Almost-Toddler

My baby turned 18 months old last week!  SOB.  Where did eighteen months GO?!  When did the wee smidge of a baby with a dusting of blond feather-hair become this sturdy, laughing toddler-person who is on haircut #2?

I’ve been aware of turning time and passing stages as Hunter moved through babyhood, but I always looked forward too much to the next milestone to mourn the departing day.  But now we are moving into toddlerhood, and babytime is so very almost slipped-through-my-fingers gone.  And oh, the mourning?  It’s finally here.  Because my baby is waving bye-bye at me, and he’s never coming back.

I want to clutch at these last few days, hoard them away in memory so at least I can take them out and remember.  The shutter has been clicking, but I want to journal too, to put the memories into words.  And so, a collection of random “word pictures” of my 18 month old:

He loves to eat.  food he can feed himself is the biggest hit.  Little man is close to self-sufficient with a plastic fork, and manages a spoon nicely with mashed beans or avocadoes.  He stubbornly insists on holding utensils like a grownup, which of course doesn’t work very well with baby fine motor skills, but he persists, transferring the fork daintily from fingertips to fingertips, and then wobbily to his mouth.  Despite all my best efforts he has turned into a true picky eater; loving a food one minute and then flinging it against the wall the next.  Argh.  The one food that is always a guaranteed hit are his grain-free cinnamon squash pancakes.  The day I added cinnamon to the mix, he gobbled them up with a ginormous grin on his face, and then stuck two thumbs into the air and splatted sticky hands together in baby applause.  Needless to say he got seconds.

Independence is the new word of the day.  He’s perfected this angry parrot squawk which means “Mom, let ME do it!”.  When I see him struggling over a task, tongue peeked between his tightly pursed lips, any attempts at help are met with a chubby hand held imperiously in my face.  He also knows how to roll his eyes and does so frequently, blue irises disappearing for an exasperated moment behind his outrageously long sandy eyelashes.  He’s loving, affectionate, tempestuous.  His moods change faster than windblown clouds. Most of all, it’s becoming apparent that he is first and foremost a comedian.  He does everything for show.  Instead of merely hiding behind a curtain and then peeking out during hide-n-seek, he swooshes the curtain over his face, holds perfectly still for a silent moment, and then sweeps it aside with the aplomb of a ringmaster.  “Ta-da!”  When I fall over in feigned shock at his amazing reappearance, he goes into a fit of high-pitched giggles and repeats the performance until we’re both too weak from laughing to continue.

He’s not walking yet, though he can stand independently for a few seconds.  His crab-crawl is lickety-split-fast, and his absolute favorite activity is escaping my grasp in the library and scuttling in between and under shelves, giggling hysterically the closer I get in pursuit.

Yesterday he colored with crayons "correctly" for the first time. He scribbled a crayon on paper and his eyes opened wide as he saw the purple scrawl.  Gurgling in delight he hauled on my pant leg to show me the masterpiece.  Then, humming quietly to himself, he used every.single.crayon in wide, sweeping rainbows of color.  After we put the crayons away, he went back to the paper quite a few times, tracing the drawing with his pointer, cooing quietly to himself.  I thought my face was going to split from smiling so hard.

We've been dealing with a lot of fussing at work and home lately, so last week I laid down the law: "Okay, I'm not going to pick you up when you're whining.  You have to be happy and then I will pick you up!"  After a few episodes of copious tear-shedding on my feet, Hunter got the idea.  Now, he scuttles over, signs up, then pastes on this huge gap-toothed grin.  Every time.  Heartmelter.

He is bright, shiny and hilarious.  And I am so, so blessed to have this little dude in my life.

Playground Photo Binge

I took Hunter to the park this past weekend.  He wriggled out of the stroller the instead I popped the safety belt, and squirmed onto the ground where he froze for a moment like a bird dog on point.  You can see the ideas of what trouble can I get into first! running through his brain. 

First he decided to investigate all the climb-y things so plentifully scattered about.

 

 

After watching kids pop out of the bottom of the spiraly slide he crawled over, stuck his head up into it and hollered “Dadababa whowho wow?”  (Translation:  "Where do those kids come from???")

 

Then he sat and watched five kindergarteners pelt across the playground.

“They are so silly looking, Mom, wasting all that energy on nothing!”  (You should see yourself, dear.)

He sat in the sunshine and thought Baby Ninja thoughts.

 

After a while he got worn out and sat in peaceful enjoyment of the ebb and flow of playground chaos. He is so darn beautiful, isn’t he?

 

His chubby babyhands make my heart stop.

 

On the way home I saw this leaf and crouched down in the middle of the running path, one foot jammed behind the stroller wheel while I twisted into a human pretzel to capture the liquid color of it.

 

This, so far as I can tell, is the very first sunset I have clicked shutter on since moving back to Wisconsin.  In Florida, sunsets are an institution, and beach sunsets became my peaceful place.  In that glorious moment where the sky exploded into color, my heart would find content.  I thought it seemed fitting that this day at the playground, like a little bubble of stability in the whirlpool of our everyday life, ended with a sunset over a river which rivaled those over the ocean. 

Birthday Number One

(this should have been published on July 6...blame a cross-country move that it wasn't)

Today Hunter turns one.  It’s beyond belief that he’s been in my life for a year.  Being Hunter’s mother has an odd tinge of eternity about it – impossible to believe he’s been my son for a whole year, or for only a year.  Time doesn’t seem to be relative.  I can’t remember who I was before Hunter.

I do remember who I was before Down syndrome, though.  Early one morning this birthday week, I woke before Hunter did (a rare event, usually to be celebrated by immediately going back to sleep) and lay in the cool blue light of just before dawn, my mind going back three hundred and sixty-five days to a dimly-lit hospital room.  I remembered my body, sore and exhausted from toes to scalp, but my heart exploding with joy as I looked at the tiny pink scrap of babyhood under the heat lamp.

I remembered the peace, the sweetness, the worries over small concerns like a cell phone not working.

I remembered the doctor entering, poking and prodding and frowning.  And then I remembered his eyes meeting mine only to flick away, and the five words which shattered the future I’d dreamed of into a million pieces.

“Your son has Down syndrome.”

I remembered beginning to cry.

Three hundred and sixty-five days later, those words still slice into me like bullets.  Tears well, and I cry.  I roll over in bed next to my son who has Down syndrome.  He’s sleeping soundly, small dimpled hands folded beneath a chubby cheek.  One of my tears splashes onto his nose and his face crinkles up in disgust.

Laughter bubbles up.  Because I’m not crying over my son who happens to have an extra chromosome.  I’m crying for me, the me in a dark hospital room a year ago, who had no idea how good life was going to be.  I want to go back and give me a hug, and then a good shake.  “You’re going to be fine!” I would say.  “Just fine.  Better than fine.  This little boy is going to turn your life upside down and a tie a knot in it for good measure – and it’s going to be good.”

And on this birthday morning, life is good.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  It’s also hard as hell.  Most of that isn’t connected to an extra 21^st chromosome, but some of it is.  Being a single mom is hard, and being a single mom of a child with Down syndrome is much harder.  I’m not a big fan of Down syndrome, although it has won some grudging respect from me. 

But I am a big fan of Hunter.  My son is fine.  He’s better than fine.  He’s supercalifragalistic, with a sprinkling of extraolidocious.  In one year he has changed for the better more people’s lives than the average man does in twenty years.  He’s funny, brave, charming, and utter perfection.

I don’t know what the years ahead hold, but I know if Hunter keeps being Hunter, they will be just fine.

Happy birthday to the most amazing little stinker this side of heaven.

I love you, Hunter.

Snapped In Naples

A whole month in CameraLand and no camera yet. :( Boohoo. Soon!!!!! In the meanwhile I've been making do with mobile shots, which although infuriating to my Inner Photographer, still get the job done. Sort of. :) So here's a few things I see as I explore Florida!

The beach (of course!!)

Friendly beach birds.

LOTS of flowers. Lots. (the cool spiky one is a Bird-Of-Paradise)

Stilt houses (whimsically called "tree houses)

Royal palms and stormy skies - how majestic!

And our front yard, where...

...the 10 lb puppy frequently gets the better of our 160 lb Dane!