the squibix family blog

The boys both picked out their fabric from the shelf of cotton and I made the simplest pillow/quilt combinations I could come up with. Lines and squares. I don't have a lot of solo sewing time these days, so I'm not really stretching myself creatively. You want a quilt? You can have lines or squares. You can have anything you want, as long as I can do it nearly in my sleep.

Dan did some fancy wood-working to produce the beds, which involved the scroll saw I annoyingly gave him for his birthday last year. ("Here's a saw, now make waldorf toys! I can't make them; you make them! happy birthday!")

We finished up the mattresses and mattress-holding-elements just a few hours before Zion's party. Dan didn't want to finish the frame until he saw the stuffed mattress, and I didn't want to make the mattress until I could see the frame. We've been married for seven years now, but one of these days we'll figure out how to work on something together. Then on Saturday afternoon when we were sewing and nailing AND hanging up party decorations I said to Dan, "We can really get stuff done if we leave it to the absolute last minute."

At any rate, the babies in this house are very well-cared-for. Sleep well sweet PowPows!

"I bited my tongue."

"Do you want me to pray for it?"

"It only hurts a little. You can make a decision when to pray for it."

"How about when you're all done pooping."

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(I don't have any big thoughts to write about this conversation, I just want to post it to the blog so I can save it for posterity. I don't know how this thing will go, this experiment in faith, trying to raise children with the knowledge of a powerful God while being a very flawed person myself who is sometimes very far from God's love and power. I have big hopes for Harvey, but I know that life is unpredictable, and whichever way this thing turns out I want to remember when he was nearly four he asked me for clarification about the immediate power of prayer while he was on the toilet.)

Woodpecker Man
by Woodpecker
illustrated by woodpecker

Once upon a time there was a woodpecker.
He pecked the tree.
Then he couldn't peck it anymore.
He tried and he tried.
And then he could again!
The end.

2. Set up: in the bicycle, passing the neighbor's empty rabbit hutch.

Zion: Bunny? pet?
Me: Sorry Zion, the bunny isn't there anymore. We can't pet him.
Harvey: Derek says the bunny DIED.
Zion: No! Deedees died!
Harvey (laughing): We ALL die.

3. Set up: Apropos of nothing. (And for the record, we are not currently pregnant.)

Harvey: Zion and me are excited to get a new baby.
Me: I'm excited for a new baby too, Harvey, but you know it takes a long time -
Harvey: I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW.
Me: Mama and Dada still have to -
Harvey: I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW. You don't have to TELL me.

Last week Zion emptied an entire box of tissues one by one into the toilet. Plunging wasn't enough to get the thing unclogged; I had to scoop up the sopping mess with a trash bag.

I find it strangely heartwarming when my children act like stereotypical children. So much of parenting has come as a surprise to me that I rarely find myself acting "like a parent" in any way I thought I would. When I try to teach some value or lay out some disciplinary scheme, Harvey looks at me all "who are you and when are you going to lay off this bull crap?" Witness our conversation the other day about a certain educational program.

"I don't think I like that show Veggie Tales," I said to Harvey. (We watched one episode online, called The Grapes of Wrath. There was a moral at the end, but only after a long segment of insults delivered by characters with awful accents. The moral was don't do insults, but I don't think Harvey's able to make a distinction between the model for right and the model for wrong. And the rude family of grapes was apparently from the Ozarks but they had a New York Jew for a father; that just doesn't make any sense!)

"Well, they have the bible at the end," said Harvey. "So that's great."

"I know," I said. "I like the bible part, but before they tell the bible verse they talk all snarky to each other. I don't like it when they talk all snarky. Do you like it when they talk all snarky?"

Harvey shrugged his shoulders, then he looked down at the floor as he slumped into a posture of guilt. I feared suddenly that I was shaming him for his preferences, which are probably beyond his control. Then he looked up at me and his eyes narrowed. "I don't want to tell you," he said.

Score one for Harvey.

I tell this story to illustrate that my children have minds of their own, and our relationship feels false when I try to "play" the parent in some way. It feels more authentic when I think of us as people trying to figure out how we can best live happily with each other. Our power distribution is unequal, sure, but Harvey and Zion are just as able as I am to make our daily lives together miserable. As such they have a more than equal say in how things go.

Which is why when they get up to a classic childhood cliche like cutting their hair or plugging the toilet, it makes me feel surprised and a bit soothed. Oh right, we're not the only ones doing this ever. Parenthood is still a shared human experience, no matter how "innovative" I think I'm being in my approach.

Though that idea (does it have a formal name?) that only those who hear the Gospel will be judged for rejecting it — well, it's kind of silly. And impossible in the information age. And not supported by Romans 1:18-20, but I'm sure there's argument within the bible if someone wants to disagree with me.

At any rate, we're here now. There's no turning back. Both my kids now recognize Jesus, I'd better not give him a bad rap.

While I'm bragging about my angelic children, here's a sampling of some of the darling things Harvey has said this week:

"Jesus lives in heaven and in my heart. I know how he do's that. There are two Jesuses... wait, no.... I don't know how he do's that."

"I need you to play with us in the living room. Right now we're playing Seedling."

Me: "Harvey, did you and Zion eat all the cookies?"
Harvey: "They were so beautiful, we had to put them in our mouthes."

"No! Mama! We were having so much fun without you!"

The baby dolls have become such a big deal this winter that I have taken to bringing them everywhere we go. I used to ask the kids if they wanted to bring a toy when we go out, but now I reflexively grab the babies and shove them in my purse. Heaven forbid we should arrive at church or Whole Foods and someone forgot that they wanted to hold their Pow Pow. That's what Harvey named his baby, "Pow Pow." Then he said, "What's your baby's name, Zion?" and Zion said "My baby Pow Pow." I can't say that surprised me.

As with other plastic toys, the babies came into our lives unbidden. Some boxes were passing through our home from Toys for Tots enroute to a friend, and one small box with a small baby accidentally slipped out where it could be found by Zion. That was the end of that - Zion NEEDED that baby doll (and after a week of very intense fighting it became clear that Harvey needed one too.) That, and a search on Amazon for "baby doll 7.5 inches" yielded twin babies with slightly different facial expressions. Though I would prefer they play with the hippy toys I sew for them, it warms my heart to see them caring for these dolls. They request empty bottles and bowls and spoons so they can feed the babies. They hand me books and ask if their babies can sit in my lap.

During the snow storm I knitted the twin sweaters you see Pow Pow and Pow Pow sporting in these photos. Harvey and Zion each picked out a color of yarn and then I spent three days stitching away at a pattern I downloaded from Ravelry. The pattern was made for an 8-inch doll so the sweaters are a touch big. I was too lazy to size down and truthfully I didn't think it would take me as long as it did. Dan says the babies can grow into them.

When I think about what I want to teach my children, there are a lot of things I would like to model. I'd like them to see me make things with my hands, to see me approach chores cheerfully, to see me pray for other people. I worry that I don't have enough time for crafting or for charity, that I spend all my time tending to the kids' needs and those of the kitchen. Yet as I worry about the things I'm not demonstrating well, this one success quietly slipped by me.

Over the past two years I have successfully modeled how to lovingly care for a child.

I mean, I guess since that's what I've been doing with 95% of my time it's good that the boys noticed. Either that or they were just born unbelievably sweet. Probobly both are a little bit true.

They also like to be Pa and for this role they request a fiddle. At first I made them some cardboard fiddles, but Harvey complained that his wouldn't make noise and then I yelled at him for being ungrateful and then we had a fight about crafting and imagination and La La La this is how I fail hippy motherhood. Then I decided that cardboard stresses me out, one because it's never perfect and two because when I make playthings out of cardboard suddenly I have trash that needs to stay in the toy bin. So here is my new brilliant fiddle solution.

Take a sushi spoon and string it with two rubber bands. I put an extra rubber band around the top to hold the two "strings" in place. It makes noise, and when they're done playing I just take the rubber bands off and put the spoons back in the drawer. Yes, for some reason we have two wide spoons designed to spread sushi rice. I don't know why — I never purchased a sushi kit in my life, let alone two. But whatever; it works. Unlike the real life Ingalls family we're not minimalists.

Although the little house series features prominently in Harvey's imagination right now, the boys are into other books too. They had three straight mornings of playing Burt Dow Deep Water Man, strung out so long probably because I let them waste an entire box of bandaids on the project.

They likely would have played at it longer but I said I was done having cardboard boxes (Duh mom, they're BOATS) as permanent fixtures on the kitchen floor. Again with the cardboard. I'm such a kill joy.

But it don't matter too much though because any book is good for the imagination. If they don't want to act out the story they can play Mama and find something good to read to their babies.

And when that gets dull they find what I'm doing and ruin, I mean, join in with it. Here's Harvey riding on the vacuum while Zion cooks something on his play kitchen.

"Cooking" is how we describe his process for methodically grinding play-dough into the kitchen rug.

But I'm saving the best for last. Yesterday Harvey decided to play Bible Study. He had me and Zion sit on the couch and handed each of us a childrens' bible.

"Should we read the story out loud?" I asked.

"No, everyone reads for himself" he said decisively.

We looked at our books. Zion flipped the pages quietly. After a suitable amount of time Harvey looked up at us, ready to discuss.

"Let's talk about Jesus on the cross," he said. "I liked it!"

Zion is pretty much the baby of our family, so I expected Zion to fuss when I held the baby, and he did. But then I asked Zion if he wanted to hold her and he just LIT UP. He sat next to me and I held the baby towards him and he hugged and kissed and hugged and kissed and hugged and kissed her.

After Ashley left with the baby both of my boys spent some time pointing towards the door and weeping "Liiiiiittle." The next day was all about baby dolls, and after some heated mediation regarding whose baby doll was whose the boys carried their dolls around everywhere. The babies were fed when the boys were fed, got dressed when the boys got dressed, and even came along to Drumlin Farm!

I have to admit, I was a little taken aback by their baby madness. One of my main reasons for delaying getting pregnant again was the feeling that my kids just aren't ready to share with yet anther love-sucker. I never anticipated they'd have a desire to nurture. I never imagined they'd WANT another baby around. It kind of makes me wish we had stuck to the schedule and that we were already four months pregnant, even though there's no part of me that actually wants to be pregnant right now. I'm not sure there's any part of me that wants to be pregnant again ever, but it's hard to get biological children any other way.

Meanwhile, my own baby is growing up fast. Here he is drinking OJ just like his older brother.

Harvey says he saw Dada do it that way. Dada blames the snake.

Scared of hills? Now this is a new one. I've heard 'scared of generally leaving the house' but not of hills. Apparently he was traumatized during a recent bicycle ride to ChipIn farm when he realized he couldn't control Dan's speed going down the hill. Now he's terrified of anyone pushing him up or down a hill in bike or stroller, though this is the first I heard about it. That's the thing about Harvey. Something could seem like a lovely walk in the park, and a week later he tells you he was really attacked by wolves and he's never leaving the house again.

It's hard to control my anger in situations such as these, especially because I had REALLY gotten excited about spending a morning out of the house. I told Harvey if we turned for home there would be no more cake, ever, and he said he didn't want cake ever again in his whole entire life. That's when I believed he was really scared.

Now, I remember what it was like to be a child with anxiety. I remember thinking to myself, "If she really loved me she wouldn't make me get on this plane." I know I have the right to push a screaming child up the hill, plenty of parents would do it. But it would be unkind.

Someone said something to me over the holidays, something about me not allowing PlayMobile toys in the house because Zion could choke on the pieces, something like, "Is it really fair to Harvey?" And I said, Is it really fair to Harvey? Is it really FAIR to HARVEY???!!! Zion and Rascal and I are going out of our minds with cabin fever because Harvey won't let us out of the house; I spend 10 house a day as a preschool teacher on steroids, singing songs and running dance classes and acting out the nutcracker and rotating toys in and out of the basement to make them seem fresh, all the while preparing 1-3 hot meals and 2-4 healthy snacks and I can't open my computer during the day because I limit the shows to one half hour after lunch for THEIR benefit and I go outside only to walk the dog only when the sun is rising or setting and you wonder if what I'm doing is FAIR TO HARVEY???!!!

So it's hard to turn he stroller around and walk towards the house, but I did it.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure I should say that I do force him to leave the house three times a week: for church, for small group, and on Thursday nights to go to the library and community dinner. Mostly these times are easy because Dan is there too, and having Dan around seems to turn off the crazy tap. (Or maybe it's me who turns on the crazy tap. If so, I don't think it's something I can change.) There are other assorted times when Harvey actually wants to go out during the day, like when I got him to go to the feed store to get Christmas-pageant-straw and last Friday when he announced he wanted to go the museum. So it's not like we're shut-ins and I wouldn't say he's agoraphobic. It's just that he's afraid of some very specific things (some of which he doesn't tell us) and not leaving the house has at this point has become a "thing."

I remember when fear of the bath was a "thing.". Anything that made it more of a "thing" (like talking about HIS FEAR OF THE BATH BOOOOOOOOOO) made it much much worse. When I stopped forcing him to take a bath he got over it. Okay, so sometimes I forced him to take a bath because he smelled bad. But I stopped forcing him to take a bath as some sort of "strategy" for overcoming his "pathological fear of baths." And one day it just kind of went away.

Which is to say I'm advocating giving children autonomy, even when it saps all of mine. Even if it wasn't a magical reverse-psychology solution for anxiety, it would still be more kind.

We'll see if that psychology book agrees with me ... if I ever get it from the library!

This probably underscores my own prejudice, one that John Holt aptly identifies as society's prejudice, that children are ungrateful spoiled brats, little vacuums of time and resources, and if you give them an inch and they take a mile and also your wallet.

But after the first half of December I was up for anything. My biggest problem has been Harvey's sudden inability to leave the house. Part of it is free-floating anxiety and part of it is just experimenting with defiance. Maybe the supermarket is a little bit scary, but also why should he do anything I say just because I say it? He doesn't WANT TO! But I should do everything HE says because BLARGH NO ONE HERE RESPONDS TO LOGIC!

Like I say, I'm maybe prejudiced against children, the little brats.

(I'm speaking of myself at my worst mental state, here. The one where I never sleep and the kids fight all day long. In my better moments I remember how I lovingly gave up everything in my life to stay home and stare into the faces of my sweet angel babies, but those better moments have not been in December.)

Anyway, I started using some of the techniques outlined in this book, to give Harvey extreme amounts of focused attention and to also help him cope with some of his (stupid) anxieties. The book mentioned making up a story that helps a child deal with troubling emotions. (I think I also saw this on an episode of Full House one time.) Well, my problem with Harvey is that he feels conflicted; if I say it's time to go out he wants to do a fun thing with me on the one hand, but he also wants to disobey me or stay in the comfort of the living room. Where he can fight with Zion over every stinking toy the he picks up.

So I came up with this story about a mouse who had a problem. He always felt two emotions at the same time. He wanted to play but he wanted to sleep. He wanted to eat a snack but he wanted to take a bath, so he ate in the bath and got his crackers all soggy and his bath all dirty. (Harvey thought this was hilarious, by the way. "And then he had to get a towel and spray and wipe out the bath!!!" he squealed, as if we ever do that in our house.)

So one day the mouse (his name is Lebright because I thought it should sound like he's saying he wants go left and then quickly changes it to right) takes a walk in the woods. It's slow going because he brought along his bike because he wanted to bike too but also walk in the woods and it's hard to pedal in the woods. ("Like I want to do!" Harvey exclaimed. It seems psyche 101 bullshit really does work on 3-year-olds.) And while he was going slowly through the woods he found a lion trapped in a net. The lion was a magical lion and said if Lebright freed him from the net he would give him a magic present. So Lebright gnawed all the ropes one by one and the lion was freed. The lion presented Lebright with a magical ax. This ax had the ability of cutting two emotions apart that were stuck together. So if Lebright wanted to go out and stay home, and he was all conflicted, he used his magical ax "CUT" and suddenly he had TWO DIFFERENT EMOTIONS! He could go out first, and then stay home later. He could eat dinner and then go to bed. ("Like you're supposed to do" said Harvey.) Lebright wasn't conflicted, he was happy again.

Harvey liked the story. Then I gave Harvey a plastic knife and told him it was a magical ax. We pretended to cut each other with it for a while. Each time he said, "I still want to go-out-stay home!" and giggled.

Then I said it was really time to go out. And with slow baby steps, using the plastic knife as a ax every three steps or so, Harvey walked out the door and into the car. And we went to the supermarket.

It was magical.

I can't believe that shit really worked!

At first I felt like a parenting genius for tricking him into doing something I wanted him to do. But upon reflection I feel a little bit like an asshole. Not for the whole mousey story, obviously that was helpful for all of us. But how can I not sound like a jerk writing this blog post? I'm talking about an emotional challenge that is very real for Harvey and I'm all: "How can I get this to stop ruining my life?" instead of "How can I free my child from painful anxiety?"

Good Lord, I hope by the time he reaches adolescence he will have no interest in reading through these past entries. With any luck he'll be all: Mom whining about us as babies AGAIN? Psssh, Snoresville!

In the same vein I have been scanning the mail for catalogues to file directly into the recycling. Do not pass Harvey, do not extract $100 dollars. But when the World Vision catalogue came a few months ago I couldn't be so harsh. I brought it to Harvey and Zion so they could ooh and aah over all the cute animal pictures. Then I heard my self say something dramatic. "You can pick out any gift in this catalogue to give to a child in Africa."

When I said it they were looking at a $30 flock of chickens. I didn't expect Harvey to jump at the $75 goat!

"$75 is a little bit expensive," I explained to Harvey (after I explained again very clearly that the goat would be going to Africa and not by way of our house.)

"I have some money in my piggy bank," he said. "I could give it to you."

Then he asked me to get down his piggy bank, and he asked me to help open it, and he pulled out a handful of nickels and quarters.

I tried to show him all homeschooly how many quarters makes a dollar, but he wanted nothing to do with putting them in stacks. He just kept grabbing handfulls of money out of his bank and handing it to me, as if to say, Not enough? How about now? Still not enough? How about now?

In the end we filled a mason jar with coins and took it to the coin-star machine at Stop&Shop. He helped me put them in and saw a receipt print out.

"Does the paper say about our goat?" he asked.

"No," I explained, "We have to put this money on the computer and buy the goat on the computer at home."

"Oh. Okay."

At home I made a big production of buying the goat online. I showed Harvey a video of a family whose goat had changed their lives.

"Is that the girl who got our goat?" he asked.

"No, they already have a goat." I said. "Someone like them will get our goat."

A week later a catalogue came from Episcopal Relief and Development. It also had a goat on the cover, held by another adorable African girl."

"That's the girl who got our goat!" Harvey exclaimed.

I was so bowled over by his joy and exuberance that I didn't stop to correct him.

I guess I felt pretty smug about Harvey's generous spirit. Until I noticed that every time he sees someone who looks African he now says, "Hey! She looks like the girl who got our goat!"

So. Is Harvey overwhelmingly greedy or overflowing with compassion? The answer is Yes. Or more truthfully, the answer is he's three and he feels every desire big big, whether it's selfish materialism or selfless generosity. And even these labels are false distinctions I create. Since money has no concrete value to him, why shouldn't he ask for everything he wants and everything everyone else wants too?

I try to teach him many things, but "the value of money" has been low on my list. To tell the truth I'm a little ambivalent about it myself. I want him to get excited about getting gifts, because it makes me happy. I also want him to abound in compassion. I don't hold those things in opposition, though perhaps I should. He certainly doesn't.

I could throw him in the car by force or bribe him with chocolate, but I don't think that's great parenting either.

Instead I'm calling this a phase and hoping it passes in a week or so. He went through a time at 18 months when it was hard to get him to do anything. We got in a lot of useless fights me trying to drag him to story-time. Then I decided that was ridiculous. Calm down and let him grow out of his crippling social anxiety. And he did, for the most part, so when it flares up again I'm trying not to be too concerned. Also he's going pee every 30 minutes. That may be a factor. But he says it doesn't hurt when he pees, and if his penis hurt I'm sure it's something I would hear about. So. Trying to be chill about staying in the house for long periods of time.

Perhaps I'm not chill enough. Perhaps I'm putting too much pressure on him. Because this morning I was singing Lord of the Dance:

I danced for the scribes and the Pharisees but they wouldn't dance and they would not follow me...

when Harvey interjected: "Maybe they didn't follow Jesus because they wanted to stay home."

"What?"

"Maybe they wanted a day at home" he clarified.

My heart just broke into a million pieces. "No sweetie," I said, "the Pharisees didn't follow Jesus because they didn't want justice or equality. They wanted to hold onto their power. It had nothing to do with wanting to stay home. Staying home or going out has nothing to do with following Jesus."

Harvey looked at me blankly. And vulnerably and impressionably.

"Do you want to just stay home today, sweetie?"

Harvey nods his head.

"You can stay home and still follow Jesus, sweetheart. That has nothing to do with whether you go out."

"Okay" Harvey says, giggling. I don't know what he understands of anything, but he's happy I'm no longer asking him every half hour if he's SURE he doesn't want to go in the car to the store.

Look, playing in the house all day is not my cup of tea. I get really really bored looking around at more and more things that need my cleaning. BUT. That's just my preference. I wonder how many other things that are just PREFERENCES I'm trying to force on my kids like they're RELIGION. To say the thought makes me nervous is an understatement. It makes me downright terrified.

Zion is in love with boxes. I was dismantling this box for the trash, and when I got interrupted halfway through Zion climbed right in. Harvey is really into tents and forts, but Zion doesn't like something over his head. He prefers to play boat while Harvey plays Arc. Then Harvey shouts, "The rains will come in! The rains will come in!" And I say Zion doesn't mind the rain and Harvey looks at me like I've never picked up a bible in my life.

We did a big furniture shift in Harvey's room this week. I guess I should say Harvey and Zion's room? Well, the shift hasn't happened in our lives yet. I tried to put Zion down for a nap in the cars bed yesterday and the result was that he didn't nap all day. I don't know when he (or I) will be ready to make the switch. It's hard for me to kick Zion out of my bed without knowing there's another baby coming soon. Still, I want to give him space when he's ready and the boys are having immeasurable fun jumping from mattress to mattress.

Connected to this, there is no more crib to put Harvey in time-out until he calms down. There are no more time-outs. Instead I have long conversations with him about how his actions or emotions affect our relationship. Sometimes it even works.

Harvey drew his first really representational picture on the little magnet board our friends gave him for his birthday. I was amazed to watch him say, "These are the legs, these are the feet" and then draw them in mostly the right place. I wonder if the paper we put down on his table shifts around too much, and that's why the magnet board is easier. Anyway, it was very exciting to me, though Harvey acted nonchalant like, I'm always drawing things, Mama, don't be so CONVENTIONAL. Open your miiiiiiiiind.

Harvey and I read half of Stuart Little during Zion's nap the other day. Just when I thought he was getting bored and not paying any attention, Harvey said, "I want an arrow like the mouse had. Can you make me an arrow just like that?"

I tried to convince him we might cut one out of cardboard but Harvey was adamant that it wouldn't do an arrow's JOB in that case. So I found a piece of dowel and sawed notches on each end and glued a chicken feather in one end and something pointy in the other (I think it was a triangular bracket to keep a picture on the wall... I don't know, it was in the box with the nails.) When the wood glue had dried I handed the arrow ceremoniously to Harvey.

"The mouse had a hat," he said. "I think we could make one with card board and felt."

I complained that Zion might wake up soon and I didn't want to start another project, but Harvey offered to help me clean the kitchen first and once he had picked up all the pens from the floor what could I say?

While I was taping the top of the hat to the brim Harvey said, "Did he have a little mousey coat?"

"Focus Harvey," I said. "Eyes on the prize. Or we're going to have a long conversation about demandingness."

Here is Harvey in his Stuart Little costume. Sans coat. And he thought the hat was fine without the felt (phew).

On the days when I'm healthy I am so awestruck that I get to spend another day with these beautiful boisterous bundles of love. Even though they now both have arrows.

There are certain things that are important to me because they are important, like faith, compassion, or environmentalism, and some things that are very important to me for no discernible reason. Taking my family to see the Nutcracker is one of those things. I have been dreaming of this since BEFORE I had children. I don't know what I imagine this will accomplish, starting an obscenely expensive holiday tradition, but the emotional side of my brain that does not respond to reason says that iT is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.

Of course it doesn't have to be this year. It could be in many years to come, with a female child yet unborn, that I sit down in a darkening theater, and as the lights go down and the music swells a tiny hand squeezes mine, a tiny voice says "Oh, Mama! It's incredible!"

I asked Harvey if he wanted to ride the train into the city to see a dancing show. I explained that we would park the car at the train station, we would ride the train for a long time, then we would walk to a theatre. We'd sit in seats facing the stage. An orchestra would play music and people would come on the stage and dance. Harvey got very quiet and frightened. Then he asked if he could ride the train somewhere else. Maybe the Children's museum.

I showed him a video clip of The Nutcracker on You Tube. He asked if he could see another. I showed him another. He asked if he could see another. I asked if he wanted to go to the show to see the dancers close up. He shrunk back as if I was asking him if he'd like to be eaten by sharks. "I just like my iPad" he said.

There are two things at play here. One is: the more important something is to me the more Harvey relishes saying No. The second is that he can't respond to pressure. Even if I don't mean to, when something is important to me I put a pressure on my line of questioning. Harvey cannot respond to performance pressure of any kind. Really. If he's singing the alphabet and stops suddenly and I say, "What's the next letter Harvey?" he shrinks like I've pointed a gun at him. And don't ask him his name, strangers on the street, or what he's got there that he's eating. What are you trying to BREAK HIM? He CAN'T HANDLE THE ATTENTION!

What to do? Well, like everything else I convince myself that it's not really important. If it were important, like faith or compassion, I would drill it into Harvey a million times a day from every angle front back and sideways so I know there's no way he'll miss it. The Nutcracker is not really that important. It's just another thing I'd like to do. At this stage in my life I don't do anything without my kids, so if I want to do something I need to make them excited about it. And if they're not excited about it there's not a lot I can do. Put it on an imaginary shelf for later or never.

At the library this evening I was flipping through a Boston Parenting magazine and noticed a Nutcracker preview at the Discovery Museum this Saturday. Where we happen to be members. I threw the paper in front of Dan. "There!" I said. "Nutcracker this weekend, free. You can't beat FREE can you?"

I asked Harvey if he'd like to see the dancers AT THE CHILDREN'S MUESUM. He couldn't argue with that one.

A half-hour later we had gathered all the snow things from various closets and the basement. Harvey practically leapt into his snow-pants, but Zion took a lot more convincing. Forceful convincing.

Here was Harvey out in in the first snow of the year. It was hard to photograph him standing still since he wasn't frolicking like he invented the word.

Zion was not so sure about it.

He stood in the same spot for ten minutes watching Harvey and me jump around, then he started whining to go inside.

At the very least, it's a relief to know we have snowsuits and boots that fit both boys. Zion could use a fleece hat that says on his head; maybe I'll sew one for him when I clear the mitten-making material off the floor of the office.

Oh, and hurray for winter!

I also made myself a pirate costume. Unlike my children, I can stand still for a photograph.

I'm so happy with the way these costumes came out I'm thinking of starting a dress-up box for the kids so they can play pirates more often. Katie suggested the improvement of sewing the sashes to the vest to keep them in place. Of course! Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? I only adjusted their sashes like fifty times while trick-or-treating. I'll have to fix that as soon as I figure out where in the house they stashed their sashes.

Though you can't tell from the photos, these costumes were the most complex ones I've made to date, even using "real" clothing patterns for the shirts and pantaloons. The fabric was rather cheap; I did it all with $20 of supplies, but then I spent $15 on the stockings to wear under the pants so I don't really feel that thrifty. (Also, stockings? WTF? Parents of girls put those things on their children all the time? It took me like ten minutes alone to get those stockings on my kids.) Dan's mom made a comment that sewing will get easier once Zion can wear Harvey's old costumes and I was like, "What are you talking about? They have to MATCH!"

After canvasing the neighborhood for candy we came back to our house for a big halloween bash. It was a bash in the sense that it was a smashing good time and also because the kids bashed the house into every kind of mess you could possibly imagine. We haven't quite dug out yet. Everyone here has a mega candy hangover. No wonder his holiday is scary!

Full disclosure, he picks up from us the very anti-family habit of reading a magazine at the table. Both Dan and I like to read while we're eating. We relate to each other other times... there are PLENTY of family relating times in our day, don't you worry. It's just that I like to eat lunch in a bubble of peace and quiet and socially liberal international commentary. Feel free to judge us as you like.

"What? What kind of terrible gangster rap does Dada have on his — oh, that's Gregorian chants," I say looking over at the phone. "It's a picture of Jesus. Yes, I'd love to listen to that."

Harvey has more questions.

"Why's he got blood on his hands?"

"Those are the marks from the nails," I say.

"Why'd he get nails in his hands?"

"Well, remember when Jesus was hung on a cross?"

"Yes."

"They put nails through his hands so he couldn't get down. When he came alive afterwards he had blood marks on his hands from where the nails where."

"Oh."

I go back to knitting. Harvey has more questions.

"Why's the picture blue like that?"

"Well it's a mosaic. You mean why is it blue in some places and gold in some places in the background?"

"Yes."

"Because it's a mosaic which means it's made out of lots of little tiles. The people who used to sing this music were monks and they made these sort of pictures to decorate the walls of their monastery —"

Dan comes into the room to interject.

"Actually, these aren't Gregorian chants," he says. "Gregorian chants are mono-tonal. Secular composers who came later than the monks, in the renaissance, invented multi-tonality and made new arrangements of the Gregorian chants. The renaissance arrangements were multi-tonal. That's what we're listening to now - Renaissance music."

"Thank you Dada, but he's asking about the picture - I'm trying to explain about mosaics."

"Use the iPad," says Dan," It'll be easier to see the pictures."

So we get down the iPad and I do a google image search form Jesus Mosaic. Harvey flips through the pictures. "Oh, this is where he's on the cross! Oh, this is where he's in the tomb!" he exclaims.

I point out that the mosaics are made of many little tiny tiles. Harvey asks why Jesus has a circle around his head and I explain that artists made the circles called halos to show that people knew God. Harvey asks why in another picture Jesus has rays coming out of his head. I say because Jesus is like the sun that has rays and lights up the world. Harvey doesn't understand and I draw on the magnet board a picture of the sun and a picture of Jesus both with rays coming out of them. Harvey asks about another mosaic and I say it's Jesus' baptism. He asks about another and I say it's when Jesus died and was taken down from the cross, the women holding him is probably supposed to be Mary Magdalene since she's a woman and not wearing blue, and the man crying over him might be the disciple Jesus loved, John, or it could be the one who purchased the tomb for him.... um... Joseph of Arimathea.

"I've heard it pronounced ArimaTHEA," Dan calls from the kitchen.

"What's goin on in this picture?" asks Harvey, flipping to a different mosaic.

"That's Jesus ascending into heaven. After he came back from the dead he stuck around for forty days, then he rose into heaven while his disciples were watching."

"How'd he do it?"

"Um, he just kind of flew up there, I guess."

"How'd he do that?"

"God helped him."

"How'd God help him if Jesus IS God?"

"Um... Dan?" I yell. "Any Help?"

Dan comes in from the kitchen. "God is everywhere, so even when Jesus was God on earth there was still a God in heaven. Also, Jesus talked about God as his father even though he WAS God too."

"There's only one God. It's an amazing mystery." I add.

I tell Harvey we can make a mosaic ourselves out of paper, or out of tiles if we buy some cement mix stuff. I cut up squares of paper and print out one of the Jesus mosaic picture that Harvey chooses so he can follow the model and cover it with squares. This feels too heavy-handed to Harvey, and immediately he gets frustrated that he can't get glue on the tiny pieces of colored paper, and then that I put glue all over his picture. We end up with bits of paper all over the floor and to avoid a melt-down Dan calls Harvey to the dinner table.

Harvey sits down at the table and summarizes the last half-hour:

"I put on Jesus music for Mama because Mama likes thinkin about Jesus."

ed note: after dinner Dan returned to the mosaics and made one that was totally awesome. I feel bad for Harvey; he is often frustrated that his level of crafting ability isn't up to his desired level of production. That's what we do in our family, instill crafting anxiety along with religious instruction.

Nevertheless, I found myself using a morel from the Babel story in my discipline of Harvey yesterday. He was yelling "PIE PIE PIIIIIIIIE" while we were already FUCKING SERVING HIM PIE. Does it sound like I'm irritated by this? Because it's very irritating, this thing he does when we're getting him the juice he's all moaning "juuuuuuuuuuuice" like he's just come from wandering in the desert. So I said (after Dan and I both ordered him to SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND YOU'LL GET SOME) "Remember in the Babel story when the people wanted to keep from being scattered all over the earth? So they built a big tower? And then precisely because of the tower they got scattered all over the earth? Maybe that means that if you want something real bad you should STOP TRYING EVERY STUPID THING YOU THINK OF BECAUSE IT PISSES GOD OFF. Now I'm God in this story. And I know you want pie. But your whining makes me mad at you."

I don't know how much he's getting from these nice little chats.

So we kept him with us in the big service. I guess he was learning something about church and about God, but also he was getting yelled at a lot for acting like a child. And a lot of the time I thought things like: What is the point of this? They can run around and be loud at home and I wouldn't have to disturb other people or drive an hour total; I could just wash dishes.

But then I thought: what does THAT teach them? You can't go to church anymore because you're bad???

So back to kids church. Dan did a great job these past weeks of building up the idea of kids church for Harvey, how fun it would be now that he's a big kid, how great the toys are. And Harvey was SUPER excited to get in that room with the toys; he didn't mind at all when we left him. I even walked out and said, "Wow, that was easy!"

I had been in church ten minutes when I got a page to come back for him. Harvey had wet his pants. He was standing in the adjacent classroom, snotty and sobbing, tootsie-roll wadded up in his fist. And I thought, What is the point of all this? I thought, I just want to take them home.

After a few minutes of cuddles Harvey recovered enough to listen to the creation story while sitting on my lap. But before the end of class time he wet his pants again, this time while standing right next to me. Because I had only brought one change of clothes he went home in a pull-up and spare pair of sweat pants.

We came home from church and I immediately got a fever.

This whole thing is so hard. Every week we go to church, and I have an agenda. I want to GO TO CHURCH. I want to sing songs and hear a sermon. I want to feel like I prayed and connected with God.

My kids have an agenda too. They want to play with toys, play with other kids, play on the playground. They want to eat bagels. They want to feel safe while they do all this and feel like their parents are looking out for their needs.

They don't care for a sermon. They only care for songs if they can run around like maniacs.

They don't care that every other day of the week we go on outings 100% for them, 100% designed to make them engaged and happy. They are justifiably confused that I have a different agenda.

I was thinking as I sat holding sobbing Harvey this morning. I was winded from running across the parking lot carrying Zion, and I had to pee because I hadn't gotten a chance to go to the bathroom between dropping Harvey in his class and getting to church, and in this altered state I suddenly I had a selfless thought: If this is what it takes for Harvey to have a relationship with God then I will sit in this stupid tiny room all year. I will drive to Cambridge every Sunday to be a human bean-bag chair and take Harvey back and forth from the bathroom, if that's what he needs. I already have a relationship with God. If Harvey needs to sit on my lap every time he hears a bible story then I will give up every pleasure I have in Sundays so that he can sit on my lap on learn about creation.

Then I had another thought. This is insane. How much can I possibly give up? Sleep? Privacy? Alone time? Physical integrity? I already don't have anything left. Every second of my life is already giving something up because it might make something slightly easier for one of my children.

But maybe these are just the thoughts I have when I'm ill. I don't know if it's the line of thinking that gives me the fever or the fever that gives me the line of thinking. Last time I waxed existential I had a persistent throat infection, but as soon as it got better I felt a lot better.

Dan says he will take Harvey to kids church next week.

Harvey also sewed the rainbow, which is to say he drove the pedal of the machine while I turned the fabric wildly to try to get the stitches to curve at Harvey's warp speed (I don't let him use my computerized sewing machine for obvious reasons, but that means the only speed control he has is how hard he puts down on the pedal. And he's three - gradual gradation is not really his thing.)

We did Noah's ark on the flannel board two and a half times this week, the half when Zion abruptly ripped all the pieces off the board and Harvey announced, "Let's go outside!" I'm eager to move away from Noah and get on to the tower of Babel (skipping Noah getting drunk and exposing himself to his sons; that's a lesson for high school). Harvey thinks Noah's ark is a bit scary, because of the giants. He is very happy when they get killed in the flood, and he relishes wiping them off the board when the waters rise. But he notes that we need more animals to die too in the flood. Yeah, I think he's learned enough here.

I'm not very spiritually moved by the Noah story. I think God related to prehistoric peoples in a way that probably made sense to previous ages more than it makes sense to us. I'm also not totally happy with this felt set-up. I wanted to press the point that Noah wasn't the only person in the ark, but my zeal to represent his family and then following fatigue at cutting out figures gives the impression that there were more people saved than drowned in the story. Which is false. Also, it's a bit tricky to fit all those guys in the ark and shut the door and have the thing still stick to the flannel board. I'm thinking ahead to IMPORTANT stories in Genesis (who's playing God now!) and I think for big groups of people like Joseph's brothers I'll cut them out as a crowd block and then decorate them some way that's not so neon.

Harvey seems to be learning a lot from these stories. Preschool homeschool isn't so hard, I realize. Just the other day I asked Harvey what he wanted to do for school at home this year, and he said, "Well, we already did weaving, and making a sweater, and numbers.. so I don't know! We already did everything!"

He seems to have gotten the hang of pedaling all of a sudden, and now it's all pavement all the time. If I but look at the front door both my children are instantly playing in the street. Harvey even biked halfway to the playground yesterday, and then halfway back. That's almost a mile in total!

Zion doesn't have a bike that can make it past our street corner, but he refuses to ride in the stroller if Harvey is biking and screams "DOWN, DOOOOOOOWN" until he can feel pavement under his little feet. Yesterday he was happy to pull the crocodile along behind him. (Auntie Oona: best. toy. ever.)

And just for kicks, here's a close-up of Zion's outfit so you can see just how much he's rocking the early fall.

I'm thinking of the seasons changing, and how it takes me a little while to adapt to the changing needs of my children. Just the other day I noticed Harvey running through the woods where a month ago he would have been stroller-bound and I thought, "Wow. He now has a need for exercise. Outside the house." Like, I now have to plan for early morning exercise time, just like I have to plan for meals and snacks and naps and flannel-board stories. And walking the dog, which, er doesn't really jibe with Harvey and Zion's free traveling pace.

But my own scheduling nature aside, It's a really fun season with the boys running about. I don't know what the future will bring, there are lots of question marks as we look towards the next year, but I'm enjoying what the fall has for us right now.

UPDATE: Harvey loves the flannel-board, but he says he doesn't need to hear the creation story again. He wants to know where are the figures for Jesus and the disciples and the boat for Jonah.

"Okay," I say. "One day Harvey the Pirate fell off his boat. God arranged for a great fish to swallow Harvey the Pirate. And he was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. And Harvey the Pirate prayed to his God from the belly of the fish - "

"Noooooo," interrupts Harvey. "He didn't pray. He just couldn't see anything down there."

"Oh, okay. So he didn't pray. And the fish vomited Harvey the Pirate onto dry land. And from there he went to Nineva and spoke out against it because its evil ways had offended the Lord."

"Can you tell me another story about Harvey the pirate?"

"Well, if we're on this kick, one time Harvey the Pirate was crossing the sea of Galilee when a terrible storm came up. And the wind was blowing and the waves were crashing, but Jesus was asleep on the deck of the boat. So Harvey the Pirate woke up Jesus and said, 'Don't you care? We're perishing!' And Jesus said to the wind, 'Stop blowing!' and he said to the waves 'Be calm!' and they were! And Harvey the Pirate said quietly, 'I think this is the son of God!'"

"Ha ha," Harvey laughs. "Can you tell me about Harvey the Pirate nailed to a cross?"

"um, well, okay. Harvey the Pirate was nailed to a cross next to Jesus. And there was some other guy on the other side of Jesus, and the other guy was mocking Jesus saying, 'If you're the son of God get us all down from here!' but Harvey the Pirate said to Jesus, 'Don't listen to him. Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' And Jesus said to Harvey the Pirate, 'Truly I tell you, this evening you will be with me in paradise.'"

"There's a tomb in that story."

"Yes, er, then they were all laid in a tomb. Jesus and Harvey the Pirate and this other guy."

"But then other people came."

"Yes, other people came to the tomb and Jesus wasn't there. The angel said, 'Jesus is alive!' And they were happy. Hurray! The end. Now at your lunch."

Golly. I hope Harvey stops asking for these kind of stories by the time he's old enough to find this upsetting.

(Now for a joke only Dan will appreciate: Earlier Jesus had said, "You ask to see miraculous signs. I tell you the truth. No other sign will be given except the sign of Harvey the Pirate. For just as Harvey the Pirate was three days in the belly of the fish, so the Son of Man will be three days in the depths of the earth.)

These are some pieces I prepped for our smallgroup to create Joseph dolls, complete with custom-designed multi-colored coats. Harvey made his early as a demo. And then insisted on taking him everywhere. "Can I take my joseph in the wagon with me?"

He also said adorable things like, "Mama! Zion's trying to eat the coat of many colors!"

In the same vein, I made these butterfly footprints with the kids for valentine's day. It's not so hard to do, really. First you spread paint evenly over every surface in your kitchen. The kids walk all around getting paint on their feet. They you wait for one to kick you and at the last minute, BAM, hold up a piece of paper. Repeat for other side.

No, I'm just kidding, the actual process is slightly more messy.

I've been thinking about the difference between doing "art projects" with the kids and just doing art. The former is contained within a clear set of steps, and there's a final product in mind. The latter is an invitation to make a big mess, but theoretically more creatively engaging.

I think I'm in favor of free-form art, at least until Harvey's finished products approach something I can coach into presentability. Or until he can do a craft kit on his own without asking me to do EVERY SINGLE STEP for him. (Dude! If I wanted to make a doll myself I'd make a BETTER one.) Now if only I could get him to stop drawing on the toys. ("But Grandma did it!" he says. I guess we all just have different metrics for how much we're willing to suffer for art.)

Harvey is oblivious to the set up of a joke, however, so when my mother said, "Hey, I've got a joke for you. Why did the chicken cross the road?" Harvey answered very earnestly, "The chicken crossed the road because he got out of his chicken coop! But... but... Then we put him BACK into his chicken coop!"

"Well," she said. "You seem to know the whole story then."

Meanwhile, Zion has started uttering strings of "ma" rather purposefully. He'll say "mamamamamam" when he's angling for me to pick him up, and last night when I came back to bed he sighed with relief and said "mamamama" rather cheerfully. So it shouldn't be long before he's getting in on the comedy business. Or at least playing the straight man.

Or maybe Harvey's just the joker in the family. His first word was "da" for "dog."

Also, when he's eating a muffin at Whole Foods and he drops a piece on the floor he says, "Are there no dogs here?" Which I find endlessly amusing. Imagine a world in which stray dogs run around Whole Foods licking their chops in expectation of dropped samples.

Of course there are some challenges we're dealing with these days too. Harvey is suddenly anxious of kids, stairs, car rides and going anywhere without Mama, to the point of disability. Zion is waking up every two hours in the night, to the point of MY disability. I have no formal plans of attack here except wait and see, because every formal plan I come up with somehow sounds much more traumatic than wait and see.

On the plus side, Zion finally started eating real food. Harvey is, as always, a champion eater. Which is good because I feel much better bribing with food than with television. We're only watching an hour of TV a week on average, which makes me feel pretty darn good, though terrified of getting sick or pregnant. Harvey doesn't nap anymore and both children are fairly needy, so by 6pm I'm pretty much asleep on my feet. My red and throbbing feet.

As challenging as it is to be a full-time mama to two very young children, there's nothing I'd rather be doing. Yes I'm guilty of getting caught up in the stresses and irritation of day-to-day household management (What do you MEAN your pants are wet? That's the FIFTH PAIR TODAY!). But when the laundry is folded and I sit down to read a story I remember that these are the two most precious angels in the entire universe and I am beyond blessed that they live in my house with me.

"You wanna hear about when Jesus was born? Or about grown-up Jesus?" I ask.

"Grown up Jesus."

"Well," I say, wondering how much detail I can convey without burning onions. "When Jesus was 30 he went to his cousin John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan river. And when he did the sky split open and a bird came down from heaven. Well, it was like a bird but it was really the spirit of the Lord, and a voice came down from heaven saying, 'You are my son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.'"

"Can you tell me more of that story, Mama?"

"Well, after that Jesus went into the desert for 40 days and was tempted by the devil. Then he came out and began his ministry."

"Can you tell me more bout that?"

"Jesus walked around from town to town and healed everyone he met who was sick, and helped people with whatever they needed, like if they were hungry he made them some food, or if they wanted to know the right way to live he told them what to do, which was to follow him."

"Tell me more!"

"Then the jewish leaders didn't like what he was saying, so they had him killed after kind-of a puppet trial, they killed him on a cross which is called crucifixion."

"Oh," Harvey says giggling. "Can you tell me more of that story?"

"He went to the place where the dead are, and on the third day he rose, which is to say he came back from the dead. He was resurrected. And people say Jesus died for all our sins, and if you believe in him you're what's called 'saved.' You could be saved too if you want, Harvey."

Suddenly Harvey's face turns ashen. "I DON'T WANT TO!" he yells.

"I want to take my shirt off, mama, to see how my belly's doin!"

"'Can we build a tower?' he said in his curious voice."

"Mama, what you do to your hair?"
"I made it straight. You like it?"
"I like it left."

"Can I read you a book, caboose? It's called 'Jop and Boonin are not ashamed.'"

"We're crawlin!"
"You are?"
"I said, 'Zion, want to crawl?' I said that!"
"And what did Zion say?"
"He said, 'GaGa!'"

"Can you sing Mild He Lays His Glory By, the newborn king song?"

"Can we go to the church that has toys? It's called Bethlehem."

All this is to say that the following stories are adorable, but please don't think we're like crazy fundamentalists force-feeding our two-year-old bible all the time. He talks about many other subjects, including Santa Clause and Thomas the tank engine. (I don't know why I pick these out as anti-religious examples. A subject for another post I guess.)

I think that's enough preamble. On to the biblical cuteness.

————

Here is Harvey's one-sentence summary of the bible, spoken as he was flipping through a copy on the coffee table:

"Now they go to sleep. Then they wake up and play. And on and on and on."

————

We listened to a bit of audio bible on our drive to Market Basket this week. After we were done shopping, as we were walking back to the car, Harvey suddenly got very excited about listening to it again.

"Are we going to watch the... uh... uh... the savior show?" he asked.

————

We sang a song in church last sunday called "Bless the Lord." As the last chorus was dying down a woman near the front yelled out, "Bless the Lord! Bless Him!" Harvey's eyes widened and he immediately called out in his loudest voice:

"Bess da 'Ord! Bess 'Im!"

Because, you know, he can't say the letter "L."

Then, because it felt so good to yell in church, he did it again.

If all 500 churchgoers hadn't turned around the first time, they turned for the second.

And I just stood there like some parenting prodigy. Yes, my child is moved to praise by the Holy Spirit ALL THE TIME my smile beamed.

"Is it something you eat?"

"Yes"

"Is it in the frigerator?"

"Yes."

I open the fridge hoping for miraculous insight. And there it is, in a tupperware on the top shelf.

"Oh! You want some mellon!"

"Yeah!" he says breaking into a thousand-watt smile.

It's been too long since we had mellon in the house, I guess. Thanks food stamps! Now can you get my child to say the letter L???

He's into this things-made-out-of-things lately. We were reading a baptism book given to us by the episcopal church, and when it got to a picture of Jesus' baptism Harvey exclaimed: "That's God!"

"It sure is, Harvey! Great job!"

"It's God made out of Joseph!"

I was about to explain that he's sort of right, but then I realized it just looks like a picture of Joseph from another book.

"No, that's Jesus," I say.

"It's God made out of Jesus!" Harvey says proudly.

"Jesus made out of God more likely, but I'll take it!"

Later Harvey brings a hymn book to Dan and points to the crucifix on the cover: "That's God made out of Jesus!"

"More like Jesus made out of God," Dan says.

"I know," I say, "That's the second time I corrected him today. But we may need to have this conversation a few times..."

Harvey tends, you see, to be rather anxious. I know where he gets it from.

But let me give you another example. Last week Dan came home from a half day at work. I didn't know exactly what time to expect him, and I was upstairs putting Harvey down for a nap when he came in quietly. So when I walked down the stairs moments later and saw a person coming around the corner inside our house I startled and gasped and put my hand over my heart.

Now, Dan really hates it when I do this, when I act like he's a murderer in his own house. And that seems pretty fair to me. I always try to apologize rather profusely and swear up and down that One Day I will exorcise all my demons and be rid of this terrible stranger complex.

Except then half an hour later Harvey was awake and standing on a chair in the kitchen when Dan came up from behind and put his hands on Harvey's shoulders. Immediately Harvey pulled his hands in as if to curl up into a ball and his whole body started shaking.

When he isn't so personally offended, Dan just looks at the two of us and sighs exasperatedly, "My goodness you guys."

I has helped my parenting recently to think of Harvey as a toddler version of myself. He's anxious and shy. He desperately wants to be in control and desperately wants to be loved at the same time. Being a toddler, he hides all of this slightly more poorly than I do. So when I get irritated that he's demanding SO MUCH of me every second of the day, I just think to myself "mini me" and out spring buds of compassion. When I'm trying to project my authority by throwing him in his bed every time he hits the dog, I remember "mini me" and find a way to help him save face and get love without "backing down." And when he says "I neeeeeed uppy, mama" or "I want to go hooooooome" I muster all the courage I have to say No, despite how much I want to say Yes, because he is me, and we both need to accept that the world is a safe place and that being scared sometimes is okay.

Zion, on the other hand, wakes in the bed and looks about at his surroundings with wide open eyes. "What is this wonderful place?" he thinks. I and have hope for the future that we also have a child version of Dan.

baby Zion:

baby Harvey:

Must be a family resemblance in there somewhere.

Some other phrases reveal exciting new cognitive developments for Harvey, like the ability to make similar comparisons. Dis-similar comparisons came months ago, like when he would hold a lego and a duplo and say "little one - big big one!" But the other day Harvey put one foot up on a rock and said "Havey like statue man!" Impressive. It's less exciting when used as a bedtime stalling tactic, though. When Zion was about two weeks old Harvey lay awake in bed sending out all the regular stalling lures: "I'm Awake! Mama I'm awake! Havey wan some wadah!" when he boldly shouted out "I'm cryin like baby Zion, WAAAAAA!"

I told this story to his grandmother, by the way, and she said "oooh. poor baby. Did you go in and hug him?" And I was like, "Pssh! Or course not! He's supposed to be going to sleep!" Distance from parenting breeds sympathy with the children, apparently.

When we aren't too exhausted that it's irritating, Harvey says some pretty cute things while he's yelling himself to sleep "Dada, what's happening?" and "It's time for bangin' a drum!" and sometimes just "I'm all done!"

No Harvey, it's 8pm. I'm all done.

We should be commended that the exclamation Harvey turns to these days is "Oh my goodness!" or "Oh my gracious!" and not something stronger. Although he has turned to saying "That was easier" about everything, and I have no idea what he's trying to say by that.

But I have confidence that one day all will be revealed. Harvey was talking about "deena dina doony" for a long time before we realized my mother showed him a cartoon called "Teeny Tiny Tony." Really, it was cuter when we though he was making it up.

We started the day off with a breakfast of Harvey's choosing: oatmeal and spaghetti followed by a piece of birthday cake. Then we packed up for a big outing. I gave Harvey the choice between Drumlin farm and the zoo, and he picked zoo without hesitation, adding "see amimals? no amimals in dere? amimals all gone? cage empty?" Indeed, the challenge or trying to spy animals in re-created habitats is that more than 50% of the time they're hiding and not visible. Still, to Harvey pointing out an empty cage seems to be half the excitement.

We did indeed see many empty cages, but we also saw lots of birds, a moose, and a cougar that wasn't doing so well. When we walked up to its enclosure the cougar was pacing rather non-majestically, when suddenly he crouched over and threw up.

"Just like our dog at home, huh Harvey?" I remarked.
"Dat amimal few up?" he said.
"Yeah, he threw up."
"onna gas?" Harvey said pointing.
"Yes, on the grass."
Harvey paused for a second.
"Mama, get a towel? wipe it?"

No sweet heart. I don't have to wipe the throw-up when we're at the zoo.

After three house of walking around and around and around with two children and three hundred pounds of diapers, we finally called it a day and drove home to our own animal who needed walking. By that time Dan was almost home from work, so we waited for him and took a family outing to the local ice cream store!

And since the play ground is on the walk home, it would be cruel to our little birthday boy if we didn't stop.

Since he's two now we let him climb all the way up to the top of the big slide, but once there he tested the wind conditions and decided he didn't really want to go down by himself after all. Luckily dada was there to help him down.

I don't know if it comes through from the fact that I gladly walked seventeen thousand miles today carrying snacks and necessities and another 11 pound child, but I really love this kid. Keep on growing up, my big boy. You only get awesomer every day!

It's funny how they're personalities are completely different. Zion is mostly easy-going and complacent as a baby, whereas Harvey was, er, more vocal in his discomfort. Zion loves snuggling and being held sideways whereas Harvey hated cuddles and only wanted to be held upright. But who knows what that means for future personality? Harvey is a fantastic kid and pretty complacent as toddlers run. I keep looking at Zion and saying "Who ARE you, little guy?" He doesn't know any better than I do the answer to that question.

Harvey calls him "Havey's baby" (it's a boy baby, Harvey says, don't let the pink confuse you) and he frequently steals Zion's blankets and and hats for use in its care. I don't mind one bit; we have lots of blankets around here, and the doll was invaluable in the flash weening I put Harvey through this month. As soon as the baby doll came into the picture, Harvey's demands of "Havey nooning" when he saw Zion nursing could be effortlessly redirected into "Havey nooning Havey's baby."

Because I'm so very proud of my big boy, I wanted to make him something for his baby, and I decided on the doll carrier from the Oliver + S book. (Also so that Harvey would stop trying to steal the bjorn for his own purposes - it doesn't fit him anyway.) This very simple project took me from Thursday to Tuesday to complete, with a little bit of work every day (including running to JoAnne's for buttons - why is it that the buttons I have in stock are never the buttons I need?) Also, I let Harvey pretty much destroy the office and all my sewing supplies in the process. He loaded my serger with pins and drew over the sewing patterns with magic marker while I was trying to alternate between nursing Zion and any productive activity. It's as if the instructions in the book are trying to mock me "You'll be surprised how quickly this little carrier comes together!" Ha. Yeah right.

Either way I managed to get it completed, and Harvey was overjoyed to walk around carrying his baby on his front like a real mamma or dadda. "uppy baby" he calls it. My that boy is turning out to be such a little responsible young man.

And just like mama, Harvey likes to kiss his baby while he's in the carrier. So maybe it's not the end of the world that he got a big plastic doll. It means it can stand up to a lot of love.

(blogging time made possible by Harvey who is currently playing a game called "spit it out" which entails drinking from my water bottle then spitting it all over himself. I made him play outside on the porch.)

I wore them out this morning, though, with a trip to the bank and Staples which culminated in an overly long snack-break at Dunkin Donuts because the so-called fast-food chain made me wait 20 minutes for an egg-and-cheese sandwich and then delivered it without cheese. Emboldened by my starving 2-year-old I made them give me my money back and another sandwich. While we ate our free replacement sandwich, a crazy veteran quizzed me on the ages of my children and then asked me sideways if I was pregnant again. I told him no, I just gave birth 13 days ago and he told me to exercise. I told him to go fuck himself. Actually I didn't. I gave him a look that indicated that he should go fuck himself, something that I've become quite good at since I became a mom.

More evidence that as much as I need to deposit checks I should never leave the house again, at least not for the strip malls of Bedford, at least not without snacks in hand. Still, it earned me a 2-hour nap for both of them, so much is the stimulation of stores and low-quality egg-and-cheese.

Motherhood, I am not winning. But surviving feels pretty good today.

So I sat and read them my favorite story, pressed up next to Harvey with one hand on the book and the other supporting Zion's head as a back up measure. Harvey listened to the story and every minute or so leaned down to kiss Zion on his forehead. Rascal took notice and squeezed his way onto the couch on the other side of me. When I got to the point in the story where it says "All the world is everything, everything is you and me" it was all I could do to hold back big mama tears.

During this pregnancy I prayed for a baby that would be the perfect fit for our family. So far Zion seems to be fitting in with Harvey like a puzzle piece, which is to say he's perfectly complementary while being perfectly opposite. He sleeps all the time, unlike constantly wakeful baby Harvey. He wants hugs and cuddles and to be held horizontal, unlike baby Harvey who just wanted to be put down in his basket or be held sitting upright like a big boy. It seems as if Harvey was made to be a big brother and Zion to be a devoted little. Or it could be the difference in their gestational ages, who knows. Either way it's exciting to see this whole new relationship forming. Makes all the stairs worth it.

Kind of reminds me of Harvey's serious face from 8 days old.

Of course, it may just be those enormous cheeks pushing up poor Zion's brow. He can make other faces after all, like this one.

or this one

Which reminds me that Harvey at a day old wore the exact same outfit:

It's hard to believe that Harvey was a whole month older than Zion at birth. I guess as a little brother he's already running fast to catch up.

Because Neil's death was so sudden and stupid and random it was like I had to change the whole way my brain worked to fit it in. Obviously people die all the time, in car accidents and from cancer and from freak things like amniotic fluid embolisms. But I just don't want to believe it - it's one stupid puzzle piece that just does not want to fit. So I think maybe I should hide it or throw it into the trash because its presence means that I might have been putting the whole rest of the puzzle together wrong.

We read it in church today and this time of year every year. Men die. Sons die. Prophets die. It's true but also random and stupid and hard to make fit. So instead we say: Look over here! Look at this bunny!

Rascal killed a baby bunny once. He hardly touched it and all of a sudden it was dead. The poor little thing looked so sweet and perfect and beautiful and completely and stupidly un-alive. As did the mouse who died this week in our kitchen. We try our best to catch the mice humanely, but this one we didn't even trap - it was one of two that got stuck in the recycling bin overnight. Harvey and I released one mouse who'd gotten stuck in the bin plus two we'd caught in the traps, but the other little one who'd fallen into the recycling looked very sick when we transfered her to the big cage, and she failed to make a rallying recovery when we moved her to a warm little hospice box next to the stove. By bedtime she had stopped breathing, and even as I was relieved that she looked so peaceful I was almost inconsolable that something so sweet and small and perfect just died because of my stupid recycling.

I know that mice die, that indeed these ones only lived because of my kitchen scraps, and when they're pooping disease all over my silverware every morning it's a war of them versus me. But still, it's my fault. My kitchen. My recycling bin. My big wide sphere of influence that I can't control that includes death.

And when I reflect, I know that the other three mice who we drove 20 minutes into Carlisle to release might not even have it any better. They may not have found warm places to bed down for the night. They might have gotten eaten by hawks just moments after I set them down. Even driving there yesterday I was thinking: does it really matter? Does it really make a difference? Does this little outing for the sake of my conscience do anything really? anything at all?

What Jesus did on Good Friday seemed pretty trivial at the time too. That he died on a cross instead of while leading a violent insurrection... Seriously dude, what the difference between a dead messiah and a dead messiah? What's the difference between a mouse dying in the woods and a mouse dying in our kitchen. Does it really make any difference at all?

Is there something in the way that Harvey says, "Mouse fee inna woods?" Something that means something? Something that makes me tear up because "free" means something somehow important?

One stupid death on a cross among other stupid deaths on crosses, it shouldn't have made a difference or changed anything, but somehow it did; somehow it changed our hearts and through some miraculous mystery set them free. Even though death surrounds us, even though we all taste it someday and smell it in our nostrils long before that, still there is something in this Friday that we call it Good, something about the assurance of freedom that is important. That in death and before death and after death there is a real freedom, that is a real thing that means something.

Neil, you knew that better than me.

Over the past few months I've re-written my crafting priority list several hundred times, trying to get squared away with baby showers, Easter, and Harvey's birthday before my new little life interruption arrives. Many ideas rotated out next to the line that read "Harvey's birthday," but for some reason "sock monkey" was the one that seemed to stick. This boy loves monkeys, after all, and I've been wanting to try my hand at a sock creation for some time now. So going through the priority list ass backwards as is my fashion (Easter is still not done of course) I just finished this gift for Harvey's birthday. All it took was two naps and one very long chunk of night-time time. Oh how I'm going to miss these quiet naps when I have two babies...

I referenced a pattern from Miyako Kanamori's book Sock and Glove. I use both the terms "referenced" and "pattern" loosely, because this is mostly a book of ideas and pretty pictures, leaving someone to their own devices for figuring out how to best cut, stitch, and hand finish knit fabrics to create something like the creatures therein. Aside from general sewing competency (or a flexibility with the outcome, either one will do) there is only one piece of information someone needs to create a sock monkey, and that is the diagram that shows how the second sock should be cut to form the arms, nose, ears, and tail. If you're interested in making one, you can find such a diagram here. I was fortunate that Kanamori's book appeared at eye level in my local library this week; It saved me printing out another piece of paper to lose five times over the course of one project.

The finished sock monkey is super soft and snuggly, and I do think Harvey will fall in love with him as quickly as I did. I only hope it will feel to me like enough of a "real" birthday present to keep me from pulling late nighters come the end of June. I know that with big presents likely coming from two sets of grandparents, and new pants and shirts that need to be sewn anyway, all that the boy really needs from his mama is something simple and heartfelt to let him know that I love him. In general I am trying to adapt my way thinking around gift-giving occasions. I tend to go overboard for each holiday, thinking I have to make EVERYTHING that comes into my head, which in turn only makes me stressed and anxious and sometimes moody on party day if something doesn't turn out right. I'd like to just be able to say, "This is my handmade gift. I put a lot of time into it and I think it's pretty good. I think you'll like it too. You don't need 20 of them to know that I love you."

Anyway, it's a work in progress. Me, I mean. Not the monkey, though. He's finished.

So we read through the story of Jesus, starting when he was 12 (I skipped the 10 pages on Christmas, since I had just read it yesterday) through the crucifixion. Harvey likes the page where Jesus sits on a rock and delivers the sermon on the mount ("Harvey sit rock one day?") as well as the transfiguration ("Harvey up mountain one day?"). Since "one day" is Harvey's favorite expression du jour, we end up having a conversation every page about what we'll do one day and when specifically. We can sit on a rock as soon as the snow melts but we'll have to wait till July to go up a mountain. Anyway...

Harvey has a tendency to take any line of text he understands and repeat it with a more familiar subject, so it shouldn't have surprised me when I read to him that Pilate let the soldiers kill Jesus and Harvey peeped up:

"Mama kill Je-SUS?"

"Um... er.... Yes Harvey, mama killed Jesus. He died for my sins."

"Dada kill Je-SUS?"

"Yes, dada killed Jesus too. We all did."

"Harvey kill Je-SUS?"

"Yes sweetness, you killed Jesus too. You see, he died so all your sins could be forgiven."

"Rascal kill Je-SUS?"

"Well, it's theologically unclear. But no, I don't think that Rascal killed Jesus."

Harvey seemed content with that explanation until we got to the page summarizing the book of Revelation and Harvey repeated "Je-SUS coming one day?" I tried to unexcite him a bit by explaining that all the world first needs to be saved, but I think that was introducing too many new concepts at once since he just kept repeating "One day?"

So it's good to see him taking an interest in his adorably impressionable 21-month way. No pressure on me to get things right or anything...

We finished reading the book and headed off to clean when Harvey demanded, "More song Soul Coughing?" Okay, so we'll listen to Soul Coughing while we vacuum. I'm not the only one in this house who's working on stuff with Harvey, apparently. The 90s punk is all Dan's doing.

I fudged the pattern by putting a bigger apron on Harvey and pinning it to fit, tracing that piece onto paper, cutting out one side in the polkadot fabric, and making adjustments before cutting out the second side. All in all, it should have been a quicky-quick project. Indeed it would have been if only I had sewn on the binding the easy cheat way. But for some reason I didn't want to risk missing a curve and staring at my busted up handiwork every day for the next two years, so I sewed all the binding in regular 4-step process: pin, sew one side, pin, sew the other side. That made this silly little apron about a 4-hour project, including a full hour of Phineus and Ferb.

Oh well. At least it has a pocket.

Both the fabric and binding came from scraps from other projects, which means that this project was sort of free! Well, free to an economist at any rate, because he would call fabric scraps a sunk cost. An accountant would call the fabric inventory and allocate some cost to it. Then again, the economist might assign a cost to my 4 hours of work and list it as an "opportunity cost" where I could have been acting profitably elsewhere. So like I said, sort of free. Golly, I'm sure glad I went back to school for the MBA.

The big red splotches are not part of the fabric pattern, by the way. So necessary was this apron that we had to ply it into service before mama could get in some clean daytime shots. On Wednesday night Harvey helped with the quesadilla sauce and pretty much poured salsa all down his front side.

Well, that's what it's there for!

My former sewing space had a whole shelf full of fleece and pieces of fleece. After making Noah's cow last week and cutting some ear-warmers for next Christmas (I know, ambitious) I realized that most of the rest of the scrap pieces were too small to be usable on their own. So I went at the whole pile, cutting what was there into strips and sewing the bits together however they would fit. The result is this rather haphazard baby quilt.

We know three babies coming in the spring, so I was hoping to add this to my pile of shower gifts. Unfortunately, I think the randomness and complete lack of form in this quilt means it needs to be destined for a particularly hippy type of family. As I was trying to put it somewhere for a photo shoot I was thinking: who has a mish-mash fug-clectic house where this would fit? And then it dawned on me. We do.

Note how the huge spherical cow pillow matches the lamb toy on the floor. That was totally planned.

Still, I'm not attached to keeping this for little baby Archibald. So if anyone wants this one, please speak up.

In an effort to make something more classy for the upcoming babies I dove into my pile of patterns and put together a soft fuzzy bunny.

This bunny that I made for Harvey last Easter is perhaps my favorite thing I have sewn for him ... ever. It's just the perfect size for a little person to love and cuddle, and it fits so snuggly under his arm when he falls asleep. Also, it makes a nice shelf decoration in baby's room if you happen to have a certain fug-clectic hippy style. (I also made some as wedding gifts. A versatile pattern this one.) So the other night I threw this guy together out of an old cashmere-blended scarf. Nothing against this scarf in particular, I just never wore it because I have A LOT of scarves. Maybe I always thought it would make a better bunny.

The tail comes from the fringe that was originally on the scarf, which was a nice bonus. I still have more scarf left, but no more fringe, so this might become a set with a little lamb to match.

This blog post is becoming rather long, but there's still one more project I made last week. This also used up scrap, but the point wasn't so much to use up the scrap as it was to keep Harvey's pants up. I give you the frat boy baby belt:

It's a little wider than I would like, but that comes from barely measuring and whipping the whole thing up in less than 20 minutes. It's got a single D-shaped loop in the front, and the rest of the belt just gets stashed under his pant loops. All in all, a big amateur act, but that's fine. The point is to hold up his jeans during the three or so weeks when his 4T Gap pants are too snug to close at the fly all the way. Pretty soon that belly fat will shoot all down his legs, he'll get an inch taller, and his pants will suddenly fit again, albeit rolled down. Life with a toddler is a moving target.

So slowly and surely we're making progress over here. A year ago I wouldn't have thought I could have turned out 3 finished projects on the fly in one week. I also would have never believed I'd let a plastic scooter into my house, but it's been a very snowy stir-crazy couple of days here, and yesterday I found myself not only retrieving said scooter from the porch but giving it a shower to get off all the stray bits of ice. So yeah, that's a very clean scooter. It showered with me yesterday.

And here's one last picture I had to include even though it doesn't show anything particularly crafty. This is my little boy holding onto his bike in a pose that's all Dan, with a WTF expression on his face that's so familiar it's as if I'm looking into a mirror. Man I love that little boy.

That dog barrooing in the background isn't too bad either.

We made a big deal about this being Harvey's OWN bed, putting his animals on it and tucking him in for fun. Harvey enjoyed throwing himself on it throughout the week, each time announcing, "OFF MAMA! OFF DADA!" and sometimes "OWN BED!" Yes, he got the concept of personal property pretty quickly.

We were waiting to slowly get the room organized and the bedrails on before launching onto the solo sleep project, but last night at bedtime Harvey threw himself onto his bed crying "NURSING OTHER BED!" and he would not be moved. So I laid him down in his bed and he started laughing maniacally shouting "QUILT! QUILT!" He was so excited about the new bed and all it's tucking in accoutrements that I was afraid he would be unable to sleep. But no, he fell asleep within minutes. Easy as that. And then that was it, he was sleeping in his own bed.

And then I sat next to him sobbing uncontrollably.

Over the past year and a half we've had some casual experiments of letting Harvey sleep in a different room, but each experiment ended with a night of anxiety (mama's) and crying (Harvey's and mama's) and finally re-justification of co-sleeping. Rationally, having him farther away was a pain when he was still nursing in the night, but that ended a few months ago. Now with a new baby's on the way, I'm really out of reasonable excuses to keep him my cuddle bunny forever.

So after an intense period of freaking out (because without Harvey asking for hugs in the night WHO WOULD EVER LOVE ME?) something amazing happened. Dan and I went to bed together and actually had a CONVERSATION. With each other. In voices that were not whispers. It was like we traveled back in time to a different era.

Harvey called out for me at midnight but only needed a few pets to fall right back asleep. He woke up again at 3am and was more awake that time so I lay down in his bed and cuddled with him until we both fell asleep. Two hours later I staggered back to the grown-up bed and got a little more rest until Harvey woke up at 6. All in all this was a pretty good night for him: two wake-ups, neither of them crying, and he seemed to be genuinely happy in his new bed (unlike the crib which he likened to a Romanian prison). In the morning I asked if he liked sleeping in his new bed and he shook his head vigorously in the affirmative. I asked if he wanted to come cuddle in mama and dada's bed and he screamed "NO DADA! NO DADA BED!" So there you have it.

The one who was the most unsettled last night was Rascal. Sometime between midnight and three am he got up and laid down in the entry way of Harvey's room, just looking in at him. Dan got up and moved the dog bed in there in case Rascal wanted to sleep with Harvey, but Rascal just followed Dan back into our bedroom and jumped into the bed with us. He too must have thought we had traveled in time back to a different era because he came up to the head of the bed and laid down in-between us, his neck stretched out under my arm for petting. I have to admit, it was heart-warmingly cute. Just the answer to who will love me when Harvey grows up.

Looking at the calendar, it seems Harvey turned 19 months just yesterday. I guess that's the turning point for all grown up.

Harvey picked out the yarn for this himself, way back in the summer when we were more mobile and could bike all the way to the Lexington knitting store. That's only to demonstrate how frigging long this sweater took me to knit. With 168 stitches around the middle and 87 around the sleeves, I could have knitted a while adult sweater in the time it took me to make this 2-year-old version. That's due to the small size of the needles (2 and 3 US, respectively) which for some reason didn't give me pause when I picked up the pattern. Although I love the way the tiny stitches look and the amazing elasticity of the ribbing, I'd still prefer a 7 or 9 for future sweaters.

The sweater is knitted almost entirely in the round, which is lovely for the base rows and would be more lovely if more than half the sweater wasn't ribbing. Still, it's a nice technique on principle, though I'm not super keen on the gigantic external seam along the shoulder that's left by casting off two sets of stitches together. I know the point of the round method is to be seamless on the inside, but after working all those tiny sleeve rows on double pointed needles I've decided that I rather like seams in the end. They're handy for hiding your yarn ends, after all. Another point of contention with the pattern: what's that weird neck gusset interrupting the ribbing? Does anybody find that odd? I am told by the now-out-of-print Debbie Bliss pattern that this is a traditional guernsey sweater, but I don't know how many fisherman I've seen walking around with big neck and gussets.... maybe I don't see enough fisherman.

No matter how many curse words go into knitting a sweater, it's always an unspeakable joy when it's finished. When I opened the package for Harvey on Christmas morning he looked at it and said, "ninning?"

"No sweetie, mama's all finished knitting this. It's a sweater now." I held it up for him to see that it was in fact a garment and not something he would get yelled at for touching.

"On?" he said immediately, sticking out his hand.

For the rest of the day he refused to take the thing off, even when it reached 80 degrees next to the fireplace and his cheeks turned apple red. Of course this makes the whole project worth it, all the late-night error-fixing and the times these past two weeks when I let him watch an extra episode of Phineus and Ferb just so that I could get in a few more rows. All that is more than doubly worth it for that one moment of "On?"

Harvey's musical ability. And his unfathomable cuteness:

Harvey's beautiful relationship with Rascal. And how he wants to be a dog when he grows up:

Harvey's advanced manual dexterity, choreographic memory, and good humor:

Harvey's strong will:

That's my little guy. I love him so much it's impossible.

For one, it seems clear that Harvey really loves animals. It started out with dogs (for obvious Rascally reasons) and has extended to all varieties of farm animals, fish, and wild animals excluding bugs. In any book it's the animals he'll point to first and he practically jumps off my lap when exclaiming their names. He never seems happier than at Chip In farm feeding beans to the animals there, and in between visits he'll spend an entire day asking, "Goat? Cow? Sheep? Goat? Cow?..."

People he's not too keen on. We have three designated play times a week: library hour on Tuesday, small group on Friday, and church on Sunday. Sometimes he'll deign to play in the same square foot as another child; at other times he'll hide in a corner or atop a chair and cry "uppy!" In my weaker moments I worry about his socialization. In my more normal moments I remember that he's a toddler child of two extreme introverts, that he demonstrates plenty of love and empathy when around adults or non-human companions, and that everything will turn out fine, even if he never snags a play date until he's married.

He also loves books. Boy howdy does he love books. With a few interruptions for singing and dancing I think we could read books all day long and he'd still be entertained. He also loves playing outside, and eating. He's not too interested in drawing, playing with playdough, or crafting in general (although he likes pushing the buttons on my sewing machine.) He loves balls and tractors. I think in his ideal world we would live on a farm and play outside all day, feeding the animals from our hands, with a stack of books on the side. That doesn't sound too bad to me either, when it comes to that. Maybe we're related.

I say this because we're going to have another baby on the way, and who knows what the next one will be like. I have a hard time believing that any child could possibly be as smart, beautiful, and fun as Harvey. He or she has got a lot to live up to.

Lately he's been working through some tricky points of naming. He know knows, for example, that our family pet is both "da" and "Wasgoo," and he's worked out that other neighborhood dogs are "da" but not "Wasgoo." He can also point to a banana and say "nana" followed by "piece," and he knows that he's both "Harbey" and "baby" but can recognize other non-Harbey babies when they pass by. Which, I don't know, seems more impressive to me than being able to point out leaves, sticks and pine-cones on our daily walks. The latter seems more like a parlor trick. By now we get it already, you know a lot of words. Time to start really talking.

Of course I'm proud of my little chatter box, and I'd like to take some credit for the constant flow of conversation I keep him engaged in throughout the day. On the other hand, it's probably just genetics, his dad and I spoke just as early when we were kids, and in the absence of so much stimulation Harvey would probably talk to his trucks with the same amount of conviction.

Anyway, it's all very exciting, to see Harvey growing into a little boy who can speak and joke and reason, push the stroller, feed the dog (with help), and try his hardest to do everything we grown ups do. I for one have no sentimental attachment to his babyhood. You go on and grow up, little man. You only get awesomer every day.

For the occasion he wore a second-hand button-down shirt and some new pants hot off mama's sewing machine. I cut the pieces from some old cargo pants of mine that no longer fit and added a green band around the top to hold the elastic. I made Harvey pull up his shirt in this picture to display the contrast edging:

The benefits of this pant-making method are of course that
1) recycled material means almost no cost (although I'll admit that it's a hard thing to keep enough elastic in the house), and
2) pre-made cargo pockets make them look not quite so home-made.

Also, obviously, pants take less time to make when you don't have to make the pockets. On the other hand, fitting a pattern piece onto a pre-made garment is kind of a bear, so there's 6 of one...

The best part of the event though was getting to see my two handsome boys all dressed up.

first there are the foods:
cracker, cookie, milk, tea, turkey, apple, nursing, more

then there are the things to play with:
ball, dog, tractor, car, phone, door, paper, momma, dadda

and the animals:
cow, pig, goat, bear, cat

and the orders:
up, down, no, NO!

At which point the doctor said, "Wow! That's a lot of words!"

And even that list is not nearly exhaustive. This morning Harvey pointed to an ad on the back of the economist and said "airplane" (sounded like "ayah-pain") which blew me away since that's an object he usually only sees in the sky. Also today he dropped his apple and said "apple down" which impressed me because it's almost a sentence.

And these are just the words he draws from memory unprompted, not including all the words he'll repeat when you say them first.

I think what I'm trying to say is, my child is brilliant.

On a more realistic note, Harvey has sunk down to 70th percentile in weight and 60th in height. I guess my children like to do most of their growing inutero and then take it easy for a few years after that. Which explains why I just polished off four cookies while writing this blog post. Or "cooo-keeee!!!!!" as Harvey would say.

We tried rocking him back to sleep, petting him, cuddling him, and all manners of non-milk soothing for a few nights. It was and wasn't working. He was going back to sleep but he slept fitfully, rolling and crying and back to full-on screaming two hours later. The problem is that the little butter ball is hungry. He can't sleep because he need the calories from milk. But he's not eating enough at dinner time because he expected all the nursings. So project sleep through the night quickly became project ween our clild and then sleep through the night. Like I said, we've been busy.

We cut out all nursings during the day first. That wasn't so hard on him, since he was only getting one bottle when I was at work, but when I get him up from his nap sometimes he remembers how much he used to like to nurse after napping and throws a little tantrum until something else sweet gets into his mouth.

He used to get two feedings in the evening, one when I got home from work and one before bed, and these were really messing up his ability to eat dinner. So we cut out the 5pm nursing and kept the 7:30, which seems to work although sometimes he starts to breakdown and claw at me around 6:30 and I'll give in if he's already eaten dinner.

All this has upped his appetite for solid foods, but it hasn't translated into sleeping success yet. He was doing well skipping his first wake-up for a while and going until 3am, but a few nights of family sickness set us back to a 11pm, 3am, 6am schedule. Dan was sick this weekend and while Harvey and I were sleeping on the mattress downstairs I admit to nursing him twice before the morning. No way was I walking through the cold house to go upstairs to the rocking chair.

So that's where we are now, with a morning and evening nursing and a toddler who'd like to get in two more feedings on the back end. I never had a clear plan for weaning, only that I would nurse him as long as we both wanted to. Well, I think the moment is rapidly approaching. I no longer want to. Not at 3am, anyways.

The other theory is that I'm rapid cycling through all the illnesses I was supposed to have over the past year but put off because I was too stressed. Since Dan's still home for another week before school starts, it's like my immune system wants to squeeze in every possible minute of lying on the couch moaning while someone else watches the baby.

The baby, actually, is no longer a baby but a toddler who has suddenly developed the ability to be annoying on purpose. Today he asked for OJ and then spilled it all over the floor. Then he threw a tantrum for a milkshake only to spill that all over the floor. "No" I said. "NO!" Harvey screamed. "Bad boy." I said. "Da Bo!" He screamed in delight.

For the rest of the day he screamed periodically - high pitched at the top of his lungs whenever he felt like it - just to hear the sound of his own voice. In retrospect, maybe that's why my jaw hurts. I've done a lot of clenching it lately.

Still. It beats scrubbing spreadsheets in a cubicle.

In Harvey's defense, he's still dealing with the tail-end of the stomach thing, and the tail end looks like green snotty poop. Also he's adjusting to so much upheaval in the child-care situation. Because I left him so much over the past 6 months he developed the dramatic habit of shrieking in pain every time I leave the room. I don't think he's quite convinced yet that I'm not going to leave again for 9 hours at a time. Still, when you go in and out of the room several times for laundry and things, it gets annoying.

Which is okay after all. It's okay and fair to get annoyed with your family. That just means you're hanging out with them enough.

Thanks to the wonderful convenience of owning a serger, this piece only took me 30 minutes. I used the existing hem from the t-shirt for all four pieces, so alls I had to do was cut em out, serge the front and back neck-lines, and serge the whole thing together. No pinning except for the sleeves. And then he had a new t-shirt!

There's a little bit of scrap left over... I might make myself a headband. I know right? INDULGENT!!!!!

The entire project is constructed out of felt - recycled plastic felt to be exact. The ark took the longest part because I made up the pattern for the body of the boat and did a demo. Dan helped tremendously in drafting the shape of the top decks. The little house on top was all trial and error.

Of course, there are animals on an ark too. I figured the farm animals were the most important, so I made those first. First I made some pigs.

Because felt has a tendency to pull apart if it's stretched too thin, I had to stitch these pigs entirely by hand. I learned this after the first pig I made came apart in the stuffing. Total time spent making pigs, 5 hours. You don't want to know the time total for the whole project.

The cows were a bit bigger so thankfully I could make these on the machine. The draw-back is that they had like a billion tiny pattern pieces to cut out. I bought a pattern for a 9-inch cow and scaled it by half. All the animals had to scale with each other and the door of the ark, you see, which also had to fit the normal stuffed animals that hang around the living room. So much thought went into the sizing. It's called OCD. Or parenting.

And of course I had to make Noah. He's entirely hand-stitched, although I used the machine to make his clothing. He has hair and a beard that are removable, because it's a long voyage. I figure he either grows a beard or loses his hair over 40 days.

Harvey isn't so keen on Noah, although he likes the ark to put things in... out-of-playset things like legos and sippy cups. And he likes the cows very much, probably because every time he picks one up I say "Moooooooo." These days he's starting to grab one and say "mmmmuuuuuuh." He's pretty smart that little guy.

Kiddie Pool

As the days have gotten hot recently, I've thought of how much I'd like a little blow-up pool to play in on those afternoons when we can't face the schlep to the pond. Then I spent like five minutes looking up baby pools and oh my goodness blow-up pool technology is amazing! Can you believe this exists? of this? So if you feel drawn to purchasing a baby pool (and subsequently coming over to hang out in our baby pool) then go for it. Of course, this is a nice sensible pool, but I'll let you decide.

Bath Toys

Okay, I'll admit it, I do allow some plastic toys in my house so long as they can float and keep a fussy child occupied long enough to wash the applesauce out of his hair. I'm eying this and this from the annoyingly titled one step ahead catalog, but any bath toy other than stacking cups would be a welcome addition to our tub time. All we have now is stacking cups, you see, and two yellow ducks. I know right? Child abuse.

Board Books

Harvey has a handful of great board books that he loves to read. Unfortunately, Momma and Dadda has read each of them approximately one hundred million times. We'd therefore love some more board books that can stand up to baby page-turning and throwing on the floor. In particular, momma would love some new books by Sandra Boynton. We have Hippos Go Berserk and it's my favorite of all the books. I'd love to own One, Two, Three! or The Going to Bed Book. Harvey's new favorite book these days is one I just bought him titled "How Big is a Pig" illustrated by Clare Beaton. We also have her book Hidden Hippo and I'd love more books illustrated by her because Harvey just stares and stares at the pictures, while momma feels inspired by the needle work.

Other board books I'd like to own are Everybody Poops and Pat the Bunny. And anything else you can think of. Just Please NO MORE GOODNIGHT MOON!!!!!

Clothes

For the first time in Harvey's life we aren't completely strapped for clothes, because he seems to be growing longer rather than wider these days, so the 24-36 month stuff we have for him should last another few months. That said, he'd always welcome any new stylish duds, especially if they can stretch him into 2T territory come fall. I know, we have a big baby. That's because he's got so much to love!

So those are the short ideas for first birthday gifts, although you're of course welcome to give him nothing or watermelon. Two weeks left to figure it out! Crap! I'd better get sewing!!!

Anyway, on Sunday I took a break from my H1 mania to make something for a very special little girl who's turning 3. Since I don't get to make girly stuff very often, I though I'd use up my purple and pink felt on a flowered headband.

I tried it on Harvey, with the intention of making some joke about how the child is secure in his masculinity. But he's apparently not. He is either offended by girliness or by having something strapped to his head.

Maybe he'd like it better if he knew it came with cake and presents. Just you wait little boy... just you wait.

UPDATE: In the end, Lily looked cuter in the headband than Harvey.

Having a child is a lovely little experiment in genetics. As Harvey develops, I delight or wince at aspects of his personality, while I try not to pass judgement on myself or Dan. Like a little mirror, Harvey can be demanding and dramatic. He stares intensely at what he wants, and if he doesn't get it he throws his head back in full tantrum abandon. At these moments I roll my eyes and wonder how it is that my long-suffering husband ever put up with me.

On the other hand, I see the traits that plainly come from Dan, and it's like I'm falling in love with my husband all over again. The excitement that spreads across Harvey's face when he gets a new object into his hands, or how he calmly dusts himself off when he falls, it's like I can see a little mini danny crawling around in baby gap overalls.

But Harvey isn't just half of me and half of Dan like some disgustingly sweet New York cookie. He's his own thing, a whole new person, unique and perfect and wholer than the two halves that made him. And whether or not I had anything to do with it, he's turning out to be a pretty cool guy.

I made this one from the same pattern as the green hat, with the alterations of a shorter brim and added straps. I also added the braided detailing, which took me longer in net time than all the sewing. But hey, my mother was out on a date with Harvey and I was feeling creative.

I'm not completely happy with the way the sewn button came out. I may re-sew it someday, but for the moment all machine time is devoted to a certain upcoming birthday...

Look at that little guy go! Can you believe he's almost 1 already? You can see he's almost grown out of these pants I made him for Easter. Time to make some more pants!!!

I may be a biased momma, but it's not hard to make Harvey look beautiful, is it?

The t-shirt is soft and stretchy with room to grow in. But oh, those belled sleeves. Every time I look at them I cringe. I couldn't loosen the tension on my machine any further, so this is what I got. Jersey knit, you are a beguiling temptress. Why are you so soft and common yet so difficult to work?

But there is hope! Next week is my birthday and I have a very exciting present on the way... It's a magical contraption that combines four spools of thread with a die cutter such that future t-shirts will look twice as good with half the effort. Yes - I'm getting a serger.

The stack of "fits weird" is piling up in anticipation. Harvey is excited.

Sewing a baby sun hat with 12 identical pieces is a very heartening sewing project. I recommend it highly for lifting your spirits when something goes wrong. In fact, I'm working on another one right now!

Soon Harvey will have infinite choices for keeping the sun out of his eyes... provided he deigns to keep anything on his head.

Also some time last week his hair turned curly. I don't know if it was the flood-induced humidity or the fact that we celebrated a jewish seder on Tuesday, but his mother's genes have suddenly expressed themselves. Seriously, he's crawling around like a little boy baby Shirley Temple.

Next it'll be tap dancing.

If Harvey had emerged from the womb curly headed I would have morned for him. I'm not a big fan of my curly hair, it's hard to keep it from looking messy all the time. So much the worse for a little boy dash teenager dash young man. But now that's it's been a while and my son looks the spitting image of my husband in all features facial, I'm glad to have this little bit of momma-ness reflected back at me.

Or away from me, depending on which direction he's crawling.

The pattern comes from some ridiculous book that Cara gave me from a yard sale. It's actually the pattern for a bear, but I added floppy ears and made it into a bunny. The book is a million and one christmas crafts all thrown together - knitting, crocheting, sewing, and paper-craft. Because there's so much crap in the book, the directions for each project are painfully brief. Cut out these pattern pieces... Fuggin.... sew em together. It harks back to a simpler time when the Joy of Cooking still included instructions for skinning a squirrel. And mothers knew how to sew absolutely everything, but they still needed help coming up with ideas that are unbelievably tacky.

The big bunny features arms and legs that rotate, thanks to a swivel system made of eyelets and buttons. I know they sell real swivel systems for stuffed animals, but the wall at Joanne's was completely overwhelming so I just went with the eyelets. Hey, the arms turn. What else do you want from me?

I was unhappy with the naked bunny - he looked too much like a bear in my estimation - so I gave him a cut-off shirt and a diaper. When I pulled the pom-pom tail out of a hole in the diaper it gave me a big chuckle.

For now I'm done with bunnies. Anyway, all we need is two, and they're supposed to do the rest. Right?

Using same guidelines from the last pair of pants I made, I created a linen outside pant and orange liner pant. I sewed the first together and realized my pattern was vastly too small. So I added stripes on the sides and an extra gusset in the back.

Necessity is the mother of orange.

Of course, once the pants were finished last weekend I couldn't wait till Easter. He's a growing boy after all. He needs all the pants he can get.

Thank God he's too young to think of tradition. I loved making these pants, but I'm not jumping to make another pair quite yet. Maybe about a year is the right amount of time.

That little brain of his. Something is going on therein.

But I'm not too worried about hurrying things along. We have a lifetime of chatting to look forward to, after all. Indeed, we were heartened by linguistic cuteness yesterday, during an outing with a cool family containing one very precious 2 year old. In the parking lot of Bedford Farms we parked next to a car with a very large St. Bernard. She examined the animal for a few moments, and then definitively pronounced: "Woof Moo."

Woof Moo. This girl should write dictionaries.

*Image courtesy of Ashley. "Courtesy" meaning I stole it from her facebook page. Thanks Ash!

I have nothing of merit coming out of my brain today, so I'll let the images suffice to cheer, entertain, and inspire you.

A visual reverse-engineering tells me this is a "surprise sweater" of the Zimmerman variety, though the detailing is much more impressive than any lazy-ass surprise sweater I had planned to make. Why all those cables are passed in back rather than in front I'll never know. An extra labor of love, perhaps.

Upon seeing the photo my mother sent this blessing-dash-warning:

That sweater was always one of my favorites. Jake wore it all the time. take good care of it (no washing machine)

Good advice! Knitters everywhere take heed - do not put your hand knit wool sweaters in the washing machine.

But beyond that, what does it mean to take good care of a sweater? I would posit that the right way isn't to handle it with kit gloves like it's on auction at Christi's. No matter how vintage it is.

As a knitter myself, there's one thing I fear about every project. Not that it'll come out bungled or I'll run out of the right color yarn (although on my budget that's always a concern.) My fear is that it won't be worn. Hours lovingly poured into a project stitch by stitch, only to know that it gets thrown in a drawer or an attic box, sitting unused for years.

So I say this to all future wearers of my sweaters in all generations to come: wear with abandon! Roll in the leaves. Spill your soup. Wrestle with the dog and pull at a thread or two. When it comes time to wash the thing, of course have momma use some cold water and re-block it on a flat surface. But when it's dry again, take it out to play. And hopefully, when the sweater is good and destroyed, there'll be someone new with a set of needles ready to nock out another one. She may not do the button-hole edging in popcorn stitch, and she might pass all the cables in front, but for the love of God no one in their right mind is going to notice.

Alls I ask is that you take a picture. In digital. It'll last longer.

To my credit, I was also stunningly attractive.

(Visual proof that 1993 was actually in the '80s.)

It was a time of great bangitude (of the hair variety). I twirled around my bedroom singing "Leah Archibald... Leah Archibald..."

I guess this is not so cute sounding now... now that it's written on my business cards.

On March 5th 1993 Dan and I we went on a date to Chadwicks WITH HIS PARENTS. At Dan's prompting I ordered a Turkey club, even though I had absolutely no idea what that was. Honestly, I expected something out of the Flintstones to arrive on the dinner table. Instead came a sandwich with so many layers of bread that I could have broken my jaw putting my mouth around it.

That was the first of many exciting things that Dan would introduce me to. Like mountain biking. And fried eggs. And the internet.

Ten years and one month later, Dan and I sat in my college dorm room, trying to figure out what to do in the face of my obstinate plans to move to LA. "I don't want to go through all the trouble dating you," Dan said, "If we don't plan on getting married."
"Okay," I said. "So let's get married."
Dan said, "I'll see if the church is free next weekend."

Our parents said, "NOT UNTIL YOU LIVE TOGETHER FIRST!!!"

So Dan moved out to LA and started this blog.

On September 4th 2005 we were married. I weighed 115 pounds. I just wanted to slip that in here because it will never happen again. A month later our lives changed irreperably forever. We visited the animal shelter in Sterling MA and spotted a mangey looking pup cowering in the corner. "That's ours!" Dan said. We took him home and became a family.

Then in June 2009 we got made an even bigger family with the addition of Harvey Douglas.

Harvey Douglas Archibald. A name I hadn't thought to fantasize about 17 years ago. He brings on all sorts of new dreams for the future. Primary among them, is that he grows up to look like my Danny.

And lets his bangs fly in the breeze.

Happy Valentine's day.

So I've been much heartened by Theresa's comments which somewhat support my own budding child-rearing philosophy. It goes something like this: "Meh! He'll figure it out. He can't be a baby forever!"

Wait for my new book on the subject, titled "Typing is hard - 40 doodles on laissez-faire parenting."

In keeping with that do-nothing-and-see-results vein, there have been some good developments over the weekend. On Friday we all slept in the bed together and Harvey slumbered beautifully with only two wake-ups! On Saturday night he did the same! The key may have been in the good advice, or in the prayer of some friends (Thanks Bridget!) or in the fact that we got him exponentially more stimulation on Friday and Saturday than he normally gets. Oh, so you're saying that you want to engage with other humans on a regular basis? Who don't share your genetic material? We just might have to go out with friends more then Harvey. It's a price I'm willing to pay.

So now the baby is asleep in the middle of the bed, and we'll see how the night goes. Although Dan has just informed me he'll be sleeping downstairs because the baby has passed his OVERstimulation limit from superbowl with grandma, and is on a wake-up hair trigger. Well, I didn't say the system was perfect, but we're working on it. I'm summarizing the results for you in my next article titled, "A year of birth-control: how to give your child the attention he needs for 365 nights." Coming soon to Parenting Magazine whenever I stay awake long enough to type it.

Anyway, as I was saying, Harvey has been sleeping poorly as of late. A few months ago, which in sleep deprivation time reads like several hundred million years, Harvey was doing great with an eight-hour stretch followed by two quick wake-ups two hours apart. Life was good.

But then Harvey started pushing his bedtime later and later, and his first wake-up earlier and earlier, and before we knew it we were up every two hours every night as if we had a two-month-old.

We put him to bet at seven and he's up at nine. Then eleven. Then at one, three, five... any hour that isn't divisible by two. Every time he wants milk, and every other time I make him endure a diaper change. To save any semblance of parental functionality in the household, Dan has been sleeping on the couch downstairs. He still wakes up when the baby cries, so the situation is far from ideal, but the alternative is worse. If Dan and I are both in the bed with divergent opinions about what to do with a screaming baby, then it quickly dissolves into fisticuffs.

Before you offer your suggestions, here's what we've tried. We nailed down our evening routine so that every night we feed him, bathe him, have quiet down-time and then nursing. After that, Dan rocks Harvey to sleep while he screams at the top of his lungs. Harvey that is, not Dan. Dan is patiently singing in the face of the harshest critic he has ever seen.

So Harvey's got a belly-full of food, he's clean and relaxed, and he's at the break-down point of tired. He finally falls asleep, but it still won't carry him through to the am. What gives? People have suggested tooth troubles, but he's not fussy during the day! Today grandma suggested that it might be constipation, because the only time in a month that he slept six hours straight was when he did so in a pile of his own feces. I say terrible coincidence, not causality. After all, it's not like he wakes up and poops a storm. In fact, he doesn't usually make number two at all until the afternoon. And he's a happy boy all morning. He should be - he gets to be awake!

So I open it up to your wisdom, internet. Any ideas on saving our marriage and getting the little guy to sleep? Other than the classic T&T concoction? Time and Tylenol? I'll hear your suggestions in the comments.

"But it's already on a video hosting channel," I say. "We use Vimeo."
"Yeah but people would see it if it were on YouTube."
"Mom, it's not like releasing a product launch to MSNBC. It's a baby - pet video. There are a hundred million of them on YouTube. Besides, Vimeo is classier."
"Whatever. They all said it's good enough to be on YouTube..."

Can someone please print her out a bumper sticker that reads "My child got three thousand hits on Vimeo"? I think that would make her feel a lot better.

I know just what you're thinking: "This sounds just like blah-blah-blah phenomenon. Leah's life would be better if only I tell her my brilliant diagnosis!" Yes, I've heard lots of suggestions of what I should to to remedy the situation. Change food/nursing combinations, establish a quiet evening routine, drug the kid. And boy howdy, I love it. Because you know what mom's love most? hearing your opinion on how they should parent better.

"Your child would sleep," they say, "if you mix this potion of herbs and rub it on your breast and then turn around three times and sing 'you are getting sleepy' to the tune of here comes the bride but backwards."

Or the other advice favorite, diagnose the problem with your infinite wisdom, and then stare at me benevolently. As if (in very Freudian logic) the diagnosis itself will solve the problem.

He's teething.
He's got gas.
His day is too exciting.
His day isn't exciting enough.
He's just going into a different phase.

A different phase? Oh I hadn't noticed. What with my uppity career I'm only in charge of him sixteen hours a day... that's obviously not enough time to know anything about what my son is like. Please, enlighten me.

Dripping sarcasm aside, I have tried out different amounts of all offered advice, and while nothing has worked to make him sleep, some things have worked to make me feel better about it. One initiative I started recently is to get Harvey on a stricter evening routine. I feed him in the high-chair, then bathe him, then play with him on the floor for a while while I get him dressed, then read a story and nurse him to top it off. If he doesn't fall asleep by the end of that (which happens about half the time), then Dan gets a turn for putting him to bed. It hasn't helped with the amount of sleep we get during the night, but it does help make our evenings feel a bit more tidy. And it has the added benefit that I now have an excuse for not going to the gym for the next ten to twenty years.

Of course, hope springs eternal. Harvey is sleeping now and he may well stay that way until tomorrow. My friends and relatives may find problems of their own to diagnose. I might lose my job and get time to nap during the day. You never know! The amazing might happen! Life is unpredictable!

Just like a seven-month old's sleeping patterns.

With a baby it can feel like a crazy free-for-all all the time - you never know when the eating or sleeping or messing will occur, and it's all about surviving on to the next moment. But as Harvey approaches 7 months we can start to see glimpses of the little boy he's becoming. He plays, he gets context, he has an attention span for activities and he wants to be involved. And around him a family life is taking shape that's not just about caring for him but sharing with him the excitement and mundanity of every day together.

On Sunday night he drifted off to sleep next to me, his hair smelling of soap, his breath smelling of milk. It's an understatement to say it, but I love that little guy.

So this evening Dan, Tom, and I giddily waved goodbye to Harvey and piled into Dan's mom's station wagon headed for IKEA. My heart beat quickly with the promise of linden-berry tort and an undisturbed hour wandering tiny Scandinavian apartments. I was so giddy with the thought of adult furniture shopping that literally skipped through the parking lot into the store. But after a few short moments inside my outlook totally changed. The store was filled with mothers and babies.. babies being pushed in carriages, babies being carried in front packs... babies lovingly cradled by their fathers sitting on couches of model living rooms. waaaaaAAAAAAA-I-WANT-MY-BABY!!! WHERE'S MY BABY??? I MISS MY BABY!!!

It seems that becoming a mother has limited my attention span for adult activities. Time away from Harvey that is pleasurable = about 45 minutes. After that I start to fidget, I get visibly cranky, I spin my wheels any way I can until I can fly back to H's sticky embrace.

Seventeen million hours later, we managed to buy not only five folding chairs for fifteen dollars a piece, but a desk set for Tom, several picture frames, and an array of baby-proofing safety equipment. And to see me fly out of the car when we pulled into Grandma's driveway... well, let's just say that I didn't bother getting too dignified during my precious hours of adult time.

Fortunately Harvey still had some kisses left over for me.

In the midst of the stress and sickness of the past seven days I managed to lose another four pounds. That brings the grand total to 47 pounds lost, three pounds away form my pre-pregnancy weight. I can't say the same for my pre-pregnancy shape however, that may be lost forever. I now understand why mom jeans are so high. And why Eddie Bauer sells puffy vests so successfully. And why one-piece bathing suits exist.

On the plus side, I don't same to have the same, um, concern for my physical appearance as I did before motherhood. I just want my kid to be healthy, even if that means skipping spin class for a week to stay home in sweat pants covered in vomit. They're so roomy that you don't feel the wet touch your skin. My top coult use some added protection, though. Maybe a puffy vest...

I thought I had gotten a lot of mothering under my belt in these past four-and-a-half months, and it's true that I've come a long way when it comes to changing diapers and soothing cries. But I was completely unprepared for my emotional response to a very sick baby. My very sick baby. I wanted to crumple in a heap and die because I couldn't make him better.

I reached a turningpoint in my parenting this weekend. Covered in snot and milk and vomit, I realized: Woah... this is going to take a long time. I mean, parenting. It's going to take a lot. Not just joyful mornings hung like beads on a string of family cuddles and trips to the zoo.... sleepless nights through every kind of illness when the night is lived out in every hour of its darkness because every hour is made up of 60 full minutes fully witnessed in moaning and sneezing and rocking a hot-headed baby against your chest.

I wanted to write more, but it's time to go back to rocking the baby, so please send well wishes to our little guy and sanity wishes to his mommy.

and B...

I can't imagine where he gets it from.

No, I've got no clue whatsoever.

Maybe from this guy?

So yeah, mommy may have some issues around boundaries... Another blogger summed it up better in her recent post about how parenting is "totally f***ed"

Nature hard wires you to want them close and worry about them for their whole lives, and then demands that if you're doing it right that they then really boldly walk away into their own destinies and leave you standing there, still feeling like you're totally in charge of whether or not they live or die or get a sandwich.

Read the whole thing here. Her daughter is moving to Australia. Our son is only trying to move across the hall, between the hours of 3 and 7 am.

Holding the snotty stick in my hand, seeing the baby's face contract into a sob, I had one of those moments where all time stands still and I think: is this it? Is this the moment? Where I just broke our entire life? Will I forever look back on this morning as the day I reached into the baby's head and pulled out a chunk of brain?

Well, the good news is there was no brain. Just a snotty snotty stick. Not even any blood. But I still freaked out like my life depended on it. I turned on my heals and high-tailed it home, praying all the way. Oh man, did I pray. I prayed way out of proportion for the not-bloody crisis at hand. I drew down healing from heaven, I commanded angels concerning him, I called on all the spiritual authority I had every heard any Christian call on, and I ordered that shit around like it was my job. Hey God who brings folks back from the dead, it's me Leah: PLEASE FOCUS ALL OF YOUR ATTENTION ON THIS TWIG!

The baby, for his part, was pretty good about the whole thing. He cried for a moment, and then promptly fell asleep, which is a normal reaction to both trauma and being bounced quickly home, but it made me even more freaked out. When I reached home I practically threw the baby into Judy's arms, just as she was pulling up in the car. I called the pediatrician and tried to find an appropriate way to explain how I got a stick two inches up my kids nose without making it sound like they should call DSS. A moment later the nurse came on the line and told me that it was fine... they actually stick swabs up kids noses all the time, and if it hits anything bad then the nose will bleed. No blood? No problem. And by this time, Harvey had looked like he had forgotten the whole incident completely.

That was maybe an hour ago, and I'm still sitting here shaking, so I'm going to go run and try to forget about the feeling where I saw the future flash before my eyes and then disappear. Oh Lord, it's tough to be a mom!

There were two days last week where it was so hot I could barely bring myself to shove down a piece of toast halfway through the day, and the baby was so fussy in the afternoon I had to slap myself and be like: Look Leah... This relationship you have between you and your body? You're not the only one involved.

Which is hardly news. I was pregnant for an absurdly long time after all, so I should be used to taking care of my body on behalf of someone else. But then eating was never something I had to, ahem, remember to do. When I was pregnant I couldn't survive through a two hour stretch without consuming my weight in bagels. I would have breakfast, pour several cereal bowls full of cherries, and eat them non-stop until it was time for lunch. I know right? Jealous?

But then as soon as the baby came out, my stomach was all "Phewf! Glad that's over." Literally, the day after birth I felt the first relief from hunger that I had felt in 10 months. And it was like aaaaaaah... So this is what it feels like to have a thought in my head that doesn't involve cake.

So as much as I'm enjoying the respite from being Leah-the-human-garbage-disposal, it is a challenge finding a balance between my weight loss and Harvey's weight gain. Not that he's going hungry, Mr. Double Chin 2009. He just prefers the milk delivery vehicles in heaving model. And really, can you blame him?

UPDATE: I ate a snack before bed, and over night the inventory returned to buxom levels. Go figure.

No wonder he's crying in the photo.

Photo evidence that I made it up the mountain carrying the baby in his orange bjorn.

Rascal guarding Harvey at the campsite.

The baby enjoying his trip to the Maine coast.

It's embarrassing how much emotion and intelligence we try to project onto the baby, when in reality there's really not that much going on in his little brain yet. Yesterday I thought it was just darling when Harvey pulled my hair before breast feeding. Like: "Oh look! He knows I'm his mommy and he's pulling me closer to him! How darling!" But then this morning I caught him trying to extract milk from the nose of a stuffed dolphin that happened to be positioned next to him in the bed, and I'm all, "Hey! Can't you tell the difference between my hot fragrant tit and bright blue plush fabric?"

Thankfully for Harvey's sake, the endowment affect makes us love him no matter how much shame or annoyance he inflicts on us... he does after all share our genetic material, which counts for something! We just look forward to liking him too for who he is... whoever he is.

The good news is that Harvey has been nursing very well, amazingly well even, a champion eater. I had been concerned about his short nursing sessions, but the consultation revealed that he's just eating really fast, and his 7-day average of 12 diapers a day shows that he's getting plenty of food. And since his parents have the unique ability of polishing off a dinner date at a restaurant in 20 minutes (the bottle-neck is ordering and paying) I'm not surprised by Harvey's above-average rate of consumption.

During the consultation Harvey ate for 45 minutes straight, a new record for him. He must have been spurred on by the captive audience... either that or by the fact that he had slept the majority of Tuesday in preparation for a major milk binge. Either way, the morning's professional nursing session jump-started something, because for the rest of the day he took to nursing like a professional, sucking to beat world records and howling every moment he was removed from the breast. By the time our friends came over in the evening for dinner and bible study, I was nursing the baby non-stop, going from the right side to the left side and back again without any pause. I was white as a ghost, my eyes looked sunken halfway into my brain, and I presented Harvey to our visitors at arms length, as if to say YOU hold this demon vacuum pump. There go our plans for trying to convince the rest of our friends to have babies. We may need to find some new, less rational friends.

To put the day's events in statistical perspective, the average daily nursing time for newborns is 140 minutes per day. Since my milk came in, Harvey has been averaging just under this, at around 130. Yesterday he nursed for 304 minutes. 304 minutes! This is 2.3 times the average, or over a third of our waking hours... OUR waking hours, not HIS waking hours... when our waking hours go to 11pm.

After a difficult evening, Harvey is now sleeping comfortably. I took a turn with the little night-terror last night, and I'm now convinced that the movie Gremlins was 100% based on the experiences of new parenthood. (They're cute, but DON'T FEED THEM AT NIGHT! DON'T LET THEM GO IN THE WATER!)

So on Saturday morning we were getting down to the wire of our home-birth window (Monday would have been hospital induction day). Our last natural induction option was Castor oil. Over the course of the week we had tried homeopathy, acupuncture, strong herbs, and enough painful nipple stimulation to fill a brown paper magazine. At the end of the week, I was feeling like maybe my body was too skeptical of alternative medicine to pull off a hippy home birth. Still, there was good old Castor oil, your grandma's induction tonic, and my midwife was saving it for last, due to the unpleasantness. On Saturday morning at 10am I drank 4oz straight, with a chaser of red raspberry tea (it's a uterine tonic). It tasted like you would imagine drinking a glass of canola oil would taste. I guess you could say I was desperate to go into labor.

We sat around and waited for the effects. Castor oil causes intestinal cramping, which can sometimes stimulate uterine contractions as well. Either way, we knew there was some bathrooming in the future, so we laid around and waited. To pass the time and to mix scientific variables in our induction experiment, Dan helped me with a little manual nipple stimulation. This turned out to be more enjoyable than my previous attempts with the breast pump, and we were just starting to get nice and distracted when my water broke.

How it felt was a uterine contraction accompanied with a snapping sensation, and then the tell-tail goopy stuff flowing down my leg. I ran to the bathroom very excited and called my midwife to describe what I saw. After asking some questions about the amount and consistency, our midwife Rebecca said, "That sounds like amniotic fluid to me. I'll check when I come back at 4." And then because she has a high opinion of us, she added, "You're not sterile anymore, so no sex."

With our hopes dashed for incredibly awkward pregnancy sex, we decided to go for a walk. My water broke at 11:30, and we headed out for a walk at noon, although after only a block I started to feel crampy and turned back. I barely made it back to the house and into the bathroom. Castor oil is a laxative normally prescribed in teaspoon dosages. 4oz is not a playing around amount. For the next hour I alternated between toilet and lying on the bathroom floor moaning. It felt like everything below my ribs was stuck in one constant hour-long contraction. Dan hung out in the next room, and when my verbal descriptions of the proceedings turned into non-stop sobbing, he suggested we call Rebecca again. "Is it supposed to be so intense?" I asked between gasps of air. "Castor oil is intense" she said, "But I'll come at 3 to check up on you." So I had won me an hour earlier of midwife ETA, a good sign we were on the right track.

For the next hour or two we were speeding down that right track without any breaks. I was on hands and knees on the floor of the bathroom regretting I had ever been born let alone chosen to bear a child. Once the castor oil effect wore off, I was having contractions what felt like every minute, yelling through the contractions and sobbing in between. Dan called Rebecca again because I couldn't talk anymore, and she said she would get there ASAP.

Rebecca arrived around 3pm and made haste to shuttle my butt into the birth tub, which Dan had already begun filling. By this time I had had enough of the bathroom floor, especially the first two paragraphs of the Economist's Iran feature that I had been trying to read since noon. Also, in the past hour I hadn't been able to move from my hands and knees, because each contraction forced me back into that position. Despite weeks of hardcore swim training, I was seriously considering the possibility that my shoulders were going to fall off. Fortunately, the warm water in tub instantly felt A LOT better. This was going to be doable! Birth tubs mean no pain, I thought! In retrospect, hahahahaha.

Once I was in the tub, Rebecca asked to check my cervix to see what was going on. She later told me she had expected me to be something like 4cm dilated, but when she put her hand in she actually chuckled and said, "you have almost no cervix left." Then she called the other midwife who was to attend the birth and said "She's almost fully love" which made it sound like we were playing some bizarre game of pelvic tennis.

From there on we headed into the meat and potatoes of the labor, which consisted mostly of screaming and holding on for dear life. I leaned against the side of the tub, biting the edge of the tub or a towel or my hand, as my uterus went nuts. Rebecca kept saying soothing things like "This is your body that's doing this," which didn't mean a lot to me, because of course my body is doing this, I'm just not too keen on the "this" aspect. In retrospect, a more helpful reference point would have been something like "Dysentery is worse" or "You won't be so fat in 20 minutes."

Rebecca also tried to get me to take the screaming down a notch, for my benefit if not that of the entire neighborhood. (Indeed, Dan took the dog for a walk at this point, and later he told me that he could hear the screaming over a block away.) Rebecca kept telling me to use the screaming by putting it down in my chest, like "Oooooh," and I would nod at her and say "OOOOH—-AAAA-A!A!A!A!A!A!A!A!A!A!A!" just like you would imagine someone sounding if they immediately went from having sex to being attached by a bear.

So that went on for longer than I'd like to recount, during which time the other midwife arrived and I kicked Dan and Judy out of the room. Soon enough Rebecca could tell by the change in my grunting that the baby was makings its final journey down the shoot, and she told me to push down with each contraction. This actually felt much easier than before, because the worst pain was out of my pelvis and I could feel progression with each push. After a couple of these, she reached into the water and told me she could feel the head. This made me feel better because it sounded like something you'd hear on the tv. (If hundreds of hours of 80s sitcoms taught me anything, it's that labor is always a clear progression from screaming, to the doctor saying they can see the head, to the baby coming out and the episode ending with some humorous yet endearing comment.)

The two midwives made me turn over so that I was sitting in the tub with my back to the wall, then another few pushes, then a pause in the pushing for some intervention between my legs which was the midwives removing the cord from around the baby's neck. It happens very frequently in normal birth that the cord gets wrapped around the baby's neck, which is fine for the journey downwards because the cord is very compressible. I didn't know what exactly was going on at the time, but I was far too tired to be concerned. My body stopped contracting for a few moments while they were working, and then I got the signal from them that it was time to push again, and although I didn't feel any contractions coming I made something up and finished pushing on my own. In retrospect, this may have been a mistake which lead to a perineum tear, but not all decisions can be winners.

Then came the big pay-off of home birth, when they handed me the baby right away. I was a bit out-of-it from a mixture of pain, relief, exhaustion, and panic, but I could tell right away that this was a good looking kid. Right from the start he was looking around with his big grey eyes, showing off his chubby cheeks, and generally stealing the show. The time was a few minutes after 5:30pm. All in all, the labor took about 5 hours from start to finish.

After all this excitement we had to do some annoying housekeeping with getting out of the tub, getting examined, delivering the placenta, getting more examined... none of which made me too pleased. I got a bit banged up in the birth process, but those details are perhaps a bit too graphic to share in a blog, even for me. Anyway, part of the beauty of labor is that nothing after it is quite as bad. And we finally had our cute little baby, out of my body and into the open air.

So that's the story of little Harvey Douglas Archibald. It's been a wild ride so far, so we expect big things from him soon.