One of my goals this year was to spend 20 minutes per day writing, either in my blog or on a collection of stories I'm writing, and as this is my second blog post of the year and I have 3 paragraphs in my book document, it's going really well. But today's a new day! And for today, I'm writing about my little boyfriends.
I am seriously digging these two kiddos right now.
Each of them is just in this perfectly sweet spot of ages. Max is happy as a clam, mobile enough to be content rolling around the floor, but immobile enough to not get into anything. Happy to sit in his stroller or be held when out and about, sleeps decently (most of the time), and just happy happy happy. He is pure sunshine. Smooching his squishy cheeks is my drug, and I need a hit 10 times per hour. Nate is curious, hilarious, adorable, sweet, loves to help, plays for hours on his own in the basement (what is this life!?) and he is also just practically pure sunshine with only occasional thunderstorms. In my almost 4 years of motherhood, I've learned enough to know that everything is a phase. The good stuff, the bad stuff, it's all temporary. So I'm just riding the high of this awesome phase and trying to soak it all in. A storms a'brewing, with true mobility on the horizon for Max and the fickleness of toddlers, but each phase brings its own joys and challenges and I'm just along for the ride.
I am certain that Max was sent to me to heal my heart. Nate's baby days were traumatic for me, and I could not understand why anyone would ever have more than one baby. But I didn't want Nate to be an only child, and so far the only way I know how to have siblings is to have babies, so we had another baby. And I was sure that I was signing up to hate my life for a year and lose my mind, and just hope it was worth it down the line. I couldn't be more surprised to be completely and totally head over heels smitten for this little love bug. He has my heart, completely. He stopped sleeping well at about 3/4 months, and I barely care. He has frequent nursing strikes that make me batty and have me googling all sorts of nonsense in the middle of the night, but I can't even be frustrated at him. He's got me wrapped around his dimpled fingers. He's been under the weather and I just wander around the house holding him all day long and kissing his toasty head and wishing I could take his fever from him. He can barely whimper without me rushing to cuddle him. He's started laying his head down on my shoulder when I hold him, snuggling into me and tangling his dimpled little fists in my hair, and I think my heart might actually explode, and my ovaries just spontaneously release eggs because I need 10 more babies just like him. (Not really) (Because babies grow up) (And toddlers are hard) (And poop their pants, see end of post)
At 5 (almost 6!) months, Max is a rolling machine. I always find him in a completely different position than I laid him down in, and he can roll himself all over a room. He can sit unassisted for a few seconds and loves to stand holding your hands. He LOVES to watch Nate, and thinks he is the most interesting person in the world. He loves to be tickled and bounced. He is a champion napper and still takes 3 long naps every day. He seemed super interested in foods, and he's a tiny little thing, so we've attempted to give him bananas, avocado, sweet potato, watermelon, and pears, all of which were decisively rejected. He did, however, eat a tiny nibble of a waffle fry at Chick-Fil-A, and was quite pleased with his inclusion in the CFA club. He either wakes up 1 time or 3000 times at night, and not really anything in between, which keeps me on my toes and always a little disoriented and tired. He went on his first airplane rides and was 50/50 on sleeping the whole time or crying the whole time. He hated the beach and pool on our trip, but loved all of the cousins to watch and coo at. His babbles and coos are next level adorable. He LOVES grandma, and loves Daddy. But mostly he loves Mama and I love it, I can't lie.
Nate at 45 months (Ha, or almost 4) is the most curious little question asker. I try so hard to be patient and not get annoyed at the constant questions, as I am acutely aware of just how much I will miss his little raspy, lispy voice when he grows out of it. He loves to sing songs and listen to music. He tells me often that "we are nice friends!" And he asks me daily "Do you like me? Am I your nice boy?" The answer is of course a resounding yes and 400 kisses. He was never a cuddly baby, but he now loves to give the best hugs and kisses and especially eskimo kisses. He asks me to snuggle him every night when we sing bedtime songs and every night I finish the bedtime song and he says "twice!" and every night I tell myself I'm going to end put my foot down and end the stalling and then every night I snuggle him harder and sing the bedtime song twice. And sometimes 10 minutes after bedtime he announces he needs to go potty and then requests that I re-tuck him into the bed, and I repeat the pep talk to myself that I need to crack down and then promptly repeat the snuggling song session, because I just can not resist that little blonde mop bouncing into bed and pulling me down for snuggles. He loves to explain things to me, with his little hand out and gesturing, and he repeats the most amazing "grown up" phrases. I was bugging him about finishing dinner the other day and he gave an exasperated sigh and said, "Stop asking me a million questions, I already told you the answer and I don't want to talk about it anymore!" It was like hearing a hilarious and unflattering recording of a not-great parenting moment. He often tells me I have great ideas (hey thanks, pal!), and starts most of his sentences with "well, actually..." It kills me dead. He loves to talk to Max and hearing him adorably sing-song, "Hi buddy! I'm your nice brother. Are you a happy baby? Hi buddy!" just melts my heart into an absolute puddle.
It's not all sunshine. Max has cranky days, Nate has more mood swings than a 16 year old girl, I really want to sleep all night, and my hair washing frequency has reached appalling new lows. But I don't need any help remembering the hard moments. My brain is unfortunately wired to try to dwell on those. But brains can change, and I want to teach mine to remember the good, and to put it at the very front of my mind and memories. On the hard days, it helps to remember the moments where my heart was full to bursting, and I was certain that no one has ever loved their babies quite as much as I love mine, and I am the luckiest mama in the whole world.
P.S. As I went to publish this really lovely post, Nate pooped his pants and then asked 1000 questions about why poop is gross and why do I get mad when he poops his pants and I said NATE STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS AND STOP POOPING YOUR PANTS, I AM ABOUT TO LOSE IT and he said "I don't like that loud voice!!" and now he's crying, but we still love each other. Right? Right. But I hate poop.
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