If The Shoe Fits

At first glance, Dane looks exactly like his father.  His deep brown eyes, tan skin, short stocky legs, and long torso are Jonathan reincarnate.  Although if you look at my baby pictures, there is certainly some similarity.

It was difficult to find a photo where we were about the same age, but if you've ever actually met Dane, there is certainly a resemblance.  This was my first Christmas.  I was 9 months old.

Sorry, Dane.  It looks like you might have inherited my nose!

Even though there is no denying who my baby daddy is, there's plenty about him to remind me he has half of my genetic material.  He has a temper.  He likes things exactly his way.  He's easily annoyed.  He loves a routine.  He hates to be hot like Cleveland hates LeBron.  He's me.  I realize that a lot of this is typical 2-year old stuff.  What toddler doesn't throw a fit when lunch is late, right?  But my parents, who raised three kids, agree.  Something is just different about the way Dane does things.  And every time they watch him play (lining up trucks, sorting things by color and size, insisting the trash be put in the trash can immediately), they are in amazed at just how much he is exactly like I was.  

My parents always laugh when they tell me I knew how to tie my shoes before I was potty trained.  (Granted, I wasn't potty trained until 2 1/2.)  Apparently, no one did it "right."  So, my parents gave up and told me to do it myself.  And I did.  Well, this weekend, I told Dane to put his shoes on so we could go outside.  I figured he could start the process and I would finish it up.  He plopped down on the floor with his shoes, stated "Dane do it" and put them on.  The right feet.  The right way.  No adjusting needed.  Ok, little dude.  Do your thing.

The Frosty Toss

Every family has those stories that will always be told, the ones that become funnier the more you tell them.  Even people that weren't present know them by heart-- when you join a family by marriage, learning them is a rite of passage.  And it's certainly hilarious watching your sister-in-law hear a little bit about her husband as a child.  There's the time I managed to kick myself in the back of the head when my dad was "teaching" me how to dive.  There's also the time my youngest brother lit a fire because he got scared.  In a tree stand.  That he was IN!

But this story is about my middle brother, Sean.  Middle children are funny creatures.  I've never heard one deny this.  Sean is no exception.

Every week after Wednesday evening church service, my dad would take my brothers and I out for ice cream and we'd eat it on the way home.  Usually it was Chick-fil-A.  This Wednesday it was a delicious Wendy's Frosty.  Sean was sitting in the front passenger seat while my dad drove us home, trying to drink his out of a straw.  "Dad, my hands are cold from holding the Frosty."  Dad hands him a napkin to wrap around the cup.  "Dad, I can't get any Frosty.  It won't come up the straw."  Dad hands him a spoon.  "Dad, my spoon broke!"  My dad, without really saying anything, rolls down his window, and chucks the frosty.  Tears ensue (of course).  Sean is so upset that I'm pretty sure Dad went and got him another frosty.

Now, to be fair, Sean was still a little kid, probably elementary school age.  And stories do get embellished along the way, just like any oral history.  But now, in my family, when someone is annoying you in a car, you may threaten to do a "droid toss," "ipod toss," "chapstick toss," or in the case of say, yesterday, a "Mickey toss."  To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever actually done it again.  That doesn't make it any less tempting.

I was driving Dane around town to run some errands.  He's got this not-so-new, perfected ability to take his shoes off and hurl them on the floorboard, along with his water cup and whatever toy is essential to his and my sanity at the moment.  He did it every single time we got in the car yesterday.  I'd hear a shoe.  Clunk.  Then the other shoe.  Clunk.  Then hard plastic Mickey Mouse hits the window and I grit my teeth and tell myself over and over "he's two, Melissa, he's two."

And here's Dane, sobbing:  "Mickey, mickey, mickey."
Me:  "Mama can't get Mickey right now, she's driving."
Dane:  "Shoes, shoes, waaaahhhhhhhhh!"

At this point, I want to pull the car over and throw Mickey and his shoes out forever.  But I'm keenly aware of two things:  kids' shoes are not cheap and unlike a frosty, I can't just run through the drive-thru window to replace Mickey.  So all I can do is laugh as I remember the original Frosty Toss, thinking my dad had lost his mind, and for the first time understanding that yes, he had lost his mind, and it was all our fault.

So happy birthday, Dane!  I'll try my best not to chuck your Frosty.

Dane is (almost) two!

Two years ago today, at 11:05pm, my water broke.  Nothing about becoming a family had come easily for Jonathan and me, so why should Dane's birth go as planned?  Just like us to create a little drama in a drama-free scheduled c-section.  :)

It was a Thursday.  My c-section was supposed to be Monday morning at 7am.  I honestly think he just ran out of room.  I gained 27 pounds during my pregnancy, and he was a whopping 8 lbs, 13 oz, and 22.5 inches of that.  He was 99th percentile for weight and off the charts for length.  Which is funny considering he's a scrawny guy now.

I had a (nearly) uncomplicated pregnancy.  A little placenta previa, along with an easily treatable thyroid issue were my only "problems".  I felt fantastic for pretty much every second of the 38 weeks and 6 days I was fortunate enough to carry Dane.

And I was 100% certain that I was going to make it to my c-section.  I'd had some uncomfortable (but unproductive) contractions starting earlier that week, but no pressure, no dilation, and nothing consistent.  In fact, I hadn't even packed my bag.  I had all weekend to do that, right?  (If you know me, it is absolute insanity that I did not have my bag ready to go from the day I found out I was pregnant.)    Earlier in the afternoon, I even thought my water broke, took a trip to the local hospital to find out that it had not, and got home in time for dinner after spending a couple hours being monitored.  Jonathan had been on edge all week long, practically begging me to pack my bag.  The pseudo-water-break was enough to convince me that I should indeed pack a bag, even if it was just to get him off my back.  So we ate dinner in front of the TV for pretty much the last time ever and I packed my bag and showered.  I only had one more day of work before welcoming our new baby into the world!  Little did I know, I had already worked my last day for many weeks.

I had been in bed for five minutes.  I was in that not-quite-asleep-but-definitely-not-completely-conscious state when I felt a pop.  I gasped.  Jonathan didn't even ask.  He just called his parents and told them to get in the car, hopeful that they would be at the hospital by the time Dane was born.  (They had an 8 hour trek.)  It took us 45 minutes to pack the car and contractions were becoming a little more irritating during the frenzy.  We hopped in the car.  Just as we got on the highway, I thought, "well, this isn't very fun."  It was no longer very funny that we weren't at the hospital yet, which was still two hours away.  And when you're measuring time in 2-minute increments, 2 hours is a hell of a long time.

We stopped at a gas station about midway because apparently, even being in labor, pregnant women still have to pee every five minutes.  I prayed that my child wouldn't be born in a Quik Trip bathroom stall (even though they are really nice gas stations) as I tried not to attract too much attention from the attendants.  This is not easy when you're nine months pregnant, have a HUGE wet spot on the front of your pants and shirt, and your husband is asking for plastic bags in hopes that the car's interior will not be ruined.

Pregnant folks:  people who tell you that contractions feel like really strong period cramps are straight full of shit.  There is nothing to compare this pain to.  Not.one.thing.  I do know this: nothing less than every muscle in your entire body is involved.  I don't know how women scream.  I couldn't speak, hardly even breathe.  And there was so much paperwork!  Hadn't I pre-registered??  After five hours and 41 minutes of this, I hadn't even dilated one bit and no one in L&D could feel Dane's head.  Several nurses remarked "good thing you're planning a c-section, because you'd be having one anyway."  I received my epidural a few blessed minutes before Dane was born.

My dad calls a c-section "the airlift."  Dane was "airlifted" out at 4:46am on Friday morning, July 16.

I cannot believe he'll be two tomorrow.  We've been calling him a two-year old for a couple of months now, but I can't help but wonder where the last year went.  In some ways, when he turned one, it felt like one.  We had earned that first year, all of us, and I was not sorry to say goodbye to his infancy.  But two?  Really?  I've actually enjoyed the last year and it's gone.  I ask him to snuggle now and he shakes his head "no," laughs and says "Mama silly."  It's going to seem like no time at all before I ask him to snuggle and he laughs and says "Mom, I'm late for basketball practice."

How is it that someone can make you feel so old and so young all at the same time?

Just Rip It Off

Jonathan and I are firm believers in "rip the band-aid off" parenting.  I first heard this phrase from my friend Tera.  She was referring to having kids close in age rather than spacing them out (you know, to just "get it over with" as far as the difficult baby stage), but it also describes our parenting style quite well. 

The last day I made bottles for Dane, he was 364 days old.  His first birthday present to me was not having to make bottles anymore.  No, he was not a fan of this.  The first day he cried for about two hours in the afternoon.  We didn't even realize that's what he was crying about at first since he had taken the first sippy cup of milk without even a strange look.  The next day, he fussed for about 45 minutes and it was very obvious that the reason he wasn't happy had everything to do with the offending sippy cup.  But I didn't give in.  On day three, it was as if he'd never remembered how awesome bottles were.  Sippy cups were now officially "in" in Dane's book.

We did the same thing with the pacifier.  I had heard some pretty awesome ideas about cutting the pacifier so that the suction would be lost and the child would no longer be interested in it.  I was worried that he'd choke on a piece of it since half the time it was used as a chew toy.  I had also heard variations of "giving the pacifiers away" (to baby angels, baby ducks, the paci fairy, etc) but I wanted the thing gone shortly after his first birthday and he didn't have the reasoning skills to understand something like that at a year old.  We did not make our goal of losing the pacifier before he was 13 months old, but one Saturday, when Dane was 15 months old, we decided it was time.  We had stalled for long enough.  We had a rare gap in teething, he wasn't sick or having any asthma episodes, and we didn't have anything pressing that particular weekend.  So we raided the house and packed them all up.  That night, he fell asleep without even noticing that anything was missing.  It was almost too good to be true.  And it was. Two hours later, he woke up in a rage because there weren't the typical 4 to 6 pacifiers in his crib.  He eventually fell asleep again, but not before I almost threw in the towel.  Thankfully, Jonathan convinced me it really was time and the three of us made it through the next two weeks of poor sleep with nothing more than dark circles under our eyes. 

Car trips without the pacifier were a little different.  It took him three full months to learn not to freak out in the car without his pacifier.  A few weeks into pacifier-free living, we were on the way to the zoo with family.  Dane screamed like he was being subjected to some rare form of torture; I laughed because crying wasn't working; and Jonathan chanted this mantra:  "I will not feed my baby to a lion.  I will not feed my baby to a bear.  I will not feed my baby to an alligator."  This only served to make Dane more angry and my laugh more sinister.  In typical Dane style, he fell asleep just as we found a parking spot.

Last month, over Memorial Day Weekend, Jonathan and I decided it was time to lose the diapers.  Dane has had one diaper rash after another since he was four days old and we decided that even if it meant chasing after Dane and cleaning up a constant stream of pee until he was 5, we were ready to make this work.  And for three days, we holed up in our 1200 square foot home and cleaned up puddle after puddle after puddle.  And it really wasn't that awful.  Amazingly enough, we had fun together.  By no means is he 100% potty trained.  He has the occasional day without an accident, but that usually means we're in for quite the mess the following morning.  We're no experts at potty training, but I know this:  Dane hasn't had the first problem with diaper rash and we sure are spending less at Target these days... well, on diapers at least :)

35 before 35

So yeah.  I kinda missed the boat on the 30 before 30 craze.  I caught wind of it right before I turned 30.  And I had an infant at home.  Getting through year one was the only thing I had on my mind.

Now that things have calmed down (just a little!), I'm making my 35 before 35.  I've got a little less than 4 years to achieve this stuff.  So in the spirit of bucket lists, here goes....

1.  Buy (and look good in) a pair of skinny jeans
2.  Own these gorgeous boots
3.  Run a 5k
4.  Donate my hair
5.  Be a surrogate for an infertile couple
6.  Take Dane to Disney World
7.  Camp with my family
8.  Put hardwood floors in master bedroom
9.  Start nursing school
10. Visit Jamaica (second honeymoon)
11.  Learn how to make my sister-in-law's eggplant pasta dish (Pasta alla Norma)
12.  Decide what to do with our 13 embryos on storage
13.  Get back into yoga
14.  Turn my random collection of recipes into a photobook
15.  Create a will
16.  Go to a food truck festival
17.  Make homemade butter
18.  See a Cirque du Soleil show
19.  Try Dim Sum
20.  Take Dane to a rodeo
21.  Order room service
22.  Learn to parallel park
23.  Learn to drive a manual transmission
24.  "Pay it forward"  (pay for someone's food behind me in a drive thru)
25.  Take a self-defense class
26.  Take Dane to Cleveland to meet Jonathan's extended family
27.  Eat at Salt on Amelia Island Plantation
28.  Renew my passport
29.  Do a giveaway on the blog
30.  Get rid of my migraines
31.  Have boudoir photos taken
32.  Learn to make my mom's peanut butter rice crispy treats
33.  Find a church and attend weekly
34.  Have my grandmother's ring reset
35.  Make all the Christmas presents I give one year

Perspective

I was washing a load of laundry this evening while Dane and Jonathan played on the bed.  Dane was playing with Jonathan's wedding ring, taking it on and off of Jonathan's hand, and I overheard Jonathan say "the ring goes on this finger because I love Mama very much."  Melt.my.heart.  What a fantastic lesson for our son to learn.  And I'm not talking about marriage.  Two people that love one another and are committed to one another sharing the joys and sorrows of raising a child together -- that's what I am talking about.  I am so very blessed to have someone to share this parenthood journey with.  Heck, it's tough with two parents; I don't envy those who have to go it alone.

It got me thinking about all those who I don't think are doing a very good job of parenting.  Do I judge you when you breast feed your 4 year old?  Yes.  Do I think you're being irresponsible for turning your 1 year old around in his car seat?  Yes.  Do I think you're being a lazy parent when your four year old is sucking on a pacifier and still in diapers.  Absolutely.

But really, none of it matters.  I know that I make decisions that others don't agree with.  Despite our best efforts, Dane began watching TV before 2 years old.  It was the only thing we found that could get him to sit still for his breathing treatments at 8 months old.  At that point, breathing treatments were more important than his not watching TV.  Am I proud of it?  Nope.  Dane also had to be formula fed.  I hated that and still feel a lot of guilt (22 months after the fact) that I was unable to fulfill this need for him.  I'm sure I got some glares from well-meaning breast feeders everywhere.  What they didn't know is that I have a physical reason that I could not produce enough milk for my son, due to reconstructive surgery I had at 16 years old.

I'm sure the mother of the four year old still in diapers has a good reason as well.  I'm still going to think she's nuts for changing the diaper of a kid who can probably read and write.  I'm still going to give my husband the "wtf?!" eye when I see a parent giving their kid Mountain Dew or sweet tea in a sippy cup.  I will always believe that there is a right and a wrong way to do things and that there isn't a whole lot of gray area, especially when it comes to parenting.  But if you've got two loving parents who treat their child(ren) with kindness and respect, you're 95% of the way there anyway.

Family Photos (finally!)

Sorry it's been a while!  We just got back from a much needed short vacation.  (I'll be posting about that later.)

Yesterday we had our long-awaited photo shoot with Jessica of {two chics} photography.  If you aren't familiar with their work, you really should check them out.  Jessica brought along her sweet husband to make crazy noises and faces for Dane so that she could capture his precious smile.  Dane took a bit to warm up, but once we broke out the animal cookies, he was all in!

I was pretty nervous about the shoot.  To say I am not photogenic would be an understatement.  I tend to look like I smelled a fart in every photo, especially when it's hot.  And it was, even at 8am.  Fortunately, Jonathan is one of the most photogenic people I know.  I knew Jessica would make us look fantastic, and I was certain that Dane would be adorable no matter what.  I did make a minor boo-boo a week ago with Dane's haircut.  I decided to to use the taper guard on the clippers instead of just blending with different size guards like I normally do.  Oops.  It looked like an animal had gnawed off a couple chunks of hair above his ears for a few days.  I don't think it's noticeable in any of the photos I've seen so far.

Speaking of.... here are our "sneak peeks" from the shoot!  I love them.  I think they capture the way we feel about one another and how love finally did come to us in so many ways.  (Also, notice the new header photo is also from {two chics}!