snugglebug.

I don't know much about the whole nature-vs.-nurture argument, but I do know that my kid is not cuddly. He was, in the beginning. God, I could just look at that picture all day long, with him in the diaper we hadn't yet realized was way too small, and my look of exhaustion after having tried to soothe him for hours, with that last vestige of baby belly a few weeks old.

At first he really insisted on constant warmth, and would fall asleep on my chest constantly. In fact I spent the first month or so prodding him awake through each feeding, as he would drift off still latched onto my boob. Then something happened and he stopped falling asleep on me. In fact, he wouldn't sleep at all unless he was swaddled and just left alone (kind parently soothing was constantly drowned out with screams translated roughly to Leave! Me! Alone!).

When he had his first cold we tried bringing him into bed with us, but that just made him scream louder. We can't even sleep on the futon in his bedroom because he can pick up his head high enough to see us and that makes him scream at us.

But lately, on rare occasions, it seems that I have regained my position as comforter. I catch him trying to reach out his arms for me to take him when he's upset. I pick him up when he's tired and he melts onto my shoulder, instead of pushing me away. When he is nursing, he pats my chest with his free hand or reaches up and touches my lips with a finesse he doesn't exhibit with anyone else.

And last week, after Marc left for work, and I'd fed J, instead of putting the baby back in the crib, I curled up with him on my bed and we both drifted back to sleep. He doesn't fit in the nook between my chin and my thighs anymore, but if we both fold our legs just right we make a nice little lopsided yin-yang. He tugs on the blankets and pushes me closer and closer to the edge of the bed and I woke up each time with a sore back, but it's totally worth it.

It doesn't work every time. If he's not tired he'll just maul my face with his fingernails while trying to pluck my eyeballs and teeth and babble DADADADADABLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHNANANANANANA until we get up. I'm hoping that we'll keep working on the snuggling, though. Especially now that the weather's getting colder, because he owes me a bunch of heat after I spent last winter warming him via hot flash.

two big ones and a little one.

Now that a lot of our stuff is all packed up, spending the days here in the apartment is kind of boring and sad. Today J and I picked up Marc at lunchtime and drove to the post office to get a second change-of-address form for Marc's business. I took the route that goes along the water. This is one of the great things about living on the Connecticut shoreline. There is water around every corner, between the River and the Sound.

Then we went to a storage place to buy some more boxes. There was a really nice lady working there who first asked into exactly what kind of car we planned to fit all of those boxes, and who then came out to the parking lot to help us actually load the car. It didn't look too good for a little while there, but we managed.

We dropped Marc off and came home. J took a nap and then we got back in the car and went to Stonington. A couple of friends had told me about a store that I wanted to check out, and then J and I took a walk down by the beach. The boxes were still in the car and they were sort of trapping his stroller underneath so I put him in the carrier.

I'm not going to be able to carry him in that thing much longer. Between that fact, the falling leaves, the stark gray day and view at the beach, and the depressing condition of our apartment, I started to feel kind of down. I love autumn; it's my favorite season, but it is also a reminder of the way things fool you with their beauty into not noticing that they're dying.

There were a couple of other parents around with their kids, and they were skipping stones and climbing all over the rocks. J and I just sat on a bench and watched them. I walked around a little so J could see the flags up close, and then we picked up some smooth beach rocks to take to Marc. At first I was looking for beach glass or something tidal-poolish, but I know Marc likes smooth things.

I ended up finding two bigger rocks and a little rock that fit the bill. That's been a theme for me lately -- two big ones and a little one. Like us, two big people and a little person, at least for now.

Being a mother is tough work. It's harder than I ever imagined. But it is also the most rewarding job I've ever had. Watching J grow, seeing how he learns different things and just observing how he IS, how he exists in the world and how the world adjusts to accommodate him, that's the bonus for all of my hard work. It's better than stock options but requires much more emotional investment in the job.

I'm trying to concentrate on seeing each day for what it is, not for what we didn't get accomplished or for what we missed out on. Being sad about J growing up does me no good, and it does him no good. I'm much better off helping make each day count toward the person he will become, teaching him how to be a responsible and loving human being. In the meantime, I get to just let him be the little person that he is, while he still is. Someday we'll be two big ones and a medium-sized one, and then we'll just be three big ones. Or maybe two big ones and an even bigger one. Or a bigger one and two medium-to-big-sized ones, depending on how much Marc and I shrink in our old age.

more, more, more.

Lots more pictures in the archives. Enjoy.

not crawling.

I wish I could say that J was crawling. Actually, wait, no, wow, I take that back. I'm happy for him to remain immobile for a little longer -- long enough for my back to stop aching from my latest strain, long enough so that we don't have to fully babyproof this apartment, as long as he wants, really. I'm not one of THOSE parents, the parents who see that Trixie could crawl by this age and get competitive. No, I'm happy with his daily workouts and his weekly sessions at Gymboree.

In the meantime, we've spent a few weeks down on the floor, J up on his hands and knees, rocking forward and backward, and then plopping down onto his belly and waving his hands and feet like an Olympic breaststroker. Heh, breaststroker's probably not the word they use. Anyway, this amount of movement is spectacular to witness from a tiny person who just recently was known as The Blob. It doesn't hurt that it is occasionally punctuated with this sound: heyYA heyYA heyYA as he rocks to and fro, and then what can only be described as the exact opposite of a manly, guttural, hearty scream; it is a sound so ear piercing and urgent that telephone conversations around here are regularly interrupted with, "Um, do you need to go?" "No, believe it or not, that's a happy noise."

The real reason I'm not worried is because everyone who witnesses this behavior tells us, "Oh, just put a toy he really wants in front of him, and he'll be crawling in no time." Just for humor's sake, again, not because I am in ANY kind of rush for him to be even more underfooot than he already is, we try this every so often. (Also because my parenting philosophy, it turns out, owes a lot to the "just for humor's sake" way of life.) Does he crawl? No. He does everything but. Does he get the toy? Oh, yes. He strains, he farts, he rolls, he squeals, he commences the up and down crawl-attempt routine, he smiles, and then he reach-reach-reaches, a reaching I can only describe as the reach you would perform if you'd just been poisoned and the antidote sat just beyond your fingertips as your assailant stood on your back in heavy boots, and I actually believe that it is through this reaching that he has grown to the height of a sixteen-month-old.

Sometimes the up-and-down routine results in backward movement, much to J's chagrin. This usually results in his backing up into a corner, or under the coffee table. I'm not sure why he so enjoys being under the coffee table, but he'll stay there for 15 minutes or so, happy as a clam. Sometimes he chews on the leg of the table, sometimes he just lies on his back and looks up at the underside, and sometimes he just lounges around.

So, for now, no, he isn't crawling, yet somehow he's still managing to kick my ass.

i know, it's been a while.

No, I haven't given up on this little corner of the internet. In fact, I've got plans for a whole new weblog. I think it's time to admit that the think wasn't so hard to know after all.

In the meantime, however, life keeps flying past. We're moving in a week, and Marc is doing all (most) of the packing while I sit here and think sad thoughts about this apartment that I never really liked all that much anyway. I'm an awful mover. There's something about seeing all of our possessions out of their normal context that makes me sad. Maybe it reminds me that our lives are not permanent. Maybe it just goes against my inner OCD. Either way, expect me to be frantic and depressed for a few weeks, or at least until we get things settled.

The house looks, quite frankly, amazing. Thanks to help from pretty much everyone we've ever met in our entire lives, we managed to pull it together with some time to spare. Thanks go, in particular, to new neighbors and new readers John and Tristan, who met us once and instantly became our friends. They've given up a few long evenings to help us out with the painting and the baby wrangling, helping us get over a few humps where we thought things would never get finished. More importantly, they've helped us feel like we're welcomed into our new neighborhood. We lived in this apartment for two years and never met anyone but our one creepy neighbor, and John and Tristan arrived on our doorstep the evening after our closing with a bottle of champagne and plastic cups, and we sat on the porch and discussed our Big Plans. For that, we can not thank them enough.

Of course, the kid also grows ever larger, and although he has slowed down his growth a bit, he still elicits comments like, "What a big fellow you are!" and "I bet you give your Mommy quite a backache!" He finally falls within the 5-95%ile curve for weight, but just barely. Height-wise, he hovers somewhere around "Stringbean."

I know there's hardly anyone reading anymore, but if there's something you'd particularly like incorporated into the new weblog, let me know. I'm planning for something like this, journalish, but with lots of product design reviews and family-culture commentary. I think that's where my mind is most of the time, these days, and I have plenty to say about it.

J's awake, so I'm going to sign off. Plus I'm getting less and less sympathetic looks from my husband, who is doing all (most) of the packing.