivers and mean-looking shards, enclosing him in a menacing circle. He was stunned, not even crying, and I snatched him up, ran out of the kitchen and held him under the dining room light, looking for injuries. But he was fine. I couldn’t find anything but a tiny glass sliver sitting on the puff of blond hair on top of his head. He was 100% unscathed and eager to get back in the kitchen and play in the mess.

I still don’t understand how it happened—how I didn’t step on him, how the glasses crashed together, and how pieces of glass landed on every surface of the kitchen floor, even on the counters and in the sink and dishwasher, but yet my precious baby managed to sit in the middle of it all, unharmed. I suppose these are the near-misses that you hear about, that will keep happening every year of the dink’s life—some I’ll see, some I’ll be better off for not knowing about—just one more reminder of how precious his life, my life, this life, is.

Happy

When you're pregnant, you learn that there are certain questions that people will ask you, and no matter what your response is, the reaction will be the same. How far along are you? What are you having? What will the name be?

In the past eleven plus months of having the dink, I've noticed that people continue to make the same comments to me. The dink has been called "beautiful" by more strangers than I can count. At first it made sense, a precious four-week old teeny weeny with angelic features. But later, I started expecting cute or handsome, or something to indicate that he was growing up into a little boy...but no, "beautiful" is still what every single person says about him. Must be the blue eyes and blond hair. Whatever it is, I've decided that it doesn't mean anything, just like all of those other standard questions. It's a standard comment for people who don't know you or your baby but just want to make a brief connection when he waves or smiles in the grocery store or at church.

For a few months, though, people have actually been saying something that matters to me. The beautiful comments are reserved for brief encounters and passers-by. But the next comment comes from those who stop for a minute or two, or watch him in mass week after week, or study him as we wait in the checkout line. "What a happy baby." It makes me smile just to think about it. At first, I thought, aren't all babies happy? I still don't know the answer to that, but just the fact that so many people comment on my baby's happiness makes me think that they must not be. It's probably that so many babies are over tired and the dink's happiness is just a sign of his well-restedness. But I'd rather think it's because we're doing something right. Because we smile incessantly at him just to see his toothless grin. And because we make up silly songs and do goofy dances for him, and especially let out fun noises just to get him to laugh. Because we're happy, or at least we put on a good show when we're not. I just pray that it lasts. That when he's fives years old, at the pediatrician, Dr. W makes the same comments that he has at almost every appointment since the dink was three months old. He's impossibly cute. He's got personality. He's a wild man. I think what Dr. W is trying to say is just a more insightful version of all those strangers repetitive comments. What a happy baby. And what a happy mommy to have him.

Wheels on the Bus

Not long ago, I decided to add to the dink's sad collection of Baby Einstein DVDs, and I bought him his second one: One the Go. I thought it would be perfect for that little doo's love already of things with wheels. His current favorite: 2-inch inflated plastic/rubbery cars with wheels that really move. He's perfected the skill of sticking out his tied tongue as far as it will go between his lips and blowing "bbbrrrrrr" in that car noise that apparently boys are born with the ability to mimic. I suppose J taught him this at some point. But from my vantage, he picked up the car one day, rolled it back and forth on the floor, bbbrrr-ing along with its movement. Genius, surely.

So I played On the Go for the first time 3-4 weeks ago. The dink was only mildly interested, I think, wondering why the familiar Disney intro music of the DVD had let to different sounds and characters. Until the Wheels on the Bus song came on. The tv screen shower a cartoon-esque school bus with those ubiquitous Baby Einstein puppets climbing aboard, looking out the window, etc. And the dink went nuts. He charged the tv screen, pulled up on the tv stand, and reached his hand out to puppet, all the while panting and emitting high-pitched squeals. It was as if he recognized this song, which I hadn't even thought since his birth.

Then a few days later, he did it again. After some over-contemplation about what in the song or its visuals the dink found so exciting, I thought to ask Ms. S. at the daycare. Do you ever sing Wheels on the Bus to the dink? Oh yeah, she chuckled, he loves that song. And If You're Happy and You Know It, she said...He loves to clap his hands. Well, at least that was something I knew about my own child--his fondness for clapping his hands at the slightest encouragement. So it all made sense. A few days later, I tested the dink and started singing the other song. "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands," I paused. Then: clap, clap. Unbelievable.

Of course we all want to think our child is genius. But the truth is that it's all about the time you put in. I tell J all the time that stay-at-home-mom babies appear to be smarter than others at an early age because their moms have time to do the repetition, the same sayings, songs, events, every day, and for so many hours of the day. Kids like the dink just have to latch on to their few tricks and make the most of them.

A couple days ago, my neighbor stopped by with her grandson, who is ten days younger than the dink. When they were leaving, the dink waved bye-bye to him. My neighbor seemed upset that her grandson still didn't know bye-bye when the dink has been doing it for at least a month. She said she keeps telling her daughter to teach it to him! I told her not to feel bad that he hasn't learned yet--it just means that her daughter doesn't leave him every morning.

Toast

Turns out the dink can put down some toast like a wolverine. After he woke up about four times from 3 a.m. on this morning, I called it quits and started the day a little earlier than usual, not long after 5. Instead of his normal oatmeal and fruit, I offered him a lightly toasted piece of wheat bread. No butter, no crust--just the scratchy and soft plain stuff that I pulled apart in bite-size pieces, hardly able to keep up with the rate he was shoveling them into his mouth. Just another sign that he's outpacing my slow, deliberate attempts to make him grow up slowly, and not rush too fast into all of this big boy stuff.

A few days ago, I got a notice at the daycare that the dink would be moving to the walker room in two short weeks. Two weeks! He won't even be one years old by then. And the list of dos and don'ts was startling--no pacis, no bottles, must wear shoes, must sleep on a mat, only one nap a day, needs finger food... I actually sobbed in the car on the way home that day, reading the walker room schedule at red lights: eat, play, music, outside, eat, play, sleep, play, eat... At least I won't feel bad now when I pick him up (finally, gloriously, RESTED), and drag him on errands and walks and expect him to bang on the same pots and spatulas in the kitchen, because at least I'll know that he's had sufficient time to play. But still, it's bittersweet, and for now mostly bitter. To expect all of these adult things from my precious, innocent, little baby. From that little tiny thing with the amazingly sweet breath that used to sleep with his eyes open and get swaddled so tight to sleep in his crib that he looked like a mummy. Or an Indian. My sweet, sweet boy growing up too fast. These are the pangs I've heard about, this is what they mean when ladies I don't even know catch me in the kitchen at the office and sigh, "they grow up so fast." There's no unique way to say it. You can't cradle and rock and caress your baby forever. But you certainly don't start loving him any less.