A Tall Girl's Adventures in a Tiny World

About 10 years ago, on the eve of my mom's birth/death-day, I dreamed about her playing with a toddler-aged boy in the backyard of my childhood home. I watched from a distance, wondering who the child was, until my mom picked up the baby and walked toward us. The baby had strawberry blond hair that shimmered in the sunlight, fringy curls around the ears. His head was nestled into Mom's shoulder a bit so I could only see it in profile, but I clearly remember the round cheeks and button nose. I asked where she found him. She smiled and said simply, "This is your son." Mind you, this dream took place long before I even thought about having children, but I recall waking up feeling comforted and calm, settled into an understanding that everything in my life was going to be ok. It was the first peaceful, happy sort of dream I had after Mom's death, and the baby was just perfect. Fast forward to March 2010. My newborn son slept on my chest in a dark, quiet hospital bed i...

I filed our taxes last night. Which doesn't matter to anyone, really, but Uncle Sam and me. But reviewing one's financial statements for the past year forces one to think a little bit about the past year. And as I laid awake in bed last night I thought, wow, I'm really freaking proud of my family! Let's review the year that was, shall we? Big Daddy gets laid off from his 12-year job a mere 3 weeks before we give birth to Baby #2. Instead of spiraling into doom and despair, we regroup, rededicate, refocus. Baby #2 arrives , beautiful and perfect, and we adjust to being a foursome...and to sleepless nights, messy diapers, and marveling at the wonder of infancy. Mommy is home on maternity leave while Daddy is home on severance pay; Big Brother goes from full-time childcare to half-day preschool and lots of time at home with both parents and his new sibling. We spend 3 amazing months together, a glorious springtime with nowhere to go and nothing to do but be a family. We...

I'm thankful for days like this, full of little gifts in the middle of the endurance-testing, gut-checking, dark-cold month of February: A glimmer of hope on a few rays of sunshine through the bleak, a robin or two chirping a promise of spring, a chance to play outside without hats and mittens and runny noses. A day to look around and say, ok, it's going to thaw, it's going to be lighter, it's going to get greener, we just might make it. And I'm so thankful for moments like this one to remind me of how sweet even February is: My baby's first recognition of birds flying overhead while he experiences his first swing ride. Look at the wonder in those big blue eyes. The world is beautiful, isn't it?

I finally have a camera that takes decent video. So now you know I'll be spending most of my time making dumb little videos like this: It should be noted, too, that about 20 seconds after I turned off the camera, Jakers barfed all over himself. As we like to say in my house, bounce til ya' barf, man!

Toes . Don't get me wrong: Fingers are cool and all, but these toe things are amazing. They're small and chewy, perfect for nibbling. Yet they're always just beyond my reach...unless I flex myself, oh yes, just bend a little more...got it! Omnomnomnom . And did you know that you can actually stick your toes through that loop on the end of your binky and launch that thing across the room?! Awesome! Cats . Fluffy and warm with all these graspy, soft edges I can really sink my fingers into. This one I have also purrs loudly when he plops down next to me; that little vibration next to my ribs really tickles. I think he definitely likes it when I chew on him, too. I don't love the fur stuck to my drool-covered chin, but whatever makes my kitty happy... Ceiling fans . Have you seen the way this thing just circles round and round and round and round? Mesmerizing. Really. I could watch it all day. And sometimes I do. Paper napkins . Delicious. Trees . I don't know abo...

Baby Jake came screaming into the world on March 10, 8:24 a.m., weighing a whopping 9 lbs 11 oz. "What? A boy?!" I shouted from the delivery table because I had been convinced that this was my little girl baby. Then I saw him, in his scrawny-legged, red-faced, screeching splendor, and the waterworks started. He looked just like Hayden, but a bit smaller. (In fact, that was my second statement: "He's so tiny!" which got a lot of laughs when the nurse informed us of his actual size. It's all relative, since Hayden weight 10.5 lbs at birth.) When Chris handed me my second son to hold for the first time -- having learned from my first c-section, this time I'd asked before my surgery if they'd unstrap my arms so I could hold my baby immediately -- I cried and laughed and cried and laughed and as he gazed into my face the crying stopped and we studied each other and fell in love. It was instantaneous this time, the falling in love. I recall it t...

The tiniest person is snoozing on my lap, the slightly larger person is away at preschool, and the largest person is off at the gym, so I'm reflecting on the last three weeks since little Jake came into our world. He's wonderful and adorable, and he's turned us all upside down a little bit. He's a mellow infant, for the most part, but has the same baby dragon scream that his big brother did -- "don't make me angry....you won't like me when I'm angry!" We've gone through a week with the 24/7 glow and hum of a biliblanket to treat his jaundice (and can I just ask, Mr. Biliblanket Designer , have you not actually observed how awkward this thing is on a live baby human?), and now we're waiting for my little glowworm's milia spots to fade away. He's beautiful, though, despite the yellow-brown complection. Perfectly formed. Big blue eyes. Long thin fingers. Toes like candy dots. Full head of hair, and peach fuzz up his back and across the...

Since the moment I peed on the stick and discovered I was pregnant, I have been nervous about delivery. Sweet Boy was very large -- 10 and a half pounds with a 14-inch-circumference head -- and he was born a week past his due date by scheduled c-section. I did not like the c-section delivery. It was not what I'd planned or imagined, it was not like those episodes of "A Baby Story" that I watched on TLC for years. I did not get to hold my baby right away -- not for 5 hours, actually -- and I will always feel sad about that. Oh, and there was the pain...weeks and weeks of pain as that incision healed. In my first pre-natal appointment this time, I told my doctor that I want to try a VBAC delivery. She smiled and said ok, but there was a hint of "this lady is crazy" in the smile. And as the pregnancy rolled along, I had to come to grips with another c-section looming in my near future. Then Sweet Boy and I stumbled across a live c-section birth on the Today Show (a...