Oh Henry!

Oh, Henry! I don't know how many times a day I say it. He's exasperating. He's into EVERYTHING all of the time. he's relentless.

He does not like to sleep and fights it as though he'll die if he falls asleep. I have tried every method suggested to me and nothing works. Last night it took me an hour and forty-five minutes to get him to sleep. I placed him in his crib six different times. Finally I nursed him until he fell asleep and held him on the pillow in my lap for an extra five minutes to make really sure that he was asleep before gently transferring him to his crib. His eyes flew open and he howled with protest. I shut the door so that I could collect myself before snatching him back up. I was tired, frustrated and even a little angry at my baby. I'd had a 13 hour day already (not counting the hour during which they both napped- a minor miracle unto itself) and I was raw around the edges, so I waited before going back into his room.

He was quiet. Then he began crying afresh. Then he was quiet. Then he cried. This cycle sometimes happens when he is finally winding down for the night, but it's unpredictable. Sometimes he winds down and goes to sleep. Sometimes he winds himself up and goes into a full-out screamfest. I never know which one it's going to be until it's over.

I stood at the top of the stairs for fifteen minutes while he went through this cycle of crying and quieting. I wanted my day to be done. I wanted a little bit of time to myself before heading to bed.

Henry is 11 months old and I still don't get him. He has no routine that he sticks to. He's still a mystery to me. I am surprised by this. I study my children and Ted has been so easy to read- Is he cranky? If so then he's
1) Hungry
2) Tired
3) Overwhelmed
That's Ted's list.

Henry's list is different.

Is Henry cranky? If so then he's
1) Hungry
2) Tired
3) Suffering from some mystery ailment that I'll never be able to decipher
More often than not, it's number 3. Last night was this way. I'd given him some Tylenol in case he was teething (he's chewing on his fingers these days) but he didn't want me to hold him. He didn't want me to put him down. He wasn't hungry. His pjs weren't binding. His diaper was fresh and dry. It was comfortable in the house. He was clearly tired, but he wouldn't go to sleep.

Mostly Henry is bubbly, happy and engaging. I couldn't love him more. He's cuddly with both Nate and myself and he adores his brother. When he's being difficult, though, he has no rival. He is immensely frustrating. I hope it's a phase as opposed to him asserting a part of his personality that will manifest itself in various ways in the future. I just can't figure out this child of mine.

Oh, Henry! What am I going to do with you?

My Tractor at School

It's been nearly two months since I last posted and I figured an update is in order.

Ted. My sweet and funny 2 year old kid. He's still the intense little dude he's always been, but the last couple of months have brought many changes for him. Many of the people who read my blog commented to me via email or otherwise that they were really touched by my post "My Love, My Tractor." It was a dark set of circumstances that brought me to write that post. The result of my concerns was that I enrolled Ted in a "mom and me" class that met on Friday mornings. I got a sitter for Henry so that I could take Ted and have no distractions.

I wanted Ted to have interactions with peers and other adults. I wanted his communication skills to be prodded along. It had become clear to me that we'd gotten into some bad habits and I didn't want him to suffer from our close relationship.

There are parts to this parenting gig which I really don't enjoy, but I do them because I think I'm doing the best for my kids. Sometimes it's hard to know what the right thing to do is. I am glad to have an interested partner in parenting, a husband who is sensitive and gentle and firm. So even while I fought the idea of getting Ted into a class at the tender age of 2, I did it. My husband and I had long discussions about whether he really needed it and whether my concerns were appropriate. In the end we decided that since it was unlikely to hurt anything, enrolling him in the class was an ok thing to do.

Ted has really enjoyed school. He has been tentative with the crafts. He's steadfastly refused to participate in anything that will get his hands dirty and he'd really rather watch the craft being done than participate in it himself. We have taken the craft home and he'll often do it at home without any problem. This was the only way in which Ted distinguished himself. That and the fact that he was the only kid who wouldn't eat a single marshmallow when they were a part of the snack. All of the other kids (ALL of them) ate the marshmallows first. Ted left all of his marshmallows and stole the pretzel sticks off of his neighbor's plate. I expect I was the only one who noticed this though.

He played very well with the other kids. He engaged them and initiated play. He invented new games and his language skills flourished.

He still memorizes and recites his books, but there's nothing about him that really makes him stand out as a peculiar kid anymore. School has been good for us both, it turns out. I hated it at first simply because I hated that we were there so that I could prove to myself and others that there was nothing wrong with my child. The first couple of classes I watched his every move. I analyzed everything and turned it all over and discussed it with my husband. But after a couple of classes, I was able to relax. Ted blended with the other kids and ended up having friends he was happy to play with week after week.

I ended up really liking the other moms too. They were a cooperative and friendly bunch and I probably wouldn't be uncomfortable giving any of them a phone call. I still haven't found a friend set among the moms of my town, but I'm feeling less and less that it's out of reach.

It's the holiday season and I have a billion more things on my plate than I should. 8 days from now it will all be over though and I'll wonder how it went by so quickly. At the moment, however, I ought to hit the hay so that I can power up for tomorrow.

I'm glad that we're going to end the year on a high note. :)

The Night of the Glow Stick

Henry wouldn't fall asleep the other night. He wailed in his crib like he was being stuck with pins and simply would not tire. For those who don't have children: this happens sometimes. You may discover the secret behind it or its cause may remain a mystery. It's always exhausting and it breaks your heart a little to see your baby, inconsolable, in his crib red-faced and hollering. It's also frustrating, especially when it's past your bedtime.

So the other night when wee Henry would not sleep, I eventually loaded him into the pram, wrapped in a blanket and pushed him around the neighborhood. It took a couple of laps, but he eventually fell asleep. I then pushed him home and very gingerly picked him up and relocated him to his crib.

When I placed him in his crib, he immediately flipped over onto his belly and I knew that my night was not yet over. Sure enough, for the next two hours he awoke every 15 minutes or so, complained and went back to sleep. This went on until 10:30 when he started to fuss louder. When I went into his room he had a complete meltdown. Nothing would console him. Back into the pram for Henry.

My neighborhood has no street lights. We live close to the end of a cul-de-sac and it's dark on our street. People often turn down our street thinking it is a shortcut to a popular destination and when they realize they are mistaken, they press down on the gas pedal, whip around the cul-de-sac and fly back up the street. Pushing the pram through the neighborhood after dark was not my first choice of how to get Henry back to sleep, but nothing was working.

I'd made most of my first lap when I saw an unearthly glow down the street. My husband was making his way towards me with a glow stick- one of those sticks you see kids carrying at Halloween or that you see parking lot attendants using after dark. They have a chemical inside them that is contained in a glass tube and you bend the tube, breaking the glass tube that creates a chemical reaction, producing a brightly glowing tube. It lasts for about 8 hours.

Nate has a lot of emergency equipment and he wanted us to be illuminated while we were walking. He fell in step next to me- our 2 year-old was sleeping soundly and we hoped we wouldn't be long. Besides as parents one has to do what one has to do.

Henry was not going back to sleep this time. His eyes were open and bright. He hadn't cried at all since being put in the pram- he was perfectly happy there, he just wasn't going to sleep.

The glow stick captured his attention. He reached for it and called to it. They're sturdy and unlikely to break, so Henry was given the glow stick. He burbled and cooed at it and held it above his head like the Grand Marshall of our peculiar parade. He put the end in his mouth and made his cheeks glow. We circled the block again.

We must have been quite a sight- the two of us pushing a pram down the street, emitting an unearthly glow. Maybe since it's close to Halloween no one thought anything of it. It was trash night, so we did run into a couple of neighbors.

Eventually we decided to give up and go home. Henry went into his crib.

With his glow stick.

He burbled at it and waved it around. He cooed at it and shook it. He admired it and loved it.

After about an hour, he finally fell asleep with it under his blanket, by his side. Nate went in and removed the glow stick from his crib. Henry slept peacefully through the rest of the night.

I don't expect our travails of that evening to make it into any parenting books as in "If your baby won't stop crying, try giving him/her a glow stick...." It worked for us for one night though. Who knows what will work the next time? I know I'll make sure we always have a supply of glow sticks in the house, just in case. Heck, maybe I'll even stash one in the diaper bag.

Rescue Me!

Ha! Fooled you. I don't want to be rescued. I don't need to be rescued.


I've had a couple of well-meaning people tell me that if I ever need a break from the kids- as in NEED a break from the kids- I should give them a call and they'll take them off my hands for a couple of hours. Um. No thanks. If I really get to that point, that's what my husband is for. Heck, that's what Baby Einstein videos are for.

What I'd really like is for someone to offer- without my having to reach some kind of breaking point- to take the kids for a couple of hours. That kind of offer would help relieve some of the stress and isolation that being a stay-at-home mom can create.

I think that it's good for kids to have relationships with others that are independent of their immediate family. I have always had a close relationship with my aunt, independent of my parents. I went to boarding school and my aunt and I wrote letters to each other then and the relationship continues strongly to this day. We've even taken vacations together. My relationship with her is one of the best things about my life.

I have tried to convince my well-meaning family and friends that if they are waiting for me to reach some kind of breaking point in order to give me some respite then it's never going to happen. As much as my kids drive me crazy sometimes, I've never come close to doing something bad to them, unless you count putting them in their room an hour early for their nap. I will confess that happens on occasion.

I am not one to simply call up and ask for a babysitter unless I have a tangible need, whether it's a dentist appointment or the hair dresser (which doesn't happen as often as it should.) In the meantime, my kids are not seeing as much of these folks as they would if someone simply offered.

I do have a couple of people who check up on me and make sure that my life is not being overwhelmed by my kids, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. One of them is, of course, that same aunt with whom I have the close relationship. She never tells me that if I ever need to be rescued, she'll be there. Instead, she is there. Every week we get together, rain or shine.

My kids adore her.

The ironic thing is that while she's never offered to rescue me, she's one of the reasons I'll never need to be rescued. While others wait for me to call in distress, she is building a solid relationship with my kids, independent of me. Funny how that works out, isn't it?

My Love, My Tractor

This last week, for the second time as a mother, I allowed someone to cast doubts on the rightness of my first born son. Ted is not a typical child. I know that he's different- I am not denying that- it's the degree of differentness that I deny. I ran through the on-line autism check lists (it's what was suggested) and it simply does not fit. There are a couple of "red flags" that I can check off- he does not point with his index finger and he plays well independently. He was late to hit all of his physical milestones. He uses speech to engage others but not to talk about the world around him so much- he mostly talks about his books.

When I look at these differences I simply see my kid, but others have raised questions. When others raise questions, I begin to doubt myself. Maybe I'm ignoring a problem that really is there. Everyone tells me that early intervention is the key to allowing your child to live a normal life. My God, I'm worrying about whether my child will live a normal life. As I said, I've been down this road twice now and it makes me want to lock the doors, draw the curtains, hold onto him and not let anyone tinker with him or touch him or ask him questions or try to change him. But I have been to the specialty sites about this that or the other and nothing fits. Ted is Ted. He doesn't have something. He isn't some diagnosable oddity. He's just Ted.
Ted is a different child. It's true. He's intense and inquisitive. He's generous and empathetic.

The neighbors' grandkids came over one afternoon and were playing in their back yard. Ted saw them and got excited and took them his ball. They took it without a backward glance and excluded him from the game. His response was to play with something else instead. I've seen him give his toys out in several different settings. This is not typical behavior for a 2 year old. He's not territorial or aggressive. He doesn't break things or flush things or unroll the paper towels. He's never emptied out the flour bin or turned over the waste paper baskets. He can play with one thing for 45 minutes without losing interest.


He has compartmentalized some of the things that he does. Someone worried to me that he didn't play peek-a-boo when he was younger. He did play peek-a-boo, just not with that person. He seems to understand that he has different relationships with different people. When my aunt comes over, he will immediately go to his toy piano. When I tell him that she's coming over, he'll play his toy piano because that's what they do together. He's always been this way.

He and I communicate well and with a minimum of words. When others are around, he generally does not modify this. Being as lazy as the next person, I have fallen into some patterns with him that probably do not help public perception. I generally don't make him articulate what he wants if I know what it is. I'm working on this- only recently did I realize I was doing it.

My husband never questions whether our child is "ok." Nate says that he looks at Ted and sees himself as a child. I can see some of these characteristics in Nate. Whenever Nate and I go somewhere where he's meeting new people in a group, I can count on Nate to not be the life of the party. He watches and takes it all in. Every nuanced gesture, every Freudian slip, every furtive glance, every laugh, snicker and comment is absorbed, catalogued and retained by Nate. When we get into the car, I can't wait to ask him about what he observed because it's all there. He has unraveled things about those around me that I never have been able to pick up on my own.

Nate walked late and talked late. Nate did things on his own schedule. In high school he was not motivated by what others were doing- he did things his own way. I, on the other hand, did things my own way but always wanted to fit in. I wanted things to be as easy as it seemed they were for others. I never could figure out what it was that made me unpopular, but I was. I would like for things to be easier for my children than they were for me. I adore my kids and don't like the fact that things might not be easier for them.

I suppose it was destiny that I ended up with Ted as my child. If he is as much like Nate as Nate believes, then I know that Ted will be as slow as a glacier, but also as persistent and as powerful. Nate describes himself as a tractor- not much to look at, but you can always count on your tractor. It's the tractor that will pull the 4X4 out of the mud when it gets stuck.

I need to get a thicker skin. I need to accept that Ted will be Ted. I have been criticized- when he wasn't using crayons, I was told that I needed to work with him more. Short of using duct tape to secure the crayon to his hand, how does one work with a child who wants nothing to do with the crayon? I was doing everything that the books and experts said to do, but he wanted no part of it. You just need to work with him more, I was told again. Well, he's coloring now. One day he decided that coloring was something he could do and he's been doing it since.

And it's been that way with everything.

Ted's never going to be the sports car that I seem to keep looking for. He'll never be style over substance. He'll never be flashy, he'll never be first. He has no interest in being first. He walked late but when he did start walking he never fell. Once he started climbing the stairs he learned it in 10 minutes and never had a problem with going down them. He did them when he was ready and when he already had the skills honed. There was very little "practice" involved.

Ted, like his father, is going to be a tractor. Steady, slow, durable and reliable. It's in his genes.

In the long run, I'll be glad that this is his nature. If I can temper my worrying in the meantime I'll be much happier. Every couple of months I have to remind myself that Ted will simply be Ted. My adorable little tractor.

My Definition of Family

I have an unusual family. In fact, my family is so unusual that I often find myself explaining it for other people. Others don't "get it" or even "feel sorry for me" because it must be "so hard."

I try to tell them that their sympathy is truly wasted on me- I really neither need nor deserve it. I love my family and find that it works for us in all of the ways that family should work, despite its unconventional makeup.

My husband was married when I first met him. Happily married. I was also married- less happily, but married nonetheless. 5 years later, when we began dating our fortunes had changed significantly. Like many women my age, I had gotten divorced- I won't go into the story of that here, but circumstances were such that I have not had contact with my ex's family since I moved out of the house and I had contact with my ex only to the extent that it would facilitate our divorce.

Nate's story was different. Nate had been widowed. It was something that had been a very real possibility- her illness had been grave and she'd long outlived her life expectancy when they met. She grew up in a tightly knit family that is marked by its friendliness, warmth and compassion.

When Nate became her husband, he was embraced as family and throughout their marriage he was never "that guy that she'd married" but was their brother, their son, their cousin.

So when I first started dating this man who would be my husband it was clear to me immediately that with him would come not only his mother, father, brother and brother's children but his first wife's sister, her brother, her parents and nieces and nephews as well. As he put it, "When do you stop being family?"

People are comfortable with divorce. Divorce usually marks a clean break- as I mentioned, I have had no contact with my ex's family. I think the issue is that widowhood is a lot less common until later in life and so these waters are less navigated. People truly do not understand where I am coming from.

Her family has embraced me from the start- literally. The first time I met her sister, she threw her arms around me and let me know that I was welcome. She and her husband are a loving addition to my life, as are their kids. Her parents are happy and warm. Her brother is the uncle who puts Ted on his shoulders and runs around while they both holler "AAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

And the questions still come. The comments:
That must be so hard for you.
How nice of you to still let him be close to them like that. (!?)
How do you deal with that?
Don't you worry that they're trying to replace her with you?

If he was divorced from her, I'd probably have an issue with his remaining close to her family, but that's not what happened. It's NOT the same. But that's what people are used to- it's the experience that they can relate to, so they think it's the same.

Some think that his remaining close to them is a sign of disloyalty to me. I think of it as a sign of his loyalty in general. Should something happen to me, I will not worry about whether my family will have a continuing relationship with my kids- when Nate becomes a member of a family, he stays a member of that family. His ties to my family will be no less strong than his ties to hers. He is their brother, their son, their cousin as well. It's now up to my family to embrace him just as his first wife's family did.

And some of my family has done that. Some of my family still treats Nate like he's an outsider who has yet to prove himself. I keep hoping that they'll put aside their feelings and be able to embrace him. I wonder if I have made it harder for him since he's not my first husband- maybe they think he's not going to be around in 5 years or 10 years from now. He is, I have no doubts about that. And 5 or 10 years from now, I'll be the great aunt to Nate's first wife's sister's kid's kids. How's that for a mouthful?

Yeah- I love my family.

Blog Sweet Blog

I've been MIA. I miss writing and I have a few entries brewing. There are a couple of reasons I haven't written in a while:
#1 is that the boys conspire against me. They nap on opposite schedules- napping at the same time is a rarity and Henry usually takes what I refer to as "micro-naps" anyway- 10 or 15 minutes and he's up and on the go.
#2 is simply that it's been a busy summer. With graduations and out-of-town friends and family visiting, a vacation and a funeral thrown in for variety I have been busy doing many things out of the house.

Everything's calming down now. There's a chill in the air and the leaves are starting to change and I expect that the boys will sleep more as the cold weather settles in.

So expect some new entries soon. I'm going to start to work on one now.