hooray, mommy!

"I'm a man!"

Daniel's been saying that since he turned 2, with his little British accent: "I'm a 'mon'!"

Today, we were going over the fact that Daddy's a man, too, and Mommy's a woman.

Later, as I was puttering around the house, I heard him proclaiming, "Mommy's a woman. Hooray, Mommeeeeeeeeee!"

Steve promises he didn't set him up to it.

* * *
Daniel was settling down for his nap.

"I need my paci," he said.

"Let's ask Daddy if he can bring you one," I said.

"Steeeeve!" Daniel shouted. (He sometimes calls us by our first names.) "I need my paci!"

"Please," I whispered.

"Please!" Daniel shouted.

Steve brought the pacifier.

"What do you say?" I whispered.

"Thanks," Daniel said with a big smile. "Thank you."

He's just learning that. I'm not sure if he really needs to know how to say "please" and "thank you" at his age, but it sure makes his demands sound less ... demanding.

mashed potatoes

This morning was the kind of morning that I've looked forward to having as I watch Daniel grow into more of a toddler. In short, we made mashed potatoes.

It was a messy morning that started with Daniel deciding he wanted to make some "soup." We went and sat in front of his play kitchen with a few carrot sticks, and I got out a couple of red potatoes I had on hand, and we used plastic ("safe") implements to try to cut up the potatoes, which took forever, but we finally accomplished it.

At one point, Daniel strained and grunted and said, "I can do it!" And then he popped his potato in half, and I was so proud of him.

We washed the potatoes and carrots in a strainer, then put them in some water to boil. A while later, when they were soft and cooled off, we sat on the floor and mashed them with a fork. Daniel added plenty of salt and pepper, and I added butter. And then we ate them (until Daniel poured his milk into them and made them all runny and then poured them all over his high chair tray).

The whole process held our attention for a good bit of the morning. I loved it. I love watching concepts click in his head. I love seeing his sense of accomplishment. I love that we can do things like this together now.

synchronized diving through 2-year-old eyes

... must be kind of scary.

We turned the Olympics on last night. Daniel watched the synchronized diving for a minute or two, and as soon as he grasped what was going on, he started to get distressed and began to cry, "I don't like it!" As far as we could tell, he was concerned about the people falling long distances into the water, disappearing, maybe. Steve turned off the TV and held him and explained, "They're OK."

"They're OK," Daniel repeated, and continued to repeat for the next 15 minutes as he walked around the house. "They're OK." "They're OK."

loud and clear

Last weekend, we went to a local garden store called Linder's and bought a few annuals and a dogwood shrub to plant in our back yard. The next day, we decided to go back and get another dogwood to plant next to the first one. At lunch, we debated whether to put Daniel down for his nap and have just Steve go, or to load us all up in the car and go. Daniel must have heard us because he loudly proclaimed this fine six-word sentence:

"I want to go to Linder's!"

I smiled. I love his clear little voice. And we all went to Linder's.

Daniel often refers to himself in the third person: "Daniel want to go outside." But lately, he's found his "I" voice:

"I don't like cobwebs."

"I don't like bees."

"I don't like beans."

He's also learning rules and repeats them randomly, as if he just thinks about them a lot:

"Don't run in the street."

"Don't touch the saw."

He is definitely a toddler now. And such a boy.

playmates

Play group was at our house today, and the little girls had a good time playing on Daniel's new race car bed. Who knows when he'll will have four girls on his bed again? Especially four as cute as Annabel, Beela, Evelyn and Calla!


In early childhood education lingo, they tell us about the progression of children's play, and how young toddlers often play alongside each other (parallel play) but don't learn how to play with each other — actually engage each other in play (cooperative play) — until they get a little older. Daniel and Beela stood together at the easel, both drawing on the paper, which is typical parallel play, but then I heard Daniel tell Beela, "That's a line." Is that the beginnings of cooperative play? Maybe. And how about when Beela goes in to give Daniel a goodbye hug? (She tried to give him a kiss, but she couldn't pull the pacifier out of his mouth.) Whatever it is, it's pretty darn cute.

ten things daniel said this week

• "David Cook"

• "Oprah" (said while watching Syesha sing on American Idol. Oh dear ...)

• "Barack Obama"

• "Rock, paper, scissors"

• "Mommy cell phone beeping"

• "Mommy penis"

• "Mommy boobies" (said after mommy explains for the umpteenth time that "mommy doesn't have a penis.")

• "Pants falling down"

• "No banging flowers"

• "Daddy big hug"

rake-n-shovel

It's became a mantra around our house now that spring has come. Daniel loves being outdoors, and more than anything else, he loves to "rake and shovel." Daniel tells us of this passion hundreds of times a day. Aunt Sue is coming over? "Rake and shovel," he says, because she takes him outside to play with them. Up from his nap and ready to play? "Rake and shovel?" he implores Steve. Sometimes I hum it to the tune of "Love and Marriage." He has really good form when he rakes, too. He puts his whole body into it.


Ben almost smiled for the camera today — almost. I can't believe he's almost six weeks old. My post-partum checkup is this week. While I know the visit is going to be bittersweet, as the midwives have heard about my cancer returning, I also have a reason to be excited about it. One of the midwives is giving me a bunch of frozen breastmilk she had pumped. The story behind why she no longer needs it is very sad, involving loss no one should have to endure. So I am all the more grateful she is willing to help me this way.

shoes, spoons and poetry

Daniel has been getting his first set of molars in the past month, and it's meant a few sleepless nights for all of us. I can't imagine how painful it must be for those giant mountain ranges of teeth to push through his raw gums. And the drool this produces is soaking his shirts on a daily basis. I change him into a dry shirt before we go outside for fear of a deep freeze against his chest. The other night, he was waking up intermittently, crying and struggling to sit up, throwing himself against our bodies until we were awake enough to hold him. Usually, just sitting up in bed and cradling him in my arms helps him go back to sleep, but it doesn't help me sleep, and boy does mama need her sleep these days. We ended up spending most of the early morning hours snoozing in a spooning position, his head on my shoulder, his little body curled into a fetal position and tucked up against mine, my free arm draped over his leg.

This story and these pictures of Daniel trying on our shoes are just filler, really. This week has been unusually contemplative for me. There's so much of myself that I could spill onto this keyboard, but it's hard for me to do that when I'm immersed so much in my thoughts and reflecting on things to the point where I just need quiet and space to let everything simmer. I don't know if it's my upcoming 40th birthday causing me to evaluate my life, make plans, claim my dreams; or the author of Eat, Pray, Love being on Oprah and prompting me to think about what I "really, really, really" want; or the fact that every day something triggers my wondering if I am going to live long enough for my sons to know me, for me to be able to watch them grow up. It's not fear or anxiety that occupies my mind at those moments, but a certain sense of sadness and and urgency and awareness that I don't know the hour nor the day — that none of us do, really — and we'd best live with a sense of purpose, of what is important to us, not superficially but deep down.

My friend Johanna posted a poem on her blog by Mary Oliver that ends like this:

"Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"

Our wild and precious lives, indeed.