My Investigator

About a month ago, Josh found out he had been chosen for the "New Investigator Award" by his trade association (AMIA). It sounds like he's joined the police force, but actually it just means he's the best thing to hit biomedical informatics since sliced bread. Not that these scientists necessarily love sliced bread... Come to think of it, they might like Josh better.

Anyway, the award would be presented at a special dinner on the Saturday night during their annual conference in Chicago. Dinner. Award. Saturday. Chicago. Sounds like an excellent time to go support my man. So I called in reinforcements (Grand-ma!) and flew out for 36hrs in one of my favorite cities.

After all the prep involved in leaving 3 little guys, it wasn't till Saturday morning that I realized I had a full day off on The Magnificent Mile. We met my uncle and cousins for a yummy breakfast, and then I hit the stores while Josh went to bring home the bacon that would pay for me to hit those stores.

The awards dinner was at the University of Chicago business school, and to his surprise, Josh was asked to give a few remarks to the room of 200+. As his boss said afterward, he did a great job and "left them laughing." I was so proud and grateful to be there to see it.

After dinner, we visited the top of the Hancock and then ended the evening at the hotel for dessert. By the time I arrived home Sunday morning, my mother was still in one piece, and she still liked our boys. Which she may live to regret, as Josh and I are ready to do it all over again. ;)

The Golden Years

I'm not particularly nostalgic. It may have something to do with my terrible long-term memory, but as a born optimist, it means I'm usually facing forward in hopeful ignorance.

Lately, some of that ignorance has been tested:

1. I had to read a book for work that was about parenting older children, and the line "The bigger the kids, the bigger the issues" burned itself into my brain. 
2. I've bumped into several examples (real and fictional) of grown sons who are not very close to their mothers. 
3. I've been walking with friends through an issue that scares the bejeezus out of me, but it doesn't really apply to the prepubescent crowd.

Meanwhile, my newborn is a saint. Sleeping through the night, happy during the day, growing like a weed. He could not be a better ambassador for the baby years.

Not that I needed the reminder. I've always known these pre-school years are more labor-intensive but also more sheltered, carrying less risk. I've still got the chicks in the nest. Mistakes--both mine and theirs'--tend to be smaller and easier to rectify.

But now that's really hitting home. Many of my oldest's friends started kindergarten this year. I can see the baby phase being eclipsed by The Next Phase: The School Years. And now, it scares me.

Which is really what this is all about. Fear. Taking my eyes off the God I know, the God who is good and sovereign. Who holds us in his hand. I knock Peter for taking his eyes off Christ. Then I do it.

A dear friend sent me this verse this morning:

"Lift up your eyes and look around; all your sons gather and come to you. As surely as I live," declares the Lord, "you will wear them as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride." -- Isaiah 49:18

It sits in the middle of chapters that describe God's sovereignty and comfort -- how he is protecting His people and providing for them through His Son. I need this verse. I need this Son. And I need to remember that needing Him more over time is ultimately a good thing.

For further reading: Parenting is Hard for a Reason by Christina Fox

Pardners

Getting ready for the big night with my best buds...

Our handsome "real cowboy" (i.e. not Woody)

The talented Mr. Lightyear (the toy and the boy)

Guess who?? Yep, Tigger 2007 and Tigger 2012. I think they're brothers... ;)

Did you know Tigger's favorite food is black-eyed peas? Well, at least this Tigger, and this black-eyed P.

We're surrounded! By princesses! (at the neighborhood pre-party)

And finally out on the trail...of chocolate!

Pals

Our Space Ranger

The boys are changing so fast, I literally can't keep up. Here are some highlights of Aaron's latest exploits...

Mr. Personality
I have to start with Aaron's playfulness, because it's one of his best features. He runs to greet anyone with a smile and "What's your name?" He usually has a twinkle in his eye and loves to make jokes, calling us by the wrong names, impersonating the characters from Sesame Street (you should see his Cookie Monster), or using inflection and facial expressions to make us laugh out loud at the dinner table. All of which has led to one of his favorite refrains, "I'm funny!" Most of the time, he is.

"I Baby Isaac!"

"I put my pants on, Mommy!"

"I a cowboy!" (Time for a round-up?)

"A pocket, Mommy!"

"Faster, Mommy!"

BMOC
His teachers wrote on his first progress report: "Aaron is such a joy to be around and he already has many admirers throughout the school. He plays nicely when peers are around and he is willing to participate in any and all activities."

Which according to him includes a lot of sleeping... Whenever I ask what he did at school, he says: "My teachers say, 'Go nigh-night!'" (nap is their last activity every day)

Thanks to their other school activities, he's stringing together fuller sentences ("I want to watch a movie with my blankie.") and his reasoning is getting a little too good:


A: Get my toy, Mommy!
Me: I can't while I'm driving. We'll get it when we get home.

A: At a stop sign, Mommy!

On the Throne
Perhaps all this progress is what finally made me snap. September 28th at 7:30am, I reached my limit. Suddenly Aaron was too big to be wearing diapers. So I stopped putting them on him. That was it. Well, that was the end of it, and the beginning of something else. Sept 29th was our first breakthrough (peepee in the potty!), Oct 1st was another (no accidents!). By the end of the week, he was almost entirely potty trained while awake. I cannot tell you how much this both surprises and relieves me.


And Everywhere Else
There is one, itsy-bitsy GINORMOUS catch: rest time (awake time alone in his bedroom). Last Thursday, just after a new neighbor arrived for a playdate, I walked into Aaron's room to find poopoo in places poopoo was NOT meant to be. And really, you never want to find poopoo pretty much anywhere. The music from "Psycho" started playing in my head. I stripped and washed the boy, closed his bedroom door, and tried unsuccessfully to focus on my neighbor for an hour.

Later, I discovered my rags & Resolve are no match for poop. I thought we'd have to get new carpet. So I took a break for dinner (I'm getting better at denial). In the nick of time, my knight came riding home with flowers, ice cream, and a rented carpet cleaning machine that worked its magic but could not prevent little man from doing it again Sunday. We've upped the ante for Not Touching Poopoo, and I'm praying it works before I switch us all to a clear liquid diet.


Floored
A couple weeks ago, I walked out of Isaac's room around 11pm and thought Darth Vader must be standing in the hallway. It was freaky. Deep breathing but no one in site. Turns out Aaron had decided he'd rather sleep curled up on the floor at the base of his door than in his nice comfy bed. Now it's routine. I tuck him into bed and as soon as I close the door, I can hear him shuffle over to it and curl up with his blankie. It's too precious. It would be heartbreaking if it sprang from loneliness or fear, but he actually likes going "nigh-night." He often asks for it and heads upstairs on his own. So we're going with the theory that he's just unexplainably adorable.



And Beyond
I was sitting in a quiet training session with 200 lay leaders from our church when Aaron burst through the side doors, flew toward me with arms outstretched and a big smile and shouted, "Mommy! I Ba-Bightyer! I 'ave wings!!" It was adorable. And loud. ;)

That boy LOVES Toy Story. He played with his Buzz Lightyear action figure so much that it now falls apart spontaneously, so I just got him a less-destructible version which he flies through the house saying "To infinity!" He asks to watch the movie(s) at every opportunity; Thank the Lord there are 3 of them, or Noah and I would be bonkers by now.

Lightbulb...Lollipop?
It's possible Aaron already is. When I walked into his bedroom first thing this morning, I found his nightlight removed from the plug behind the couch, uncovered, and the bulb broken down to a stub. Upon interrogation, he told me "I ate it!" then showed me where the glass was shattered on the carpet and...wet. I was dumbfounded. I still am. WHO EATS THEIR NIGHTLIGHT? Miraculously, he didn't get cut and doesn't seem to have ingested any glass. But I've added this to the list of no-nos. Not Touching Poop. No Eating Lightbulbs.

My Boy

Despite the glass-eating incident, I see so many signs that Aaron is no longer a toddler. It struck me most at his first school-classmate party. Usually he's tagging along to Noah's parties, which makes him look younger. This time, it was his people, and he was thrilled. He spent 30min on the tallest slide in the joint and another 30min climbing the mountain nextdoor. Seeing his perseverance, his confidence, and his joy, I could see more of the boy he is becoming. He often reminds me, "I a boy" and "You're my mommy." I am so, so very glad. And so thankful that he still loves to sit on my lap, give me a hug, greet me with exuberance, and hold my hand.

His Mommy
Especially this week. Aaron has a tender heart, he obeys more than he disobeys, and he learns rather quickly. But I have still felt more stressed and stretched than usual. The quandaries that arise whenever a child is in transition wear me out...

Should I let him leave the light on in his bedroom all night?
Should I make him put his pants back on every time he goes potty?
Should we drop rest time?
How long should he have to sit at the dinner table?
Should I discipline him for ____?

Which is all to say that while I want to catalog my kids' adventures with humor and grace, don't think for a minute that I'm coasting through them myself. And anytime you have advice to give, I'm all ears. Cause this job is tough. Good, but tough.

8 Weeks Post-Partum

Isaac is an easy baby. Praise God and Hallelujah. I was prepared for nightly hours of screaming and a constant desire to be held (him and me).

Instead, he only cries when there's a reason I can figure out. He'll hang out in the bouncy seat, on the floor, in the Ergo, in the car, on the boppy, and of course, in my arms. Eye contact makes him light up with smiles (which started at 5wks), and just yesterday he chuckled for the first time.

I have enjoyed each of my newborns -- their feathery hair, warm skin, rubbery necks, squishy-soft cheeks, teenie fists, frog legs tucked under their rumps, and that baby smell that is miraculously delicious. Still, I feel like I'm soaking it up even more this time, perhaps because I'm more confident with him, perhaps because he's been less complicated, and perhaps because I'm getting more sleep.

Yes, more sleep. Ahhh. The schedule has worked well with Isaac. Sometimes I feed him more frequently before bedtime, but otherwise we've stuck to it. He reached 11lbs at 5 weeks, so I was tempted to push him longer at night, but then I got mastitis and needed him to eat at night. So we waited, and I got more tired.

By 7 weeks, he was 12.5lbs and went 7-8hrs on his own twice in a row, so we decided to keep it going by feeding him at 10:30pm and setting my alarm for 6:30am. I don't use the monitor at night, but I can usually hear him if he's really screaming, so I'll feed him anytime after 5am. Which puts us lightyears ahead of where I was with my other boys at 8wks.

And does it show. I'm already running and swimming again, ready to go back to work (my freelance writing), and jumping into the fall schedule.

Sort-of. Lest you get the wrong impression, here are a few reminders that we're still in transition, I'm still nursing, and yes, I have baby brain and the body to go with it...

-- My 3- and 5-yr-old do not need sleep during the day, but I do. They play through resttime in their rooms while mommy sleeps in hers.
 

-- A few weeks ago, I was sitting upstairs nursing Isaac when I heard honking outside. I casually ruminated on the fact that someone--probably a teenager--would resort to honking rather than just knocking on my neighbor's door. Thankfully, a friend pulled up to drop off Noah at that very moment, saw the school bus sitting in front of our house, honking, and ran to help Aaron off the bus and into the house. Oh, yeah, I do have three now, don't I.

-- Then there's last Tuesday night, when I got two texts confirming carpool for the next day - from two different people. When I counted up the kids I was committed to bringing home from preschool, I realized they would not physically fit in my minivan. Nice.

-- Or early one morning, when I took a swig from my coffee mug and thought, This coffee ain't right. Good reason: It was cranberry juice, which I had poured in the mug minutes before.

-- Or last weekend, when I blithely walked into Old Navy to buy a few clothes and was stunned to discover I'm still twice my pre-pregnancy clothing size. That's like, a multiple of my old self. Bummer.

-- Or the time I took the boys to meet Josh for errands and forgot...the diaper bag with e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g inside it. I mean, every time we leave the house I forget something. This time, it was more than something. At least it wasn't a child. I've learned to count them now.
 

Not that it's all fun and games. The fog that comes with transition and interrupted sleep has affected my thinking. I can see it in my sensitivity to others, the way some fears haunt me, and the frequent feeling that my mind is cluttered with more than I can coherently understand.

For me, the best antidotes are silence, prayer, writing, exercise, time alone with Josh, and many alarm/reminders on my phone. Now that school is in full swing and Isaac is taking a bottle (!!), I'm thankful to have more of each so that when I am with my beautiful boys, we enjoy each other all the more.

Playing With Boys

I love being a mother to boys. They can be playful, thoughtful, physical, and forthright. There's something about their energy that makes me proud and their quiet intensity that makes me even prouder. I am eager to introduce them to the world in all its variety, and I am humbled to think that someday they will be grown men. I also love that right now I get to enjoy their adorableness, before they sprout beards.

However, amidst all this happy testosterone, there is a dark side... Giving birth to boys does not mean I naturally love all the things boys love. As they grow, I'm discovering just how male their interests can be.

In a vague way, I've known that men tend to like competition, vehicles, hunting, fighting, etc. I see the popularity of superheroes, football, boxing, NASCAR, the Marine Corps, action movies, and the NRA. Still, it's another thing entirely when you see these bents embodied in your 5-year-old. 

Growing up fast!

My oldest loves to think about, talk about, and pretend epic fights: good guys, bad guys, vehicles, weapons, explosions, and--yes--death. With legos, play-doh, action figures, blocks - anything can be an enemy, a spaceship, a projectile. He mines his friends for information about Star Wars or Ninjago, asks us lots of difficult questions (What's a bazooka?), latches on to any references he encounters (they're everywhere, including the grocery store), and weaves his own complicated tales of intergalactic wars far, far away.

Even as I write, I think how fun this probably sounds. And it can be. For about ten minutes. After days and weeks and months of discussing every crevice of the Millenium Falcon, I don't find it so enthralling. In fact, I've found it a bit disturbing.

You see, while my 5-year-old can tell you what's real and what's pretend (we've discussed this at length), he does not understand the realities of violence, pain, or death. I'm pretty sure this is a good thing, as it would be traumatic if he did. But it means they're just abstract concepts, plot twists in his lengthy stories. So he has no problem walking around talking about decapitation, planets exploding, skeletons and snakes fighting to the death, etc, etc, etc.

Since I've never before lived with a young boy, this has all taken me by storm. He's a really sweet boy! Loving, gentle, obedient, helpful. He knows the gospel (on some level), loves rules (he makes them up just for fun), his teachers rave about him, and his preschool told me he helps balance out the "rowdier" boys in his class. How could this boy--who loves his newborn brother SO well--spend the day talking about war!?

Having a very weak stomach for violence myself (even weaker while I was pregnant), I've tried a number of responses to temper his references to it:

1. The Reformer: We don't want to kill anyone; we just want to help the bad guys become good guys!
His response: He was so bad he would never become good.

2. The Creationist: We don't want to kill anyone because God made them!
His response: It was a bad robot. God didn't make the robot.

3. The Diverter: Let's talk about your Sunday school lesson instead!
His response: David should have used a different weapon against Goliath.

4. The Challenger: Let's see how long you can go without talking about death or dying!
His response: Let's not.

5. The Cautionary Tale: Be careful what you pretend, because if you pretend something enough, you could eventually want it to be real.
His response: It's not real.

All of which has recently led me to...

6. The Enabler: We watched Star Wars with him, read the Ninjago story together, and played with the Batman Lego set.
His response: To discuss each all the more. The "forbidden fruit" didn't become less enticing once they were legal.

But something else did change: What was a source of tension has become a source of fellowship. We're bonding, and he is beyond thrilled. I've tried to stop my reflexive resistance to his interests (and my not-so-subtle attempts to brainwash him into being a pacifist - not that I am). It finally occurred to me that I love a good saga (Hello? Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter? The Hunger Games?), I want him to fight evil, his interests are not unusual for his age, and our relationship is far more important to his future than the stories he makes up while playing legos.

I do want to set appropriate boundaries to protect him from overly mature content. But I also never want to hide the world from him, dampen his inclination toward heroism, or let my prejudices limit our friendship. Which means that I am spending more time in the world of men. Thankfully, I'm finding it's not unkind to women. You should see my fencing skills...