Out of the Fog

I am complete toast. I cannot think clearly, I'm exhausted all the time, I go to bed early every night, take a nap most days and still can't manage to feel awake. Very little sounds good food-wise, Claussen dill pickles make the cut and breakfast sandwiches with lots of oozy cheese, sausage and egg. Otherwise...the list is pretty darn short. Most days I manage to quickly prepare dinner and then then serve it to other people but can't make much more than water sound appealing to myself. And my moods! Could someone please tell adrenaline to give me a break here!?!? I feel like I am freaking out over every little ridiculous thing...it all feels like the end of the world and nothing feels okay....ever. My housekeeping is doomed, my friendships are hopeless, my complexion is the pits, and forget my parenting skills. I can't stop crying left and right, the last thing I was sobbing over was the laundry.

Heavens! It's a good thing there's a sweet new baby coming in June to make up for all of that!!!!! Otherwise, I'd have to diagnose myself a bit gone in several categories. We're all very excited around here and as soon as the boys knew and were very strictly lectured on how this was "our secret" Ru went around grinning at all our social engagements looking for sly moments to take adults aside and tell them that he "had a secret to tell them!"  So much for waiting! Ha ha! We're out. We're proud...we're parents again and we're headed into the culturally insane category of four child family.

I feel super out of it. And although this was a very wanted baby at the moment I feel over my limit. Way over. I know most of it is the way that pregnancy, especially the early part, makes me feel like a total psyche ward case but it sure is daunting. I know Baby Four will fit in just fine and I know that we'll very quickly feel like we couldn't imagine life without him or her but for now I just feel like hiding under my quilt and never speaking to anyone again.

Image by mhaithaca via Flickr

I am not sure what to do to comfort myself for the next five weeks, infinite supply of Starbucks and cheesy breakfast sandwiches would help. Barring that, I think I'm just in survival mode. I sleep and sleep and also sleep and I cancel a lot of engagements. If I cancel on you, tell yourself I have a terminal illness and to expect very little of me....and in a month or so I will reappear in normal life. I am telling myself this daily.

Dee At The Moment

 Oh, little Dee! Time for a little zoomed in focus on who this little person is turning out to be. I am trying to figure out how to handle all his little quirks and mannerisms. He's easily upset, only moderately communicative, and really hard to talk down once worked up, but also sweet-hearted, observant and very full of spirit. I find him both uniquely charming and particularly draining. I am so glad he's not a baby anymore as he is a lot more fun as a little boy.

As an infant he was a bundle of nerves, and pretty impressively colicky. I remember walking and walking the floor with him in my arms and wondering if the night would ever end. He's my asthma child, my surgery baby (see this post about his ptosis surgery), my wee engineer, my collector, and my thinker. I love working with him, having quiet moments alone together and watching all his little interests flicker and glitter as he tries on new ideas and expresses his likes and dislikes. Have a look yourself!

Dee Dislikes:

• The strings in fresh mango
• Spicy things....except for salsa...he likes salsa
• Pebbles in his shoes
• Buckling his seat belt
• Rumpled tags in the back of his shirt
• Getting things stuck in his teeth
• Ru, making faces
• Eating with a fork
• Tomato sauce on his pasta
• Open containers...he has to put lids on bottles, fasten hinges, lock locks and close boxes.
• Sunshine in his eyes
• Sleeping
• Red peppers
• Strong wind
• Having his hair cut or washed
  

Dee Likes:

• Painting (he could paint by the hour...especially if alone)
• Wiping things down with a sponge
• Watering plants (with his own little watering can)
• Baby ducks
• Soft eggs yolks
• The color yellow (everything should be yellow)
• Spiderman and Batman
• Motorcycles
• All seafood....smoked salmon, shrimp cocktail, steamed lobster....you name it!
• Cutting things with scissors
• Being outdoors alone
• Listening to birds "talk"
• Muffins
• Pancakes
• Steak
• Milk

A Boy List

It's been a while since there was a good list posting, eh? Time for a nice enumeration I say! Today, (inspired by the photo below of sweet Dee absorbed in the giant maze of a ball sculpture at the local Children's Museum...so just his thing!) I am sharing a list of reasons why it's great to have sons; of course lots of these things aren't exclusive to having boys but really, I wouldn't know any better anyway, right? I only have boys!

29 Reasons Why It Is Great To Parent Boys!

1. I am learning more about knighthood, construction equipment and Super Heroes than I have ever known in my whole life.
2. Someday, I ever have a daughter, an inquiring niece or a little female mentoree who is frustrated with males and asks me for advice, I will have all the inside tips!
3. I finally have a compelling reason to see Star Wars.
4. I get to dabble in a whole range of fashion I've never experimented with: bow ties and suspenders and boy underwear!
5. Seeing stories like The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe or Little House In The Big Woods through the male lens is pretty different and highlights fun bits I never noticed with my own viewpoint.
6. I am having conversations with A about what his childhood was like that I don't think I'd ever have thought of if we hadn't any little boys.
7. The impetus to re-assess sports and fitness.
8. I get lots more practice at hair cutting.
9. I get to learn bravery first hand.
10. Learning to throw a spiral and catch a baseball might actually happen in my lifetime.
11. My bras, earrings and high heeled shoes will always be curious fascinations; bizarre, rare objects that are puzzling and yet intriguing.
12. Hearing my little ones say to me passionately, "When I grow up, I'm going to marry you Mommy!"
13. Cooking in a few years is going to get really fun. I love to cook and I can't wait for the "bottomless pit stage" when I will be able to saute, bake and fry wildly and watch it all disappear with relish!
14. I get to inform a set of fresh young males on the ways of women and what we are all about. Cool and scary, all at once.
15. Hearing my son say bravely to his daddy "Don't worry! I'll take care of Mommy!" as he goes out the door.
16. Lots of pairs of strong arms around to help with all my future heavy lifting projects. *rubs hands with glee*
17. Being sure that nobody will raid my stash of pads or tampons on the sly and leave me low.
18. Lowered wedding costs in the future!
19. Not stressing about the overwhelmingly suffocating Disney Princess obsession.
20. The chance to raise some good-hearted, male feminists.
21. An inside look at male puberty. (come on...you know all you ladies were always curious!)
22. Experiencing The Boy Scouts!
23. Not dealing with that sissy-type-squeamish-girl-thing.
24. Watching even the baby, join the sword-fighting obsession in our family
25. Planning birthday parties and Halloween costumes for themes I never would have dipped into: dinosaurs, motorcycles and cowboys.
26. I will finally get the Windsor knot in my head. 
27. Lots of dance partners for years for square dances!
28. Better odds for many good map readers, logic puzzlers and mathematicians in the house.
29. Studying with my husband the puzzle of: what it means to be a man and what is important about masculinity.

Such fun stuff! Feels good to get a good list out there again. 

A Catalog of "Dee-lights"

I'm slowly working my way through capturing all three boys, (if you hadn't guessed already) so, today our middle-man. Dee is fabulous through and through, a completely and thoroughly different animal from his brothers and such a very concentrated personality. Love him to pieces.

Dee Likes:

• Knobs, buttons, levers, locks, screws....any tiny, little mechanism
• Seafood of all kinds...if it lives in water, he'll eat it with relish. You asks for canned sardines as a treat. 
• This book.
• Ataulfo mangoes...not the standard variety which he rejects summarily. He cares a lot about texture. The normal mangoes are too stringy but Ataulfos are super creamy and smooth. He and I eat them together. :)
• Painting! (He and his big brother can do this together by the hour)
• Maple syrup (he'll scoop it off the top of his plain yogurt at breakfast and slyly sip it away and ask for more...not that that plan really works our for him, but he does try)
• Milk, yogurt, cheese, butter and cream, cream, cream. He's our dairy boy. He'd be very happy to never drink anything else. I try to get him to drink a little water now and then.
• Forklifts...not sure where that came from, but its a downright obsession.
• Black olives...he loves manipulateable food and gets no end of fun out of capping all his little fingers with olive hats.
• His penis. (Well! I'm just saying!)
• Closing doors. He's kind of compulsive about making sure nothing is ajar. It bugs him.
• This song. Makes me smile all the time that my two year old walks around singing The Beatles.
• And also this song.
• The concept of "treasure." He's always hunting it and showing it to me and talking about some.
• A's dad. He talks all the time lately about how he "wikes Grandpa Awen...he so nice!"
• Sitting on the toilet. Not sure why. Maybe its great to be alone in there or something? He'll sit and sit and sit and sit...we've started instituting time limits.

 Dee Abhors:

• Keeping his shoes on in the car...I'm really trying to teach him this, especially as the cold weather approaches.
• Changing his clothes.
• Having his hair washed.
• People laughing at him, even in a kind way...he really can't handle it.
• Going down the stairs...not sure why this is suddenly a huge panic button issue, but...yeah.
• Taking naps. He's ridiculously hard to put to sleep these days...far harder than his older brother.
• Hard boiled egg yolks....he peels the whites off and eats them and hands me the pale yellow ball of "yucky part"
• Crowds. He loves it when everyone goes away and he's alone or all the other kids go away and he has a few select grown-ups to himself.
• Spots on his food. He picks them off or cries broken-heartedly....depending on how high his energy tank is at the moment.
• Being sticky. He will happily play outdoors and get all muddy but he'll be beside himself if he gets jam all gummed all over his arm.
• Being put on the spot. He'll melt down instantly. He is not the kind of kid you ask to do a few party tricks for your friends. Heh.
• Spicy foods. He will cry and wipe his tongue with his hand frantically and say, "Its too picey!
• Having his portrait taken. You have to be very subtle to take a good picture of him. There's no way he'll go for "Smile, Dee!" Insta-sob-fest.

These photos of just make my heart pitter-patter. You can feel so palpably what a sweet soul he is. He was just delighted with the fact that he'd been given this tiny pinwheel at church and then that he'd discovered the wind would blow it outdoors. I love how fixated he was and how placidly pleased it made him. I loved it when he closed his eyes to see how it felt too. 

This particular little guy has been quite difficult to parent in some ways, but that particularity also makes him such a wonderful and fascinating little person. I can't wait to see what he becomes.

Equipped for Aquatics!

A bought him flippers and a mask for his birthday and they sat tantalizingly on top of the bookcase for months before the pool opened and he could finally use them.  And just like that....Ru is swimming.

Unbelievable. He's quite fearless...like a little spaniel in the water...splooshing all over the place with a monster-big grin and barely enough surface time for breaths.

I can't believe I have a kid who is old enough swim to me from the handrail. I am quite astonished.

And Dee is getting a desperate desire for flippers of his own. He could care less bout the silly face gear.