Monday, May 18, 2009

Sam Walks

Sam took his first truly unassisted steps today.

We were in the front yard and he started playing a little game with me. It involved letting go of my hands and standing on his own for a few seconds before falling backward into my embrace. Standing and falling tickled him to no end, but it was clear that he especially loved the standing part. Because Karl and I will do anything to make and keep him happy, we pushed the game to include taking a few steps between us. After a few assisted steps, Sam finally did what he had never done before: from a standing position, he lifted one foot, moved his little body forward, put that foot down, lifted the other foot, moved his little body further, then put that foot down. He walked. For the first time. He carried his sweet, precious body from me to Karl using the balance, strength, and footwork he's been practicing for the past several months. It was enough to make me cry.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Life Size

The cats are edgy from being trapped inside for two days. Can't let them out in the rain with all this white furniture. Just can't. I know how they feel, though I'm too happy about the rain to let a little cabin fever get me down. Plus, I'm starting to relax into my new schedule; been a full-time nanny for three weeks now and it's starting to grow on me. My life has grown quite small. Just me and the babies and their relentless "schedule." We stay close to headquarters - the living room - most of the time, venturing out on walks through the neighborhood when we start getting titchy. We take "field trips" to the grocery store, Costco, or Target when the planets align just right. This tiny life of mine may sound boring, but as the boundaries of my outward life contract, my inner life expands. Being Sam's mother is the most soul satisfying job I've ever had. An innate wisdom, once so deep as to have been invisible, has made itself known and changed me for good. Despite appearances, my daily existence reminds me of a line from Whitman's Song of Myself, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." That's me. Large and strangely multitudinous.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

A Perfect Sunday

The shadows are growing long, signaling the end of a perfect Sunday. It went something like this: gorgeous winter weather, breakfast out, a quick trip to the annual kite festival at Zilker, a meeting with my new "clients" at the park near Big Stacy Pool, and a nice chat with Eden before Sam's bath. Sam fell asleep easily about half an hour ago and I have decided to sit with my thoughts before moving on to more mundane tasks, the sorts of things that need doing before the start of a new week.

Sitting and writing as the sun sets draws out the perfection of this day. I've been trying to cram in a thoughtful, well-written blog at night, right before bed, which has so far proven to be not only difficult, but downright idiotic. I seem to grow less intelligent in direct proportion to Sam's increasing age. This latest attempt to express myself clearly and engagingly at the end of every long day of mothering one, now two, soon to be three, babies is, I now realize, pretty stupid. I read the crap I churn out in the exhausted dark as proof I have no talent, which opens up a whole big box of fear and anxiety about my future professional self that is hard to ignore. It's a mean cycle I'm anxious to break. So. I'm luxuriating in this fading sunlight hoping a new, less frustrating, more productive habit will emerge.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

New Toof

You'd think after ten and a half months I'd be quicker to diagnose Sam's ills. I'm not. For the past two nights, it's taken us almost three hours to put him to sleep. Tonight, two hours into the struggle, I finally snapped to the sad (though exciting) fact that the first of Sam's top teeth was coming through. Poor Sam. He lay in bed, writhing and kicking, fighting sleep and all my best attempts to soothe him. He's finally asleep after a dose of Tylenol and a couple of teething drops. Me? I'm feeling dull-witted and spent. I remain hopeful, though, that one of these days I'll get the hang of this mama thing.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Train Sounds

Sam hates train sounds. As soon as he hears the whistle blow, he turns his big eyes on me and asks wordlessly, "Again?" He whimpers a little and his mouth and chin do a sad little dance. I feel terrible and say so. I explain that it's just a train, that the sound he's hearing is the whistle, that it's a warning to people to stay off the tracks. Then I explain what tracks are, but he keeps those big, mildly alarmed-looking eyes on me and I finally say, "Train. It's a train, Sam. It's okay. It's not going to hurt you. I won't let anything hurt you." As much as I hate seeing him frightened, I do love comforting him. It breaks my heart in so many achingly warm ways.

This reaction of Sam's has persisted for a week or so. It must be torture for him because trains go by all day and night. We only live a few blocks from the tracks and we tend to keep the windows open when the weather is nice so I get that look often. Today I did something I hadn't done before. Instead of my usual long-winded explanation, I simply said, "train" over and over again. I said it slowly and purposefully the way I do words I'm trying to teach him. He seems hungry for these sounds and watches my mouth intently, so I draw them out for his pleasure. I find they sound new and foreign to me this way. Today I realized you can't say train purposefully without ending up with a smile on your face. It's not a real smile, but it's the shape of a smile. Try it. Train. See? Anyway. Sam got it. The more I said "train" the more I smiled. Before I knew it, Sam was smiling, too. He'd forgotten his fear after losing himself in the word. I took it as a tremendous victory.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Sam's First Party

We went to Delilah's first birthday party today. It was Sam's first real party. The babies - Sam, Judd, Greta, Delilah, Olympia, and Violet - hung out on blankets in the backyard while the parents mixed and mingled, mostly on the blankets in the backyard. I've never been good at parties. I'm nervous around people I don't know and uncomfortable with small talk. As I watched Sam sitting and playing in the company of the other babies, I wondered if he was having a good time. Was he wishing the others would show more of an interest in him and what he was doing or was he perfectly content? My heart ached for him - as it does about a thousand times a day - when I imagined the big and small hurts he'll have to endure along the way. As soon as I found myself hoping he doesn't grow up as socially awkward as his father and I, I realized that some of the more interesting people I know are terrified by other humans. Bottom line, I just want him to be happy and fulfilled and fear I won't do enough of the right things to help him get that way.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Gettin' It Done

I love that Sam goes to bed at 5pm every night. It means that we wake up ridiculously early, but I get so much done in the evenings. It's almost 11:30, way too late to be going to bed, but here's what I've accomplished in the past several hours:

Harvested cilantro and mustard greens from the garden
Replanted lettuce and carrots
Planted Sweet Peas
Tucked pine stray under the strawberries
Made granola
Dried, marinated, and baked tofu
Made applesauce
Washed, trimmed, and sliced strawberries to freeze
Packed applesauce for freezing
Took all food scraps to the compost pile (in the dark)
Washed all the dishes
Blogged about it!

If it sounds like I'm bragging, I am. This is hardly usual, but Sam's bedtime makes days like this possible. Oh. I think we also had our first playdate this afternoon. I'm new to this stuff, but I think our visit with Kim and her sweet Olympia constitutes a playdate. After we left Kim's we went to Goodwill for clothes, then home for a walk then a bath then bed for Sam. Whew. I love my life.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

To Crawl or Not to Crawl

Until I saw Leo crawling circles around Sam on Sunday, I was only mildly concerned about my son's immobility. Monday found me obsessed. I blamed myself. I rationalized. I became anxious. It was still on my mind early this morning, so I googled "ten months not crawling" and was immediately relieved. I happened upon a parent's board filled with reassurances and stories of children either not crawling at all or crawling and walking at far more advanced ages than Sam's. It was enough to cast all doubt from my mind and I started the day reflecting on all the things that make Sam so special.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Sam and Delilah and Leo - Oh My!

Because I was able to find a full-time baby, Delilah (the baby I've been watching part-time since November) won't have to go to daycare. Yay! The timing couldn't have been more perfect - for me and Delilah's parents. Securing two families in a nanny-share means I'll soon have full-time employment. It's a bittersweet accomplishment considering the paltry compensation, but I'm very relieved. I get to stay home with Sam while earning enough money to cover most of my expenses AND I can quit my months-long job search. This is huge. It'll be interesting to see how this all works out, but for now I'm enjoying the soul-satisfying calm that has replaced the fear and anxiety I've been feeling for weeks.

Karl sent me this link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100746963

It makes me want to:

A) Move to Paris
B) Start my own Parisian-inspired daycare
C) Come back as a Parisian toddler
D) All of the above

(The correct answer is D.)

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Look at Me. I'm a Nanny

Looks like the little nanny service I've been trying to get off the ground is going to happen. Danielle, Bill, and their sweet 10-month-old son, Leo Luca, came by this afternoon to check us out, see if we might be a good match. We all hit it off from the start and quickly decided to give a go. I'm gonna be a nanny!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Back on Track

Ouch. Five posts in six months. I am ashamed. Rather than dwell on my failures and linger in the past, though, I vow, here and now, to post something (anything) everyday until Sam's first birthday.

My usual excuse for not writing creatively is that writing for money leaves me spent at the end of the day. After churning out hundreds or thousands of precisely chosen words for someone else, I have no words left for myself. Since I haven't had a regular freelance gig since November, that excuse no longer holds water. So here we go.

Sam has grown into a beautiful, sensitive, FUNNY ten-month-old. He is highly verbal, issuing forth a range of sounds that include murmuring, laughing, babbling, and happy screaming. He's started mimicking the phrases "uh oh", "bow wow wow", and "da da". The first time his version of "bow wow wow" left his lips, my breath caught as if I were in a falling elevator. It was like witnessing a miracle. I had the same feeling the first time he really laughed without being tickled, the first time he rolled over, and all his other firsts. Sam has yet to crawl - he hates being belly down - but has started showing an interest in walking. The not crawling thing is occasionally troubling, but I've read that some babies just skip it and go on to walking. That's cool, I think, and imagine that this quirk will someday end up in a best selling biography written about him after he's found a cure for cancer or brought an end to world hunger. In the meantime, we're spotting him when he stands and guiding him as he takes little steps toward whatever it is he wants. In other words, we're all in training, preparing for when the steps get bigger and the falls harder to take.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Miserable

Sam got sick for the first time last week. It was horrible. His face was flushed and slick with tears, snot, and drool most of the day and his glazed eyes revealed the depths of his otherwise uncommunicable misery. He refused to play, longed to be cuddled, held, and carried, and cried like he'd lost his best friend. Karl and I followed Dr. Sears' recommendations to the letter, treating Sam's symptoms with an arsenal of acetaminophen, saline drops, and warm baths, but the cold was stubborn. It was a full week before Sam's easy laugh returned.

I felt pangs of guilt following the worst moments. I thought about past instances when friends' children got sick and how poorly I had responded. Had I known how traumatizing the experience can be, I would have sent flowers, baked cakes, offered massages... Well, maybe not all that, but I would have been far more sympathetic. Now that I know the depths of exhaustion and frustration that are visited upon the house of an unwell infant I feel somehow better, wiser.