At the Closing of the Year...

In the last several months, Josh has had so many new experiences. He was finally old enough to play with his two-year old cousin, Mark...and was, to our delight, almost as tall as the older little boy. In another six months, Josh will have him, no question. Little Mark is still learning to share, and Josh is still learning what other kids are, so it was an interesting experience for both -- and of course, Mom, with both of her darlings within snuggling reach - was just beside herself.
I got a little perverse amusement out of watching Mark taking cookies from Josh. Josh seemed a little confused, but didn't know he could protest the cookie-thieving. After a little prompting, Mark would then give back a little bit of the cookie. Josh would eat it, and Mark would be extremely pleased with his great generosity and smile and nod like a tiny emperor...and Josh, after a small shake of his head, would reach for another cookie, and the cycle would start over again. One of the really bad parts about living this far from a town is that Josh doesn't get to see other kids...and he kept watching Mark as though he were the most amazing thing in the world...and Little Mark had no problem with Josh's constant fascination, as Mark has always thought he was the most amazing thing in the world (and with fifty miles of lashes and an ornery grin that already makes me pity the female population, he could be right).




Somehow, the three of us made it in one piece to Josh's birthday, and to celebrate, we gave Josh little bite-sized cupcakes for his birthday cake...He has decided he likes icing. I mean, he REALLY LIKES ICING!!!!...and since I (under great duress, and after Jon practically sat on me) made no attempt to keep the mess in his hands contained, he discovered an innate ability to smoosh the cupcake against his teeth and lips and smear the whole thing all over his face, while not actually getting any of it in his mouth. . He had cupcake up his nose, hanging from his hair, sprouting from his eye lashes...icing earrings, icing goatee...to quote the weird hairdresser guy that keeps showing up on the SOUP on E, he had "really bangin' hair". Josh then made a lovely oriental design on the floor with green and white icing and chocolate cupcake, and then stomped about in it for several minutes, as happy and grinning and as proud as he possibly could be. (Someday, the art world will get a glimpse of Joshua Stickrath's "Ode to a Petit Four" on the plush carpets of the finest galleries, and he will be so amazingly popular that the Rodins and Picassos of the world will have to paint some velvet Elvis pictures just to buy cat food! Ha!) Jon's opinion was that Josh only got to be ONE, once...and he really was so amazingly cute that I ended laughing and choking on my own cupcake and got it everywhere, too. Somehow, even Jon got icing on his nose, too...Oh, dear, how ever did that happen?



One year. One whole year with this strange little creature in our midst...and in spite of the fact that he's been subjected to our idea of parenting (which, I will admit has involved as much howling on our parts as it has on his), he remains a being of such intense joy and laughter. He laughs almost ALL of the Time. His eyes are bright, watchful and intense, and his laughter truly sounds like bells to me. He has learned to come over to me and reach up, to be picked up and held...and his smile...I thought his first smile was pretty wonderful, but now that he knows how to work that puppy, it's like being caught in a spotlight when he blazes his grin up at me. It makes me feel all the more lousy when I can't match his cheerfulness with my own...and I'm so afraid that all he'll remember about his littlest years is that his Mommy always seemed growly and sobby. I can only hope that with time, I'll have a better handle on what I'm doing and why...I'm trying very hard to keep a few minor rules in play. If he is trying for my attention, and I'm doing something else, and I get loud, I try to stop what I'm doing and focus on him -- If I say "no" more than two times, he's in the playpen for a few minutes and I go into the kitchen to breathe...sometimes these two rules work really well...especially if the Baby Gods are feeling kind, and I've been able to catch up on my sleep. I've also taken to an old standby of Mom's...Plantation Mint Tea before I crash for the night. In Mom's house, teas were for specific things. Constant Comment was a nice "talking" tea....you sipped and chatted and all was well. Earl Grey was the "spoiling me" tea...and was especially wonderful on cold nights when you were in your favorite comfy jammers with clunky, fuzzy socks, a thick blanket and a fat cat...and you could sip your tea and watch the logs in the fireplace as they cracked and fizzed before your eyes. Plantation Mint, though, was the "worry tea", and was not used lightly...it was brought out in times of stress and calmed you down by the third sip. I take a great deal of comfort in the fact that Josh is undaunted by anything (including my frequent missteps from the pedestal of "Proper Mommyhood"), and continues to laugh and shine while holding no grudges for the mistakes I keep making, but I never stop comparing myself to the other parents I see...and in my eyes, I fall so short of where they are. I mean, take Mom...if you go by her account of my childhood, she didn't want to choke the snot out of me until I was at least twelve...Now, I don't believe a word of this, but this is the story she sticks with. Even now, as a Mom to five, and Grandmother to two, she glows talking about each and everyone of us... Hell, even the massive screw ups of other parents seem to be pulled off with some kind of style and pizazz, but I feel like I'm this close to becoming Yosemite Sam (consarned, racken-frackin, blah, blah, etc.)

It's very odd though...just when I start feeling wholly foolish and overwhelmed, I am reminded POINTEDLY exactly how blessed we have been with this whole situation. In the last three weeks, as Josh has fussed through more teething issues (and I just read teething can go on for three whole years -- YEEESHH!!!); as he staged yet another great escape from his crib (of course, our little Steve McQueen was totally unharmed and completely unfazed, but I am still chipping my heart and stomach out of the ceiling, thank you very much!!); as I listened to the now-familiar blood-curdling, ear-shattering, house-shaking shriek that accompanies that crucial moment during the 3 a.m. diaper change when baby-butt meets changing-table pad; as I watched him throw himself from my lap to zoom around the room WHILE his four and a half perfect piranha teeth were still firmly clamped in my bazoom; as I cringed from the the mind-numbing wail that erupts as we try to keep him from the laptop (and all of Jon's fifty-seven remotes), I began to gleefully contemplate (hypothetical) boy-thumping in a way that was destined to cross me off of the Mommy of the Year list for the half-life of plutonium. In the middle of musing how difficult it would really be to get a one-year old signed up for the merchant marines or French Foreign Legion (sure, Josh, get a tattoo), a friend of ours delivered (what was to me) a bombshell.

A girl we had once known (and had a serious falling out with) was expecting...and (to no one's real surprise) had chosen to take the really classy route of trying to hide her pregnancy until it finally gave her away. Immediately, all plans to get Josh off to parts unknown ceased for me. He may still be teething when he's twenty (and believe me, he is welcome to be chewing off someone else's bazoom if he still is), but he is healthy and strong, and safe...and there were enough folks out there loving him immediately that Jon and I had a chance to catch up and love him too. He was loved before he even took his first breath. We didn't know about him, but we "lucked out"...I had changed my diet about the time he came into being...I was taking multi-vitamins, and my health was being monitored every few weeks during the course of the pregnancy. This other little person didn't have even that...and it will come into the world with so much baggage already heaped onto its little head...and it will be lucky to be even half as healthy and strong as Josh was. I will never meet this little person, it will never know who I am...but it is now in my thoughts, and is a constant reminder of what very easily might have been, and all that I can do is wish it well.

Most days, dwelling on my mistakes comes harder than others. I like those days. Those are the days that I just spend in absolute awe of the sheer, vast, limitless amount of pure joy that is barely contained in Josh's little, squirmy body. He's already figured out my weakness. Like his father before him, Josh has learned that if he just comes up to me, and snuggles his face into my neck while he flexes his little kitten-claw hands in my hair, I'll get all gooshy again. Do you have any idea how hard it is to remain in a constant state of furious when the one you are furious with is being that darn cute?!

Josh's innate joy seems to infect all of those around him, and I cannot easily imagine the idea of a baby who isn't as delighted by life as he is. Josh spends much of his day just laughing or singing... Jon got a flexible shoulder massaging pillow for Christmas, and when you turn it on, it emits a low, buzzing hum. Josh will match pitch with the hum, and with the massager pillow pressed against his ear, he will hold the tone for several minutes. Or he will sit on the floor with a book in his lap and babble in a very serious voice as he tries to tell you the story he sees in front of him. Then he will put the book down, and seek out one of his favorite toys...say Winnie the Pooh....and he will look lovingly into its little button eyes for several minutes before opening his mouth wide and deliberately biting its nose. He will look at me over the top of Winnie's head, and smile around Winnie's nose...and laugh and laugh and laugh... As I've mentioned before, I never had a reason to pay attention to babies before, and I'm always asking if all babies are this happy...the answer seems to be a resounding NO!


He is now so long that most of him won't even fit in my lap and I may have to install an elevator in his crib, as it is now so low that he's practically in the basement...I wonder if my back will hold out. My favorite times are still the night nursings though, and I have rarely tagged Jon in to do a late night feeding or changing because those times are the times that feel I really can do this Mother thing....even when his long, puppy legs are nearly touching the floor, I get to snuggle him close and listen to his little bubbly sighs and sleepy gerbil chirps and coos. He becomes the tiny creature I brought home again...and I hold him close, and drift with the music that always plays in his room...and I think of all the little worries and the great wonders...and I find myself curious to see what he will teach me next. When I finally put him down to go back to my sleep-snuggling husband, I find myself holding on to one truth. As long as he laughs, I'm doing okay. As long as he laughs, we'll make it through.