It never really stops

I have been anticipating the first birthday of Joel with much trepidation. Thinking of this child leaving babyhood has been tough for me, for there are no more to follow now. No joy mixed with fear at the finding of a new pregnancy. No wonder over the feel of a new life growing inside of me. No excitement mixed with anxiety over labor and delivery. No marvel at a new baby's face, as they morph from resembling one side of the family to the other each morning. It literally makes me ache with sadness.

But then something happened last week that has made the coming event a little easier. I got sick. With a 24-hour bug that packed a punch. Friday afternoon I was supposed to take the boys to pick up Molly at the vet. That was all we had on our plate. By 3:30 or so I was so chilled and my energy level so low that I started to wonder if I could even get them both in the car. My temperature dropped to 96.2, and even with layers of clothes and blankets I could not get warm. Luckily I managed to get both boys asleep, which is almost impossible to do at the same time these days. I consider that happening Divine Intervention. I started trying to call Jav, but he was having serious goings-on at work and couldn't get away. I then called my Dad to see if he would pick up Molly on his way home from work. He said he could and would. One issue taken care of. After he dropped her off, the virus really kicked in and I will spare you the details.

I knew I could maybe handle taking care of Gabriel, but not Joel. It's too physical, and I had nothing. Zip. Nada. No energy to even lift my head off the pillow. Tia Sandie came to get Gabriel to go see a basketball game. I'm glad because I know he was worried when he saw my crumpled body on the couch, even though he is too much of a big boy to admit it. So what do you do when you are that sick? You call your Mama. That's what I did. She came, gatorade and Sprite bottles in hand, and took over Joel for me. By then my fever had risen to 102.5. I don't really remember the two hours she was here, other than hearing Joel laugh, and her face in my bedroom doorway to ask a question now and then. She was here until Jav finally made it home sometime around 8 pm.

It made me think of almost a year ago, when my father not only drove me to the hospital the night before I was induced to have Joel, but then stayed with me when Jav couldn't get away from work that night either. I was having strong contractions, timed far enough apart that I didn't think anything would happen. But my dear Dad insisted on staying with me just in case. He seemed nervous while we waited, though, and I now realize it was because he is old school. I think the thought of being present when I had the baby really terrified him! Or maybe it was more about having to see me be in that much pain and be helpless to really do anything. But the thing is, just by being there, even in the same hospital, he was helping.

When you decide to become a parent, at least a GOOD parent, you do so for life. No matter if your child is 3 months, 3 years, 23 years, or 43 years. If they need you, you respond in the same way. You get there. It made me realize that my job truly is just beginning. I will hopefully have many more years of being there for them when they need me. The only difference is that there will be periods where they don't appreciate it as much as Joel does now. Gabriel has entered one of those periods, unless he needs me in the middle of the night. But Joel seems so thankful all day long just because I'm here. Just as I was thankful to have my Mom Friday night. And just as my parents have passed on their parenting skills and dedication to me, I will try to pass on that thankfulness to my boys.

Ah-tya

...which is Joel's favorite "word" right now. We're not sure what it means, but he says it while crawling and playing, mostly when he's busy. Gabriel claims he's trying to say "hat". He also loves to squeal really high and end up lower. He'll do it back to me if I start it. We have entire conversations making this noise. Other than those two noises, he says "mama, mama, mama," and "dada, dada, dada" pretty evenly now. He's speed crawling now, and crawling over things that aren't really meant to be crawled over. He loves to crawl on top of our footstools and get his belly over them, hang his head off one side and let his feet dangle off the floor on the other. I am sure he will end up falling on his head when he does this, but the one time he let that big 'ole head hang too far he got his arms out lightning fast to catch himself. He chases Zoe, which has made her even more nervous if one of the kids starts petting her. She gave Gabriel a mean scratch just under his eye the other day to prove her point.

Joel has the funniest habit of taking different things, like blocks or little pieces of food, and holding them way up in the air, then slowly moving them down across his hair and then face. All the while he stares at you as if he is just daring you to make him stop, or maybe he's just very proud of whatever it is he's showcasing. This gets really funny when it's food, because it invariably ends up stuck to his hair and face.

He's such a big boy, but not chubby like Gabriel. He has some mean thighs, but he's just solid up and down. He's VERY strong too, and likes to pound Mommy while I'm holding him with one fist in the chest and one fist on the back when he gets excited about something. He's always shown his excitement in those legs, though, and now wiggles them like crazy while in a sitting position when he's happy. It cracks me up.

He is the absolute best hugger in the entire world. He puts his whole body into hugs. He loves to fake laugh just to get me to laugh. I finally have succeeded in getting him on somewhat of a schedule, and he will take a long nap in the morning and a short one in the afternoon. My neighbor, Helen, kept him last week while I went to the dentist and she got him take a nap without being fed first. She is SO wonderful and Joel loves her.

I'm trying to get him interested in books. He has a tendency to get impatient halfway through even the shortest ones and knock them aside. The other day I was reading a book to him about colors, and I could swear that he was saying the words for some of the colors. He made an "re" noise for red, a "bu" noise for blue, and "pu-pu" for purple. I kept thinking to myself at the time that it must just be a weird coincidence, but my gut is telling me that he is already starting to talk. I dried him off after bath time with a shark towel, and showed him what he looked like in the mirror while singing the Jaws music. He started making the same noise and would laugh when I lunged towards the mirror. I'm beginning to think that he is scary smart like his brother. I'm not sure if we can handle two of them in the house, trying to confound and confuse us 24/7. At our age we're pretty easily confused.

He's just at that age where it seems like he's constantly doing something cute or amazing, or both.

Only a boy would think this way

I took both boys to the doctor yesterday with horrible hacking coughs. Their pediatrician always says that he's going to check their ears for bunny rabbits, which Gabriel loves. Yesterday the doctor said, "You know what we should look for instead of bunny rabbits this time of year, Gabriel? Turkeys. They are hiding from us because you know what happens to turkeys on Thanksgiving? We eat them!"

Gabriel kind of giggled, but then looked really thoughtful and I thought, "Oh boy. Now I'm going to have to explain to him about eating animals. What am I going to say?"

But it didn't come up all the way home.

Later, after I got Joel down for a nap, I was trying to figure out what to make for lunch since Gabriel has had little or no appetite lately. He had already turned down several suggestions, then asked if he could watch the rest of "Finding Nemo", a movie I've still not seen from start to finish, until it was time for lunch. I sat down with him to watch the last 45 minutes or so, and teared up a little at the end when Nemo swims back from school to hug his Dad.

At that moment, my son said to me, "Mommy, I want to eat that for lunch" while pointing at the television. I wrinkled my brow and said, "What?" He said, while still pointing, "That". I said, a little kiddingly, "You want to eat Nemo for lunch?" And he unflinchingly said, "Yes, but without the eyes and fins and tail."

So, instead of trying to explain where our food comes from and why we eat animals, I found myself (in a slightly horrified voice) telling him that I couldn't believe he would want to eat such a cute little guy as Nemo, and told him we were out of fish in the house at the moment, thank God.

Love, love, love this.

Not just that he memorized a pretty long poem, but that he seems to "get" it. I've loved Billy Collins for a while now, and his words give me goose bumps. The good kind.

Halloween!

On one of our many trips to the scary guy store during October.

BOO!

The very scary and laughing big bat and the pudgy cute little bat.

First trick or treat stop: Uncle Dave's.

And then off to Mamaw and Poppy's.

And finally to Tita and Tito's

Next we ate dinner and then headed out to the neighbors'. Then Jav took Gabriel to the neighborhood haunted house. Which last year paid attention to whether or not the kid walking through was smallish. But not this year. Jav said it was loud and screamy and not just scary but a little violent. Not good. We will not be taking him back there next year.