Slow Dancing

Maximus,
 
   It is December, 2013 and life is busy as usual. More so, in fact, because it is Christmas time and your baby brother is due in one month so we have been hectically trying to prepare everything. In the midst of all the hustle and bustle, though, God has blessed me with some very sweet and intimate moments with you. This past Saturday was one example of that. We woke up and had breakfast and started carrying out our daily activities as usual. You were busy playing "rapid-fire soccer" in the living room- a game you and daddy made up that you spend most of the day playing, I was cleaning in the kitchen, and daddy went to run an errand. Then you came in and wanted me to hold you. You asked me to turn on music in the kitchen, which we do a lot. Then we started dancing. You sat on my big pregnant belly and laid your head on my shoulder. I thought this would be a brief, sweet moment and tried my best to soak it up, because usually I only get a few minutes with you where you want to be held and cuddled. But on that day, you just let the music keep playing and you stayed in my arms. We slow danced, fast danced, sang along with the songs and I just kept telling you how much I love you. For over 30 minutes we did that and I cherished every moment.
   What makes moments like that so special is the reality that soon they will be even more rare. I guess if I have one fear about your baby brother coming it is that you will somehow feel like I love you less because I won't get to give you as much personal attention. Since you have been born I have put you to bed almost every single night. I have always been the one to give you baths and to come hold you in the middle of the night if you wake up crying, and on my days off you and I spend a lot of time playing together. Soon some of those things will change and I know I won't be as available as I want to be for you. I just hope that you don't interpret that as me loving you any less. When your brother comes we will all be in transition but I know it will lead to even more joy and love than we are already blessed with. I can't even imagine it, and I will do everything in my power to show you that my love is growing, not splitting.

I love you my sweet boy. Thank you for the precious moments we spend together.

-Mommy
 

Mommy, Calm Down

Hi sweet boy,

      Well at this point I am 7.5 months pregnant with your baby brother. As your daddy can attest to, this pregnancy has taken an emotional toll on me. Its something you will probably never really understand- even when your future wife is pregnant with your babies- but pregnancy really increases a woman's emotions. This pregnancy has been pretty bad with regards to that. I have found myself feeling anxious, sad and irritable more often than I ever did pre-pregnancy.
     Regardless of how I am feeling, I have made it a point not to over-expose you to intense and fluctuating emotions, because I think that can make a child feel confused and vulnerable. So for the first two years of your life, I have worked hard to leave the room if I am about to cry or feeling particularly angry. That is, until two days ago.
    It was Halloween night. I had to work, but I requested to leave an hour early so I could get home to get you dressed up in your Mickey Mouse costume and start this special night of memory-making with you and daddy. I had expectations of how that night would go.
    However, as I have learned, expectations can often lead to disappointment.  A lot went wrong that night and I became increasingly anxious. By the time we told our friends who had come over goodbye, you were in full tantrum mode, my phone had died and I had only gotten a few pictures of you, you hadn't eaten anything the whole night except a sucker and starbursts, the dogs had eaten your dinner right off the plate and I felt like we didn't get to make the precious memories I had hoped for. So, we waved off our friends, closed the door, and I broke down into a sob. I had been holding it back all night and couldn't seem to hold it in long enough to put you down and walk away. So, there we were, in our living room with me holding you while you cried and I start sobbing.
     Maximus, the look on your face when this happened broke my heart. You stopped crying for a moment, looked at me with terror and grabbed my face with both of your little hands and said "Mommy calm down!" You started crying again and just kept trying to calm me down. You were so bothered by me crying and I felt so guilty for exposing you to that.
     I will never forget that precious moment and I will try to never make you upset in that way again. You are so tender and sweet. I'm sorry I scared you my love. I adore you.

Addiction, Baby Brother and Big Boy Bed

Maximus,
    Sometimes I need to sit down and write to you because I am so full of emotion I feel like I will burst if I don't get it out. Fortunately, with you, that emotion is usually all very positive and good emotion. But in my efforts to not smother you with affection (see the post on rapprochement), I sometimes need another outlet to express how much I love you. The level of joy and contentment I feel since having you is unlike anything I ever thought possible. Which is why I have reasonably concluded that I am probably on the road to being an addict.  A baby/toddler addict, that is.
    You see, when people suffer from addiction, there is some substance or behavior that gives them such a sense of euphoria or calmness that the sheer thought of ever living without it terrifies them. Therefore, they go to any and all lengths to keep up their addiction and to never be without the thing they are addicted to, be it drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. For me, it's you. This stage you are in now is so incredibly wonderful that I can't think of words powerful enough to describe it. You are so so funny. And sweet. And smart. And cute... etc. I can be having an awful day and I see your face and its like the best day of my life. So, it makes me terrified to think--- "what will I ever do without this same level of euphoria?" Then I think, "I will need to keep having kids every few years so that my home is never without this level of happiness." Obviously this is not rational, but with addiction rational thinking goes out the window. So who knows, I might end up like one of those women with 20 kids :). I guess the good news for now is that you are going to have a little brother around so the fun will continue- only probably be twice as great because now there will be two of you.

Kissing baby brother

   I really hope you love your little brother. I hope he is like you. I can't imagine how it will feel to have two of you to love. I just may burst. Right now you are kind of hesitant about the whole "new baby" concept. Whenever we talk about the baby you change the subject- but every once in awhile you come over unprompted and talk to the baby in my belly, or poke at him. You usually say "come out baby" or ask me if he is sleeping. I think you will love him, and I promise that I will do whatever I can to make sure you don't feel left out when he arrives.

Pee pee in the potty!

   You are really growing up, little boy. This past month we have been working on potty training and you even wear big boy undies a lot now. Also two weeks ago we converted your baby crib to a big boy bed. Of course I sobbed. It was hard taking down your musical mobile that I used to turn on and listen to before you were born. I would daydream about what you would be like. Now you are too old for it and its put away in your closet. Anyway, you have done well in your big boy
bed, but you have gotten into the habit of getting up in the middle of the night, walking all the way across the house in the dark, sneaking into our room and putting your little hand up on the bed and saying "mommy I want to sleep in big bed." Holy cow- do you know how hard it is to turn that down? Sometimes I indulge and pull you right up between me and daddy and let you sleep with us for a few hours, but in the interest of maintaining your good sleep habits, I usually bring you back to your bed. Last night,

Sleeping on the floor
next to mommy's bed

First night in a
big boy bed.

though, you were particularly sneaky. I got up at 1:00am to go potty. I stepped down off the bed in the dark and my foot bumped something soft. I wondered what in the world I had dropped off my bed when my foot bumped into a little hand. There you were, at 1am, sleeping on the floor next to my bed.
I think you knew I would bring you back to your room if you woke me up, so you opted to sleep on the floor next to me instead. It warmed my heart and made me cry at the same time. You are so incredibly precious. I love the bond we have and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
   I also love tucking you in at night. Usually daddy and I are both there. You lay in your big boy bed and say "mommy sleep with us" which is your way of asking me to sleep with you and I lay with you while we all sing together. You usually pick "Jesus Loves Me" or "Don't Take the Girl" by Tim McGraw and then sing along to every word. Your voice is so sweet and that time is so special. I need to find a way to videotape it so that I can relive it when you outgrow this stage.

Well, I think I will end this now. I think I have purged out enough emotion to keep me stable for awhile. I love you so much sweet boy. Nothing could ever change that.

-Mommy

Souvenirs II

Dear Maximus,
  From time to time I think it is important for me to make a record of some of my favorite things you do so that I may never forget them. You are 21 months this week and every day I fall more and more in love with you, and so does everyone else. In the past 6 months you have become a talking machine. Every word uttered out of your sweet mouth is cute, but by far the best thing you say is "mommy hold you." I think you started saying it around 19 months. You walk up to me and lift up your precious little arms to me and say it. Then I drop whatever I am doing to take part in this great privilege I have and I hold you until you decide you are done. Some people have tried to correct you and say "no, say hold me," but I always stop them because I love what you saw and how you say it. I have tried to get it on video, but you usually don't cooperate when the camera is on.
  Another souvenir I want to keep of this age is your love to make everyone laugh. You light up when there is a room full of people that you can perform for. At dinner you often will go into a state of chronic eye rolling over and over because everyone laughs at you for it. While you are doing it you have an ornery grin on your face. You also have a tendency to bust out dance moves and to sing at the top of your lungs during dinner every night. We don't usually know what you are singing, but you get really into it and you have the sweetest voice.
   At night when I am holding you and about to put you to sleep you alway say, "mommy, song" which is your way of asking me to sing to you. I always ask you "what song?" and you follow up with saying "ummmm..." Sometimes you choose a song like "Jesus Loves Me," or "Amazing Grace," but sometimes you leave it at "umm."
   You also blow me away by your intelligence. By 20 months you were able to count to 13 by yourself and can identify every letter by name. Now you are starting to know what sounds all the letters make and there are some words you recognize and "read" including 'artistic' and ruckus.'

   I always want to remember the days we spend at the park. On my days off we wake up early (usually you are up by 530am), have breakfast and then go on a run to the park. While we are there we play in the sand, go down the slide and run up and down the hill. Its simple but so special to me. I never want to forget these special days. Its very important to me that since I work outside of the home several days a week that the days that I am home I am 100% present with you so that we make memories and you know how much I treasure you.

I do treasure you baby. You are my world and I hope I can be as good of a mommy to you as you are a son to me.

Big Brother Maximus

Since November we had been trying to have another baby. In November I found out I was pregnant but then I miscarried. This was very difficult for us. What made it more difficult was that we didn't get pregnant again right away. Months passed by and I would take a pregnancy test only to be disappointed by the clear words saying "not pregnant." During that time I started really getting into shape and started running 20+ miles per week. When I went to the OB she said I may be affecting my ovulation cycle. So, Ricky asked me to cut back my running. In May I took a pregnancy test before a missed period. It was negative. A day after my missed period I checked again. Still negative.

In the meantime Ricky and I had started to discuss adoption. It has always been on my heart to consider adopting, but Ricky has always been less than eager to discuss it. However, as the months went by, we both started believing that maybe that was God's plan for our next child- to adopt. So we started reading and researching. I started daydreaming about what our second child would be like- how old? What gender? What race? We contacted an agency and requested an application in the mail. On Saturday, May 11th we received the packet and started reading through it. We were quite overwhelmed by everything we were reading, but in my mind this was what we had to do- it was God's calling on our life. At that point I was 10 days late on my period, but assumed it was because of my running and that I had done some damage to my cycle. Just to be sure, though, Ricky asked me to take one more test.

I reluctantly went into the bathroom to pee on one more stick. I intentionally disallowed myself to feel any hope that the test would say "pregnant," but to my shock and surprise, it did. I could barely speak and I walked into the room where Ricky was sitting and I tried to tell him but I couldn't talk, I just cried and showed him the test.

The day we found out happened to be the day before Mother's Day, so we had an excellent surprise for our mom's the next day. Since then we have been pretty tight-lipped about it, wanting to make sure that we survive the first trimester before shouting it to the world like we did in November. Maximus is already the most precious big brother. When you ask him what he's going to be, he says "big brother," then points to mommy's belly and says "baby, sleeping... kiss it." Then he insists on kissing my tummy. He may not fully understand what it means yet, but I think he is already falling in love with his future best buddy and sibling.

Rapprochement

The rapprochement developmental stage- ie: the "separation-individuation stage,"is one that I have read about many a times in my college and graduate school education. It is a stage I have often glossed over or memorized by rote repetition to pass a test. In my career, I have begun to understand the theories that link this critical stage to impaired coping in patients that I often see in my office. But in all of the times I have read about it, it never made me cry. That is, until last week.

Rapprochement is said to occur in a child between the ages of 15-24 months, which made it the perfect topic for one of my weekly emails I receive that give me updates on where Maximus should be developmentally. I think I got the email when he had just turned 19 months and as I read it I began to sob as though someone just told me my dog had died. Rapprochement, simply defined, is a time when the child begins to gain some autonomy and start pulling away from their mother. Ouch. You mean I can't be there every moment of Maximus' life, holding his hand and making everything 'all better.' You mean he won't always view me as his entire world? Ok, ok, I know eventually he will grow up-- but already? I am still completely infatuated and madly in love with everything about this child. How can I graciously accept the fact that he is moving on?

I have to. Its imperative that I do not stunt his growth in this stage. While my gut reaction is to continue to keep him close and smother him with my love and adoration (and a million kisses a day), thats not what he needs. A good mother goes through this stage with him, still being his security, but encouraging him to venture out a little bit. To help him gain self-confidence and a strong identity as he finds new role models- like daddy or older kids.

This is very hard for me. I must admit, part of me loves when I drop Maximus off at the church nursery, only to be called out 10 minutes later because he is desperately crying for me to come back. When someone else is holding him and he reaches for me, I smile inside. I dread and even become resentful of things that take me away from quality time with him- even fun things like nights out with the girls. And I don't care what time it is in the morning- when I hear that little voice through the monitor yell "MOOOMMMMMMMMY!" I jump out of bed and run to him, eager to scoop him up in my arms and cuddle him because I miss him all night long.

Maybe every mother feels like I do. Or maybe my bond with Maximus is extra special. Maybe I'm overly bonded to him. Regardless, I love him too much to allow anything but a healthy transition through this stage, so I pray for wisdom as I help him with it.

Grow Up Like Daddy

Maximus,

   Ever since you were born, 90% of people who see you say "oh he looks just like Ricky." Then I, as your momma, feign disappointment and jealousy and make a case for which features you have of mine. Even though I do get excited on the rare occasions that someone says you look like me, I am equally pleased when someone identifies characteristics of your daddy in you. Thats because, to me, he is the most wonderful man in the world and since I want nothing but the best for my son, I hope you grow up just like him.
   You turned 18 months old yesterday and it seems like in the past couple of months you have made the full transition from baby to little boy. This is the time that daddy has been looking forward to since we got married. Don't get me wrong- he has loved every minute with you since you were born, but he always said he couldn't wait to play with you. Now you are so fun. Let me emphasize this... SO FUN. We spend most of our evenings just watching you and laughing and playing until bedtime. Then once you are asleep we discuss over and over again how we got so blessed that you are ours. In God's perfect timing, these early years of yours have been right during the time that daddy is in school and therefore is able to be home with you three days of the week while I am at work. I think this is so good for both of you and I love hearing about what the two of you do while I am at work. I love it even more when he sends me pictures of you.
   I hope you realize at an early age just what a gift you have been given by being able to have your daddy as your role model. He is kind, selfless, humble, funny, easy-going, determined, handsome, athletic, smart and godly. He gives me a mark to aim for in my life. He is the type of person who will always sacrifice his own desires for others and never complain about anything. He is the type of person who doesn't say much but what he does say is usually wise. He is the type of person who can go from not working out in a year to running 5 miles at a fast pace just because he put his mind to it. And best of all, he is so sweet with you. He absolutely adores you. We both do, my love.
    You are already following in his footsteps. In my mind you are the most perfect kid I have ever known. You are so smart, cute hilarious, and good. The doctor saw you for your checkup today and again was blown away by how advanced your vocabulary is and how good your disposition is. You are an absolute joy to all who meet you, just like daddy.
 
I love you my little boy.

-Momma

Remember this...

Last night when I was holding Maximus in his room before putting him down for bed, he spontaneously picked his head up, pulled out his paci and gave me a little kiss on the lips. Then he put his paci back in his mouth and laid back down. I wanted to cry. It was the sweetest little gesture. Most of his kisses are because we ask for them. Maybe he will do this more as he gets older, I just don't want to forget that precious moment last night.