Skip to main content

Bye Bye, Baby

We said goodbye to the bottle tonight. Which means no more baby bottles in this house ever again! We’ve been getting rid of baby stuff for a while now. In March we donated/sold the stroller, baby car seat, high chair, and play pen, and I’ve been happily ditching a bag or two of baby clothes every few weeks. I haven’t felt sad or sentimental about any of it. I love getting rid of stuff (I am married to a hoarder, after all), and I do not miss the baby stage since I found it so damn hard. But something about the end of the bottle gave me pause. I had such trouble feeding both of them, from my breastfeeding woes with Declan to Ophelia’s failure to gain weight, that the bottle has been a huge focus in our lives for over four years.

When Declan was our only child, I never understood all of the parents bemoaning how quickly time was passing. I just didn't feel it. Once Ophelia arrived, however, all of that changed. Time now flits away without a care and I feel like I'm missing everything (like March, for example. What on earth happened to March?). Declan is now four, can hold his own in any conversation, and we'll be touring schools for him this time next year. Ophelia is barreling towards her second birthday and has enough attitude for six toddlers. After our initial fears about her lack of speech, her language has now exploded, with NO followed by a loud raspberry and the dramatic throwing down of anything within her reach being her favorite form of communication. (She even said no to a donut yesterday, before finally conceding to taste it and then devouring the whole thing while glaring at us as if we'd somehow tricked her.)

I worry that I'm working too much, that we're not DOING enough, but then we try to go to the park (the PARK forgoodnesssake) and everyone melts down after 20 minutes (including me) so we come home and watch TV instead. Daycare was unexpectedly closed yesterday, so we spent an extra day with the pair of them and it just about killed us. Declan was even super well-behaved, but that didn't mean he stopped talking for one single second. I mostly want this age to last forever because they're so freakin' cute together, but then I would also like everyone to sleep and use the potty and not require fruit-snack-bribery just to come in the house from the car without a fit (I'm looking at you, Ophelia). Keep my children small and cute and loving me always, but bring on independence and rational conversation. Oh, the contradictions of parenthood. ♥



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2016, January: Who Should Pay for the Arts

Working for a small nonprofit after the Goliath that is the Smithsonian has been an eye-opening experience. We're constantly doing - as my boss likes to call it - "the hustle." A great deal of time, energy, and resources is spent (and stress, sleepless nights, and several tears are experienced) while chasing funding instead of working on the mission, while the mission remains crucial to bringing in the money as well as being the reason we're all here. It's difficult to maintain that balance while keeping the organization afloat and the staff (mostly) sane. It's made me think a great deal about who should pay for what we do. I believe the arts are critically important and I am incredibly proud that a town the size of Idaho Falls (serving a population of around 100,000 in the city and surrounding rural areas) has art galleries, a large, historic theater that brings in nationally touring productions, and the-first-of-its-kind interactive art and technology cent...
Post a Comment
Read more

2015, September: Plagiocephaly, aka Declander the Amazing Helmet Boy

Declan started wearing a helmet last Friday. We knew he had a wonky head - for the first four months of his life he always slept in the exact same position - but we were hoping he would grow out of it. I knew I was supposed to be doing something about it (wedging him to sleep on the other side somehow), but it was enough of a celebration just to get the kid to sleep that I couldn't deal with anything else. At four months old he started rolling and would sleep in a variety of positions, but unfortunately the damage had been done. At his four month check-up the pediatrician said it wasn't too bad and that we should just keep an eye on it. At six months, however, a different pediatrician said "hmmm. We should probably have a specialist take a look." The specialist came from Salt Lake City and said that Declan had a moderate case of plagiocephaly (wonky head) due to slight torticollis (weak neck muscles on one side). Now that he's holding his head up fine and sitt...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Successful Trip!

I turn 40 this week. Yellowstone National Park is one of my favorite places in the world, so I decided we should go spend the weekend in the park for my birthday. As we got closer, I discovered I wasn’t really looking forward to it. Both kids are exhausting at the moment, and Ophelia especially does not do well in the car. Or in the cold. Or in any situation where her indecipherable needs are not being met. When I saw that thunderstorms were forecast all weekend, I almost canceled. But we’d paid a deposit on the cabin so we decided to take a chance and see what happened.  Well. The weather worked out almost perfectly and the kids were amazing! They handled all the time in the car, they hiked, they even (mostly) behaved themselves in a fancy restaurant. Ah. Maze. Zing.  On day one, we headed up to West Yellowstone and had our usual giant pancake lunch before venturing into the park. Then we drove down to West Thumb geyser basin, where both children managed to a) n...
Post a Comment
Read more