The Lime Grows Into a Shrimp

People tell you that you will be tired during the first trimester of pregnancy. I was prepared for this. I was prepared for the 8:00 p.m. bed time, the need for an extra cup of coffee just when they are telling you you can’t have the extra cup of coffee, and the need for a 2 p.m. siesta every day. However, I was not fully prepared for the fact that my first trimester of pregnancy, while trying to keep up with a 20-month-old, would virtually suck my will to live.


I can talk about this with relative ease now because I’m past it. I’m rounding the corner and sliding into home as we speak and the beginning of Week 13 begins. But just a few short weeks ago, I had some serious questions about my right to be a parent. I don’t discuss this on my blog because I want pity or because I want to bring people down, but I mention it because it’s a low, dark, scary place to be and no one should ever feel like they are alone in this place.

People often ask you in early pregnancy if you are feeling sick and it’s actually quite comfortable to discuss nausea with others because good, old morning sickness is well-known and expected. They are a little more hesitant to ask you if you’re depressed; that puts people a little more on edge. But my family noticed “I was not myself lately” and when I called my mom or sister in tears on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, I really just needed someone to tell me I was normal and that this too shall pass. And sure enough, it did.

The hard part was that while I could try to explain to David and my family why I was not myself, why I snapped easier, why I fell apart easier, why I would spontaneously burst into tears if the dishwasher needed emptying again, the one person I could not explain this to was my closest buddy, my right-hand man, my most treasured playmate, Finny.

For Finny, life on a daily basis is new, amazing and wonderful and filled left and right with exclamation points. “I wanna go the park! I wanna go to the pool! I wanna play choo-choos! I wanna milkshake!” But how could I go to the park and the pool? How could I play with choo-choos and blocks? How could I even throw a smile or a song his way when all I wanted to do was lay in bed with my eyes closed? And then of course, how was I going to keep up with two little ones in a few months when I couldn’t even keep up with one? I didn’t deserve to be a parent. I wanted to pack my bags and run for the hills.

But then, the miracle of life kicked in. The kumquat in my belly grew into a fig and that fig became a lime and now that lime is the size of a medium-sized shrimp. He can urinate and kick and he has teeth budding under his gums and fingerprints on his fingers and his eye muscles can clench and his mouth can suck, and well, I guess the truth is, unbeknownst to me, I was doing a lot of work in there. Growing a human being will take a lot out of a gal, and growing a tiny human being while also raising a tiny human being might just knock you off your feet.

But the other truth is this, just when I thought I could not muster the strength to sit at the sandbox, Finny would start singing “Barbara Ann” at the top of his lungs with a few extra “Ba-ba-ba’s.” Just when I thought I had no energy to kick the ball around the yard, Finny would put on my sunglasses and start dancing to “Billy Jean.” Just when I started wondering how I could ever keep up with another one and why I had wanted to in the first place, Finny would climb into my lap, rest his soft, baby hands on my forearms and with book in hand, say, “Read it.”

Parenting is a give and take and sometimes if feels like there’s a whole lot of taking going on. But the gifts when given are small but enormous all at the same time, and despite the fatigue and the blahs that sometimes come with pregnancy, I’d do it again and again for the touch of those soft, baby fingers resting on my forearm, that soft, baby head resting on my chest, and that soft baby voice shouting through the bars of his crib long after I’ve left the room, “Nite-Nite, Mommy!”

Nite-nite, Finny. Mommy’s sorry she’s been such a crab. She’s growing you a shrimp who has big shoes to fill.  It’s going to take a lot of work.

From Bieber to Brando

At around midnight, it started again. The crying of a toddler who can’t sleep. It had happened the night before between 2:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Last night, it started even earlier and lasted even longer. Finny stood awake in his crib from midnight to at least 4:30 in the morning without a clue as to why he’s decided the wee morning hours are the time to party.


He’s not sick as far as I can tell. There are no outward symptoms of illness, although he does have a heavy stream of drool going on these days. So, it has to be one of two culprits, right? Ears or teeth. Again.

At midnight, David went in and attempted a good rocking, but this technique has lost its luster as Finny does not rock to sleep like he did in the old days. So back in the crib he went and cried and cried. I went back in at 2 a.m. and tried talking it out with him, you know man to man.

“Finny,” I reasoned, “What’s wrong? Do your teeth hurt?”

Blank stare.

“Do your ears hurt?”

Blank stare. “Get down! I wanna get down!”

“Well, it’s bed time. You can’t get down. It’s time to sleep.”

“Daddy?”

“Daddy’s sleeping.”

“Pop-pop?”

“Pop-pop’s sleeping.”

“Jane?”

“Jane’s sleeping too. What if Mommy comes in and lays on the floor beside you and we listen to some lullabies?” I left and returned with blanket and pillow to resume my spot from six months earlier on the hardwood floor—why did I want hardwood floors again?

Then, Finny proceeded to talk my ear off like an oblivious airline passenger for the next hour and a half while I feigned sleep. Here’s how the conversation went:

“Fan. Choo-choo. Airplane. Up high. Moon. Stars. Tissa. Blankie. Ba-bye Blankie. Ba-bye Tissa. Milk. Snack. Juiccccce! Cheese. Gramma.”

Then, he counted, “One, two, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine, four.”

Then, he counted again, still preferring for four to follow nine rather than three and discarding the need for ten all together.

Then, he named body parts. “Eyes. Nose. Elbows. Knees.”

When his presentation of words failed to make the impression he had hoped, I watched through squinted eyes as he tried another tactic.

“Uh-oh!” he shouted as he crossed over to the far corner of his crib and dropped his pacifier between the crib and the wall. “Uh-oh! Where’d Tissa go? Where’d Tissa go? Tissa dropped. Wash Tissa.”

When that old trick failed to stir the fake slumbering Mommy, he hurled everything in his possession at my defenseless body already aching on the hardwood floor.

“Ba-bye, Blankie! Ba-bye, Pooh! Ba-bye Tigger!” Thank God, I had the foresight not to put him to bed with The Complete Works of Mother Goose.

Then, Justin Bieber made an appearance. You know you are watching too many daytime TV talk shows when your twenty-month-old knows the words to Justin Bieber’s smash hit, “Baby.” As I cuddled with Tigger on the floor, Finny started a Bieber dance party in his crib, jumping up and down, singing, “Baby, Baby, Baby, Ohhh!”

That’s where I drew the line. “I love you, Finny. Go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” And I gathered my things and left.

I’m not sure how long he cried after I left, but this morning, the rasp in his voice indicated that Justin Bieber had been replaced by a young Marlon Brando. Though I’m not sure that Brando had to work himself up quite so much to achieve his trademark whisper.

Oh, please, God of teeth and all things mysterious about the sleeping habits of babies and toddlers, please, please say it is okay for me to dope Finny up on Motrin or Benadryl before bed tonight. Please, please let him save his Bieber concerts for the high chair and the crying for 7 a.m. I may be better prepared to deal with it then and my poor glasses are more likely to survive a little longer if they don’t spend another night glued to my face, beneath my pillow, or under my armpit.

Barf

Let’s talk about what’s been going on in my house this afternoon all during what we will loosely refer to as “naptime.”
So, today, after lunch, I put Finny down for his afternoon nap. Then, exhausted from a morning of play, play, play, I put myself down for my own afternoon nap. Just as soon as I found myself drifting peacefully into a coma, I heard it. The distinct “clank” Tissa (Finny’s pacifier) makes when she hits the floor.

“Tissa! Tissa! Tissa!” Cries of desperation shouted from Finny’s crib. So, I wrenched myself out of bed and sternly walked into his room to retrieve Tissa for a smiling Finny, who may or may not have given me a devilish wink as he pointed at me and said, “Gotcha!” I told him firmly that I would not come back again.

I left and once again lay down and drifted off into my tranquil coma. This time I was in even deeper when I heard the distinct “clank,” again followed by shouts of “Tissa! Tissa! Tissa!” I was not going back in. He had been warned and besides I was crossing over to the other side of nap heaven.

I heard his cries of “Tissa” through my foggy nap brain for a few minutes and was able to ignore them, until I suddenly heard another sound—gagging. At this sound, I immediately popped out of bed and ran to see what my poor child was choking on. Once again, there he was, standing at the edge of his crib grinning his head off, and this time, covered in puke.

“Yucky!” he said grinning broadly. Furious, I began to wipe the puke off of his hand and continued as he directed me, saying, “Yucky toes. Yucky shirt. Shorts. Blankie.” I pulled him out of bed to change his clothes and sheet, and after I had changed his clothes, he bolted down the hallway shouting “Choo-choos! Play Choo-choos!”

Once everything was cleaned up, I put him back in his crib and got in the shower, where I was able to successfully block out all nap protests under the running water. It wasn’t until I emerged once again that I heard “Clank” followed by “Tissa! Tissa! Tissa!”

Wanting to avoid another barf session, I entered the scene to once again retrieve Tissa. Finny was there smiling and for a second time, standing in a puddle of his own self-induced chunder. This time, judge me if you will, I lay an extra blankie over the puke and made him sleep on it. And that’s what he’s doing this very minute as I tell you my story.

Some people say a little lavender on the pillow will help you sleep. Today, for Finny, it was regurgitated turkey and cheese on whole grain. To each his own.

Choo-choos are Boring

The truth is I don’t share Finny’s enthusiasm for choo-choos. I’m thrilled that he loves them and that they are entertaining to him, but I have slightly more enthusiasm for pushing a choo-choo around a track than I have for watching poker on TV with David. I can only pretend I’m interested for about a minute and a half before I start daydreaming about balancing my checkbook.

I feel the same way about sidewalk chalk and bubbles. The moment we pull into the driveway, my little companion in the backseat starts chanting, “Chalk! Bubbles! Chalk! Bubbles!” If I don’t have a trunk full of groceries or a stomach rumbling for lunch, I reluctantly oblige and then stand there bored as I watch Finny carry the bucket of chalk from here to there and occasionally draw a series of lines. With the bubbles, we basically turn on the bubble machine and shout “Bubbles!” with gusto as we watch them float away. Again, an activity that is only remotely engaging for about twenty seconds.

It’s not that I don’t like playing with my child, it’s just that well, if Finny and I could sit down and play Battleship from time to time, my mind might get a little more stimulation. Or even if we could create a story for the trains on the island of Sodor that involved Sir Topham Hat secretly investing in Rogaine and some kind of steamy affair between Emily and Gordon all under the watchful eyes of Diesel 10, well that might get my whistle wheeshing. But, as our game play stands right now, I’m not so into ripping the tracks off the table and running the choo-choos into the wall.  Just doesn't do much for me.

But alas, before I complain for too long about the mundane task of playing with my one-and-a-half-year-old, I should mention that even though I prefer pulling weeds to playing with sidewalk chalk, when Finny looks up at me and demands, “Hand!” and then he grabs my hand in his little, soft baby fingers and pulls me to our next play station, there’s something so gratifyingly satisfying about that one tiny moment that ultimately I don’t mind throwing on my poker face and pretending for just a little while that “Bubbles!” out of the bubble machine are truly the most miraculous occurrence this side of I-71.  Now if only we could get Glinda the Good Witch to float down in one with a game of Battleship tucked under her arm...well, a girl can dream.

Bye, Bye, Bullstrode

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you are, as soon as Finny learns your name, he’ll start sweeping you out the door, whether you’re ready to go or not. With his new social language confidence and his extraordinary singing ability, Finny is cheerfully inclined to sing goodbye to everyone and everything he meets these days.

When I pick him up from bed in the morning, and he knows it’s time to put his pacifier and blankie away, with his hair pointing this way and that, he immediately bursts into song. “Ba-bye, Tissa! Ba-Bye, Tissa! Ba-bye, Tissa! It’s time to say Ba-bye!” Then, insert “Bankie” and repeat. Going downstairs? Insert “Stairs” and repeat. Getting off the phone with Grandma or Grandpa? Insert “Gramma” or “Pop-pop” and repeat.

Recently we had our friends, Sara and Bob, and their kids, Sadie and Robert, over to play. It’s been a few weeks now since their visit and yet still randomly with a mouthful of cheese sandwich at lunch, he’ll start belting out, “Ba-bye, Sawah! Ba-bye Bobert! Ba-bye Sadie!”

Earlier this week, as I was brushing my teeth and Finny was busy reorganizing his books, he suddenly bolted into the bathroom for one of Thomas’s many friends from the island of Sodor, his toy bath boat, Bullstrode. When he promptly bolted back out into the hallway, and I suddenly heard a loud metal clang, followed by “Ba-bye, Bullstrode!” I knew that Bullstrode had taken his third boat trip down the laundry chute.

Occasionally, I’ll even hear him from the corner of the room saying some parting words to himself, “Ba-bye, Ninny! Ba-bye, Ninny!”

Sometimes if Finny is tired, he cries as he sings ba-bye, but more often than not, he just belts it out Mary Poppins style. They say parting is such sweet sorrow, but around here, Finny will willingly bid you adieu if he knows it’s something new for him to sing about. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up on the front stoop, rather than on a pile of towels with poor, plastic Bullstrode.

*To see Finny saying Goodbye to his milkshake after a bath, click on the link below.  Notice, he forgets who he is saying ba-bye to halfway through and starts to say goodbye to Tissa again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByOdUlOpDYw

No means no...or whatever

Around here, no means no. And sometimes yes. And sometimes I don’t care. And sometimes I don’t understand. And sometimes leave me alone. And sometimes, Ha-ha, the joke’s on you.


It seems in the world of Mommy-Finny communication, “No”, like a great Faulkner novel, is open to interpretation. Finny, though cute, seems to have developed the annoying habit of driving me nuts. I know it is natural for a one-and-a-half-year-old to start exploring every aspect of his world, but must he really pull down the dish towels every time he passes through the kitchen? Is it impossible for him to resist pulling up all of our floor rugs and stacking them in a pile for me to later discover as I’m tripping over them to my near death? And how many times will he put sand in his mouth before he realizes he doesn’t like it? How many times will he dive head first off the ottoman before it sinks in that it actually hurts when his head goes crashing into the floor?

And that’s where “No” comes in. Any time Finny acts on a behavior that I disapprove of or that could harm him or others in some way, like hanging on the oven door, I give him a firm “No!” and remove him from the situation. And what does he do with my firm “No!”? He runs as fast as his little legs can carry him right back to the scene of the crime giggling his little head off as he hangs on the oven door, shaking his head, muttering, “No! No!”

So, then I try a little swat on the bottom along with my NO, which is met with more hysterical laughter. And then I try a time-out, which is met with more playful giggling even though I’m giving him my sternest look, which would have shut up most of my high school sophomores. Sometimes I do exactly what most experts tell you not to do: I reason with him. “Finny, the oven door is not a toy. It’s hot. If you pull it open, it will hurt you or burn you. Do you understand?”

To which he responds with something along the lines of “Juice!” or “Choo-choo!”

So, what’s a mom to do? With my white flag in the air and a few frustrated, tired tears down my cheeks, I called my mommy, who told me it’s the age and it’ll pass.

She’s probably right, but I still want solutions. I can’t drop my voice a few octaves lower or furrow my eyebrows any further, and let’s be honest, my bottom swats are so gentle they’re practically hugs and I’m not sure that I have it in me to make them anything more than that. So, I checked out a book, 1, 2, 3 Magic by Thomas Phelan. It’s about discipline for 2-12 year olds and by the looks of it, I think it’s a classic. Finny is a few months away from qualifying, but maybe I can start laying the groundwork. He does, after all, know how to count to three. After three, he jumps to five and nine, just cause he likes the ring of it, but if we can work on 1, 2, 3, maybe at some point my stern voice will sound truly menacing, and maybe eventually “No” will mean what it is intended to mean with absolutely no room for interpretation.

The Imperfect Specimen

Among Finny’s many fine qualities are his contagious giggle, his ability to notify me when he has pooped by announcing, “Poopie” and then running in the opposite direction, his sweet dance moves, his love of a great, big, long nap, his ability to fill in the end rhyme to every line in the Complete Works of Mother Goose, and his talent for belting out the D, G, K, P, S, V, X, and Z in the alphabet song.

But there is one rather annoying habit he’s picked up that sometimes overshadows all his adorable, loveable cuteness and nearly sends me off a cliff and that is his penchant for dumping various sauces and purees on his head and hurling any food item he no longer has use for off his high chair and all over me, my floor, and the walls.

AAARRRGGGG!!!!

On Monday, I tried serving him an avocado/cream cheese sushi roll, thinking he would like two of his favorite foods rolled into one. He chucked his plate on the floor. I tried offering him pureed peaches, which he also loves. He dumped the bowl on his head. I tried peas and carrots. He ate some and then started chewing them up and dribbling them all over this lap. Then he began flinging them all over the kitchen. At my wit’s end, I shouted an expletive that I won’t repeat here. But he repeated it. Oops.

Exasperated, I wiped up the floor, wiped up his face and hands and removed him from the high chair so that he could play and I could sit down and eat my own dinner after this 20 minute game of “What else are you going to hand me so that I can just throw it back at you?”

All I wanted to do at this point was eat my dinner and watch a little Oprah. Finny, although busy playing, would have nothing of it and promptly stopped what he was doing to run over to the cable box and turn it off. He went back to his trains and busily choo-chooed until I turned the TV on again. He put down the trains and walked over to the cable box and turned it off again. So, I sat and ate and tried to regain my composure and my sense of humor about the whole scene.

Tuesday night, I cooked us a nice meal of Chicken Chow Mein. He loves sweet things; he loves noodles—this Chicken Chow Mein is the perfect combination. I set him up with everything he would need on his high chair, but before I sat down to eat, I realized I had to pee. Could it wait? No, it couldn’t. I knew I was taking a risk, but I left him in his high chair for a quick potty run and from the bathroom, I heard, “Uh-oh.” Uh-oh, which is typically reserved for accidents by most people, is usually used by Finny after he has done something on purpose. Like chuck his plate of Chicken Chow Mein onto the floor.

Kid, you do a great Will Ferrell impression, you follow my every lead when we sing Sound of Music’s “Do Re Me” through the grocery aisles, and you can really cut it up to just about any Ray Charles song that comes your way. But until you either figure out how to keep your food on your tray and off my floor or learn how to operate a mop, I’m afraid “The Perfect Specimen” does not accurately describe you. Title revoked.