First Mothers' Day: Reflections

Dear Geddy,

Last year at this time you were busy making a mosh pit of my insides, dancing with my bladder and stretching my belly. Now you approach the finale of year one, on the outside, standing behind me while I do the dishes and poking me in the legs with a bendy straw you found in the drawer. As always, you make your presence known in a most physical manner.

Lately your daddy and I get to chase you up the stairs, open the kitchen drawers to release your stuck fingers time after time after time, pull leaves out of your mouth when you play on the grass, and crunch our feet on cereal pieces that you drop on the floor just to hear them hit. But wasn't it yesterday that we could hardly keep your little fist out of your mouth when you tried to nurse at 1:00 AM; when we snuggled with you for naps every couple of hours; when we wondered if you would ever learn to roll over onto your tummy; that we hoped you were getting enough milk; that we stared at you to watch you breathing at night? (Yeah, I know, I still come into your room and watch you breathing.) Where did the baby go?

You impressed us from the beginning by staying in late, coming out screaming, and sporting a big head covered in hair as if ready to star as a toddler in the next Gerber commercial. Now you speak complete sentences of baby jabber, have a tooth, love your rubber ducky and bath time, can't get enough of being outside, read piles of books and have your favorites, and sometimes sleep all night. You amaze us every moment.

Leading up to my first Mothers' Day, you spent your time showing me that every day as a mom is magic when I see life through your eyes. Because of you I remember to laugh at my mirror twin, crawl on the floor for a different point of view, sing in the bathtub, clap after an accomplishment, make funny sounds with my mouth, and lick my plate clean. With you I heard a bird's song for the first time, fell on my back in the grass to watch an airplane fly overhead, launched tree-seed helicopters into the air, and laughed just for the sound of it and to see your smile. I still dislike going to the grocery store, but thank you for helping me to have fun in the aisles where I can talk to you and be silly and not worry about what people around us think. Thank you for being such a great teacher.

Thank you for waking me up at night sometimes still—but not every night!—so I can see your sweet face and hear your giggles as I tuck you into your blanket and watch you wiggle yourself back to sleep. And thank you for sometimes letting Daddy get you back to sleep!

Thank you for making sure I pay attention to you by grabbing my chin and turning my face to you and by hollering "ma ma ma!" when you are ready for more food and I'm distracted.

Thank you too, son, for letting your daddy and I revisit our favorite books with you; for going on long walks with us and being interested in everything you see as you sing and swing your feet in the stroller; for reminding us that there are angels all around as you seem to stare off into space or smile at light dancing on the wall.

Thank you for letting us see you try again even if you crash to the floor several times after pulling yourself up.

Thank you for every smile-yawn-cry-shriek moment. For every sleepless-poopy-banana goo night. You are worth it all.

Love, 

Mommy

If a Tree Falls in the Forest . . .

To get a sampling of how my husband's mind works ('cause I know you want to know), and how I try to translate, here's a bit of our conversation one morning as we walked home from Starbucks.

We needed a walk but had to beat the heat–well the worst of the heat anyway–so we got Geddy in the stroller and made our way to a very stuffy Starbucks (poor baristas–their ac broke and it was only 9 AM but outside was cooler than inside!) Fortunately a nice breeze and shade trees along most of our route kept us from wilting. On the way home I sprinkled water on Geddy to help cool him.  Then, just for fun, I put an ice cube down Luke's shirt. I thought he would be amused. I know I was. But he didn't say much.

It was quiet until we arrived at the park behind our house. Then Luke said, "Hmmm."

"What?" I asked, then waited the usual minute-that-feels-like-an-hour for him to say any more. See, his brain just keeps processing, organizing, rummaging, analyzing, synthesizing and most of the time I think he doesn't even hear me when I ask or tell him something during his deep-brain work. Well, he often hears me, but he doesn't listen to what I say. It's really that he can't. When his wheels are turning all brain power and attention is on those wheels.

Finally: "Oh, I was just thinking."

Another minutehour went by. Would he share his thoughts? Could he share them in language that I would understand? Well, he tried. I can't even begin to repeat it here, but let's just summarize if we can. He mentioned continuous lines vs. segments, threw in some mathematical lingo, and then explained why this was relevant. He's actually really great at breaking it down for me, most of the time. See, our walk to and from Starbucks alerted him to the fact that we couldn't touch every part of the line or path there and back because our steps didn't step on every part. However, the stroller wheels could and did; they never left the ground.

And yes, there was more, but alas, perhaps in this case I was the one not listening.

"Hmmm," I said. "That's very interesting."

Then I translated it into my way of thinking: "So it's like if I pour this cup of ice cubes down your shirt most of the cubes will bounce along your body and fall to the ground, not making continuous contact, but one or two cubes might stick to you and then sort of slide down you not losing touch the whole way down. So, it's kinda like that, right?"

I didn't try my experiment.