Halala Mama

If I wrote a book of parenting rules, I would include these two chapters.

1.  Your kids do not care if you are sick.

That’s right.  Have a headache?  A sore throat?  Do NOT look to your 11 month old for sympathy or even consideration.  His butt still needs changed.  He needs a bath.  And for God’s sake, he does NOT want to eat whatever it is you put in front of him tonight.  He will have crackers and string cheese with a formula chaser, thank you very much.

He doesn’t care if you lay on the couch or the floor as long as you are there.

There is beauty in that.

I realized last week that Adam doesn’t necessarily love me for my actions, but for my presence (at this point anyway).  I played with him, but was definitely less than 100 percent in my enthusiasm for it and he did not care one bit.  He smiled, laughed and crashed into me.

He was happy just to be with me.  And although I wanted to be in bed, there was happiness for me as well.

2.  Everything is trial and error.

Feed him the same food for 7 months?  Great.  Dress him in cute footie pajamas every single night of his young life.  Fabulous.

Today?  It’s all different.

Foods that he ate constantly are now refused, unless of course it is fruit.   Out of clean pajamas on Monday night, I dressed him in a long sleeve tshirt and pajama bottoms and for the first time in a month he didn’t wake me up three times in the night.  The alarm rang on Tuesday morning and I didn’t realize what the noise was.  What time was it? Did ADAM SLEEP ALL NIGHT?

Trial and error.  Error, error, error, better trial something new.

Could different pajamas be the key to nighttime sleep?  Could it work two nights in a row?

Yes. It did.

And that is the end of my short story otherwise known as “My Vast Experience as a New Parent.”

…

This weekend is the Brickyard 400  Nascar race which means I am housebound today.  I won’t even bother to go out and get that 88 cent dish soap on sale at CVS that I’ve had my eye on.  All that can wait for tomorrow.

The race also means that Ismael’s entire weekend is spent either sleeping or working, so I definitely had to find my own free fun for a Saturday night.  My college girlfriend, Beth, invited Adam and I to come over after mass.  I could enjoy adult conversation while Adam laughed at her boys throwing paper airplanes.  Win-win.

I decided to attempt a 5:30 PM mass at Fr. Bill’s church as it is close to Beth’s.  Adam has been staying up a little later and I figured he could make it through.  I didn’t anticipate, however, that he has standing independently on his mind.  He spent the entire mass either wallowing on me or standing between my knees using my hands as a fun hammock to swing in.

I determined that wrestling an octopus into a wetsuit would have been easier than keeping him still and quiet.

I gave up at communion time, gathered my bag and my baby octopus, and headed for the car.

I’m pretty sure I heard cheering from the row behind me.

Father’s sermon was on the fishes and loaves Gospel.  He had brought a large, old looking clock to mass.  He talked about how there are moments in time that we have realizations, that in just a moment something becomes clear to us that we haven’t been able to see all along.

For him, one moment was when his parents gave him that clock.  The clock had always been on a high shelf out of reach of the children.  They were never allowed to touch it.

Father came home for a short visit while he was in seminary and to his surprise his parents sent the clock back with him.

On the drive back to seminary he came to two realizations:

1.  His parents now saw him as an adult who could be trusted with the responsibility of keeping this item that was precious to them.

2.  His parents, who had both been diagnosed with cancer, knew that they were dying.  They were giving away their most precious items to their children.

A moment of joy.  A moment of sorrow.

He contends that no matter how young or old we are, we have all had our own moments of time that we hold dear to ourselves.  What are they?

Usually this question would have me digging deep into my heart and memory to unearth these moments, to think about them, cherish them, relive them, relish them and consider how God has transformed them.

For some reason, I just can’t right now.  I have a lot on my mind in the present that is worrying me.  The present is challenging enough; I don’t have the energy to deal with the past.

One moment that readily comes to mind, though, was my decision to say yes to Ismael’s many marriage proposals.  He had been asking me for months to marry him and I kept putting him off.  It was too soon, I felt.  And then in a single moment, during a conversation with my friend Tommy, I knew that I wanted to marry Ismael.  My answer was yes.  It was a solitary moment in time where my heart spoke loudly without my mind getting in the way.

God has taken that moment and transformed it into the life we have today which has many struggles but a lot of joy as well.

What are your moments in time?

…

“I am the giant baby who is here to eat your brains with my snaggle-tooth.”

Not the greatest picture, admittedly, but it’s my most common view of my son these days.

It’s been a busy week – lots of laughs, a few graces, and no laundry.  Yeah, that’s a bit of a problem now, but tomorrow is another day.

I babysat for my niece and nephew all week.  For every woman whose kids are > 1:  Wow.  Good luck with all that.  Three kids, all under the age of 4, wore me out this week, AND I only had them part time.  But it was great to spend time with them and for Adam to see and interact with them.

I was hoping he would watch my niece, get all inspired, and learn to crawl.  Not yet.

Instead he likes to stand. On me. All day.

Since he is teething again, I let him work my thighs and sometimes intestines with those pointy little feet of his.  It keeps him happy as a clam. Hence the picture.

While pinned under him most of the week,  I’ve realized that there isn’t a single toy in his repertoire that he finds more enjoyable than mommy right now.  As I am a cheap date, I don’t have to fret about the hundreds of things I would love to buy for him but can’t.

He’s happy just to be near me. If I reach my hand back to him in the car at a stoplight, he will always raise his little hand to hold my fingers and peep at me over the side of his seat to smile at me.  Always.  Stoplights are a lot more enjoyable these days.

He only sees me.

And if I stop, and enjoy it, I only see him.

No issues. No problems.

Just my happy baby boy with the snaggle tooth.