He's Full of Surprises

Pregnant, coloring at the dining room table with Abbey, I worried.

Somehow, I had made it through the ultrasound without caving and begging the technician to tell us the sex of our healthy baby.  After finding out with Abbey, Ryan and I had agreed that this baby would be a surprise.

But now, coloring at the table with my relatively calm daughter, I worried.

I was scared to have a boy.

I wanted a son.  A little guy to look up to Ryan and wear preppy clothes and tattered baseball caps.  A grown man to dance with as a mother of the groom.

Still, I was scared to have a boy.

My own childhood was filled with dance classes and days spent at the library devouring books and playing school in my room next to my canopy bed.  I loved skirts that twirled in circles.  I didn't like bugs or dirt.

What would I do with a boy?

Of course, I fell in love with him the moment I met him.

There's nothing sweeter than the ten times a day he stops what he's doing to come hug me and bestow one or two or seven slobbery kisses on me before returning to wreck havoc on the house.

Little plaid shirts and sweater vests and khaki shorts catch my eye nearly as much as tulle skirts and hand-crafted headbands.

Still, he proves daily that my fears weren't unfounded.  He presses every button within reach and loads the DVD player with any CD or DVD he manages to find around the house.  We've strategically positioned three gates and could use at least one more.  Our chosen cupboard locks stop him for approximately eight seconds when he decides to open them.  He gleefully runs anywhere he shouldn't and has an inner device that leads him to drinking fountains and doors he can open himself.

I worry when I take him places, because he's notoriously unpredictable and not quiet about his preferences.

Waiting for Abbey's recital to start, he climbed up and down and up and down the wide steps of the auditorium.  Ryan and my dad were on alert that they would likely spend the majority of the show in the hall with Dylan.  Trying to get him to sit on my lap when the lights dimmed elicited his loudest vocal protests, and even his beloved Cheerios did little to distract him from the thought of climbing those stairs again.

Then the music started, the lights shone on the dancers, throwing rainbows off their sequined costumes, and he leaned against me, mesmerized.  Later, as Ryan held him, snack cup still clenched in one hand, I was amazed.  He craned his head to get a better view.  He spontaneously clapped during performances.  He didn't have to leave the theater until he went home at intermission.

Maybe boys aren't so scary after all.

not scared of Colleen's play structure at all

Bubbles Aren't Fun Dip

There's an overwhelming consensus that women forget about the physical pain of labor as a defense mechanism designed to make sure we have more babies. 

I seem to have blocked out the pesky phase in Abbey's life when she ate everything and anything she could get into her little hands.  I don't mean the phase where she happily ate a wide variety of foods, because I'm still waiting for that one.  I mean the phase where she liked to nosh on non-food items.

Dylan has gleefully galloped into that phase with open arms, an open mouth, and little fists clenched around anything I don't want near his mouth.

I vaguely remember having to watch Abbey in stores to make sure she wasn't picking up things from the shelves to eat.  But mostly, it's a hazy memory of a cute little girl investigating the world around her.

That memory is a lie.

Because this phase?  The eating everything in sight phase?  This phase is disgusting.

In Macy's, he bent down to find a half-eaten Oreo under a display.  I tackled him before he got it in his mouth. (Aunt Jessica witnessed that one, lucky her!)

At the park, he munches on sticks and wood chips and grass.

Outside, he delicately licks stones and dandelions and my keys.

In our driveway, he samples sidewalk chalk and bubbles.

He's learned the word "yuck", because I say it each time I remove an offending object from his hand or his mouth.

I think he has the meaning confused with "yum".

I hope this isn't a long phase.

Yuck.

hmm, looks interesting

this little stick is kind of like a spoon

tastes a little like my bath toys

because I like chewing on those, too

Things I Shouldn't Be Doing

inside his head (maybe):

"I shouldn't be doing this

but you shouldn't be taking a picture of it either!"

I'm Not Supposed to Be Here

this is not just an empty cupboard

our GARBAGE goes here, and it's his favorite