When I Grow Up I Want to Be...

my grandparents and all their great-grandkids Christmas 2012

robb and i were asked over Christmas dinner what we want henry to be when he grows up.

my first reaction, after recent sad biographies in the news of kids turning into sad, scared, violent adults is that i'm more worried about what i DON'T want him to become than what i do want.

all i know for sure is i want him to be healthy and happy. and it was universally agreed that "happy" is what we'll aim for. but what is 'happy?' and how do you snag it and keep it for your kid?

happiness is an elusive, vague concept. when we tried to dissect it some, we came up with happy = satisfaction with who you are. and choices. options. opportunities. the chance to succeed, by your own definition, and the confidence and security that goes with that.

and God. a lot of peace of mind and freedom from having to be perfect comes with knowing Him. and with faith, ideally, a kindness and awareness of others. a sense of accountability and acceptance that there's more to life than just you and your own personal needs.

this conversation was between my parents, my sister, my grandparents and uncle. all of these are outstanding people- who i would certainly consider happy and successful. so when they talk, i listen.

my grandparents, in their late 80's, are amazing specimens. they are brilliant and vibrant and funny and have been married for something like 65 years. and they still like it. :) they've experienced a lot of life. they both tell vivid stories of living through WWII (my grandfather in the ocean, my grandmother working hard back at home), but also are completely active in the world today- caught up on the recent best selling novels and regularly on facebook and email and shopping online.

when they grew up, she one of 9 kids, he one of 17, as you can imagine, there was not a whole lot of money or opportunities. they did well for themselves, but neither of them went to college and always wished they had. so they prioritized education for their 4 kids. and my dad and all his sibs have at least an undergrad degree, some have more.

my grandparents lived their lives well and were very successful, but also were able to give their kids opportunities they never had.

and although we acknowledge that a college degree does not guarantee success (or even regular work),  it generally can open up doors that might otherwise be closed. and, again, ideally,  it at least encourages exploration of the mind and a desire to learn and grow.

i think that's the other part of happy. always having new, fresh goals in front of you. always changing and moving and becoming a better version of yourself.

my grandparents are a great example of a love that lasts forever but never gets stagnant. and are each people who continue to challenge themselves and learn new things. they are also kind, generous, fun and full of faith and life. 

when i grow up, i want to be like them.

and i guess when henry grows up, i want him to be the ever-evolving, most complete version of himself that he can be. excited to be alive, confident in who he is, strong in his faith, and giving to others.

and a brain surgeon astronaut AIDS-curing scientist pastry chef.

but no pressure.

Date Night

(...was a totally disappointing movie starring the awesomely awesome tina fey and steve carrell. fizzle. plop).

robb and i got a babysitter and went out last night. and it was fantastic!!!

i was musing that, at the time we didn't realize it, but before henry, all day, every day was a date night. we could go eat meals anywhere, anytime, and go to movies, museums, whatever and weren't constrained or defined by nap or bedtimes or temper tantrums.

but now, not only is life way more super fun because of henry monster, but when robb and i DO get out just the two of us, we appreciate it that much more. we really relish our time together. and this was a crazy fun time.

because it was so great, i'm now going to discuss it in great detail. skip ahead a bit if you're bored by me at all.

we had the babysitter (a good friend's grad school age daughter who has sat lots of times before) come at 5pm, so we were the first ones to the restaurant at 5:15pm to eat dinner(!)...because we are chic and sophisticated young people. :) it was an upscale mediterranean restaurant and the food was amahzing (might be best fatoosh salad i've ever had).  the lebanese red blend wine i had was surprisingly tasty. and robb even had a cool grown up drink (gin, eucalyptus simple syrup, muddled strawberries and soda).

we then went to see "the hobbit" in 3D, which was completely fun and well done and even though it was 3 hrs long, we had no trouble staying awake and interested. which is a testament to the story line and delivery, because this theater has reclining squishy chairs with foot rests and the arm rests come up so we could cuddle and lie back....but, anyway, the movie was great. the scene i remember most from reading the novel as a kid was the cave scene between bilbo and gollum, and it was just as fun and weird and playful as it should have been. and the scenery was beautiful, the elf and hobbit and goblin and orc and dwarf worlds were also rich and well-constructed. good stuff. and cate blanchett is pretty. so very pretty.

ANYWAY, then we went to a mexican restaurant/sports bar and ate guac and drank margaritas and watched some football and giggled together a lot.

so the whole night was just a riot and totally got us back into oogly googly love for each other.

and i know that getting a sitter is expensive, but i think it's worth it now and then. i don't know exactly what/how to pay a babysitter, so i just pay a lot and hope they come back. 

here's my babysitter math:

7 hrs at about $10/hr (i know, maybe a lot for 1 kid, but he's our PRECIOUS)
Dinner and bath time bonus $10
Bedtime bonus $10
Kid pooped in bath bonus $10
(Paying someone else to clean up floating turd= priceless) 

and after the sitter left, henry slept and robb and i loved up on each other. and it was relaxed and fun and i felt like myself again. so maybe my libido's back! WOOOOOOOHOOOO!  it only took a year and a half. plus the 9 months before that. plus the 2 years before that....heh.

i think date nights are important now and then. helps us remember why we liked each other enough in the first place to make a henry. kind of brings us back to our center.

hope you all had super fun saturday nights, too!

Merry Christmas 2012 and Happy New Year 2013!!

well, it's the 28th now. which means i'm officially way WAY behind on blogging, and also that Christmas has past.

it makes me so sad when people talk about "surviving" the holidays or "getting through until january" or whatever, since, obviously, Christmas is the 'greatest day in the whole wide world.' but...i get it a little. that much merriment (food, alcohol, smiling) does leave you tired and over-stuffed eventually.

especially when traveling with a toddler. when i'm tired and overwhelmed, i might get quiet and pout in a corner. when henry is tired and overwhelmed, he paints the floor with his snotty tears. i might be more quick to snap at robb, henry throws a shoe. (honestly? who throws a shoe?). and he had a lot asked of him. i think we had 6 or 7 different gift-opening parties while visiting our families. that's a lot for a little guy.



you smell like beef and cheese! you sit on a throne of lies!



having said that, we really did have an amazing Christmas and wonderful break. we got to see almost all of our people, Christmas Eve service was lovely, and we got to share some wonderful gifts with our families and friends. i wrapped a few presents to people from henry so he gets used to the idea of giving. i think it's so important to be a good, gracious giver. he sort of got it. he says "here you go" and generally lets go when someone takes what he's giving them.

and he opened his own presents well. what a wonderful pile of loot he got!  of course, wanted to play with the first thing he opened and ignore the rest every time. :) but he got a lot of new books and movies and toys and even a basketball hoop and a wagon.



loves his new wagon! we all burned some calories running him around the house in it. :)

we got him a new snowsuit and all the snowy accoutrement. so far, loving it. :)

Merry Christmas, all! and Happy New Year!!!


What the #$% is a Duck-Dog?

                                                 

we were reading 'dr. seuss's ABC's' tonight and i'm struck by how totally brilliant dr. seuss was, and also how totally lazy. but he got away with it. because he was dr-friggin-seuss. or, i should say, dr-fiffer-feffer-feff-seuss.

he has this whole relationship with characters and languages that don't exist, so when he's writing an "educational" book on something like the ABC's, ostensibly to teach children the sounds and looks of letters and how they're used in common words, and he comes to a difficult letter, he does things like "Big Z, little z, what begins with Z? A Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz, as you can plainly see!"

riiiiight. obviously.

henry has this and a few books sort of memorized so when we're on letter "F" he's already saying "googoo goggles" for 'G.' (or his version of it). because every kid needs to know how to spell googoo goggles. :)

he identifies lots of things now, and it's pretty impressive. we're frankly shocked by how much he's saying and seems to be comprehending. we're in a bit of a panic that he might be one of those smart kids who needs nurturing and stuff. which sounds like a lot of work. and it makes me afraid for all the lapses in my learning that i'm sure to find. robb was talking about someone in bangladesh yesterday and in my brains i'm thinking, "is that near russia? i know it's on one of the 9 continents...wait! 7! 7 continents! oh, crap. is it a suburb of chicago? what is robb saying? is he still talking!? i missed it all. ok, face, look like you're right there with him. good. i think we fooled him. no? blergh."

but, really. it's so fun to watch henry learn. and at this stage, i'm getting a big kick out of helping him figure things out and encouraging his efforts. i clap and carry on when he correctly identifies animals and shapes and letters and stuff, but we have one conflict. he watches 'the muppets' and when he sees miss piggie, he says "PIG!" all happily, and does the sign for pig (finger to nose) and is all proud of himself. but i'm like, 'look, kid. she's a sophisticated lady pig. that's MISS PIGGIE to you, chump.' i mean, RESPECT, right??

and i mentioned that he has moved up 'grades' at school,? he's with 2-3 year olds now. so he's littler, but he's keeping up with them. and...i think they're jumping him into their gang. he's got a scab on his chin, a goose-egg on his forehead. kid looks like a hot mess. but he seems to be having fun, so i guess i'll leave baby fight club alone for now. (you should see the OTHER kid. yea.)

and he's not really that much smaller than the other brutes. we just took him for his 18 month visit and he's in the 50th-70th% for all measurements. weighing in at a whopping 25 lbs. he's very healthy and his belly enters a room first, just as it should be at this age. :)

My Hypothesis is Love

where do we put all the sadness?

how do we deal with an elementary school shooting that leaves dozens of dead children at the hands of a 20 y/o kid?

when we're working through our grief, where do we store those processed feelings without getting stomach ulcers and how do we not draw some pretty desperate conclusions about the world?

how do we plunge into that grief without getting stuck at the bottom of it? how do we come out whole and not assuming that the world is a dark place full of bad people?

i don't know. i'm still working on it.

but as horrifying as this is and as angry and scared as it makes me to think of someone having the capacity to do this...my gut reaction is to say that people are still basically good.

and that it is our responsibility to love each other. that doing that could fix things.

my hypothesis is love. it might be terribly small and simple, but it's all i've got.

and i think it stands to reason that if we're kind to every person we encounter, showing him that he's valuable and worth-while, is there not the chance that we can interrupt his self-loathing spiral toward violence?

is there not the remotest of chances that this shooter wasn't an unreachable sociopath (as it certainly seems he could have been), but rather someone with a ruined view of the value of life?

spread joy. be kind. attempt to love others like God loves- completely, unfailingly and especially to the most un-lovable among us.

in response to this awfulness, people in the media are talking gun control and school security. that's fine, but that's at the very end of the page. it's the last ditch effort to prevent a broken person from killing others.

but how do we prevent the person from breaking in the first place?

But Time Makes You Bolder, Children Get Older...

and suddenly we have a little kid instead of a baby. one who follows complex directions and speaks in full sentences that are at least 30% comprehensible. and he's long and big and dexterous and independent. and runs everywhere he goes and seeks out and says hello to people and plays games and tickles everyone and laughs at jokes.

and they're trying to move him up to the next level in both swim class and daycare.

swim class may or may not happen just yet. i guess 18 mos is the minimum they would ever move anyone up to the "mini junior goldfish guppy minnow class" (or whatever) and he might still be too young and immature. it will be a major change because instead of us being in a class with a bunch of other babies and their parents, swimming with him and holding him and doing all the exercises with him or at arms' length of him, he'll be 1 of 3 kids in a class with 1 teacher and we'll be BEHIND GLASS looking in. probably faces smushed up against the glass getting it all slobbery from our salty snotty tears, but still, behind glass and not in the water with him. where he'll have to wait on the edge of the pool and take his turn and not be impulsive. like a big kid.

like a boss.

and at daycare he's transitioning into the toddler room. today was the first day he was in there, suddenly and without warning, and he'll probably be back and forth between his current room and the new one for a while. robb picked him up and wasn't specifically given any instructions that i feared like "can't have pacifiers" or "has to be potty trained" or "must not bite friends or self," so i guess we're good to go. it was a lot more traumatic when they changed him just as suddenly from infant to early toddler. but, like everything in parenting and in life, once you've gone through it once, you're more prepared and adaptable. so if he rolls with it, so will we. new teacher and none of his little friends have moved up yet, so whole room full of new people.  but he'll pass out his little business cards and meet new people and make fast friends.

he's proven himself very amenable to change so far, and i hope this will be the same. he seems to really enjoy life and that is awesome.

like a boss.

A Very Merry Unbirthday and Almost a Merry Christmas to You!

henry turned 18 months yesterday. he is a joy. every day more funner-er and smarter-er. we celebrated by having our 1st Annual 'Elf' party where we watched the movie and ate the foods from the movie: the 4 food groups (candy corn, candy canes, candy, and syrup) and spaghetti, and drank Christmas drinks and decorated Christmas cookies. he was a champ- staying up way too late but having a ball.

working on Christmas letter and cards today and eating sugar cookies for breakfast and lunch. so far, a really good day. :)

Mom Body or Sad Saggy Bastard Anthem

overall, i've felt pretty good about my post-baby body. it took me almost a year after he hatched, but i did lose all the weight and i fit in my correct size jeans and all that.

when i suck in, i'm hot-ish.

but every once in a while my rose-colored glasses fall off and i'm reminded that it will never be the same.

witness last night when i was doing a really intense yoga class. i felt flexible and lean the whole time, was almost thinking 'i could be one of those girls with big enough balls to wear just a sports bra on top. yea.' until we did a head stand. then i was on my nogginn, looking up the distance of my body. but i didn't get very far. just above me was the cascading white doughy flesh of my belly as it tumbled down toward my face. there was no amount of sucking in that would fix that view. and no amount of therapy that can erase its memory. gravity is the debil.

and while we're on the subject of cascading parts- 'dem boobs. oy. a good bra can bring them back up to approximately where they ought to be, but without one- weak sauce. can you picture a drawing of Snoopy? yea, like that. and i still feel weird about them. they still sort of 'react' when henry cries. nothing dripping, but certainly on the alert. so using them for their non-baby intended purposes (bow chica) just feels awkward.

all that being said, i still overall feel pretty lucky. i'm healthy, i'm fit, i have a normal BMI, (and i even got away without too many stretch marks). and i have a healthy, wonderful kid to show for it.

ahem.

now excuse me whilst i go do 1000 sit-ups and spend an hour in a tanning bed. :)

To Always Be This Mystified by Tree Lights

we put up the tree last night with lights and when henry woke up this morning and ran into the living room, he stood staring at it, whispering "wow. woooow. wow. wow. wooow."

i got the same reaction to it this afternoon. observe. also, he loves BOX that came with something in it but, really, who cares about the something when there is BOX! and at some point he asks for his grandma (nanna). she and her mom (my grandma) came and visited the last couple days and it was all very confusing to him, me calling both grandma Grandma and my mom Grandma. his tiny brain was 'sploding with love for and spoiling from both the grandmas.

Boys and Their Toys (Well, Really, Just the One)

penis.

that is the word i decided long ago i would use to describe henry's, well, you know. i didn't want to beat around the bush (stop it) and call it his 'dinker-do' or squibbly-wabble' or 'ne'er do well' or whatever other pet names parents give to their progeny's genitalia.

but it hasn't mattered. he's not all that interested in it so far. he's not like a friend of mine's son who will actually allow himself to fall on his head, facing possible trauma and disfigurement, in the name of keeping both hands firmly planted on his wang-doodle.

however, i am concerned that i'm going a little bit overboard on the sexually liberated, forthright and honest parenting bit. whenever henry's hand absently wanders anywhere in the vicinity of his twig and berries, i'm all like "THAT'S RIGHT, HENRY! THAT IS YOUR PENIS." he's going to think it is a word that needs always to be announced. this could be a problem.

but i feel that if i don't give him the proper words to use and make it clear that it's a normal, healthy, natural thing to be curious about his wedding tackle,  he'll be messed up good for life.

or, this could happen.