Jesus, how long has it been?

Yeah, I know it's been a little while since I've posted here. How long, exactly? Well, baby #2 is due tomorrow. So, yeah. A long time.

It's a girl. I'm terrified and also beyond excited to meet her. This was a rough pregnancy--puking daily up unti five months, extreme exhaustion, heartburn, two months' worth of colds and sinus infections--and I'm ready to have my functional immune system back, to say nothing of being able to bend over. But I'm also scared to death at the prospect of caring for a baby and a toddler at the same time. And I'm really scared she will have the same colic and sleep issues that S. had when he was a baby. Plus there is just that whole crazy newborn sleeping/feeding cycle, where you pretty much can't sleep for more than an hour at a time in the beginning if you are planning to nurse, which I am. Oh, and did I mention that I hired a doula and midwife and I'm gonna try to do it without drugs? It's all a little overwhelming.

But. This is what I wanted. We got lucky and conceived her without any trouble. I didn't get any invasive diagnostic testing but I got a newly available blood test which indicated things look good. There are no guarantees, but I have every indication that we're going to have a healthy, beautiful baby girl, in a matter of days, most likely. And of course I am excited to see how S. reacts to her.

Speaking of S. He is just a goddamned delight. He is really amazingly smart, even to my admittedly non-objective and untrained eye. Every day he says new and hilarious shit that cracks me up. We are still nursing and cosleeping (siiiiiiiiigh), though, so his world is gonna be rocked when he realizes that mommy needs to sleep next to the new baby, in another room, and that he's going to have to wait in line to nurse.

So I am really trying to just soak up as much Mommy/S. lovin' as I can in these last few days where I don't have to divide my attention. Last night, I made him stop nursing before he fell asleep; we've been doing this a few weeks now and it's finally working pretty well. He can sleep without a boob in his mouth. But he still needs me there. So after I broke the latch, he turned over and said, "Mommy, let's snuggle." Then he pulled both my arms around him and we spooned until he fell asleep. Then, in the morning, he asked for Eskimo kisses and we rubbed noses as he laughed and smiled. It was just so delicious and sweet and lovely. S., if you ever read this, please know that you have given me the greatest, purest joy I have ever known. I can't even imagine how my heart can possibly feel any more full, but as we get ready to grow our family, I expect I'll find out soon enough. 

Words S. knows

Words S. knows at 14 months--this one's for posterity:

Hi
That (the current favorite)
Hat
Cheese
Teeth
Car (pronounced like a Bostonian--"cah")
Tree
Happy ("'appy! 'appy! 'appy!")--he says this all the time but doesn't know what it means, unlike the other words
Baby (used indiscriminately to describe people)
Shoes (pronounced "sh-yewwws")
Bye bye ("buh-bah")
Ba (this means bottle)

I feel like there are more, but that's all I can think of for now. I love that little chatterbox.

Crazy man

So I keep meaning to write here and I keep not doing it. This is pretty much the only record I have of his childhood, since I never got around to getting a baby book and I take tons of photos but never print them.

He is sooooo frickin' cute. He says way more words now (happy, choo choo, toes, shoes, cheese, bye bye, car) and is walking up a storm. We're trying to teach him to go into the crib and while it is getting a little easier, he's still not really having it. Which is fine with me. Co-sleeping is not convenient, but when he woke up from his crib the other night and I brought him into bed with me, we snuggled for hours. I woke up before he did and just looked at his sweet sleeping face, and I swear to God it was the happiest I have ever been in my whole fucking life. So can you blame me for not wanting to give it up just yet?

The flip side is that he is starting to get willful and throw little mini-tantrums. And sleep is still hard. Yesterday I broke down and cried. We'd both been awakened the night before at 4:15 by two feral fucking cats going at it. (Feral cats? Really? I swear to God if I still lived in Texas I'd have grabbed a gun and shot them, that's how angry I was.) I couldn't get him back to sleep until 6:30, then we both overslept. I went to work, had meetings all over Manhattan, and left earlier than usual because I felt like I had jet lag. I still had work to do but I figured I'd do it at home after we went to bed. And then he just REALLY didn't want to go to bed. I let my husband try to put him in the crib while I made dinner, but he was screaming so hard I had to take over. It took 40 minutes to get him in the crib, then I finally got to eat dinner while logging in and finishing my work. I collapsed at 10:00 p.m. He woke up in the crib at that time so I just brought him to bed with me. We finally got a little sleep, although another cat woke us up at 4:00. This time we both fell back to sleep, fortunately.

So yeah. This mommy business is amazing, and hard. 

Hannibal

So my boy is a maniac. Climbing onto furniture, fiddling with knobs on the stove, pulling the protective covers out of the light sockets. And he's not even really walking yet (though he is taking tentative steps here and there). "We're going to have to chain him up like Hannibal Lecter," my husband said, and it's true.

He's also been going on a lot more play dates lately. That's one thing I do love about this neighborhood, is all my mom friends. And it's really easy to make new ones in the area. Though one thing I have found is that if you are a mom, you can instantly hit it off with another mom, no matter how little you have in common or how horrible that person might actually be. Like, if I met Kim Jong Un's wife and she had a kid, I'd probably be like, "And how old is your little guy? Does he sleep through the night yet?"

One!!!!!

My baby turned one last Sunday!!!!!!

I know this was meant to be kind of a tongue-in-cheek, snarky blog, but forgive me while I do something unbearably corny and write a letter to my son, for posterity:

My dearest S:

You are one! Happy birthday to my most precious baby! Your daddy and I are so crazy about you, you cannot even imagine. This has been the happiest year of our lives, thanks to you. Seriously, I have your pictures all over my cubicle at work and I just stare at them. (I might have to take them down if someone notices.) I daydream about you all day. Your huge, dimply smile, bright blue eyes, throaty laugh and happy personality have brought us so much joy, you can't even imagine.

And we had so much fun throwing your first birthday party, here at home, with your closest family and friends around. You got a little pissed off right at the time we started singing happy birthday and trying to give you cake, but that's because dumb mommy tried to put your birthday hat on and snapped your sweet little face with the rubber band snap. Sorry, little dude. Next year I'll do better. But for the most part you seemed really happy, pointing excitedly at all the decorations and exclaiming, "That! That!" It was so cute.

Christine said you took your first steps at music class yesterday! I am so sorry I wasn't there to see it. But I know you were in good hands. As you learn and explore more this year, mommy and daddy will be right there with you, watching in awe as you learn and grow and take in the world around you. My dearest son, you are so loved. 

Almost one

Earlier tonight I was snuggled up with my little guy and could not believe that he used to fit in my belly!

He'll be one in about two weeks. He's talking a lot--he says "up," "that," "uh oh" (especially right after he deliberately chucks something on the floor") and "whoa," which is unbelievably cute.

Still cruising; no walking. He went to a baby sing-a-long last week and the sitter told me he was standing up independently when all the other babies did it. And he still has six teeth. So that's what he's up to.

In other news, we're selling our apartment because we live in the ghetto. Somebody got shot on our street, at 4:30 a.m., as my husband was rocking S. back to sleep. So yeah, we gotta GTF outta here. It is upsetting, because we love the apartment and it is a giant fucking hassle, but it'll be worth it to live somewhere where we feel safe. So we'll probably rent in a safer Brooklyn neighborhood. I am trying to wrap my brain around maybe moving to the 'burbs and I can't. I'm sure there are nice towns, the schools are probably better, blah blah blah. But also: a three-legged commute (drive to train station, take train, then take subway) each way, five days a week. Also, driving. Also, no more Brooklyn. I am not ready for that jelly. Not now and possibly not ever.

Nine months!

I can't believe I let his nine-month birthday slip by without posting. He'll be ten months old in 10 days!

He is a wonder. He has six teeth now (four on the top, two on the bottom) and his blonde peach fuzz is growing out, though it's coming in faster on the bottom than on the top, which makes him look a little bit like he has male pattern baldness. In the most adorable way, of course.

His new favorite word is "Dat!" I think he's saying "that." He blurts it out all day long, but he says it sort of like, "Det," so he sounds like a little South African. The other night he murmured it to himself as he was falling asleep. He really is uncontrollably cute.

And he's crawling and pulling himself up like a madman and getting into everything. I predict he will be free-standing by the time his ten-month birthday rolls around.

Oh, and he is REALLY happy, lately, squealing with joy and babbling and shrieking with laughter. What is equally adorable is the fact that the only time he is not happy is when he wakes up in the morning. He is really grouchy; it takes him a couple of minutes to stop being pissed off and start smiling. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.