Global warming may save us

I took my kids to the playground today, in February. Instead of being locked in the house with them as they made an increasingly insane circuit of TV, kitchen cabinets (good for crawling into and pulling things out of, dontcha know) and playpen - good for cage matches - the kids and I were chasing each other around a playground. It's always fun to see kids back at the playground after a long break. Katie was delighted that she could walk from the playground equipment to the swings, and that she had finally trained me well enough that I would push her in the swing if she walked up to it and started smacking it. Christopher and Matthew spent very little time on the playground but a lot of time chasing each other around the adjoining tennis court. Kiddie handcuffs that I had picked up at the grocery store on a whim were the best $4 I ever spent. They turned the tennis courts into the police station and spent an hour arresting each other and me. Of course, when we got home, there was still running, screaming and wrestling in the playpen. But after an hour at the playground on an unexpected sunny February afternoon (thank you, carbon output!), it was all more ... sane.

Fluffernutter

Tomorrow is Christopher's fourth birthday. In 43 minutes, he will turn 4 and I will feel the world shift a little as my baby takes another step toward adulthood, toward becoming his own person, toward leaving me.
Tonight, though, is about me. At least, it is as much about me as it can be when I'm devoting a few hours to making cupcakes, cutting fruit and combining cream cheese and fluffernutter to make fruit dip.
Four years ago I was in labor. It was pretty painless at this point, after 30 hours of intense pain, followed by a break, followed by intense pain, followed by a longer break, followed by what-the-hell-is-going-on-here confusion. I never feared the pain of labor. I had my first baby 16 weeks into the pregnancy. It was so early that I hadn't started to worry about the pain yet, far enough along that I was too heartbroken that I had lost my baby to worry about or care about the pain. I wanted to die, too. Contractions were nothing.
So I went into Christopher's labor with a strange mindset. I was convinced that a baby of mine could never live, so his birth, while perfectly normal, was rather fraught. I hit the nurse's button and screamed at them in a panic when the heartbeat monitor slipped off my belly and I could not hear him. I didn't need to be told to push. I never thought to say, this is too hard, I don't want to do this anymore. I wanted to get that baby out of a body that had proven so dangerous for my other children.
And then he was here, and staring at me with those who-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are eyes, ones that make me struggle to stifle my laughter when I see them today. He is a strong, healthy boy now. He swims, he runs, he yells and throws fits and wants to be read to all the time. He is perfect, and closer every day to being grown. And I love him more than I ever knew I could love anyone.

Kids can find fun anywhere

It was a good idea. The Waterman's Appreciation Day in St. Michaels had several things I look for in a day out: all-you-can eat crab, the chance to see a new place and a boat-docking contest. I had no idea what it was, but it sounded...interesting, with a touch of the redneck flair that I've come to enjoy since leaving North Carolina.
Twenty minutes into the trip, it was looking more like a questionable idea. Rain was coming down in sheets, the kids were whining, and the GPS was pointing out that St. Michaels wasn't an hour-and-a-half away; it was more like two-and-a-half hours away.
Then we got there, and it seemed like a no-doubt-about it bad idea. It was still raining. The crab tables were soaked and getting wetter. And we witnessed a near fight that made us wonder what kind of event we had wandered into.
But the kids looked around and saw possibility. A small, child-sized skiff to climb in. Oyster rakes to try out, crabs in a holding tray to poke at. The museum had several exhibits that might not have been made for kids, but that they certainly liked: an authentic lighthouse with old-time stoves that opened and closed, a luxury cruiser from the 1950s that they could climb in, an old Pilot House boat that they could....climb in (is there a pattern here?).
Taking them around to the different places took a long time - longer than the rain lasted. Pretty soon we were sitting at a relatively dry table, eating crabs and hot dogs and thinking this place wasn't half-bad. Then we moved to the side of a dock, where we shared corn on the cob and cheered on the crews of boats in the docking contest (we're still not sure what that was about).
Against the rain-soaked odds, the kids were able to look around and find the fun in what seemed like a hopeless situation. I knew there was some reason we were keeping them around.

"Mommy, I had a great day."

I was lugging a Rubbermaid container out of my bedroom, thinking about the pile of outgrown kids' clothes in the spare room that needed to be sorted by size, the unwashed dishes next to the sink and the schoolwork waiting for me downstairs. I muttered "Goodnight" to Christopher as I walked out, wondering vaguely why the hell he was in my bed.
But his little voice stopped me in my tracks.
"Mommy, I had a great day today."
I put the container down and turned slowly to face him. "What?"
He was grinning at me sleepily. "I had a great day."
I would have thought that he had...kind of a crappy day. He woke up with a fever of 102. His brother pulled his hair and pinched him about six times. I wouldn't let him go outside to play, and he wanted to see his friends so much that he kept picking up the phone and dialing random numbers, hoping to miraculously find one.
But we also made his first paper chain so that he could count down the days to his birthday. He did his first scavenger hunt, following pictures torn from an IKEA catalog around the house until he came upon the Emperor Zurg toy that I had hidden from him. We read a million books. And he watched about three hours of TV somehow, which is always a good day for him.
But really, we didn't do much of anything. And maybe that's what made it such a good day for him. I think he likes to just hang out more than I do. Maybe because he sees the house as a giant toy-filled playground to explore, and I see it as a building full of chores I haven't done yet. Maybe, maybe.
I walked over and kissed him on the cheek, told him I had a great day too, and went downstairs to start on my night's work.

So happy together

Suddenly Christopher has realized that Matthew is a real, full-fledged person who can...play.
They spent 15 minutes on the playground today, figuring out new ways to go down the slide. Matthew realized he could climb the steps and slide down headfirst without crashing in a disastrous end at the bottom...then take two steps back to the stairs, up again, down again, successfully.
Christopher was trying to go down in every dangerous way possible: laying down, headfirst, and even backward. All while shadowed by an over-anxious mother who does not like it when her offspring engage in any kind of experimentation, even on a four-foot high slide.
It was while contemplating this last stunt (the kids' equivalent of the redneck "hey, watch this!") that Christopher got blindsided by Matthew. Their rotation had been working out fine until Christopher stopped to ponder physics. Matthew caught up to him, and - again earning his "Little Bulldozer" nickname - just put his head down and forced his brother down the slide. They went down slowly, giggling the whole way. Then they went back up together, and down together the same way - Christopher going backwards, Matthew playing the part of the plow - about a million times, until someone got distracted and they ran their separate ways.
Of course, Christopher lost interest in Matthew as soon as friends his own age arrived at the playground, but it was still a nice preview of things hopefully to come.

Two big steps

Christopher is having one of those weeks when he is starting to really get things that we've been working on for weeks.
Yesterday, he stayed dry all day. No accidents, no need for diapers, no real problems. He wore one pair of underpants all day, and when he took them off to put on his nighttime diaper and pajamas, we seriously considered framing them. Did it go that smoothly today? No. There were a few cases of "got to the bathroom in time, but didn't get naked in time." And a few temper tantrums. But he seems to get that when he has to go, he should head for the bathroom. And that's something we were starting to think we'd need electroshock to accomplish.
I have been telling Brian that once he gets the potty thing, a lot of other stuff will start to fall into place. As if to prove my point, he and his daddy started yelling for me to come outside and see something. The something was Christopher pedaling up and down the sidewalk on his tricycle. Not using his feet to motor along at frighteningly high speeds, but actually pedaling. While steering. Right before dinner, he even threw in a little line tracing with his new book and dry erase marker.
Any way you look at it, that's a big day. And he proved it when his little head suddenly sank onto the table during dinner and he was out for the count - at 6:45.

Big day

We had a big day here.
Matthew has been scooching, creeping, rolling, doing everything imaginable for months to get where he needs to go. But today, he finally did IT: got up on his hands and knees and made a few tentative forward motions. He crawled.
He wasn't too impressed with his accomplishment, probably because a) I'm assuming he's done it before when I wasn't looking and b) he can get around much faster through his tried-and-true methods. But I laughed and clapped and cheered for him. His feat was particularly impressive because he did it for the first time - or at least I saw him do it for the first time, which in the world of parenting is the same thing - on his nine-month birthday. Which is the exact time that his big brother crawled, too. Hilarious, and so much easier to remember for the baby book.
His big brother had a memorable day too. He had his holiday program at school. It was supposed to be performed a few days before Christmas, but it was postponed by the snow. He was all dressed up in his Christmas outfit, and so excited about his big show.
Christopher strolled into the multipurpose room and immediately looked for us. "Hi, mom and dad!" he yelled. Other kids were crying, fidgeting, looking at the floor. Christopher sang, gestured and jumped. He called out "Hi, Allie! Mrs. Owen, I said hi to Allie!" halfway through the show. (I have no idea who the hell Allie is.) He ran over and hugged his teacher at the end. Then he ran around to Brian and I to hug us. I had to bury my head in his shoulder to hide my tears. I just can't believe how lucky we are.