On the other hand, he is talking like crazy. He knows all kinds of words now and uses them all the time. He snuggles up sweetly against your shoulder and makes mmms of contentment. When I was gone this weekend he wandered into all the rooms forlornly saying, "Mama?" He does sentences and knows whole books by heart and sings songs with us and does choreography. It is amazing all he knows now. It's amazing how he changes.

This weekend I went away to a lovely lake house with my departing friends. There was swimming, wine, board games of various kinds, lounging and magazine reading. It was all nice. It was also weird, in that I was the only person with a kid there, and many of the people there are the childfree sort, who like children when they are quiet and when they can go away. They ask me about Ollie, which I appreciate, and I try to tell them the more entertaining new things he's doing (like Butt, Butt, Butt, Baby Butt, or the monkey noises Susanne taught him).

The thing is, the new things he's doing seem so small when you're telling people who have never witnessed the transformation of nothing into a baby into a person and don't know how amazing these changes are. I find it easier to joke about motherhood than I do to express the profound and overwhelming adoration I have for my baby and the great joy I experience seeing him for the first time every morning, the delight I take in seeing him explore the world and come into himself, and the way it feels when your child snuggles up to you and curls an arm around your neck. It seems corny and overly earnest, and I guess on some level I feel like it is something you can't understand unless you've experienced it. But when I joke about motherhood with these friends, without them seeing the truth of the situation, which is my mad all encompassing devotion to my child and the ways that my brain has rewired itself to put him in the middle I feel guilty, like I am betraying him by telling only the difficult or humorous bits. or by downplaying what he means to me. How do you explain when someone asks you if you are going to have separation issues that one night that you ALWAYS have separation issues every minute you are not with your child? That even if you are enjoying yourself, or working hard, it feels wrong, mentally and physically to be apart from your baby. That even if you're exhausted and you need a break, it would be preferable to take it somewhere with him nearby so you can see him again the second you want? The impulse at night to go in and pick him up and snuggle him some more that you have to resist?

Eric describes it as the first flush of a romance, when you want to be with somebody all the time and you can't think of anything else, except permanently. And it's true. And it's not witty, or clever, or new. It's trite, but it's the most honest thing about me. I'm just another parent who thinks the world revolves around their child.

It is funny to think about how this will slowly fade away as he gets older. It has already done so, some, and will continue to. There will be a time where he and I will think it inappropriate or weird to snuggle up to me as he does (especially since right now he is fond of snaking one hand into my bra). And there will be a time where he will no longer have sweet baby skin to caress on his back or tummy and I will not be able to give him all the kisses I want, while he giggles for more.  

First some important news, after the echocardiogram the other day, we now know for certain that the hole in Ollie's heart has closed up. This means that every injured organ is now healed. Ollie also had a big growth spurt. He was 23.3 pounds, which is 25%, and is 31 inches tall, which is 10%. We can no longer say he is a tiny toddler. I thought he felt heavy.

The original title of this is based upon our trip to Disney World. We took Ollie there to celebrate Eric's and my 7th Wedding anniversary (and 10th anniversary of being together). We had a terrific day. Ollie LOVED the rides, especially It's a Small World and the Carousel. We rode the carousel 3 times. He loved everything so much he refused to nap except for 2 short 30 minute pass outs in the stroller. He stayed awake and fairly cheerful through most of the Main Street Electrical Parade (or whatever it's called these days) and then we saw the fireworks on the ferry on the way to the car. Where he passed out. We had a lot of fun. At one point there was a big thunderstorm and after it cleared Ollie had fun splashing in the puddles and trying to figure out his shadow. He would race away from it and up to it, and couldn't figure out how to evade it. I went on the upgraded Haunted Mansion by myself during one of his brief naps, and they did a really nice job.

We also had a good time swimming in my dad's college roommate's pool. They made us an awesome dinner with homemade french fries and we had a great time. Ollie had fun jumping from the side of the pool into people's arms.

We went to the beach a couple of times. We took Ollie's new red wagon his grandma bought him to the local beach and he insisted on sitting in it while we labored to pull him over the sand. We went to a different beach that is on the ocean, not the gulf, and played in the waves for a long time. Then we sat at a tiki bar and we had coronas while Ollie had water.

Other than that there was some fun with Grandma, taking her to a spa, going to see Sex and the City, going to a really nice dinner in Tampa. She had a good birthday, which was the point, so I'm happy about that.

Since that we've been back to the grind, work and hanging out. We did have a bunch of friends (adult and child) over for a barbeque Sunday. We had kids ranging from four months through 6 or 7 I think running around the backyard. We put up several umbrellas to provide more shade and set up the tent, which was a big hit. That, along with the water table, the sand box, the bubbles, and the sidewalk chalk made the back yard a blur of activity. At the end of the evening we served ice cream floats. Ollie had his own dish of ice cream and was feeding it to himself. He loves ice cream a lot, which is why he seldom has it. So he was wolfing it down as fast as he could. At one point he all of a sudden started wailing as if in extreme pain. We figured out he had freezy headache. So I picked him up, calmed him down, and he wanted to eat more. So I told him to go slower. Did this work? Heh. So we did the whole wail, calm down, eat, wail thing a few more times. Then I took away the ice cream, which of course caused more wailing. Basically he was just very, very tired at that point.

In another week or so we are going on vacation again! Which shouldn't help his current sleeping issues. He's gone back to waking up quite a bit and needing to be shushed or briefly snuggled before he'll go back to sleep. When we get home we'll be home for a long long while, which should help calm down the sleep problems, I hope. It also seems like his molars are still giving him trouble, as they slowly creep into his mouth.

So that's the news in Ollie world.

2) Lest you think I am a total heathen, I have also taught Ollie how to say please.

They are sitting on my desk keeping me company right now.

Yesterday he carried a bag of tortilla chips from the car to the kitchen for me, setting them down to crawl up the step to the porch. He also carried a box of Veat from the laundry room (I retrieved it from the freezer in the garage) to Eric in the kitchen. And, last night he helped me bake chocolate cake. He wanted me to hold him while I did it, but he was too heavy, so I pulled a chair up to the counter from the dining room table and then I would hand him the measuring spoons and he would dump the ingredients into the bowl and then whisk for me.

He is a very helpful and sweet boy. 

He is of course doing new things. He gave me a backrub the other day. We had been doing baby massage with him for a long time, usually while saying "massage the baby" in a funny voice. Well, the other night I was having a bad and frustrating night and while taking a bath with him he pushed behind me and started giving me a backrub. He kept at it for like, four minutes, which is a very long time for a baby (and frankly, about as long as I could get my spouse to massage me either). It was very sweet. He's also still big into kisses and snuggles, which I appreciate. Sadly, unlike Henry he has not said he loves us, but some day.

We are still trying to figure out the language thing. We are supposed to check in with our pediatrician about it today, so Eric is going to talk to her. Lately he's big into saying "bubble." He says it all the time. Over and over. But, he's doing what he normally does, which is to say it for everything all the time and to not use his other words. He's still not accumulating them, he's using and discarding them. Or if he is accumulating them he's not busting them out. I am still not terribly worried because he understands all of our words. I don't know. We have also decided to go ahead and get him vaccinated for MMR, but not to get the MMR shot, to get them all separate. There has been a lot of news recently about measles outbreaks all over, including places like Belgium, and so we don't feel comfortable leaving him not vaccinated. So spliting them up seems the compromise. It also seems like a pain, but we are willing to do that.

Thanks to our friend Steph's book recommendation, Good Night, Sleep Tight, Ollie is sleeping through the night now, pretty much every night, even when his molars (three coming in!) hurt him. It's amazing. He's also fat enough finally that the small Fuzzi Buns are not fitting and we had to go buy some new diapers. We got Kanga Pockets, which are nice. If we knew what we know now, we would have bought all expandables and not messed around with the Fuzzi Buns (which come small, medium, large, etc, as opposed to growing with your child).

Not much else going on. Ollie still loves to read books with us, play in his sand box and water table, he's growing ever more confident walking around and doesn't get upset when he stumbles as much. He knows what an "O" is and how to say it (but can't draw it yet). He still likes to dance, dance, boogie, boogie, and he still seems like a pretty inquisitive boy. He was concentrating on something at the grocery store and the vegetable man was like, "He needs to smile more." And I thought, hey, he's thinking, leave him alone. 

Having him in day care three days a week sucks, but I have so much to get done. I need to get my dis revised, I need to get my cover letter and CV put together, I need to turn a chapter or two into articles. I need to write abstracts for ASTR. Obviously all of this could not get done on a Tuesday and Thursday. But I miss him. A lot. Two days a week was better. It was just right.

The other thing is that I have not gotten to hang out with my mama friends and their babies very much. We have started going to the Farmer's market at the Triangle on Wednesdays and get to see more of them there, but it seems like many of the playdates have died off and that is sad. Luckily Magda and Yuri are coming over today to talk vegetarian cooking, so that will be fun. But, mama friends who read this blog, Ollie and I miss you all.  

Sometimes it's overwhelming to me how well-loved my baby boy is, and then by extension me and Eric.

I am so grateful for you all.

The pediatrician was concerned when I told her that Ollie learns a word, uses it a lot for a day or two and seemingly discards it. I'm not sure why this concerns her, because it's not exactly a sympton for autism, I don't think, but she worries a lot. I have decided to outsource my worrying to her. I worry a lot too, but she worries more than me. Thus, I will pay her to worry for me and I will continue on blissfully not worrying. Somebody should be worrying though, I think. Anyway, what I said turned out to be a lie anyway.  

As it turns out, he still knows the words, he just doesn't want to say them. Last night when I was putting him down to bed I realized I'd left Gertrude downstairs. Ollie doesn't always want or care about Gertrude, so I figured I'd just leave her down there. Gertrude was one of those words, he said her name a bunch for a day or so and hasn't said it for weeks. Well, he looked at me, last night, pointed to the door and said very clearly and emphatically, "GERTRUDE!!!!" So apparently he can still say it, he just doesn't choose to unless that's the only way to communicate what he wants. Pointing, grunting, whining, reaching for things are all easier, but none of those would communicate that he wanted a hedgehog that was located on a different floor, so speech was the go-to. So I guess he's just stock piling words like I thought.

Right now his favorite words are :uh oh, poop, and juice. Usually not all together, though today he did say to me, "Uh oh!" and then point to the ground, "juice!" as he had spilled his juice all over the rug (my fault, I put the sippy cup together wrong). Hopefully poop and juice will NEVER need to be in the same sentence.

Anyway, another reason I refuse to worry is that they give us a handout with developmental leaps he should make between 15-18 months and he was doing ALL of them already, except walking up stairs one at a time. Ok, the kid is in the 5% heigh wise, how the hell is he going to get up stairs one at a time? They're half the size of his body.

So Eric went out of town for a work conference which was apparently fun and very productive, so I was a single mom Sunday-Wednesday. The first few days were really rough. Monday night especially since Ollie did not sleep at all. I finally brought him into bed with me and he slept some, but he was rolling from side to side on the bed in his sleep, which made it very difficult for me to sleep. At 6:30 on Tuesday morning when he made it clear he was up for the day I asked him if I could at least have a kiss and he gave me one, which was nice. He's less keen on kissing these days and I miss it. By today, Wednesday I was starting to get used to it and I realized it was doable, if less fun. I found it was kind of lonely, especially the night time, because Ollie was in bed, but I couldn't go anywhere or do anything much to entertain myself (and no good tv was on). I have always known it must be tough to be a single parent, so basically this was having my suspicions confirmed. One thing I've found was that it was a lot harder to be fully present for Ollie. I wanted to do a crossword while he was playing in the sandbox instead of playing with him, things like that. With Eric here I can get mental breaks while he's with Ollie and when I'm with Ollie I can really focus on parenting. I don't think Ollie suffered for me not being present, in fact he probably revelled in the freedom that comes with mama being distracted. But I missed the presentness. I also realized that if I were a single parent I would subsist entirely on Slimfast, as I was DAMN TIRED and didn't want to cook.

There were also moments of incredible sweetness. He snuggled up to me and slept with his head on my pillow and my arms around him for awhile Monday night. This morning we put on Blue Moo and dance, dance, boogie boogied for a long time. He helped me get the recycling out this morning. It was a private world of just us and that was kinda cool. I realized if we had to, we could make it (though I really don't want to have to), but that made me feel better about what I'm capable of.

So kudos to you who do it, it's hard, but I know your kiddos will see how strong you are and the bond between you will be amazing.

So that's where we are. Ollie is switching from T/Th daycare to M/W/F so I can get my dis done. I am not happy about that. Eric told me that I can always not take him all three days if it becomes too much for me, but this gives me the option of more work time. I appreciate that and I appreciate us having the income to make that possible (thank you Eric). We bought Ollie a fancy outfit for his Great-Grandma's 90th birthday party. He will look super cute and swanky. His aunt Laurie sent him a stuffed neuron and a hilarious shirt from threadless, his uncle Ryan and his girlfriend Mandy sent him an awesome fuzzy blanket for Easter, and his great grandma Nancy sent him cookies, music cds, and a stuffed lamb he loves to rub on his face. The damn dogs ate most of the cookies. Stupid dogs. They've gone a bit nuts of late. Ollie is much loved and I think he is lucky to have such a great family, extended and near. 

And now I must go give my kiddo a bath.    

Article is here

That's all just inexplicable, isn't it?

Last year (4/4/07):

This year (3/29/08):

Isn't the change in one year amazing? He really has grown up so fast.

Bonus pictures of Dada and Ollie:

And Mama and Ollie:

The focus group members were comprised largely of moms who attend the same rather progressive, rather AP friendly daycare. (AP is attachment parenting for those who don't know). There are a lot of moms who breastfeed, homebirth, wear their babies, send their kids to daycare in small fake vintage rock t-shirts. These are moms who in theory, I should have a lot in common with.

So the major clothing brand showed us fabrics and designs for their next line of children's clothing (perhaps a year out? Since they said spring). They were divided into two sets: girl and boy. Uh oh, you are saying, I see where Jenny is going with this. Yes and no.

To begin with, we were asked to describe how we dress our child. I explained that we were not preppy and favored bright, busy, colorful, fun clothing. We wanted our child to look like a child, not a mini adult. I also explained that my child was extremely small with a tiny waist and we liked knit outfits because the mini-adult clothing just fell off. I finished by explaining Ollie's recent obsession with pink and how he had picked out pink mittens, tights (for England), and most recently a pink polo shirt. The group leader found it peculiar that he had preferences at 15 months. Now, while I like to think my child is precocious, left to their own devices doesn't any kid gravitate towards certain things in stores? The other moms seemed ambivalent about my indulging my son's pink obsession.

The girl clothing they showed us was floral, hearts, or strawberries. Largely. It also had phrases like "smile" or "sweet" on it. There were capped sleeves, ruffles, rick rack, ribbon bows, and other adornments. Occasionally the above words would be plastered over the ass of the pants like a Juicy Couture sweatsuit. Several of the pajama sets for 4-7 year olds looked like adult lingerie, with spaghetti strapped bodices and tiny little boyshorts. It was largely pink or yellow.

Most everybody took issue with the words on the butt. Nobody was thrilled about the words in general, honestly. I expressed dismay that the girls stuff was universally so overdecorated that it would be hard for a boy to wear, but there was zero sympathy.

Then the boy stuff. For the most part, it was pretty awesome. There was the occasional typical sports crap ("daddy's little allstar") but mostly it was big, bold, graphic prints in fantastic color combinations. It was in every way much cooler than the girl stuff. There was the occasional "neutral" piece that was yellow or green (of course). To which the other moms all agreed that they wouldn't put their boy in that. I guess it was too girly?

Ironically, one of those very same moms wanted to know why the girls clothes couldn't be more like the boys clothes. Why couldn't it have fun, dynamic prints with bolder colors.

So the semiotics of the girls clothes were sweet, cute, passive, and quiet.

The boys clothes: bold, big, aggressive, full of action.

The women wanted the girls to be able to be more like boys. No problem. Feminism is all about women getting to be bold and full of action.

The women wanted the boys clothes to stay exactly the same, the boys in those clothes to stay exactly the same, and were even uncomfortable with the gender neutral pieces.

Hold up.

So how exactly are you planning on redefining gender roles by changing girls and telling your boy to stay exactly as macho, repressed, and frankly, homophobic as the culture has ever told him to be? Why should girls get to be strong and active, but there's no space for a sweet, quiet boy? That, my friends, is screwed up.

I'm not going to say that men have it worse in our culture. That's nonsense. There's the pay disparity, the whole rape and abuse thing, the lack of child care options, and the oversexualization of women (apparently down to age 4 now). But I will say that there are significant gender issues to deal with as the mama of a boy too. Why can't I buy Ollie a pink shirt with a fire truck and a dog on it (his holy trifecta)? Why is it a problem if I call my baby boy beautiful? He is beautiful. The old ladies don't need to freak out and correct it to handsome when they find out his name is Oliver. I want to raise my son to be who he is, whoever that is. I'm not worried about wearing pink affecting the sexual orientation of a fifteen month old. And it saddens me that these otherwise hip, cool mamas mostly were.

To sum up, I present a picture of Ollie in his pink polo shirt, chilling out with an afternoon beverage. Looking as yuppie as can be (see now raising a yuppie, that I need to worry about):

So while his parents were rocking out, Julian rocked Kellies Farm Ln…

He also ate mango and got water and sand EVERYWHERE (hence the topless look)

And rode a Zebra:

He's a busy boy, that Julian, with a crazy laugh and the urge to investigate EVERYTHING.

There are no pictures of him and Ollie together, because Julian very sweetly tried to give Ollie a hug and a kiss, and my weird anti-social baby smacked him away and started crying. He spent the rest of the day eying him warily. Who knows why Ollie's so weird about personal space right now. Hopefully it's just a phase.