Screaming in the Night

Three nights ago, I woke up to Noah fussing. I waited for him to get it out of his system, flip to his other side, and let the sleepies steal him back to a land where I assume he dreams of bananas monkeys. No theft to dreamland occurred. He kept right on crying. With a sigh I threw my legs out of bed, padded into his room, and let my eyes adjust to the dark. I gave him a pacifier and pulled his head out of the corner of the crib. He was still a mite bit unhappy, but I had to go to the bathroom.

From behind the closed bathroom door I heard it. It was the kind of screaming we usually associate with some combination of zombies and apocalypse. It was the kind of screaming that means needles, and death, and turnips are only moments away, their sharp pincers snapping. And it would.not.stop.

I scooped up my Little Man. Screaming. I stroked his head and bounced. Screaming. I sang, pleaded, prayed, tried the paci, tried his monkey friend, tried changing his diaper. Screaming. At this point Justin came in and asked, "What on Earth is wrong?" The side of me so consciously aware of the fact that it was after midnight spat, "Well, if I knew I wouldn't be holding a shrieking little banshee at 2:00am." The side of me that actually speaks and loves him so completely cried, "I don't know!"

Allow me to share the ridiculousness of my own mind in the seconds that followed:
   He's never screamed like this before, ever. Something is really wrong.
   He's ok. Babies cry.
   Not like this. Hormonal pregnant women being tortured with cruel implements don't cry like this.
   What if I have to take him to the ER?
   What if they find something wrong?
   What if they don't, and think I'm a bad mother?
   What if they take one look at my over-sized Bradley Hathaway t-shirt and Yellowstone      Huckleberry shorts and won't even let us in the hospital?

About this point, Justin had put Little Man in his car seat and was swinging him back and forth. In a few minutes he was calm enough to stop crying. A couple minutes after that he went back to sleep. He survived until morning, and lived a semi-happy day. . . And no one had to see my Huckleberry shorts.

And Justin once again proved that I married up.

FYI: it's teeth. He's cutting teeth on the top and just wants to be sure everyone in the valley knows how miserably unfair it is.

Noah's first Easter

I love Easter week. When I was little it heralded Easter baskets filled with candy, beautiful dresses and curly hair, singing at church, dyeing eggs, and Easter egg hunts. Easter was a day where it seemed like everyone felt a little more special, looked a little nicer, smiled a bit more. I hope Easter means all these things for Noah (well, maybe not the curly hair and dresses). I imagine we will spend hours together coloring eggs with blue fingers, tromping through the grass searching out chocolate-filled delights, and dressing up special in a wee suit and tie. He'll get an Easter bunny and just snuggle it to pieces. He'll get a basket and giggle with delight. But I hope as he grows, he will realize just why we can have such joy on Easter morning, that in the near memory of our laughter, our singing, and our ever-present hope is the bitterness of Good Friday.

As a little girl I knew why we had Easter. I knew the story of the Last Supper, the garden, and the trial. My little heart had cried when I heard how they beat Him, how they cursed Him, how He hung and died for my sins. With childlike faith I knew the story, and I thanked my Jesus. Yet, I feel it is only with age, as we begin to understand the bitterness of mortality, the hurt of life, and the true extent of our own darkness, that the Goodness of Friday becomes real. As Friday becomes all the more painful, Sunday becomes all the more miraculous.

I was happy on Easter as a child. I long for Noah to find that same happiness. Now, on Easter, my joy is inexplicable. I still love Easter egg hunts and dressing up with curly hair. So much more, now, I love that my Savior lives. What hope! What life! What jubiliation to know the story, and to know it is true! It isn't that I want my baby growing up too fast. He's doing that fine on his own. But I do hope that as childish happiness fades, true joy will be revealed in his heart. That he will find Easter his hope, his chance to face his living God and worship with a heart that knows what a costly price was paid, and what a victorious Savior we love.

Come on!

Sometimes it is the simpliest commands that are nearly impossible to follow. In the dark forests of my sin nature, the Mirkwood of all my nastiness, anger, and spite, stands the Dol Guldur of the enemy's stronghold: Impatience. (If you have never seen The Lord of the Rings I really can't imagine what we have to talk about.)

I am neurotically obsessed with the clock. If I went to one of those blessed contries where time is a suggestion and meetings occur when everyone arrives, I would probably turn into the Incredible Abi-Hulk. Off I would rampage into the jungle to uproot trees and clock myself in the head with stone mountains. It appeared most viciously in class. Anything the professor said after the class had ended according to the clock was really just wasted breath. As they rattled on I would begin to fume, my skin would bubble with glowing gamma-ray muscles and my eyes would flame green. It didn't matter if I was desperately interested in the topic or debate, or if it was life-shatteringly important to the rotation of the cosmos. If the clock was violated, darkness ensued.

It seems ridiculous, but this is the battleground of my spirit. Impatience is not loving. Impatience does not seek the best for another. It is self-serving, anger-enducing, and mind-numbing. I have appealed to my Captain on multiple accounts to help me deal with this vice. However, the problem is, when you ask the Lord for patience, He doesn't just zap you with His sparkly patience wand. He gives you situations in which patience can grow... The very same situations in which I go all Hulky. I am almost loathe to ask for patience now. Almost. There is still enough of me that loves my God to wait for my patience.

I am constantly trying to understand what I am really saying when I tap my foot at someone, when I check my watch, when I feels my skin start to bubble in irritation. Truth is reality from God's perspective. The truth is: Impatience declares human beings less important than time.

The "love" chapter in Corinthians 13 starts the very definition of love with patience. And so I wait on Him to make me new.

Don't talk to me

Because I know I haven't blogged in two weeks, but am too tired to think of anything. I made this list in the throes of pregnancy.

The top five things a pregnant woman doesn't want to hear:

1. "I didn't have any morning sickness at all. I just love being pregnant."
     Really, good for you; I spent the first five months thinking I might just throw up my own toes.

2. "You're glowing!"
     Are you telling me this sucker is nuclear?

3. "The day before I went into labor I taught a pilates class, and took kung fu, and ran a marathon, and won an academy award."
     Well, good for you; the day before I went into labor I ate a plate of nachos and took a nap.

4. "I delivered the baby at home in the bathtub."
     Umm... no. I want legalized opiates readily available. And I'd like to take a bath again sometime... ever.

5. "Can I touch your belly?"
     ... There's just too many retorts available for this one. I can't pick my favorite.

Bullseye

So when Abi is up to bat this coming softball season, perhaps a new jersey design is in order; something more like this:

We had our first practice of the season Sunday afternoon. In the ear-freezing breezes my father-in-law pitched softballs to us in turn. The very first pitch he sailed gently, leaf-on-the-wind style in my direction. I crushed it, probably flattening one side of the ball from the blow. Or maybe it was the contact with my father-in-law's shin that dented the ball. A second pitch came flying. This one seemed nye on determined to obliterate the pitcher's second shin. Once is a fluke, twice is bad luck. It couldn't happen three times.

Of course it couldn't. Because my father-in-law still has some strain of gazelle-like agility that barely skittered him out of the way of my third swing, which was headed straight for that knee of his, which needs replacing.

And it doesn't matter how much you swear up and down that you didn't mean it, after three bone shattering hits a man starts to get nervous. The poor man will probably jump every time I open a bag of chips at a barbeque now.

I really didn't mean to. Which you can tell the five inch red and blue welt on his tibia.

Sweets and sit-ups

In order to maintain my Pilates certification I have to take continuing education credits and not eat cookies. (It's in the requirements: "Trainee will pay us a lot of money, work out until her belly throws up its hands in surrender [or just throws up], and not eat cookies... Until the day she dies"). This month the trainings were "Ring Around the World" and "Small Ball Magic". ... I know you're all thinking it, but this is a family blog. Shame on you!

What the trainings should have been called and are referred to as by the goblins of fitness are "Beater" and "Biter".

After six hours of Pilates focusing on hamstrings, core strength, scapular stabilization, and mental overload, the mind encased and nurtured in said beaten and bitten body, starts to waver in its stalwart conviction that life as we know it should go on. It starts to not care that the fingers it is moving just ended that last sentence with a preposition. It starts to wonder if controlling lung expansion and contraction is really as necessary a function as hanging the mouth open and letting drool trickle out. The mind starts to mistrust a body that is so maliciously inclined that it would take a metal ring, stuff it between its own ankles and do 800 variations of Teaser followed up with a Jackknife chaser. Then it says "Ow" and whimpers... and picks up its child because six hours of abdominal curls later, it's still a mommy.

 TeaserJackknife

Justin and Little Man picked me up after the Inquisition. I noticed a plastic container in the cup holder, but didn't think much of it. The husband usually has some form of coffee within arms reach at all times. Just in case the worst should happen. A few minutes into the drive he said, "We stopped at the SweetTooth Fairy. You can help yourself." It was a plastic cup of cake bites.

Oh, I'm going to go to the special Pilates hell.

Splish Splash

Oh yeah, I have a blog to keep up. In all the come-on-really's and you-can't-be-serious's of this McEnroe life I forgot.

Curse that rubber ducky.

Bathtime was simple in the beginning. Fill Noah's adorable little tub with water; make sure the space heater is going; fill Noah's adorable little tub with adorable little Noah. We washed his little self; he giggled because apparently the washrag tickles. (The poor Little Man seems to have acquired his mother's ticklishness. He is doomed to years of daddy's tickling torment. Sorry Baby Bud.) We would rinse off, wrap Little Man in a towel, and be on our way to oh-my-yummy baby lotion smells. Sweet and simple.

Then came the dark times. Then came the ducky. He has four of them at our house, and another one at Nana's. One has arm wing floaties and goggles, one is white with baseball stripes, one is a pirate duck, and the other is a plain yellow ducky that screams HOT at you if the bath water is anything over 34 degrees Farenheit. There isn't one particular duck that causes my troubles. They are all weapons of splash destruction in my baby's hands.

Noah's been playing with trying to eat ducks in the bathtub for quite awhile now. Last night as I scrubbed his little back, he lunged forward for the goggle duck. He missed and his hands splash down into the tub causing a wee gyser gushing back up. It was a horrifying moment . I could see the light click on in his brain. He grinned and slapped both hands down again. A few drops spattered mommy. Within ten seconds he was kicking both feet up and splashing his hands down, and I was soaked from my knees to my neck. He squealed with delight. I desperately thought maybe he was just trying to get the duck. As I handed it to him, he shoved it out of his way and plunged his hands down again.

The damage: Mommy's shirt and pants, the corner of his bath towel, and a five foot square area of the kitchen floor and countertops. Thankfully, he missed the coffee maker. But only just barely. Maybe it's time we transition to the Little Man bath tub in the big boy bath tub. I don't really have that many outfits to splash through, unless I'm going to wear my bathing suit every time I bath my son... And right now, no one wants that.

Sick Boy

My Little Man is not feeling well. It's a mortal sickness, meaning I assume it's going to kill me. We're not sure exactly what's wrong or if it is a combination of ailments making him so grumpy. Usually he's a trooper, a smiling, giggling tough guy, even in the throes of illness. It could be those terrible teeth trying to break through on top. However, if so, I am begging: just sprout already and be done with it! It could be the tail end of a cold that seems determined to keep its clutches on both mom and child. It could be a wicked diaper rash, that I'm sure is like sitting in rose bushes. Or it could be some phantom source of un-shininess. Babies really should come with instruction manuals, or troubleshooting guides.

Whatever it is, Noah's appetite doesn't seem to be suffering any. Last night, I quadrupled his usual cereal intake with a blended fruit and milk chaser. We were following the Babywise book for awhile to get him sleeping through the night. At this point he should be down to about four feedings. Yesterday he had seven. Noah is not very baby wise. Never has been. (We'll discuss Baby Wise in posts to come.) And the kid has expensive taste. Grandma got him some of those Gerber pouches of blended fruits and veggies. He devoured one a half of them in one day. Those things are not cheap! You're killing me grandma!

Justin suggested that perhaps he is eating so much because he feels extra cool sitting in his new highchair. Let's hope this is the case because mommy cannot keep up with the Little Vacuum that Could.