sueeeus

Six months of slobbery perfection!

What can I say?  Every day his personality shines a bit more.  He’s been the best baby.  He’s very good at rolling over and back, and is starting to commando-crawl, and he’ll get up on his knees and face, but that extra push up on his arms isn’t quite mastered.  He’s so close, though.  It’s comical to see him using his head, literally.

He’s examining toys more, and playing more interactively.  And he loves to eat!  He loves spoon feeding, and he’s getting very good at it.  He gets so excited when he’s in his high chair and I have a bright bowl of food for him.  We’re sticking with the rice cereal mixed with milk for now, and I will very gradually start introducing other things.

So far, so many of his mannerisms are exactly the same as his brother’s.  He laughs and laughs when his brother teases him.  It’s delightful to see.

I’ve made it the first six months on the breast pump, and am in a reasonable routine now, so I’m patting myself on the back for a job well done.  The next goal is to make it to eight months on this schedule.  By then I should have nearly enough frozen stash to get him to the one year mark.  So at eight months I’m going to begin a very very slow weaning process, cutting down to three pumps a day for a little while, and then down to two.  It needs to be slow because I don’t want any problems with clogs or infections.  I’m not quite sure how I’m going to get there, because as it stands, I’ve not been very successful at stretching the time between pumps past eight hours, so to go to twelve is a bit lofty at this point.  I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.  For now, I’ve got a gorgeous, delicious, snuggly, slobbery little boy to dote on.

My boys.  They fill me up.  LB will be 6 months old on Friday!  He had his first solid food yesterday, and he LOVED it!  He was so excited to put the spoon in his mouth and swirl his tongue around the rice cereal.  He hasn’t figured out the swallowing bit yet.  So far he’s a bit tongue tangled and the food comes right back out, but he’s very much IN to it!  He’ll have it down in no time, and may turn into a chubby baby yet.  BB is all boy and then some.  A bull in  a china shop is the best metaphor for him these days.

When I leave them at daycare, LB now breaks my heart by going into a woeful, the most woeful, of cries.  It rips me to shreds and what can I do?  I hug him and snuggle him and try to distract him, and feel awful as I make my way back to my car.  It affects me so much because it’s a special cry reserved just for moments like those.  It’s the hurt feelings cry.  He only uses it when I walk out of a room and he thinks I’m leaving him.  It’s different from every other cry he has.  I don’t like to hurt his feelings.

BB, on the other hand, has a full production he goes through when we say goodbye.  He gives me one or two kisses on the cheek, and then he blows a raspberry on my face somewhere.  He tries for the nose, but I usually can avert and just give him the cheek.  We hug and say ‘have a happy day’.  I leave through the sliding glass door, then he opens it for his parting words.  G’bye…  ‘Ak sure to whook and get some whest (so you won’t be a cwabby apple) and ‘ak sure to pummmmmmmp.  I wuvvvv you…..

Every. Single. Time.  It’s endearing.  I’ve worked with him and showed him how to make the ‘l’ sound, and he can do it, but he always switches back to the ‘w’ when speaking.  Habit.  I’ll have to work with him more.  He’s also become quite good at drawing.  All on his own.  I’m so pleased. So much so that I decided it was time to give him the special drawing books I’d gotten for him earlier, and set aside until I thought he was ready.  I opened one, the tracing book, and flipped through the pages, and every single activity had been completed already.  And then I vaguely remembered the stepkids going in and out of my office, before I asked them not to.  So…  One or both of them (TEENAGERS, for crying out loud) took the preschool activity books and did all the activities.  Grrrrrrrrr.  At least BB is a bright and cheerful 4 year old, and he was happy and excited to get a new book to draw in, even if someone else had already drawn in it.  Those stepkids though…

BB made it through his 2 weeks of movie restrictions with almost no whining or begging, so I’m quite pleased with that as well.  I let him watch a kid movie on the portable dvd player in the same room where the rest of us were watching TV.  My new rule – no watching movies alone.  Mean mama.  He’s a very independent and head strong child with the misfortune of having couch potato parents.  How I wish Gadget had some interest in being active.  He doesn’t like to go for walks.  Nearly the only outdoor play he likes is when there are motors involved, or gear and expenses like skiing and golfing.  He does like to ride bikes, so I’m going to start pressuring him to work with BB to learn to ride so that we can all go bike riding.  I don’t want my boys growing up thinking the only fun things to do are things that cost money and require gadgets, gear, or gizmos.  Thank God BB likes sticks and stones…   …now THAT’s my boy!  I’m going to enroll him in T-ball and soccer, when the seasons begin.  Soccer is in the fall, and T-ball is in the spring or summer.

As for me?  I’ve lost some of my oomph for blogging and facebook.  I spend hours at the computer each day, and I could be posting, but I just haven’t felt like it.  Instead, I play mind drifting games like spider solitaire, and listen to the whoosh whoosh whoosh of my pump.  I’m trying to come to terms with the life that I lead.  So often I find myself feeling like things need to change, and wonder why I can never seem to reach that place called content.  My home, my body, my marriage, my mothering.   All fall short of my expectations.  The only aspect of my life in which I feel content is my work.  I wonder why that is.

I watched a video yesterday that really shook me up.  It had to do with Salma Hayek visiting Sierra Leone, where “one in five children die before reaching their fifth birthday and tetanus is a big contributor.”  A baby happened to take its last breath, just as Salma was stroking her beautiful little face.

I don’t have words to express the depths of how this makes me feel.  To see life just disappear like that.  It’s not like all the flashy mayhem we see on TV.  All that Hollywood stuff.  It’s serious.  It’s real.   It’s heart wrenching.  It’s heart numbing.

There is bloodshed the world over.  People fighting wars.  People caught up in wars, whether they want it or not.  Again, serious, real, heart wrenching, heart numbing.

But children dying.  Children.  I didn’t want to see a child die.

I don’t know how to think or what to think.  I hold my own children close and breathe deeply their warm, living scent.  My comfortable home seems criminal in comparison to the standards in which those struggling people live.

It’s all relative, though, isn’t it?  A rich man might shake his head and think, poor miserable soul, to see the conditions in which I live.  Even so.  It makes me think about what can be done for the greater good.  Obviously there’s too much for any one person to tackle.  I could donate all the money I have, and it would hardly be a drop in the bucket.  I could donate some of the money I have, and it will still be only a drop.  How much can I do?  How much should I do?  What difference can I make?  Since our immediate needs are met, should we then turn any excess over to those more in need?  Or use some to work toward our own hopes and dreams, and set some aside in case of our own rainy days?  I don’t have a complete answer to this, but prudence tells me that I should have a safety net, because that will prevent me and mine from becoming a burden to the public system, especially in these trying times.  That much I should do.  And what of the rest, of those less fortunate than me?

I like the pay it forward concept.  If everyone did something, any thing, to help someone, any one, then good happens.  We can all change lives for the better, one thing at a time.

I’ve been thinking of sponsoring some children in an under-developed nation.  There are always infomercials on about that sort of opportunity.  I would like for my children to give of their bounty to others less fortunate.  I think it will be good for them to learn to share and help others in need.  Now, to find an agency that’s legit.

Parenting a four year old continues to offer challenging opportunities.  Why, just last night, a certain young man was relieved of not one, but several of his most beloved soft friends.  Yes, Dragon, Cody the coyote, and Squawker were all sent on holiday.  It was a tearful departure, but before the tears had even stopped, yet another grievance was discovered.  This one, of far greater proportion than those that prompted the swift away of beloved furry friends.  No, this transgression warranted much more.  No movie privileges for a month two weeks.  We simply do not write on the television screen with ball point pens.  The thing is, where were the parents when this took place?  Clearly we are not as vigilant as we ought to be.  A month is an eternity to a four year old, so we reduced the sentence to two weeks.  Still, an eternity.  We will probably reduce it further, to one week.  And pay more attention.

Amidst the tears, when the first sentence was being delivered, he responded with a terrific scream, the likes of which could prompt passersby to consider calling the authorities.  No, we didn’t touch him.  We just told him that he couldn’t have his stuffies to sleep with (and implied that they’d be gone longer than one night, horrible, bad mother).  During the tears and the sobs and the wails and the pleas, the second transgression was discovered, and I had to tell him he’s in big BIG trouble now.

“Am I going to jail?”

I don’t even know where he came up with that.  We do watch cop and crime shows (Life, Life on Mars, CSI…) and I guess he knows that when people are bad, they sometimes go to jail.  Even so…

He’s a heartbreaker, that one. I gave his friends back as soon as he woke up.  He hugged them so tight, and welcomed them all like long lost friends.  Which is what they were, in his four year old mind.

My beautiful, strong-willed boy.  What am I going to do with him?  How will I be able to stay a step ahead and give him the boundaries and the lessons and the love and the guidance that he needs, in order to become a fine and decent adult?  In reality, I am so much less of a mother than I ever dreamed or imagined I’d be.

Without the rosy glasses, it’s a completely different ballgame.

I am well aware that my blog is very boring, in general. I don’t have any advertisements. I don’t post YouTube snippets. I very seldom change the look. I don’t try to entertain anybody. I don’t try to be clever. I don’t try to make anybody see things my way. I don’t try to garner visitors or a following. I do go on and on at times about various issues that arise in my life. Probably in too much detail. Definitely in too much detail. Boring to the outsider, boring to myself, but necessary, in a way, to help me work through things. It’s very cheap therapy.

I thought I’d venture out recently, and troll some blogs to see if I could find some in my general area. Thinking I might actually make some friends in my neck of the woods. Real people. Maybe. Eventually. But I didn’t get very far. I kept finding blogs with ads and blogher this and blogher that and things seemed just too commercial for me. I got tired of looking.

I like that I’ve met some bloggers, in real life. I have a small circle. It’s pretentious to call it my circle, but there are a handful of blogs that I read, and even if they have little to say or show from post to post, I am always glad to see what they have to say. Because they’re real people with real faces and real lives, and it’s a warm and comforting thing to be privileged to glimpse into their every-day lives. Every-day struggles. Every-day triumphs. I love every-day life. It’s what real life is. It’s where the meat of the matter is. It’s not entertainment. It’s not glamour. It’s not sales or marketing. It’s not a popularity contest. It’s not business. It’s life. And that’s what I love.

I may not be practiced in this particular craft or that particular form of art, but I love that people share the things that they do.

If I happen to buy something, or make something, it’s a big deal to me. Because it’s above and beyond the basic confines of my normal life. So it’s exciting. To me. And that makes it noteworthy. Boring, yes. Part of my every-day life, yes. Beautiful, yes. To me. And I blog for me.

If I have a gross misunderstanding or miscommunication with someone (usually my husband, of course, because he’s the one I share my life with), it helps me to work through it. Or at least to vent. It doesn’t mean I’m looking for sympathy. Or that I’m looking for anything. Or that my life is falling apart. It’s just an ebb, and I need to get it out. To work it out. To work through it. So it goes on my blog. Because I blog for me.

*I drafted this ages ago, then never posted it.  I think I got my feathers all ruffled after reading someone else’s blog in which they commented about being bored with bloggers who seem like they constantly blog about the train wrecks that are their lives.  It’s part of that narcissistic nature in which I ridiculously think that everyone should be my friend and in which I think I want and need everyone’s approval, and of course I assumed she was referring to me (as one of the boring, thus dropped, bloggers).  Righteous indignation.  You should see the other drafts I have in limbo.  I’ve (thus far) spared the global public from some of my more lengthy rants!  Besides, I’ve put enough space between them that the issues of the moment are long past, and no longer on my mind.