My Third Turned Four

A few weeks ago Arlo discovered that Oma is my mom.  He was distraught. That meant that I didn't live with my mom, which meant one day he wouldn't live with his.

He sometimes suggests that he will stop eating so he will stop growing. He is happy to stay my little boy forever.

Yesterday, on the day we celebrated his birthday, which happened to be one day late, when I retrieved him from nursery, his beautiful face lit up with joy. I was back. He hugged my leg "Oh mom. I just love you so much."

We have a game. The sort of game that I, his mom, am probably the only one to appreciate. Sometimes when I'm overcome with my love for my third child, and find myself gritting my teeth for reasons I don't understand, I tell him in an overly dramatic 1940's radio voice, "Oh no. It's happening. I love you too much." He hugs me and responds, "Only love me one."

It doesn't feel like I had him yesterday. It feels like four years ago. Unfortunately, years just aren't that long.

Four years ago I was almost the very same, but Arlo, he was something all together different.

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Arlo Is Three

It started with a few thoughtfully purchased gifts, one of which being a set of wooden toy dinosaurs that quickly fell victim to somewhat destructive play and are now covered in an impenetrable layer of blue play dough. It moved on to pancakes and sausages, and then a few hours of playing with the first set of Magnatiles to hit this home before an afternoon matinee to going see The Good Dinosaur was vetoed in favor of a trip down to the beach. What the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets. 

Later, I dropped the kids off at my mom's for a few hours to go home to decorate and bake a very disappointing cake that was nearly saved by the addition of sprinkles and a ballon toting T-rex. Complicated plans were abandoned in favor of a weeknight celebration with family, a few neighbors, and a late night arrival of Arlo's sartorial rival straight from the hip streets of BK. 

Balloons and meatballs. So many dinosaurs. One very newly, three-year-old boy who hates pants, loves bubble-less bubble baths, and is known to be incredibly wary of strangers. 

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Twos Revisited

His knees are always scraped up and dirty. His hair always needs brushed. He usually needs pants. He seldom wears shoes.

He speaks well, and he runs slow. He would follow his older brother just about anywhere.

Remember when I said the twos got a bad rap? I change my mind. I forgot how the twos are when they break my heart. The twos are when they realize that Oma trumps mama. Oma has better snacks. Oma doesn't turn off the television. Oma is patient, and she'll sleep with them the whole night through. She never yells and rarely says no. And so they beg to stay with her all the time. They never want to leave.

I've lost another one. And he sure was a cute one to lose.

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This Weekend We // Arlo and Felix

I spent Friday feeling teary over my last day teaching. Even though I am so excited to stay at home with my kids, leaving the place I've worked for the past eight years felt totally surreal and a little anticlimactic. I kept whelming up with tears.

On Saturday, I woke up out of sorts. I didn't know what to get myself into. I felt bored and restless, ready to have a baby, and equally ready to say goodbye to winter.  A serious funk was trying to settle in, but then...THEN.. I got an email from my friend Carrie, who appeared to be equally bored and restless, asking if it was okay if she drove down to hang out.

Carrie lives two hours away, so this kind of spontaneity is pretty impressive. Meanwhile, Tom took Sena and Gus to the indoor pool, Arlo fell asleep and I found myself with a quiet hour as my friend headed down. The sun was shining through the windows, and my house felt clean and calm. It was a beautiful, peaceful moment, wonderfully interrupted by their arrival. Arlo woke up to play with his friend; I got to hang out with mine.

As the evening progressed, more people streamed in. We made a big dinner. Arlo and Felix entertained us with their constant adorableness; something about watching two kids the exact same age interact is better than also any television show that has ever been made. Every single thing they do feels like the most adorable thing I have ever seen, and I just want to take pictures of it all.

It was the perfect distraction.

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Not Terrible

Oh sure, they can be dramatic and include an overabundance of temper tantrums.  They are trying, and they will keep you on your toes, but the two's have a beauty to them. I listen as my little monster learns to string words together, witness him saying "please" and "thank you" without prompting. Watch as he develops his own ideas, as he appears to demonstrate a sense of humor. There are days he wants me all day long, and other times he politely tells me good bye and let's me know he's staying at his Oma's house, even when he hasn't been invited. He follows after his brother whenever he can, chanting "play, Gus, play," and he insists on wearing a hat anytime he goes outside. If you ask him what animal he is, he will answer cow or cat depending on his mood.

He climbs on to my lap to steal Brussels sprouts or half of the Ruben I get when we go out for sandwiches after church. I can't eat an apple around him without him claiming it for his own, but mostly he just wants to eat bowls and bowls of yogurt. He turns on the record player and fills the room with the sound of static. He doesn't sleep through the night.

And yes, he will crash to the ground in anger and frustration, bury his head under his hands, forget how to use the words that usually come so easily to him, crying real tears. But I am not willing to call any of it terrible because even those tantrums are sort of wonderful. 

I worry what this will all look like in a few short weeks, how he will adjust to a new little sister. But quite frankly, Arlo was never meant to be a youngest child. We all knew it from that start.

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Memory Keeping: The Coldest Days

The cold was bracing, a cruel winter's joke, but how to refuse those dark, serious eyes.

He counted "one, two" over and over, carefully walking up and down the brick steps.

He hid behind bushes, crunched through dried leaves.

He examined his hands, one covered in a mitten, the other housed in an old sock.

I begged to go inside. His simple "no" rang with joy.

He looked in amazement as his shoes imprinted the scant snow with patterns from his rubber soles.

"Come here, mommy," he instructed as though these corners of our yard had never been explored.

* My plan is to start a new "series"--simple snippets of moments I want to remember without pretending that there is no bigger or broader implication. 

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The Grumpiest Boy

He's not the easiest baby in the world.

For a while I might have thought that he was, but I think that I had forgotten that, generally, infants are pretty easy.

He is melodramatic. He throws his adorable hands in front of his adorable face and bows his head and manages to strike a pose of absolute despair. When he walks with his head bowed over, it is equal parts pathetic and hilarious.

He wants to be carried most of the time.  He is very big, and I am increasingly bigger myself, and I just don't want to. But he has no regard for my feelings. He just wants his mama. He also wants her at around four o'clock every morning. I had promised myself that I would work on sleep training him over Christmas Break, but then he was sick, and I didn't have the heart. But tonight might be the night. In a few short months he will have a little sister, and there are a few things that need to happen before her arrival, most importantly, for Arlo to stay in his bed.

Even in his grumpiest, most distraught moment, he can usually be ployed with the promise of a bath. And he will play in the water until it gets cold, identifying the octopus and the penguin, the snake and the dinosaurs. The way he says each word makes me remember why I carry him when I know I should make him walk. Why I let him crawl into bed when I know I should make him sleep in his own.

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Arlo Almost Two

Tomorrow Arlo will be two years old.

Like me, Arlo is the third child. From the start, that small, insignificant detail made him feel just a little more mine, as though our birth order gave us just a little extra in common.

He came when I was older and a little more prepared. I had learned that it would happen quickly, this thing called childhood, so I had better savor it.

He's my buddy, at my side while the big guys are off on their own adventures. I'm certain I spent just as much tickling Sena and Gus when they were Arlo's age. Just as much time shucking their chins, hiding under blankets, smelling their little toes and declaring "pee yew." But right now it is Arlo's time to engage in these small joys, and I think that this time around, I might get even more pleasure from them.

He has been a mama's boy from the start, and for better or worse, I've encouraged it. He is who needs me most, who wants me most. He is my shadow. He beams when I walk in from work, cries when I leave. He seeks me in the middle of the night, wanting to lay in the crook of my arm.

In a few short months, my time will be divided. I'll struggle with how to put him to sleep while an infant demands me. I know how big he will seem the moment I return with a little bug in my arms. It won't be much longer after that when he starts to seek independence over cuddles. When he no longer needs me the most, no longer wants me the most.

But for now, we can be each other's best friend and play while the big kids run off without us.

I spent a few too many hours over the past few days looking back.  The joy and torment of nostalgia.

The most painfully nostalgic thing I may have ever written. 

Arlo at one month

A smiling lump. 

Arlo at two months. 

Arlo's first summer.

Arlo's Birthday Brunch.

Arlo's Firsts. 

Arlo and Felix.

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Character Development

In movies and books, character always trumps plot. I am far more concerned with who is doing something than I am with what is being done.

I grew up in a family of six children: one boy, five girls. From the outside, I am sure that we were frequently understood as a unit rather than a set of six individuals. But within our band, we knew who we were. We knew who was the firey one. The sweet one. We knew who was the quietest and who was the loudest. The bossy one. The most independent. Trying to explain each personality was a part of early friendships, the sort of thing you spend hours discussing with a boy you have a crush on while staring out at the dark water.

I felt like you couldn't know me without knowing them. And knowing about them collectively is not enough. You needed to know them as individuals.

As I write my children's story here, I hope that readers understand them as individuals too. It's easy for Sena to just be the girl. For Gus to be the boy. For Arlo to be the baby. But each of them is so much more. 

Sena is shy and bossy. Worried about breaking rules, but never worried about "fitting in."

On Sunday a girl at church, the same girl who teased Gus because of his long hair, made fun of the turban Sena was wearing. Sena just told her, "We have different styles. You're more a preppy style. I'm more of an artsy, weird style."

Gus is serious and charming. He is the sweetest of my children, the one most likely to offer a hug when he thinks someone needs it. He will tell me I look pretty out of nowhere, and suddenly, I feel pretty because Gus is above all things honest.

For the first year of Arlo's life we sang the praise to his mellowness. He adapted easily to situations, rarely complaining. As he has gotten older, he is more likely to let his displeasure be known, most often by furrowing his brow. He will sit quietly for long stretches playing with plastic dinosaurs or Sena's dolls. However, he would much rather be running after his older siblings around the center of the house, laughing and squealing, "Come on guys!"

Other attempts at explaining them: My Tribe  and Likes/ Dislikes. 

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Brothers

There is nothing so important on a warm Monday in November that it can't wait until Tuesday. It's worth eating scrambled eggs for dinner and forsaking lofty laundry goals. A clean house is no match for watching two boys behave exactly like brothers-- brothers who happen to look almost nothing alike except for their streaky blond hair. 

Arlo seems to be growing up twice as fast as Sena and Gus. The influence of older kids has driven him to do things that took the older two much longer to attempt. He spends more time out of my field of vision, off with the big kids, following their lead. He desperately wants to keep up, and for a tottering not yet two year old, he does pretty well. 

When Gus bangs his hammer, Arlo grabs a branch and imitates. When Gus goes scurrying over fallen trees, Arlo is close behind. 

It has been many generations since my very predominantly female family has had a set of brothers in the mix; it's not a dynamic I grew up with. My only brother was lost in a sea of sisters. Rough housing was not a part of my childhood. Watching these two little boys attack the world together, all bulldozers and dirty knees, is an all together new experience for me, one I am happy to devote my energy to while a half dozen projects remain half done. 

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