First sentence!

Today, I was driving through town when I saw my husband and BabyJaguar in the park. I quickly pulled to the side of the road and waited impatiently for an opening in the traffic so I could open my door while my husband worked to contain my son who was frantically trying to get to me from across the street. And then, BabyJaguar, through tears, cried out his first full sentence:

"I want my mommy!"

I'm sitting here trying to come up with the next sentence that captures how happy those four words make me, but there are no words. You will instead have to visualize me with a huge grin on my face, my eyes all squinty from the big smile and my shoulders all scrunched up in squishy, love filled joy.

Caught in the whirlwind

I have been horrendously MIA these last months and really wish it weren't the case. So often my mind is on something and I think, I'd really like to blog about that. And then it never comes to fruition. Life has been indescribably hectic and so I can't really complain, but I really wish I were blogging with greater frequency. I miss it terribly.

So what's new with me? Can I bullet? Let's bullet.

• Work is crazy busy. I came into this school year with a group of kids who had significant emotional needs and behavioral concerns. For the first couple months, I was a mess. I couldn't even enjoy them in their brief moments of calm because I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Insert Zoloft here. It is working wonders and I feel like my more-or-less normal self again even though I am surrounded by daily craziness. Also, one of my needier students moved and, while I miss him, it has made the year a bit easier to have one less in my crew. On top of that, the kids settled down somewhat as they have learned that my rules are the only rules in my classroom (I feel so Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds when I say that).
  
• At the start of 2011, I embraced a mission: to reduce my family's debt. My husband got on board and we are knee deep (okay, ankle deep) in the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. There's no magic bullet to this, just good old fashioned hard work while following some sound steps. I could not be more excited. I have made a poster of our debt (I know, I'm a nerd), created a strict monthly budget and even drew a little fundraising thermometer to help us record our progress towards our first goal (I know, I'm a huge nerd but I can't help myself). I will write more about this later.


• Ben is growing at the speed of light. He is now nearly 22 months, is putting lots of words together and is very fond of the phrase, "No Mommy", which he doesn't say rudely but rather matter of factly. He is flexible yet demanding, independent yet affectionate and the center of my world. I continue to feel so astoundingly privileged that I get to be his mommy.

Life is crazy, life is stressful, life is rewarding and life is good. That's it in a nutshell. I'll be back. I promise!

All things 'no'

My mornings generally start like this: I get BabyJaguar out of his crib and put him in my bed where he lazily reclines back on my propped up pillows and drinks his milk while I try to wake up. This lasts about a whole five minutes and then he is off and running. Literally. He hops off the bed and heads full speed for all things 'no'. As in, "No litter box. That's for the kitties." And, "No dirty diaper. Mommy has to take that downstairs with us and throw it out." And, "No billy club. Daddy has to use that if he ever has to beat a burglar." (Am I the only one whose husband is ready to defend the family on a moment's notice? Yeah, it's tucked against the wall behind his side of the bed. Ben has discovered it.)

And so it goes for the rest of the day with the exception of nap time (and people wonder why mommies still nap even as their children get older. It's nap or drink). I gotta tell you...it's completely exhausting. I don't really know how I sustain this pace everyday. Nor do I know how I'm going to manage returning to teaching with my child going at this current pace.

And, in my defense, my house is reasonably baby proofed. I've got locks on several cabinets and enough gates to simulate a lockdown at a state prison. But still, it's not enough.

And when I say 'no' to something, in BabyJaguar's head it means, "GAME ON." And he will proceed to go for the 'no' object seventeen more times in a five minute span. And I read up on parenting. I try the avoid-a-power-struggle-with-your-little-one-language to avoid the big N-O as in, "We can have the Cheerios after we eat lunch," instead of, "No Cheerios." No luck with that in this house. Actually, when I tell the little man he can't have something right when he demands it, he gets this little glint in his eye. His face shows nothing but sheer amusement as he thinks, "This dumb hieney thinks she can take me." (He knows he can't use the word ass. He at least respects the no swearing rule. I guess that's something.)

What does this all mean? Does he have ADHD? Oppositional Defiant Disorder? Is he destined to become a common criminal? A lawyer? Or just a regular ol' fifteen month old with some kind of stubborn streak? I think it's the latter (at least I hope!).

So how am I handling all this? I'm counting (a lot). I'm taking deep breaths. I'm trying to think of the ridiculously adorable things he does during the moments when he is at his most challenging. I'm visiting him often when he is asleep in his crib to cherish a completely still moment with him. Daddy and I are taking turns a lot so the other can take a break when they need it. I'm being consistent, consistent, consistent.

And I'm remembering that I would never give up being BabyJaguar's mommy for even a minute.

Saying goodbye to an extraordinary year...

No time for that, mommy. I'm a mover and a shaker now.

My little monkey is all done nursing....well, almost all done. He's all done for function's sake anyway. Every now and then, he kinda remembers I have boobs and decides to hop on for three seconds and then is right back off and running.

I introduced cow's milk after BabyJaguar's first birthday. We eased into it. Just a bit mixed in with a bottle of breastmilk that got sent off to daycare. Each week, I added another half-ounce or ounce until eventually, lo and behold, his daycare bottles were nothing but cow's milk. We continued to nurse at home. I stopped pumping at work (insert picture of me with my arms raised to the heavens shouting, "PRAISE!!!"). Life was good.

And then gradually, my milk lessened a bit and the little monkey was not as satisfied after nursing and would take a bottle afterwards. And then, even more gradually, he started wanting a bottle instead of nursing.

Hmm. Such mixed emotions about it.

It was a good fourteen months, bunny.

Absence of thoughts

I've been MIA for quite a bit. It's not so much that I haven't been on the computer or even that I haven't checked in on my blog. I have. I guess I've just been quiet. I'd sit here at the computer, fingers ready to type away, only my brain was either still or blank (mommy brain). I tend to think of something to say when I'm not actually sitting at the computer and then I think to myself that I should jot it down so I don't forget and then my mind jumps to a new topic and I forget to write it down so I remember it for later. It's tragic really. When I think of all those lost blog posts. Just tragic.

Apparently this mommy brain (previously called pregnancy brain) is permanent. Mommies don't tell other women this. It's a secret that they don't share with anyone outside the club. You need a secret password to be privy to this inside information and the password involves babyfood in your hair and a faint smell of spit up combined with baby poo. Sure, when you join the I'm-with-child club, we'll give you the watered down version of the secret and tell you that your IQ is going to drop 40 points and your brain will turn to the consistency of rice cereal all because you're pregnant. But when you pop that little one out, that's when you hear the real bombshell. This newfound IQ level is permanent. Welcome to the idiot club, sister. So nice to have you.

Muted apprehensions

Motherhood has left me with me with this very frequent, intense feeling of being so very blessed. It's not always at the forefront of my mind, but it's constantly there. At least a few times a day it makes it way to the very front of my consciousness and shouts at me, "Boy!! Are you lucky!!"

And I am. So very very lucky. I look at my son and I can't help but feel like my world is just so....full. With joy. With hugs. With giggles. With pride. With smiles. With just immeasurable love. It's indescribable. Like the parents who came before me told me it would be. And while I believed them, I could never grasp the depth of it all until Ben came into my life.

But with this newfound joy and wholeness comes this nagging anxiety that whispers to me, it could all slip way. Like suddenly life is so amazing that I realize there is just so much to lose. And it's absolutely terrifying. Because I know that if Ben ever somehow slipped away, I wouldn't know how to get out of bed every morning or how to force my lungs to fill and empty over and over. I could never go back to life without Ben.

When the topic of old age comes up, I tell people flat out that I plan to die in my seventies. Seriously, I know I can't control much of dying before that beyond the obvious don't smoke, don't drink and drive, don't play on the train tracks, blah blah blah, but your late seventies seems pretty ideal. Hopefully your body isn't completely failing you yet. For most, the mind is still intact. Many maintain a good deal of independence. After that, it's just kinda downhill. My grandmother lived into her nineties. She didn't have much of a life near the end. I don't want that for myself, relying almost exclusively on others.

Anyway, when this discussion came up recently, I shared my plan and then I realized that my late seventies is in 40+ years. And you know what happened? My stomach dropped. That anxious feeling returned as I realized that means I only have 40+ years with Ben. That's not enough time. And right then, I realized. No amount of time will ever be enough.