Worry

You seem so excited about your new baby sister.  You kiss my tummy and say “hello” to her.  You tell me how you’re going to teach her how to walk, and feed her bottles, and change her diapers.  You want to teach her how to laugh.

You also just turned three.  You sometimes throw things when you don’t get your way. You confuse me sometimes.  Like when you ask for an apple and I go to get it and you yell” NO APPLE!” but when I move to put it away you start crying and want the apple back. You love to help set the table and empty the dishwasher but usually put up a fight when it’s time to clean up the toys.

You amazingly take new things in stride.  When we took the side off your crib, you happily got in bed at night and didn’t constantly climb out. You switched into the bigger bedroom for you and your future sister, and slept through the night the first night and every night since. The tooth fairy “took away” the binkies the same week you independently decided to give up naps. At night you were overtired and binkie-less and yet you slept through the night. A few days later your “big-girl” twin sized bed arrived and you had no trouble sleeping in it, even with your “old bed” - soon to be your little sister’s crib - across the room.

I remember the first three months you were alive and how tired your Dad and I were from feeding you every two hours.  We got through it and every day was a little better. I worry about those first three months with a newborn and an active, inquisitive three year old. I don’t want you to feel lost in the shuffle and I want to be able to focus on you both equally but I worry that you’ll be sad or think I’m ignoring you. I don’t want you to worry.  About anything.  Ever.

At 35 weeks pregnant I am tired now but you seem to understand when Mom needs a break.  Like yesterday when it took us a half an hour to go one block because I had to keep stopping to sit down from stabbing cervical pains.  You patiently sat beside me on building stoops and stairs while I caught my breath.  Each time we stopped you would quietly sing me the Doc Mc Stuffins song: “I know you’re scared. Tell me what’s wrong. I know there’s something we can do.”  You waited patiently for me to collect myself and keep walking.

Maybe I should just trust in the fact that you’re taking everything in stride.  A three year old is showing me how not to worry. Ok...I’ll stop worrying. Really. OK...I’m stopping worrying….

Solo-Duplo building.

Silly face time while Mom lies down on the bed for a minute.

Clara Turns 3.

We threw Clara a birthday party this past Friday. I know that everyone says it but I literally cannot believe Clara has been in our lives for THREE years...three years 9 months if you count womb time. How is it even possible?  I look back at pictures and see how small Clara once was and think: "How long ago was that?" It feels like last week.

I tried to compare the passage of time to other three-year long intervals in my life.

11 to 14?  Interminable waiting to be older coupled with knife-sharp growing pains. Felt like forever.

18 to 21? Most of college - intensely studying while trying to have fun and make friends. Flew on a plane for the first time. Studied abroad. Less angsty than high school but time certainly slowed down while I navigated the murky waters of social interaction with my peers.

Six weeks from now I will give birth to my second child. If Clara was born yesterday, how is this possible?

Back to the party.  Clara's friends with their parents (a.k.a adult friends) in tow, and other friends and both sides of the family gathered to celebrate.  Clara loves all things doll/stuffed animal/and princess...much to the delight of my twin sister who loved all these things when we were children while I ran away screaming looking for a board game or an encyclopedia to read. My mother always invented elaborate games for our birthday parties as kids, and in that same spirit I planned a Princess Scavenger Hunt for the kiddies while trying to keep the pink princess frou-frou aspect to a minimum.

Here is what the kids had to find:

Princess Tiana's Frog - a delightfully squishy, slimy toy frog. (would probably stick to the wall if thrown,  like those crawling octopi  I used to love as a child)

Princess Ariel's Shell - A seashell whistle. (Surprisingly, it made a pure, pretty tone.)

Snow White's Apple - a plastic apple with a toy insect inside. (Clara's cousin Cricket actually found a cricket in hers)

Cinderella's Pumpkin - a plastic pumpkin with a stuffed toy mouse inside. ( big hit with the three year old set, who loved finding other things to fit in the pumpkin and the apple...open, close...repeat)

Tinkerbell's Pixie Dust - a plastic egg filled with iridescent slime.  (this was like  drugs to the three year olds. Each one of them carried around the slime for at least an hour.  One little girl made herself a bracelet out of it.)

Elsa's Wand - A light up snowflake wand. (I know...I KNOW.  Elsa doesn't have a wand...but we can't exclude Frozen from our repertoire, Disney would revoke my parent card)

Abandoned Tinkerbell Slime.

The kids spent the remainder of the time running around like loons. Clara got over excited and wiped out at one point, needing many kisses and band aids. Gerald and I walked around talking to adults while Clara disappeared into the pack of roaming children. Many hot dogs, chips and dip, and cupcakes were enjoyed by all.  The three year old's eyed each other to see who would be the first one brave enough to request a second cupcake before the firsts' sugar high kicked in. 

Wish time.

                       

Should I ask or just take another?

Delicious.

 While opening her gifts Clara reveled in ripping open the paper. She then proceeded to look at the revealed gift for exactly 3.5 seconds before saying: "Let's open another one."

     

All in all, it was a great day. Gerald and I could see how special Clara felt when everyone sang her Happy Birthday and she got to blow out the candle.

I don't think there's anything better than throwing a birthday party for a child. It's all new and amazing to them. (Even if I don't quite believe that we've just celebrated her third birthday)

Happy Birthday, Princess.

Some of the guests...

Charlie and Marek.

Me and Lauren.

Skip, Jason, and Susan.

Samantha, Becky and I.

       

 

The satisfied parents.

Things That Go Bump in the Night.

I remember talking to a friend long before I became a parent.  A new parent himself, he told me about how he found it impossible to watch most series television since having children.  The idea was baffling to me.  He explained that he couldn't stand to watch anything where especially children but really anyone came to harm or was threatened with harm.  Since series television is flooded with law and crime procedurals whose plots almost always hinge on a brutal, violent, act against another human being he found himself avoiding the television.  In the abstract I could understand but I didn't really.  I absolutely love horror movies.  The more gore and gratuitous violence the better.  I'll see your Jason Voorhees and raise you a Freddy Krueger and a Cabin in the Woods.  Cabin in the Woods, a terrifically scary and funny horror movie, was the last scary movie I saw before giving birth to my first daughter and as it turns out, it remains the last horror movie I have seen since having children.  My friend was right.

And it isn't just horror movies. I can't watch the rape/murder/abduction story lines in network dramas, and since the last series comedy I watched regularly was Family Ties, I find myself watching Top Chef, reruns of Chopped and Antiques Roadshow, and Game of Thrones. (somehow the violence is acceptable when it's set in a feudal fantasy world.)  My friend, and fellow mother, Libby Emmons recently posted about this same topic. (read it here.) Libby had her husband turn off the first episode of Daredevil because a little boy was injured and blinded in a car accident.  She writes: "Dave said 'but it’s okay, he ends up the hero.' I demanded that we turn it off. The anxiety produced by feeling like something bad was gonna happen to someone’s kid was more than I could deal with." Her experience echoes my own.  She's right.  It doesn't make it okay when the injured, blinded kid becomes the hero. It isn't okay is that there are terrible people who would do terrible things to children or that there are terrible things that happen randomly to people with no rhyme or reason - like car accidents, lightning strikes, and natural disasters. And beneath it all is the heartbeat-strong current inside of me that is silently praying: "pleaseletnothingterribleorpainfulorscaryeverhappentomychildeverpleasepleaseplease." 

I used to pride myself on keeping up with current events but I can no longer watch the news. Everything is terrible.  I know that in this 24-hour news cycle world, drama and tragedy keep people coming back for more but not me.  I wish there was one news program that focused on the goodness in people.  It has to be there, it just isn't being reported.  Instead I keep myself current with my subscriptions to TIME and New York Magazine.  It's easier in print.  It's easier in tiny doses.

Not afraid of a little mud.

Most of the time this parent anxiety is manageable.  All of the time, really.  Watching my child grow up and experience the world is heartening and hilarious and tiring. My husband and I trade funny stories about our daughter and about our lives and it is okay.  Except when it isn't. 

I am six+ months pregnant with my second child.  A few nights ago a small sound woke me abruptly from my sleep. I was immediately convinced someone was trying to come in through our bedroom window.  Some part of my psyche clearly knew I was being ridiculous, as I decided not to wake up my sleeping husband.  I peeked through the curtains to the open window (with a gate on it).  No one was on the fire escape.  I lay down.  Another tiny sound from somewhere. I looked through the curtains again - surely someone was out there.  No.  I close the drapes, think for a moment, then close and lock the window - cutting us off from a cool night breeze.  We must be safe now. I lay down. But wait....what if the sound I heard was not from the fire escape but from somebody ALREADY IN THE APARTMENT!.  I get up and walk around the apartment - checking the front door is locked, looking in closets, checking the kitchen, behind the shower curtain (maybe an elf burglar squeezed through our tiny bathroom window), and finally checking to make sure Clara was still in her bed (not abducted by the tiny sound).  I then spent the next three hours awake envisioning break-in scenarios and wondering if there was anywhere I forget to check for burglars (under our bed with the Christmas ornaments?, behind the chair in the living room?, Could an adult fit under Clara's toddler bed?)  In the light of day, over tired and still burglar-free it all seemed ridiculous - even the word burglar became ridiculous as visions of the Hamburglar trying to squeeze through my window with his giant head made me laugh.  But my parental anxiety needed some place to go, someplace to release - and in that instance midnight worries about phantom burglars did the trick.

As a parent it feels like I can't afford to be scared.  I can't afford to show my daughter that I am worried or fallible.  In this way I can protect her from everything she may be afraid of or worried about.  In this way maybe she won't ever be frightened or worried about anything.  (Rational, I know.)

One night, around 10:30 Gerald was still at work.  I was sitting on the couch watching Chopped, and Clara was (supposedly) asleep in her room.  Next to my head, the baby monitor goes off.  I hear Clara say:  Mama, it's opening."

Heart attack.  Cue the opening sequence to my own personal horror movie.  What's opening?  The window?  (Murderer/Kidnapper/Burglar/Madman)  Or even worse, the closet? (Monster, Clown from Poltergeist, Alternate Dimension) Had I been alone I would have run out the front door in my pajamas and no shoes.  But I'm not alone anymore - I am never alone.  I am the mother.  I am my daughter's first line of defense against all thing terrible.  So I got up - ready to do battle with anything - though hopefully not the clown from Poltergeist.

Inside Clara's room I find her calmly watching the air conditioner blow air,  That's what was opening, the vent on our mini-split a/c unit.  "Mama, it looks like a smile."

I tucked her back in and left, my status as defender of my child intact.

Maybe the secret to surviving parenthood lies in the power to stay positive.  And also maybe trying your best to keep your children safe from things that have at least, a small basis in reality.  

Good-bye, horror movies...see you in 20 years when my second child leaves for college.

Conversations with Clara...Episode 8.

Kicking back after lunch.

Over the past few weeks, Clara and by extension, her parents, have experienced the harrowing process known as potty training.  All I have to say about this period in our lives is: 1) I have never uttered the words  "poop" and "pee-pee" so many times in my life.  And 2) bribe your children with M and M's.

That being said, Clara has said some incredibly funny things recently, which helps you in the dark times when you're cleaning poop off her elbow and wondering how it got there.

Here are some excerpts:

CLARA: Let's read the magazine about poop.

(referring to the book, Everyone Poops.)

Gerald has managed to hold onto one shred of privacy by going to the bathroom with the door closed.  Clara does not like this turn of events, and often waits outside the door.

The other night, standing outside the door to the bathroom.

                                               CLARA: (eyes light up) I hear Pee-Pee!

                                               ME: (walking by) That's right.

                                               CLARA:  Dad is a big girl.

Clara, looking up at a guitar hanging on the wall out of her reach at a friend's house.  She considers ways to retrieve it, then gives up and lies down on the floor, dejected.

                                               CLARA: It's just no use...

Clara also takes occasional forays into more philosophical realms.

                                               CLARA: I'm little. You're big, Mama,  And Dada's big.
                                               I am small but one day I will be big.

Clara, discussing nighttime, or just stalling before bedtime.

                                               CLARA: Mama, it's not sunny out.  It's moony.

With her friends, (from left to right) LaLa, Meow Meow, and Magic.

Clara meets Christmas.

I think the best part of watching your child grow up may be introducing them to the holiday season.  I can remember the magic that the Christmas season inspired in me as a child.  The excitement and anticipation only occasionally tipping into over-excitement and making myself sick thinking about what Santa was going to bring me this year.

Clara is not quite two and a half and this year - she gets it.  Gerald and I get to introduce her to all the things we loved as children and we get to watch as she experiences it all for the first time.  We have seen so many of Clara's "first times" but this one takes the cake.

The season started with the Advent Calendar.  I loved advent calendars so much as I child that I would make them for myself.  I would draw a multi-windowed mansion and draw a picture behind each window.  One wasn't enough.  I had one at home, made one for everyone in my family, and had one in my locker at school.  The last time I made one was sometime in my late 20's.  Turns out - Gerald has an amazing advent calendar where each door in the Christmas tree opens to reveal a Christmas ornament, and later in the month, the figures from the Nativity. 

As you can imagine, Clara is bonkers about opening tiny doors and revealing presents.  Every day she asks for another "match."  I think the "reveal" reminds her of turning over cards in memory games.    She also isn't too fond of the whole one-advent door-a-day thing but we've managed to talk her down so far.  Last night, the first figure of the Nativity was revealed - a tiny king carrying gold.  Clara carried it around the apartment referring to it as "her Queen."  That's fine by me.

We have also talked to her a lot about the concept of Santa Claus and what's going on with that.  She already loves presents but the idea of a guy in a red suit and a beard bringing her surprise presents one day makes her hit the ceiling with excitement.  Now whenever the doorbell rings she yells: "Oh! Oh! Is it Santa!!!??"

A few days ago we took her to our Union's Holiday Party where Santa was scheduled to put in an appearance.  She talked about Santa the whole ride down on the Subway - to me, to strangers, to anyone who would listen.  At the party, Santa was in a special room.  We walked in and Clara paused, suddenly shy.  Santa asked if she wanted to sit on his lap and after a brief hesitation, she squared her shoulders and went for it.  She sat on his lap while Gerald and I took a hundred pictures.  When Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas, her nerves betrayed her, and she whispered in a tiny voice into Santa's ear: "A princess...and play doh."

Santa said:  "Ho ho ho...I think I can help you out with one of those requests, little girl."...and he pulled a play doh set out of his bag and handed it to Clara. 

Clara's eye widened - it was true, Santa COULD magically provide you with you heart's desire. 

Clara shrieked: "Look Mama! Look, Dada! PLAY DOH!"

Magic.

It's possible the best thing about being a parent, and I know Gerald agrees.

Gerald, posing with the new tree.

Chatting with Santa.

Conversations with Clara. Episode Five.

Clara is closing in on being two and a half years old, she's not quite there yet but when you ask her how old she is she answers: "Two and a half!", or occasionally "I'm three!"

She also has a few new sayings, go-to expressions if you will.

ME: Clara, would you like to put your shoes on?

CLARA: I don't care. 

ME: Clara, I have to strap you into the stroller so you don't fall out.

CLARA: Mama, leave me alone. Don't touch me!

or:

ME: Clara, want to see what's in this piece of  junk mail we just got out of the mailbox?

CLARA: Oh YES!  I'M SO EXCITED!

and periodically throughout the day, apropos of nothing...

CLARA: It's nice to see you, Mama. 

and

CLARA: My hair is beautiful.

A few days ago my friend Travis came over with his 2 daughters - Charlie(2 and a half) and Sylvie (one month).  Later that day, long after they left, Clara and I were chatting about the playdate.

ME: Clara, did you have a nice time with Charlie?

CLARA: Yeah!

ME:  Do you remember the baby's name?

CLARA: Sylvie!

ME: Do you remember the dad's name?

CLARA: (looking at me askance) Gerald.

ME: (laughs out loud)  Well that's true.

a few minutes later, as I was changing Clara...

CLARA: (smiles at me) Gerald.  (beat.) I'm so funny, Mama.

I love conversing with two year olds.

Clara, about to suggest a tea party.

Conversations with Clara. Episode Four.

Clara is officially a two year old, and by that I mean she has decided that she is totally self sufficient and independent (thank you,very much), unless of course she has a boo-boo or needs help, which she asks for by saying: "Help you?  Help you?"

Here are some recent interactions:

Clara (doing anything she has asked help with and deciding suddenly and without warning that she no longer needs help)

"I DO it.  Don't touch me! Stop touching me."

Or this: 

After a protracted bartering session where we were discussing a long walk to visit friends.  She wanted to walk the whole way herself, I countered with walking part of the way and being in the stroller part of the way.  Clara ran to the front door - turned and looked at me - arms wrapped defiantly around her chest and said:

"I don't like it, Mama. I'm NOT kidding!"

Or this:

She only gets a binky at nap time or at night.  It used to be any old binky would do.  Now Clara has her favorites, and if I try to slip in a new one she says:

"Not that binky, old binky."

And she is no longer content to let me choose a binky but instead asks permission to look through the binky bowl.  

"Mama, let me pick one. I pick one."

Or the other day - she held out her hand to me, clearly expecting me to do something.  So I took her hand.  Clara nodded her head and said:

"Nice to meet you."

She is so sure of herself and most of the time Gerald and I manage to keep the smiles off our faces and take our independent little girl's suggestions...very seriously.

Clara in Class

Clara has been taking a Toddler Enrichment class at our local YWHA.  She absolutely loves it.  Today when we were there waiting to go up in the elevator, she started spinning in circles and yelling: "I'm so excited."  The class itself has tons of variety for the kids while trying to teach them to play together and do things like walk in a line when traveling together, or even stand on a red dot when it's your turn to have a solo dance.  Clara absorbs it all like a sponge and bravely tries thing without her dear old mom.

Practicing counting.

Dancing in a circle.

 

 Dancing on the Red Dot - Clara took this task very seriously.

Solo Dance.

Climbing through a tube.

Mat Class

Clara Withdrawal.

So this week Gerald and I went on our long awaited, belated honeymoon.  Belated, you say?   Well yes...belated for a few reasons.  One - we  dated, got serious, got pregnant and had a baby daughter all before getting married this past year when Clara was almost a year and a half.  And then there was the whole thing about us not wanting to leave our little girl, our little girl who looks less like a baby and more like a little kid every day.  Gerald has broached the idea of a vacation a few times over the nearly two years since Clara's birth. 

His first idea - Let's Take a Vacation With Clara.  Every time I thought about it all I could see was Clara in hotel rooms that weren't baby proofed without all her "things" that make her happy - like toys, and cribs, and routines. Never mind the fact that friends of mine had taken their baby son to Puerto Rico and had managed not to let him toddle off into the jungle to live with the animals. The whole idea seemed less like a vacation and more like an invitation to visit the Emergency Room. 

Gerald's second idea - Let's Take A Vacation Without Clara. Also problematic because whenever I thought about Clara being "old enough" to handle an extended separation from her parents the "safe" age for this to happen seemed to be somewhere around ten, or twelve or thirteen. Never mind the fact that my other friends had just taken a week-long, baby-free vacation to Mexico and their daughter was fine during and after their return. I just couldn't conceptualize the reality where I wouldn't see Clara for days.  The world where I didn't have a baby and just ran around doing things like going on vacations seemed impossibly far away.

Good thing Gerald said: We're doing this.  And the planning began. We decided on a three night stay in Atlantic City and lo and behold Gerald's parents offered to take care of Clara for the entire time at their house.  I worried about Clara in a new place - would she be up all night?  Would she fall down the stairs?  Would she pull down fragile things from reachable places and smash them?  And most worrying, would she cry and cry and cry?

So what happened?  I explained to Clara that she was going on an adventure with her grandparents and then we got on the bus to Atlantic City and Clara got in her car seat for her drive to upstate New York.  And then Clara proceeded to not realize even one of my fears for her.  Instead she slept the first night from 6:30 pm to 8:30 in the morning, allowing her grandparents to luxuriously sleep in. (A privilege she does not extend to her own parents I might add)  She then spent the next few days discovering her passion for lo mein noodles, eating organic cereal and bananas, practicing climbing up and down stairs without cracking her skull, hanging out at other people's houses, playing in the yard, and playing with a basketful of schnauzer puppies.  Hard life.

Clara meets a schnauzer.

Clara having cereal.

Clara trying Lo Mein for the first time.

Thanks to Clara being bold and brave on her adventure, and thanks to her loving grandparents for tackling the daunting task of entertaining a 22 month old for four days, Gerald and I got to go on an adventure of our own.  We slept in every day until 8:30 which felt like waking up at one o'clock in the afternoon. We wandered aimlessly, lounged, ate good food, talked to each other and made each other laugh.  And so what if thirty percent of our conversation was about our amazing daughter?  

Midday nap.

A slightly disturbing exhibit at the aquarium.                  Gerald and Skunk.

Jeannine and Red Fox.

Channeling our inner "Mad Men" with gin martinis.

We had a great time away, and a great time coming home to see her.  When we walked into our apartment, Clara broke away from coloring with crayons to give us each a hug, then went back to drawing as if to say: "See, mom and dad, you had nothing to worry about."  That night when we sat down to dinner Clara ate her spaghetti and salad and then politely asked for some lo mein.