Wednesday, May 28, 2014

I love this life

Photo credit to my wonderful sister-in-law, Kelly Ward. May 25, 2014.
Memorial Day weekend up north. The water was 37 degrees but the sand was sure fun.

Tuesday morning, after the long weekend, Brian called just to ask how Will was doing. "I miss him," he said. 
I wanted to remember how the dribble on his shirt had collected a tiny strip of sand.
Kelly took this, too. I love how his soft ear is bent over. It always seems to be bent over.

In the morning, when I pick Barrett up from his bassinet, I hold him with one arm and with the other I pull up the shades. When the day hits him, startling him out of the darkness, he squirms wildly, like an earthworm I've turned over with my spade. His reaction makes me laugh every time.

When I walk into Will's room to get him out of bed, I say, "Good morning, big boy!" He flies up with a huge grin and says, "Yeah!" His hair these days is always worked into an impressive bedhead. The longer it grows, the more epic. I always wanted a little boy with a bedhead.

Car rides are fun with a two year old. I'm getting very good at spotting construction vehicles, tractors, and every kind of big truck imaginable. I'm also getting to be pretty awesome at quoting children's books. I will not divulge the number of books I've memorized as I'm rather ashamed at what's occupying my mental file cabinet at the moment.

Fart humor is growing on me. I'm sorry, but something that makes William laugh so heartily, so consistently, has become funny. Maybe ask me about this one again when he's twelve.

Yesterday I nursed Barrett upstairs in the rocking chair while Will played around in his crib after nap. The baby must have been very hungry and Will got antsy waiting for me to get him out. He proceeded to toss all his books out of the crib, one by one. We came up with a points system. Every book that landed split-pages got zero points. Face-down was one point, face-up was two. A book that landed on its side was three points. I calculated his points over and over and he loved it.

When I carry Barrett around the house, I literally cannot stop kissing him. If he is within proximity of my face, I am kissing him. His head. His pillowy cheeks. When he smiles at me, his face grows by a third because his mouth opens so wide.

  

Barrett's either very serious, or SERIOUSLY smiling.

We're going grocery shopping today. We will probably ride the horsey ride three times at the beginning, and three times at the end. Every time the horse will stop moving, Will is going to throw up one hand and give me a shocked look. When we're done, and ready to go to the car, he'll say, "Bye hosey!" Then he'll run ahead while I push the cart. At two, his run is not fast and he holds his arms stiff at this sides while his chubby legs carry him forth. He'll find the one strip of gray tile (that happens to be the path closest to the checkout line) and stick to it. He'll stop and press all the big buttons on the lottery box. Everyone who notices him will look at me, see Barrett strapped to my chest, and either smile or say, "You've got your hands full!"

I always thought birthday parties would be such a drag, and yet here I am, planning for thirty people to come to my house after church to celebrate my little man who won't even remember the day. I'm so excited.

Poor William must think that coffee is a food group of its own. I drink it because I'm trying to lose weight, because I've got an oral fixation, apparently, and because as much as I hate to sound like a McCafe commercial, a cup of coffee is like a miniature break. Even when I'm drinking it while nursing the baby and drawing a guitar for Will to color.

I've got ten pounds to go before I hit my goal weight... a number that is STILL ten pounds over my wedding weight. I've never been at my current number for such a sustained length of time. Oh well. I saw a sign yesterday that said, "Mother Teresa didn't walk around complaining about her thighs. She had sh*t to do." Sorry about the swear, but I thought it was appropriate.

I think I am going to be one of those people with a sign on their front door that says, "Deliveries - please don't ring the bell! Barking dog, sleeping babies!"

I was made for this. I love this. I can live with the chaos, the dog hair, the dirty clothes and sticky floors and scraped up faces. It's hard to believe... was pregnancy REALLY that tough? Couldn't I do it again soon, if only to perpetually have a squirmy little baby in my house?

Finally, two big smiles. Could they look any different?
-Maeg






2 comments:

  1. I love reading your blogs. BUT - I don't believe you have sticky floors. HAHA.

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  2. Ohhhh believe it. Will is at the carry-food-around stage!

    ReplyDelete