Three seems so young, and yet I can hardly believe that my baby is getting so big so fast. Sometimes it feels like his babyhood was an epoch past, the sleepless nights pacing with a crying infant a half-remembered dream from another life, and yet it was only three years ago that I began that adventure, three years ago that my newborn’s first reaction to meeting his mom was to start nursing with the most enthusiastic latch ever, three years ago that my life changed in more ways than I can number.
The memories fade and feel so distant, leaving me with just the three-year-old Rondel to know and love and guide through life. The Rondel who talks constantly – to me, to himself, as one toy to another –ย and turns his emotions and stories into songs. The Rondel who lives in a world of his imagination, populated by his toys and the characters from the books he loves. The Rondel who calls his little brother his best friend, and asks for him when he’s napping. The Rondel who articulates his needs and feelings incredibly well, and comes up with strategies to handle his sensitivities and struggles that I wouldn’t even think of. The Rondel who who still loves to snuggle and willย burrow himself into me for cuddles.
And someday that Rondel will be gone too, just memories, built into his older and more-definedย self. It is such a privilege and a joy to watch him grow, to help him grow, to be a part of his maturing, but I’m starting to realize that it may be bittersweet.
But for him, right now, it is all joy as he gains new skills and knowledge, as the big world around him becomes more understandable and accessible, as the big world within him becomesย richer and less unmanageable.
If Limerick hears water running, he is there in seconds begging to be included.
When my husband goes out in the morning to water the garden, Limerick bursts into violent tears if the back door shuts him out.
When I turn on the bathtub faucet to get in the shower, Limerick is somehow immediately there frantically trying to climb in.
And whenever anyone attempts to wash the dishes, he clamors to be lifted up to “do dishes!” too, throwing himself atย us and the counter until we set him up by the sink.
tucked between the sink and the drying rack, surrounded by towels to catch the overflow!
Because he loves “helping” with the dishes so much, we usually let him continue to play with the sink after all the dishes are actually clean, giving him a few bowls and cups to fill and pour, and he will contentedly occupy himself with those things while Rondel and I clean other nearby parts of the house or prepare dinner – so it is really quite a useful thing!
Besides which, the practice of balancing the full cups and bowls, and the dexterity required to pour them out into another bowl, is really quite valuable for fine motor development.
Both of the boys have an interesting pronoun confusion where they use second-person pronouns to refer to themselves and first-person pronouns to refer to other people – so for instance, Limerick will say “Hold you!” when he wants to be picked up, and Rondelย will say “You want more ice and water!” when he’s thirsty.
For a while I had just been modeling correct language and reading lots of books, hoping that they would catch on, but while I noticed Rondel modeling the right use of pronouns when making his toys dialogue with each other (imitating the books, I suppose), it didn’t change his personal speech or conversation. So lately my mom and I have been gently correcting him and letting him know the right way to say what he wants to say, or prompting him to fix the pronouns himself by asking him who he’s talking about. I’m not particularly worried about it; it’s just a habit that needs to be straightened out so he can talk to people outside of the family without completely confusing them ๐
This weekend, I overheard him talking to someone else in his usual mixed-up way – then all of a sudden there was a pause, and he muttered to himself,
“No – need to use different letters!”
And then he said it again using “I” instead of “you” – or in his mind, using “I” instead of “U”!
Last weekend my husband and I attempted a day trip with the boys, heading up 2.5 hours into the mountains to get into the mountains and out of the heat. I had forgotten just how lush and rich northern Arizona is in the summer – maybe that is why the rest of the country gets so excited about summer! Here in the low desert we mostly just try to survive the summer…
The boys were excited when we first arrived to explore the trails, the sticks, the walls, the rocks, the sand, the grass, the flowers, and so on. For a while, we just hung out in the field while we waited for my husband to park the car and join us (the trailhead parking lot was full of everyone else trying to escape the Phoenix heat).
I don’t think they’d ever seen so many different types and textures of leaves in one place before! We got to feel the coarse ferns, the velvety mullein, the feathery grasses, and more. The boys hugged all the trees and marveled at the little green crabapples high above them. They sat down in the sandy trail and drew pictures, and made tracks behind them with big sticks. And I breathed in the pine scent and the clean air and reveled in the opportunity to be out of the city… I think I realized for the first time how emotionally oppressive a big city can be, despite all its benefits.
Our hike didn’t last long, unfortunately – the boys grew tired pretty quickly (the car ride up probably didn’t help, and we should have gotten started sooner), and Rondel fell in the creek and melted down because his dry clothes were back in the car. But while it lasted, it was great, and now I’ve learned a few tips to make the next time better! And there will definitely be a next time, because I need to get out of the city again, into the open clean air, toย see and smell green growing things. I must admit, I’m a bit jealous of those of you who live with this kind of summer in your backyards ๐
Right now, at 19 months old, Limerick loves to draw and write. He’ll head downstairs by himself, run to the office, pull out his box of crayons and some paper, and start drawing! (Well, usually he’ll find some paper or a coloring book – other times he just starts coloring the doors, walls, and floors! I’ve hid everything except the washable crayons, which are my new favorite thing…) Lately he’s been drawing and stamping on a magnetic drawing board as well, to the exclusion of most other toys and activities. He doesn’t need the added attraction of anyone else’s presence to find it interesting; he’ll even abandon Rondel or a game they’re playing together to draw.
The other day, at my mom’s house, while Rondel set up the race track and played with cars to his heart’s content, Limerick got to draw with colored pencils. He was enraptured.
(He was drawing with a yellow pencil in this last shot so it doesn’t show up on the paper very well!)
One of the great benefits of reading aloud for this little boy especially will be the exposure to so many different styles of beautiful illustrations, to give him a myriad of inspirations for his own art as he masters the basic elements of control and direction ๐ Seeing beauty in so many different books, he’ll begin to notice the details that take a picture from mundane to exceptional, from mediocre to great; he’ll (hopefully) begin to see how pictures can enhance or belie the story that the words are telling, and catch the hidden humor or depth in them; and he’ll be able to create more beauty and tell more stories in his own way.
Of course, he could lose interest in drawing by the time he’s in kindergarten ๐ He’s rather young for me to be picturing his life path already! But his interest is so much greater than Rondel’s ever was that I can’t help but think there is some deeper natural inclination there. Who knows – but he certainly loves it now!
Bedtime with the boys has become one of my favorite parts of the day, a routine just as reassuring to me as it is for them, wrapping up our day together. I love the moments snuggled up together reading our bedtime stories, and then getting to tuck them each in bed in their own special way. And then after lights out comes one of my favorite parts, an unexpected perk of moving the boys into the same room: as they babble themselves to sleep, they echo and copy each other, winding themselves down in a duet of sounds and stories. It brings back memories of the countless nights my sister and I would invent stories together in the dark until we fell asleep in the middle of them – and I feel so lucky to get to hear a second generation getting started on the same kind of thing.
I’ve honestly been too tired to get out my camera and aim for the beautiful or cute shots of the boys for a while now, and it’s been compounded by the fact that our only real outdoor play options (where the lighting is ideal for pictures of toddlers who rarelyย hold still) involve water, which is decidedly camera-unfriendly!
Lately, however, I’ve been inspired by Jennie’s Real Life series of black-and-white shots over at Where My Heart Lies, and I thought, you know, black-and-white pictures are much more forgiving in low-light settings, and if the bar is set low enough so that even the mess is considered valid subject matter, then maybe I can still take pictures even in this season of life. The floor may more often than not be a colorful canvas of crayon art, and the sink may typically be full of dishes, but we’re still playing together, reading together, eating together, and surviving each day together, so it’s worth capturing the truly everyday moments no matter how inglorious and small they might be.
Yesterday,ย as has been the case for the majority of days in the past few weeks, my queasiness peaked in the afternoon, making dinner prep the absolute last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t have a plan and nothing sounded remotely edible but I knew that if I postponed dinner any longer I would have two ravenous toddlers at their emotional breaking points over a lack of food, so I went to a standby that I actually hadn’t made in a while: whole-grain pancakes!
This recipe is from the bookย Hearth and Home, which my mom owns; I recall the book as being a collection of recipes, thoughts, and short anecdotes, and I don’t really use anything from it aside from this recipe – but it is definitely a good pancake recipe! The unique element of it is that you start with whole unground grains: wheat berries, rolled oats, cornmeal (I don’t trust my blender with whole popcorn kernels!), or whatever else you have around. My current favorite is 1 1/4 cups of wheat berries and 1/2 cups of rolled oats; different combinations don’t affect the taste so much as the texture of the finished pancake. The blender does the work of grinding up the wheat berries and other grains or flours, so that you are working with and eating the freshest possible whole grains. Despite having no added sugar, some warming spices make the pancakes feel sweet, and they are thick, hearty, and filling. You might have noticed in the picture above that I added some fresh blueberries to one of the pancakes, too!
Blueberry pancakes with butter and a drizzle of maple syrup – mmm ๐
the first batch, catching the sunlight through the kitchen window – aren’t they lovely?
And now for the recipe, short and simple. Make sure you have a heavy-duty blender; otherwise, just use 2 cups of the flours of your choosing instead of the whole grains.
Blend 1 1/4 cups whole wheat kernels and 1/2 cup rolled oats with 2 cups milk, for 4 minutes on high, until smooth.
In a separate bowl, beat an egg with 1/4 cup of oil (I like coconut best but I used vegetable tonight because I’m all out of coconut oil, sniff). Pour the blended mixture into the bowl and whisk together. The blender just doesn’t seem effective at this when the egg and oil are added on top of the flour mixture, for some reason.
Whisk in 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1 heaping teaspoon of some warming spice mix (pumpkin pie spice blend, or just straight cinnamon, or something along those lines. I have a blend called “sweet spice” from a local baking store and I have no clue what is in it in what proportions but it’s good!)
Then just pour onto a griddle to bake! You may need to adjust the thickness of the batter to get it just right for you, but with this specific grain mixture I haven’t needed to.
After you pour a pancake out, before it cooks very much on that first side, you can add customized add-ins like walnuts, bananas, blueberries, or even chocolate chips. I’m a huge fan of these specialty pancakes but everyone else in my family prefers them plain, so I can’t mix the add-ins directly to the batter; this is a good hack to work around it.
So there you have it, breakfast for dinner and I’m completely unashamed ๐ When you’re pregnant, exhausted, and queasy, just getting relatively healthy food on the table is an unqualified success, I think! Realistic expectations for myself, that’s what I need ๐
At 18 months, Rondel had no interest in letters, writing, drawing, or the written word, except for being read to. (He was so obsessed with cars that he could distinguish makes and models more accurately than I could, though!)
Limerick, however, is utterly captivated by everything having to do with writing and words. He can identify all 26 letters in both their uppercase and lowercase forms; he sings the alphabet song all day long; he draws on every surface in the house and cries if you take his crayons or pencils away; and he is starting to realize that the letters can work together to make words.
Last night, my brother was writing names on a paper for Limerick, spelling them out and telling him what they said. Sometimes Limerick would ask for a specific word and my brother would write that one. And every time he picked up the pencil to write, Limerick would crane his head around to get a better view of the writing process, his whole face animated with focus and fascination. It was so neat to watch!
It is always special to see a young child become intellectually excited by something, whether it’s patterns and puzzles, cars and trucks, or colors and art, and Limerick’s interest in letters is especially fun for me because of how well it ties in to our family culture of books and reading. A love of books and a love of language are such good foundations for a love of learning and the ability to think and critically, coherently, and eloquently – and those are things I definitely want for my children. I see how crippled many of my peers are by an inability to assemble words beautifully or even functionally, and I believe that it is at least partly due to a lack of sophisticated and eloquent aural language input during their childhood years. When we read silently, we can skim over the sentence structure to get the content faster, but in the process we lose the repeated exposure to high-level style that helps develop good language skills.
Ok, enough of that soap box ๐ I am just glad to see Limerick enjoying himself so much with his letters ๐๏ปฟ
Rondel sits in the bathtub, bubbles fading, playing with his bath animals.
“Want to get bubbles off of Crabby!” He says it with more than a hint of whine and worry, as though these bubbles were a potential catastrophe.
Rinse it off in the bubble-free part of the tub, I think, Or pour some water over it with your bucket.
We’ve been through this before, in previous baths, and those are the ideas I’ve given him in the past. For some reason I don’t say them this time.
“What do you think you could do to clean off the bubbles?” I ask.
“Maybe I could wash them off with the washcloth!”
“Maybe you could! That is a good idea to try” I say. I don’t really expect it to work since bubbles tend to cling to the washcloth.
A few minutes later, triumphant sounds come from the bathtub. “It worked!”
My experience and criticisms would have completely shut down his opportunity to think and experiment – sometimes it really is better parenting for me to just keep my mouth shut and my ideas to myself!
For my first two pregnancies, I did my prenatal care with a nurse midwife through a birth center, aiming for a non-medicated delivery. With both of them, for different reasons, I had to transfer care during labor and gave birth in a hospital with an epidural. So this time I thought I might as well prepare for that by choosing an OB for prenatal care, so that I could establish some history with my delivering doctor before the delivery!
From previous experience I knew which local hospital I wanted to deliver at (they are very well-equipped for non-medicated labor), which helped narrow the list down a little, but meeting and selecting a new doctor is still rather nerve-wracking for me! I decided to try first a pro-life, Catholic practice, but I was nervous that it might be an instance where a principled agenda excluded a general compassion, courtesy, and quality of care. Maybe I’ve been reading too many cynical articles lately… but that was one of my fears.
Last month I met the PA who will be alternating visits with the OB, and got a good overall impression of the office, but I didn’t actually meet the doctor until yesterday. And all my fears were proven unfounded. I have never been to a practice more respectful of me, the patient, as a human person.
Before the general examination I told the doctor that I was quite anxious and had a hard time physically relaxing during exams, and he first asked if they tended to be painful and then if I was a praying person. When I said yes, he literally prayed that the exam would go painlessly and that I wouldn’t have the anxiety, and thanked God for the new life inside me – and then proceeded with the gentlest Pap smear I’ve had in my life. (My mom always did say that male OBs were gentler!)
It blew me away.
All the little details of the office show the same respect for human dignity: the courtesy of the staff, the friendliness of the medical assistants, the closets for storing personal items and clothing during exams, and the timeliness of care (my whole appointment, including wait time, was 30 minutes – at other OBs I have waited longer than that just to be called back).
It brings me peace to know that my baby will be seen as a blessing and a gift even if they have special needs, that birth control won’t be pushed on me while I’m still in a postpartum haze, and that they care about the wellbeing of my whole person and not just my reproductive parts. This kind of care makes even the thirty minute drive worthwhile ๐
little thoughts 