Birthdays, Then (and Then) and Now

Will played with balloons on his first birthday, all by himself.

He toddled through our old kitchen,

then disappeared around the corner.

He blew out a solitary candle on his tiny carrot cake.

His little brother was still waiting in the wings in my belly.

For his second birthday, Will got a Cookie Monster cake--

a little bigger, this year (the boy and the dessert).

This time, he extinguished the candle all by himself.

He still spent some time alone with his balloons...

...but he was going to have to learn how to share soon enough.

This year, Will blew out the candle with too much gusto
(while I took this picture, Dave was shouting "MOVE BACK, BUBBA!")

And oh my goodness, does the kid ever have to share:

his spotlight, his balloons, his MILK even!

Funny enough, he didn't seem to mind.

And this year, as Will disappeared around the corner with his balloons,

he was chasing his little brother.

I think he'd say this birthday was his best yet.

Happy Seventeen Months, Finnster!

Finn at seventeen months:

And in static form:

Well, that's about as static as Finn ever gets.

Here's Will at the same age (either heading into or recovering from a bout of bronchitis, I can't remember):

Dude, what were we FEEDING that kid? Whey protein powder supplements? 

He's a HORSE!

I'll have to dig up that Celtics jersey and put it on Finn for comparison's sake. 

And...yeah, I admit it, they do look a lot alike when I see them at the same age. (Give or take TWENTY POUNDS, holy moley!)

There Can Only Be One, Too

I wrote this post about Will just after he hit fifteen months. It was also a couple of weeks before Finn was born, which is shocking to me. How was I not panicking that I was about to have a baby when I still had...a baby?!? Will didn't feel like a baby to me, though.

Finn does, and so I'm amazed by the non-baby traits that keep cropping up. Here's a partial list of his words as of this week:

Up, outside ("ah-sigh"), upstairs ("usta"), car, truck ("uckuck"), Will ("Bee-uw"), more, uh-oh, hi, buh-bye, hat, dog, Nan ("Naaa"), Mamp (he said "Mampa" today), Dada, Mama, bread, Goldfish ("goh")...

He loves to read, particularly: Fire Truck by Peter Sis, Opposites by Sandra Boynton (and add "oppa" to the list of partial words he can say), The Three Bears by Byron Barton, and Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann.

(He also loves belly buttons, and saying "tick" as he lunges for yours.)

He still signs "please." Then there's the ubiquitous "yeah" and "no," accompanied by the appropriate head movement. This has been going on for at least a month, and it's the most helpful thing Finn's done in his short life thus far. As long as you can make your question conform to a yes/no format, you can ask him anything! (It wasn't as helpful as I would've liked the other morning, when I was trying to get him back to bed after a 5 a.m. wake-up and said, "Do you want to go back to sleep?" "Naw," he said firmly, turning his head left to right. Oooookay. What now?)

This week was a triumph of sorts for Finn: Monday was his first "one-nap" day, and I rearranged our schedule for every subsequent day so we'd have the best shot at keeping the streak alive. And we did it! Dave and I may have had to maneuver some weird 2 a.m. CIO sessions, and I might have whispered some bad words under my breath after today's nap (consisting of one hour) ended abruptly today, but overall: success!

Finn's definitely a cold-turkey kid. We cut him off from pacifiers altogether overnight, and that was that. We did the same with bottles somewhere before thirteen months, and he was cool with that, too. He's never attached to a "love-love" the way Will did with (his now multiple) Gogo(s). Finn prefers people. He's a nuzzler and a snuggler.



At his fifteen-month appointment, he came up 28 lbs. and some undetectable amount of inches, since he wouldn't stand (literally and metaphorically) for his height check. Our doctor guess-timated 31, but I think he's closer to 32. Will was 34 inches, and you can clearly see the differences in body type when you compare Finny wearing this same 3T PJ one-piece from the pictures of Will at the exact same age.

"Right now, he's heftier than he is long," chuckled the doctor. Let me tell you why this is unsurprising: I thought Will could eat, but this kid can Eat. A normal breakfast for Finn consists of a cup of diced peaches, two slices of raisin bread with peanut butter, a WHOLE banana, and a cup of milk. He eats a mid-morning and an afternoon snack, and his lunch and dinner are as preposterous as his breakfast, in terms of volume. We buy three gallons of milk per week; one for Finn, one for Will, and one for me and Dave. Guess which one has a bit left over on Sunday? THE ONE THAT IS SHARED BY THE TWO FULL-SIZED ADULTS.

I submit as evidence: his tummy is about to bust out of this Idaho tee courtesy of his Great-Aunt Kathy (Dave's godmother) and Great-Uncle Tom.







As I'm sure most little brothers do, Finn watches his big brother like an Us Weekly paparazzo. Lately, though, Finn's also been branching out into some independent play. He used to sort of hang around Will, waiting for attention or to see what was going to happen. But he still laughs uproariously at almost anything his brother does.

My sweet fifteen-month-old has probably had five tantrums so far, but each is a total "Whuuuuut?" experience for me, since my two-and-a-half-year-old has never really had ONE. Yet. (And when Will starts to whip his arms around and makes his preparatory shrieking noise, we say, "Will, stop it. Hands are not for hitting." And he STOPS. And then snuggles with us, likely because he feels guilty or something sweet like that.) Finny does the full-on sequence of tantrums like the ones I've seen on YouTube: 1) Whine with an open mouth, baring splayed, emergent front teeth; 2) Intensify the nasal tone of the whine, throw head back further; 3) Fall to floor in despair, 4) Roll side to side, screaming at the floor as if it's to blame for your woe; 5) Wonder vaguely what you're supposed to be upset about, allow yourself to be distracted by something more fun, end tantrum.



So far I've watched with a bemused eye, because I really don't know what to do with this irrational behavior. My older kid is SO rational. You explain things to Will and he processes my reasoning and moves on. Oh, not so with my Finny Finn!

And fifteen months later, I honestly don't know how I ever lived without him.

Things I've Learned the Hard Way

[Tip: Anyone who's not interested in the minutiae of life with little ones should skip to the bottom of this post and enjoy the photo portion only!]

Having two kids in sixteen months is really an experience unto itself. As Finny approaches the age at which Will became a big brother (he's about six weeks away from that marker), my brain has had a little breathing room--just a little--and I find myself being both intro- and retrospective.

So here are some things I've learned about having two closely-spaced babies. Most of these things I learned the hard way, or at least not without some amount of mental resistance.

1. When you can carry your little baby in a Bjorn or an Ergo (aka, for the first seven or so months of his life), that is THE EASY PART. People made remarks about how easy I made it look, but the reality is that--at least compared to now--it WAS easy. Because Finn was a winter baby, I had to nurse him in the car in those early months--but when the weather was warmer, I nursed him right there on the woodchips while Will caroused on the playground. Fitting in frequent feedings was something I had to think about, but not much. I basically followed Will's schedule, and Finn did too.

My point is not, "Pshaw! Anyone can handle two under two!" My point is: It's going to get trickier logistically, so  insofar as it's possible, enjoy the convenience of the baby-as-accessory phase. I'm SO HAPPY that I can look back fondly on those days of Finn sleeping through Will's MyGym classes and playgroups, instead of feeling like I took them for granted.

2. You must use Munchkin straw sippy cups if you don't want milk to spill all over and therefore ruin a $36 lunchbox.

Let me clarify: I didn't mean to purchase a $36 lunchbox in the first place. I was out with the boys one day when it was flurrying, and we were at Legacy Place, and they weren't happy in the stroller, but they were dressed for the weather, and Will was about to start preschool. I grabbed a trendy robot lunchbox whose vinyl looked hardy enough, and I rushed to pay for it, and there was no way I was backing out after she'd rung me up and I was staring at that ridiculous receipt. Neither I nor Will even particularly like robots! And if anything, I go out of my way to avoid looking like a hipster who wants to pay a chunk of change for a trendy lunchbox! But I was stuck!

And then I threw a few of our B-list sippies in there and the milk seeped into the insulation of the lunchbox, and that thing was TOAST. No amount of scrubbing or machine washing could undo that doozy, so I trudged out to LL Bean to buy this lunchbox. I love it--it fits two sippy cups standing right-side-up, and a hard ice pack, and a couple of food containers, and it's not at all trendy.

But the other lesson was, stick with the greatest straw sippy cups ever, which are these Munchkin ones. I know that everyone has a different experience with every cup, but it's so weird to me that one review here says "not for biters," because Will is most definitely a straw-biter, and these are the only ones that have held up in our household. They really also are the most spill-proof we've found, and they're top-rack dishwasher safe, and I trust them. My only complaint is that some of the two-packs have traditional "boy" and "girl" colors mixed in, and I can't always order specific colors.

3. Going to the playground is a workout, and the diaper bag has become all-important again.

I still don't believe the celebrity moms who say they've maintained their figure "chasing after their kids," mostly because I think that since they have people who work for them and help them (which is great!) and many of them still work part- or full-time jobs (also great!), it's hard to buy that they're getting an hour of pure chasing-kid time in per day. But now, I sort of see why they might *think* they are toning their calves on the playground, because one semi-competent mobile kid plus one incompetent and fearless kid equals an epic morning of sprinting in many directions.

In the last two days (our first playground-worthy days of the season!) I have developed a timing strategy for keeping track of both boys without panicking. I've named it (come on, you all know I like to name things) the 5/2 strategy, and it's making me suspect I was a QB coach in a former life.

It's simple: if both boys aren't right next to me, that I need to trail Finny much more closely. The maximum ratio in terms of distance from each is 5:2, so I could be 15 feet from Will but only 6 feet from Finny. You all can do the math.

The more important piece of the 5/2 strategy is the timing, though. I try to keep my attention on Finny for 5 seconds, and then I locate and check in on Will for no more than 2 before returning to my little loose cannon, who thinks that if he just walks off the top step, the next one will magically rise to meet him.

So, the diaper bag. It faded from the spotlight for a while, and now it is back with a vengeance. Here is what seems to be necessary for an hours-long playground visit:

• Diapers and wipes, of course (Although I try not to change diapers while we're out, if I have to, I do it in the car because I am a totally unabashed MINIVAN WORSHIPER and I CAN.)
• Those Munchkin sippies filled with water or milk for the big boy
• Nuby sippies like these for the non-straw-using little boy (least spillage for a straight-up sippy in our usage history)
• Snacks in little containers or plastic baggies
• A book or two to keep them focused while they're sitting down to snack
• Layers and baseball caps
• Sunscreen stick
• CleanWell hand sanitizing spray
• Vaseline (I used this to get jelly off my hands when I was out of wipes AND to dab on Will's hands when he tripped and scraped up his palms today)
• Tissues, napkins, washcloths

The notable items left off this list are things I brought to the park when Will was this age that fall into one of two categories: So Rarely Used That It's Not Worth Packing and/or Huge Pain to Keep Track of When You Have Two Toddlers.


Extra set of clothes/socks, little toy cars or balls of any size, diaper cream, an entire lunch--these all fall into one or both of those categories.

Now for those playground photos:

Pants on Fire, Self-Fulfilling Prophesies, and Peter Pan by Proxy

The other day, Will asked his sitter, Maggie, if they could play with the "small toys" (choking hazards).

"No, we have to wait until Finny takes a nap. Otherwise he might put them in his mouth and that would be bad!" she explained.

Will looked at his baby brother (BARELY a baby; eleven months old today!?!?), then back at Maggie, and said, "I think Finny is tired."

**********

I don't think there are a lot of people who LOVE feeling unmoored, but I still probably land somewhere way, way, way over on the "HATE IT" end of the spectrum.

However, I unintentionally give myself a hard time about how bothered I am by it. I'm constantly trying to talk myself out of feeling stressed, as if it isn't taxing to a) not know where you'll be living in 2011, b) not know where one kid is going to preschool or what you'll do to fill the other one's days, and c) feel like you want to do some more work in your field, although you can't see a way to add more work into the daily schedule of motherhood.

I'd like to spend some time on a project I first developed three years ago while heading up my Intervention & Assessment classroom. It's an important idea for a curriculum that's desperately needed in our high school classrooms, and I've seen the need for it firsthand, and...I just feel way too out-of-the-loop to know how to jump back in. And there's the time issue, which is kind of a huge one.

Anyway, I'm putting this out there in the spirit of that Secret book Oprah loves so much. I've never read it, but I think the main point is that you're supposed to tell the universe what you want and then things start happening to grant you your wish(es). I do have a hard time with the concept that "it's as easy as that!" because of, you know, the starving and disease-ridden and oppressed millions who...just didn't want it badly enough?

BUT, one day in August of '07, I was talking to myself in the car about my current job, and how it wasn't right for me. The schoolyear was due to start again in less than a month, and I said something out loud like, "I really wish I could find a place that really suited me, where I felt like I could do everything I wanted to." And mere days later, I got a call from the director of the I&A classroom asking if I was interested in taking over the lead teacher position. If that job had been a tangible object, it would have literally fallen in my lap.

So. Wonders never cease, right?

**********

Finny is eleven months old today, and this morning I woke up and thought, "I will absolutely cry on his first birthday."

I know how fast this goes now. Bear with my analogy, if you will: Motherhood started out feeling like a train, and I was the conductor, and the upcoming mile markers thrilled me; then it became a symbiotic thing where I still had my role, but now the train had a mind of its own (like Thomas!). And then I had another kid and started to feel like I was running down the tracks in pursuit of this runaway car, and if I could just--move--faster--?

Finn SO VIVIDLY remains a nursing, crawling infant in my mind, and part of me harbors the preposterous hope that time isn't linear and we'll get back there someday. I can't believe we're only moving forward, at a pace that's beyond my ever-shrinking sphere of influence.

He slept all the time, I remember.

 And now he's this sweet and handsome and charming little blue-eyed BOY.

(Or "Chubby little man!" as Will calls him.)

So Finny and I are at odds: he wants to grow up, and I'd prefer that he didn't. And although neither of us is the conductor of that particular train, I have a feeling Finn's going to win this one. And THAT makes me feel like crying.