The Phases of Love

I know I have to stop giving Lanigan his nightime bottle soon, I should have done it already (he’s almost 2!) I’ve been putting it off because 1. I love holding him in my arms and smelling his sweet curly head and 2. it signals the next phase of our relationship. This may sound weird, but I compare my love for my children with the phases of romantic love. I fell in love hard with both my boys as soon as they were born. It was physical, passionate  (but not sexual of course!), their scent, the soft skin, the rolls of fat. They were all I thought about all the time, and I idealized their beauty, personalities and overall perfectness.  This is like the “honeymoon” phase of a new romantic relationship. The next phase comes when their personalities emerge, when they can comminicate through words, gestures and strong feelings. You realize they are little people with all that comes with that, good or bad. You don’t love them less, just differently. You are discovering who they really are as seperate beings from yourself. As time goes by you love them even more deeply, as in a healthy romantic relationship. You share experiences together and you know you make each other’s lives better by knowing each other. I think the final phase will be a deep friendship, when they are adults and are your equals, like old couples in the park holding hands. I’m so lucky to have so many true loves in my life.

Daniel Should Be My Parent.

Last night Daniel and I were having one of our bedtime chats, and I said it’s too bad he’s going to go get ice cream on such a cold day (he was going to the MSU Dairy Store with his day-camp the next day and a snowstorm was in the forcast). He says, no, mom, it’s good to get ice cream on a cold day because then it doesn’t melt so fast. As it turned out, we got a ton of snow, and he had left his boots in his locker at school because I told him he wouldn’t need them over spring break–of COURSE it wouldn’t snow! But he hiked to the store through the slush in his tennis shoes anyway. I even forgot to give him the money so he had to take a loan from the teacher. Man, I stink.

A while ago, Daniel said to me, “Mom, did you know all snowflakes are the same?” “No,” I replied, “They are all DIFFERENT!” “No, mom, they are all white,” he replies.

While reading about rockets and planets, I told him that people have never landed on planets. He says, “Yes they have mom.” No,” I reply, “People have only gone to the moon and that’s not a planet.” “Mom,” he says, “Don’t you know that Earth is a planet?”

Daniel says, “Mom, did you know that there really are giants” “No there aren’t,” I reply. “Yes there are, mom. we are like giants to bugs.”

Baby Birds

Spring finally arrived this weekend! That’s one less thing to keep waiting for, at least. I cut down all our ornamental grasses and raked them into a huge pile. The boys immediatley jumped into it and Daniel layed back, hands behind his head. It was such a wonderful moment, my little baby birds in a nest enjoying the sunshine.

And Things I like the Least

To follow up on my last post, I thought it would only be fair to write about the things I like least about being a mom:

#1 Not being able to sit down and enjoy a meal. Family meals are overrated, so call social services if you feel inclined, but I often let my kids eat in front of the TV just so I can sit and focus on my food instead of getting up for something, nagging somebody, or wiping off something every five seconds while my plate of delicious, hot food gets cold. When they are older and I don’t spend as much time with them we will eat together every night, I promise.

#2 Having more than one person talk at me at one time and asking questions that aren’t really answerable, so they ask them over and over again.

#3 Cleaning up vomited dairy products. This stuff is like smelly, sticky toothpaste. My boys also have a track record of throwing up the same night.

#4 Hearing words like “poop,”  “pee,” “stinky,” etc. incorporated into familiar tunes and phrases and repeated over and over and over. They think it’s funny every time, an if you get mad or laugh they do it more.

My Favorite Baby Moments

As I was putting Lanigan to sleep tonight (yes, we still give him a bottle at 19 months) I began listing the best moments of motherhood. I was doing my #1 right then, smelling Lanigan’s freshly washed, soft, white curls. They are like milkweed silk. I know looking back on these little things will keep me warm in my old age. Other favorites: absentmindedly rubbing Lanigan’s little fat feet, and him putting my hands back on them when I stopped.

After patiently piling Daniel’s stuffed animals on him in bed and arranging his “nest,” seeing his happy smile and him giving me many big wet kisses.

Lanigan’s sign language for “more,” and his stubby little finger pointing at everything.

Giving Daniel rides on his blanket to bed, pretending it’s a train.

Both boys assuming my lap is always their chair, especially when they grab a book and back up onto my lap. (Sometimes both of them at the same time!)

Daniel hell-bent on getting to me first to give me a kiss before daddy can.

Picking Lanigan up out of his crib and feeling him give  me a big long hug. Did I mention his curls?

Did I Say I Hate Legos?

I hate March more. It’s the time of year when there’s nothing immediate to look forward to–no big holidays, still to cold to enjoy the outdoors. I think it’s below zero windchill again today. Daniel has watched many hours of tv inbetween pleading with me to play Legos with him. I just can’t. I did it for a while, but no more. I’m too old to sit on the floor for extended periods of time without major limbs going numb and organ failure setting in. He’s got a bad cold but he’ll be over it tomorrow, when I’ll get it and it will last for weeks.

I think when Lanigan wakes up we’ll go visit the “indoor playground,” aka Burger King’s playland. I wish restaurants with better food had these, like subway or Applebee’s, families like my would be all over it. We don’t take the boys to real restaurants, Daniel won’t eat anything and Lanigan will try to climb out of his highchair the whole time, I don’t get to enjoy my meal and they have to steam clean the carpet after we leave, there’s just no benefit. oh geez, here comes my little Legos begger again. Can we just skip to May?

Thoughts on a changing world and a rant on Legos

The recent economic crisis has got me thinking about serindipitous movements that are somehow interelated, and may lead to a vastly different world in the next  decade or so.  I’m thinking of the return-to-simple-living movement, http://www.simpleliving.net, which is something I practiced for many years in my 20s–I lived on 6,000 a year for many years, was carless until age 30, and had plenty of time off to travel and paint. I even rented a 12 x 12 room in a place called Spartan Hall. This movement has a lot to offer the green living movement as it calls for less stuff and consumption. To complete the trifecta comes this economic crisis. Capitalism’s heyday may be a thing of the past or a very different animal.

I’ve found as I’ve made more money over the years that the more I make, the more I spend. The time I spend taking care of stuff takes me away form family time, me time and doesn’t give me a lot of time to even recycle. As a wannabe interior designer I feel compelled to keep my home presentable and fashionable. This is confounded by the fact that with kids come plastic items big and small, like ubiquitous Legos that crawl into corners and dive under my feet when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, or the toys with lots of little parts that my one-year-old insists on mixing with other sets while I follow behind trying to keep like things in their proper categories because this will somehow make him smarter.

Someday soon I’m hauling it all off to Goodwill and will walk with confidence in my darkened house at night. I also know that someday I will Miss my 5-year-old showing me, with bursting pride, the Lego car/boat/plane he made.

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog. I’m mainly using this site as a personal journal but will share stories of my two adorable little boys and one big one (my husband) and life as an artist-turned beaurocrat.  For many years I kept an actual journal, but I’ve been using a computer so long I’m not sure if I could just write down my thoughts without editing them. I can also just cut and paste entries that I like from other’s blogs and take credit for them (just kidding).