Thursday, July 16, 2009

A quick update

I know, I know... I'm a slacker blogger. At first I had a good excuse (working on my dissertation), but now my reasons for not blogging are not quite as convincing (watching SYTYCD, reading the Twilight series of book at any free moment, sleeping, etc.). Anyways, since Hudson is upstairs screaming his lungs out with Ryan, I thought I would try to do a quick update. (BTW - the screaming is due to our second round of sleep training. You may have followed our experience with the first round. We made progress, but then plateaued, and ultimately, regressed back to our starting point. This time around Hudson is on to us and REFUSES to go to sleep without us and continues to wake all through the night.)

So, before I get into the update, I just wanted to give another excuse (I know, I'm full of them!) for my lack of blogging. I guess I don't fully understand what the best blogging etiquette is. I know that I enjoy reading blogs when the updates include pictures, but uploading and adding pictures is the time consuming part that I dread. So I end up putting off posts (like Hudson's first airplane trip that was almost a month ago!). If blogging without pictures is appropriate, I'm sure I would do it more often. That said, I have absolutely no idea who reads this blog. My guess is that it is mainly just Hudson's grandparents, a few girls from the Nest with toddlers, and a few friends from high school and/or college. And since our parents and most of my friends receive monthly pictures (which I'm also slacking on...I promise that I'll be better once Edward and Bella are out of my life!), maybe pictures aren't necessary?

Anyways, I wanted to give a quick update about our crazy little monkey. Everyday I am just shocked by the things that he is doing. He pretty much will repeat any word you say to him and most of them sound like they should. I would try to post some the words that he actually knows, but there are just way too many now. There must be at least 100! It seemed to happen overnight! Some of my favorites are "sit" and "ice" which sound JUST like "shit" and "ass". He's obsessed with the color purple - you can point to any color and he'll say it's purple. But yet when he is pointing things out in his books, he'll point to something that's actually purple and say it correctly. So I think he knows his colors, but is just playing with us. Similarly, he's obsessed with the number 8...he treats it the same as purple. But yet if you count and pause between numbers he can sometimes fill in with the correct number. He knows a bunch of animal noises (our favorite is cat because he says "meeee" in a really high pitched voice), but over the last few days everything says "MOOOOOO!" because he knows you'll tickle him and say "nooooo!" He's started saying and signing "please" and "thank you" a bunch. He usually says it when prompting like "How do you ask?" or "What do you say now?", but just today he started to say thank you without a prompt. And, my favorite current trick, if you ask him where the baby is, he picks up my shirt and knocks on my stomach and says "Knock, knock baby".

And here's a runway pose in case posting pictures is a must.....

Monday, July 13, 2009

Mommy accomplishments

The 13th of each month leaves me a little weepy. It marks another month since Hudson's birth, leaving him less of an infant and more of a toddler than he was the day before. I don't know what it was about him turning 20 months (maybe it's that he's no longer in the "teens"?) that left me especially sentimental today. I don't think the pregnancy hormones are helping much either.

Regardless, I was walking Hudson to the park this evening after work (I don't really have a choice in this activity - as soon as our nanny leaves, Hudson is putting his shoes on, pointing downstairs, and saying "Park"). As I pushed the stroller, I looked down to see the little guy who's going to be a big brother in 5 short months. I can't really travel down that road right now because the thought of him with the baby just chokes me up with a joy that I can't begin to describe. I digress. I looked at this little boy, no longer a baby, and relived the past 20 months. Goosebumps covered my body as they are now. I thought of the excitement of delivering him, the pain and pleasure of breastfeeding, and of all his "firsts" which I recorded dutifully. The changes in Hudson are obvious. But then I began to consider the changes in me, those things that are not necessarily noticeable to the naked eye. And it struck me. No where (that I know of ) do we celebrate the "firsts" of Mommies.

In particular, the "first" that I was thinking of was the first time that a mother recognizes that the "expert advice" is not what she needs to follow as a parent. In other words, the first time a Mommy realizes that she IS the expert for her child. This was a first that took me a long time to reach. I was focused on "doing the right thing" and fearing regret that I often forgot to consult my most informative document of all - Mommy intuition.

On a similar note, I started to think of the first time a Mommy learns to not let the guilt consume her. "Do I go to work and leave my child with a caregiver, breaking my attachment and trust with my child?" "Do I stay at home and run the risk of socially isolating my child from other children, sentencing him to a lifetime of solitude?" These are only two examples of the infinite sources of guilt of Mommies. This is a milestone that I still struggle with and I'm not sure I can honestly say I've accomplished a "first" in learning to let the guilt go.

Mommies also deserve recognition for the first time they realize that their relationship with their husband and their relationship with themselves requires the same nurturing and attention that is provided to their child. This first is one that I feel I JUST achieved. I am ready to take the plunge and leave Hudson overnight with someone. For the past 20 months, I have been with him every single night. No business trips, no girls' weekends, no romantic escapes. I am finally feeling comfortable enough to leave him and I'm proud to have finally gotten here.

I could go on and on about all of the wonderful things that Mommies do. With each of these "accomplishments", something inside of the mother changes. This psychological/spiritual/etc growth serves to better her as a mother and as a person. Before being a mother, I was naive to these changes. Twenty months later, I am overwhelmed by their impact.