1 Mother 2 Another

A couple days ago I was cooking in the
kitchen with Cora playing around my feet. I stepped away for a few
moments to get something out of the pantry and came back around the
corner to a sight most every Mommy dreads at this age –


A baby, on her hands and knees, rocking back and forth.

When Maddie woke up the day after
Christmas, her first words were, “I want to go see if my
trampoline is still here!” The day after that, she said,
“Let’s go look at my trampoline!” Madeleine jumps
on that thing fifty times a day, and I rejoice every time she does
so.

Ok, Christmas morning with a toddler old
enough to understand what’s happening but still young enough
to be wide-eyed and untouched by commercial greed is one of the
coolest things I’ve ever done.


Maddie was dancing in her pjs as she went to bed the night before,
awed by all the happenings: Church at night! How cool is that??
Then there was the careful deliberation for Santa’s treats:
What sort of cookies would Santa want? (She went with the chocolate
crinkles.) And don’t forget carrots for the reindeer, and a
piece of cheese for Santa Mouse. Madeleine took a long time
choosing where the plate went, the right glass for the milk,
everything. We decorated Jesus’ birthday cake for dinner the
next night. We got out our stockings and hung them up. We turned
out the lights and quietly sang “Silent Night” by the
tree, just like we had done hours earlier at church by candlelight.
Then Maddie sped off in her new pjs, our caution ringing in her
ears: “Remember, Santa knows if you’re only pretending
to sleep!”

As we stare into tomorrow’s open
space on the calendar, I find myself wishing I was Maddie, full of
anticipation and glee. She’s been looking at the stack of
presents piling higher and higher and wishing desperately, I can
tell, that she knew how to read so she could check out those gift
tags.


I, on the other hand, find myself worn to the bone with getting
Christmas ready and dealing with our home life –house buying
and selling, packing, and so on. Add to that my littlest one, who
is again getting up every hour or two at night which leaves me
sobbing helplessly at 4 a.m., and I wish I had my own Santa to
grant me a few of the things on my list. And you know what? It
turns out I’m not the only mom to feel that way.


My girlfriend Sandra passed this mom’s letter to Santa on to
me – I can’t find the author anywhere so my apologies
for not crediting you, Mom! But whoever you are, you captured
pretty perfectly some of the things I wish for. So here it is for
everyone else – enjoy! I’ll call you from my crisper
later on.

In keeping with my effort to be deliberate
about our traditions and what they teach our kids, I’ve
started a new one this year based on the typical Advent calendar
– you know, those paper things with windows to open and
pictures to see which help you count down to Christmas.


Last year I knew I wanted to find a permanent Advent calendar we
could re-use every year, becoming part of our family traditions. I
wanted a religious one, rather than a “hang a new present on
the Christmas tree” type of calendar or toy. I finally found
one that fit the bill at Constructive Playthings; with my
cheapskate patience, I waited until after Christmas and bought it
on sale for this year.

Mommyhood seems to move through two speeds
simultaneously – too fast, and interminably slow. On the one
hand, your kids seem to grow up so quickly – they’re
the same for months on end, until suddenly you really look at them
and you realize they’re a completely different person. Just
as you get used to the fact that you’ve got a baby, your baby
is a toddler and you wonder where your baby went. Blink, and time
has flown.


On the other hand, daily motherhood creeps by at a snail’s
pace, and I have to confess that this is wearing me down right now.
Yesterday was not a particularly bad day; no major meltdowns from
Maddie, no extra finicky-ness from Cora. No one needed a trip to
the doctor or popped a tooth or threw up or any of those happenings
that make you consider (briefly) committing a crime and turning
yourself in so you would have a nice quiet cell to yourself. But
still, by the time we got out the door and to the park I was nearly
in tears and looking speculatively around for someone to mug. Just
a little.

Cora’s an official seven-month-old,
and I’m entering this month with much trepidation – I
remember vividly when Maddie reached this age.


By seven months Madeleine was pretty much sleeping through the
night, but right at that age she began waking once or twice a night
and needing me to help her back to sleep. This signaled a huge
surge in developmental growth which lasted for three months, much
to my exhausted dismay. I remember those three months in a blur of
new skills, weird tricks, and little habits that almost drove me to
drink.

When Maddie was six months old and
experienced her first Christmas, Brian and I enjoyed the excuse to
shower our pride and joy with gifts but knew it didn’t really
mean much to her. Last year, we knew Maddie would walk wide-eyed
and awestruck through the Christmas season, and I reveled in every
second of watching her see everything for the first time ever: a
tree in our house! Lights on the bushes! A sock hanging in front of
the television! The experience reminded me of my own wide-eyed
early Christmases, and I truly learned what it’s like to see
with a child’s fresh eyes. This year, though not new and
fresh, is almost more exciting than any of the previous, though,
because for the first time we’re seeing Maddie remember
traditions and anticipate experiencing them again.

I haven’t been as diligent on
reading up on developmental milestones with Cora as I was with
Maddie. I’m pretty confident I can recognize if Cora’s
“normal” or not, and know how to stimulate a kid, if I
do say so myself. But I do periodically pick up a baby book and
read up on where Cora “should” be developmentally,
usually much to my husband’s dismay.


Because as practical and level-headed as I am, that all goes out
the window with a child. I think Cora’s doing great and am
perfectly happy with her status when the doctor casually mentions
she’d like to see Cora pushing up a bit better, which is the
point at which I freak out and fall apart. These things crop up
periodically and I try to simply get through them quickly with the
least amount of embarrassment (my own).

Cora has always had a mighty fine set of
lungs on her, but she’s now concentrating on putting those
lungs to a good (or at least better) use than the screaming
she’s been known for up until now.


Around five and a half months I noticed Cora moved from that
newborn infant gurgle talk to true babbling; she’d lie on the
floor and string vowels and consonants together in an obvious and
frustrated effort to communicate. I’d hear her experiment
with different letter pairings, constantly searching for the
“right” one that would get her message across. I could
see she was interested and trying to imitate everyone around her,
which I heartily encouraged.


And then she discovered singing.

Yesterday was our annual pilgrimage to see
the “real” Santa at Macy’s Herald Square. Brian
and I have been trekking for a photo with the big guy for almost
two decades now, having started when we were in high school
together, and have an ever-growing string of photos to look at and
see ourselves grow old before our very eyes. As fun as that is,
though, Maddie’s become just as enamored of the tradition as
we are and was really looking forward to a chat with the Man In
Red.


After informing kiddo that we’d be going to see Santa after
her nap, we spent the rest of lunch listening to Maddie practice
what she’d say to Santa, discoursing on desired toys while
simultaneously reflecting (in a very self-aware way, I thought) on
the very real possibility that she’d be too shy to speak to
him.

With almost seven hours of sleep under my
belt, I felt invincible yesterday. I wasn’t even phased by
the fact that Maddie went down for a nap and Cora refused to at
all; I simply took it in stride and got busy.


Throwing a cranky Cora in the sling, I let her snooze as I made
phone calls to realtors and got bills paid. Thirty minutes later, a
contented Cora woke up and we headed to the living room. As Cora
rolled happily on the floor I started cleaning up our wreck of a
house. We moved to the kitchen (me standing, Cora in bouncy seat)
where I prepped dinner and began work on our Christmas fudge;
it’s become Maddie and I’s habit to do some holiday
baking after her nap, and fudge was on the agenda for the day so I
did all the “boring” work so Maddie could step on up
for the fun stuff when she awoke. Since Madeleine was still not up
from her nap and Cora continued to beam, I boldly moved back to the
living room and began doing a bit of holiday decorating, stringing
up lights and opening boxes with Cora underfoot trying her best to
crawl.

Yes, we looked directly into the face of
the Beast and are still standing.


Barely.


With Cora at a healthy six-and-a-half months and still getting up
every couple of hours or more to nurse at night (several times on
vacation I nursed her four times in five hours), she has clearly
been needing to nurse to get herself back to sleep. Which means
it’s been time to teach her how to get herself to sleep
without nursing. Because frankly, the things I’m thinking as
I get up all night are not the kindest, and Cora really needs to
start sleeping through the night so we can have a better
relationship.


So we planned for the weekend, when Brian wouldn’t need to be
up early to work. And we set up a slumber party at Gamma’s
house for Maddie both nights so she wouldn’t hear Cora
crying. The house was empty, the stage was set, and right on cue
–


The baby was crying.

Nearly every day I find myself jotting
down something Maddie’s said, not wanting to forget that she
used to call grasshoppers “grasspoppers” or that she
sings “Crinkle Little Star”. I don’t always post
them because as fascinating as my child’s every utterance is
to me, I know it grows old for other people.


But (and you knew there was a “but”) recently
Maddie’s said a few hum-dingers, so here you go.

Preparing for an outing with a toddler is
a bit like organizing a shuttle launch; you hit a certain point
where it’s “Go/No Go” and once you run down that
checklist and make the decision to move forward, there’s no
going back. At a certain point, your child understands exactly
where she’s going and has built up a “taste for
it” in her mind, and if you’re going to change those
plans it’d better be for something even more fun. You are
committed, and God help you if you don’t follow through.

I have to admit that I have not been as
good with guarding Cora’s routine as I was with
Maddie’s when she was this age; when you’ve got more
than one kid, you simply don’t have the luxury of planning
your entire day around their circadian rhythms. But I do try to
give Cora her thrice-daily naps in some form, especially since we
all suffer if she doesn’t get them. Thankfully, I’ve
got a few options.

We’ve finally escaped from Texas
after several vacation extensions, and we almost didn’t make
it out this time. Bad weather here in New York caused several
flights around ours to be canceled, and our own flight was delayed
a couple of hours. Both girls held up well; though our flight
finally took off several hours after Maddie’s regular nap
time, she didn’t melt down beforehand and dozed off pretty
quickly on the plane. The sight of my sweet girl exhausted in her
car seat, Silky clutched in one hand with the other arm wrapped
around Elmo’s neck, is one I won’t soon forget. The
night was clear and cloudless, so the sparkle of city lights
thousands of miles below us out her window gave her a faint
illumination. Truthfully, I sat and stared at her for a long
time.

If there’s one thing this extended
“vacation” has given us, it’s a chance for Maddie
to spend more time with her family. Madeleine’s always been a
social person – she loves to play with others on the
playground and will spot a new persons and say, “I wonder if
she’d want to play with me”- but she’s not had so
much time around so many kids who, frankly, find Madeleine almost
as fascinating as she finds herself.


Maddie’s the youngest of the twelve cousins (except for Cora,
of course), with the next nearest being a year older and the oldest
right around 19. And since she’s not around most of the year,
she’s fresh entertainment to the other kids, so they all love
hanging around with her. But as much as they enjoy her company,
Maddie is in ecstasy in theirs.