Happy Birthday, Baby

364 days ago, I had to sleep in a recliner.

I could not see my feet.

I had eaten all of the candy bars my children were supposed to sell for school.

Walking up the stairs seemed like the worst thing someone could ask me to do.

No. Asking me to sit on the floor and play and then get up seemed like the worst thing someone could ask me to do.

I was 39 weeks pregnant and this little monster squirmed inside me. All. The. Time.

364 days ago, I knew that he would be a fighter. People would ask, hesitant but endearingly eager, "Is he kicking?" And if he was snoozing in my belly, all I had to do was press my hand down, and boy, did that baby get mad. He would kick my hand away, like, "Hey! Encroaching on my space, here!" On sonogram days, and there were many, the second that magic wand was pressed against my stomach, Little Man would knock it away. "Whoa!" was what the radiologist would say. I couldn't help but smile. My baby was fierce, and there would be no messing with him.

It's hard for me to write about Max. He is unexpectedly different from his brothers, but similar in nuance-y ways. He'll do something that will remind me of one of them, but it's just a hint, just a breeze of their different personalities. He takes everything and makes it completely his own, including his face, despite the never-ending moment-to-moment narration by extended family of who he most looks like. (He looks like himself.)

So. For the sake of simplicity, here are the highlights of what I have loved most about being Max's mom in this first year of his life:

1. Holding him. Even though he's by far the heaviest of my babies, he's all round and delicious and fuzzy, especially at bedtime.

2. Kissing his cheeks. Have you seen them?

3. Squeezing his thighs. For the first two months of his life his legs were like spaghetti. I was terrified that he would never catch up and be in a percentile. But he did catch up. My goodness, he did.

4. His silly faces. 

5. The fact that he tries really hard not to laugh, but sometimes they slip out, and then he's all mad at himself over such an emotional display.

6. He is, for the most part, a very content baby. Very chill compared to Noah. (Though the Incredible Hulk is chill compared to Noah.)

7. His cankles.

8. Feeding him anything. 

9. The way he has always been very decided about being done or over something. He closes his eyes, turns his head dramatically, and shoves whatever it is away. I love someone who knows what he wants. Or doesn't want.

10. Bath time.

11. Finding out that if I could go back and do it all differently, I won't actually do it differently. At least as far as mothering infants is concerned. Joey and Noah are nine and six, and memories of their babyhood were growing fuzzy and rose-colored. When people remarked about how anxious and, frankly, crazy I was with them as babies, I shrugged, thinking of how far I'd come as a mom and how much I'd learned. Then along came Max, and it turns out, no, I didn't learn anything. I worry about all of my children in equally irrational and insane ways regardless of all logic and lessons learned. Soon after Max was born, I was sitting criss-cross applesauce in front of him on the floor, worrying. Joe said, "What are you doing?" and I said, "Worrying," and Joe said, "Huh. Most people mellow out after they've had three kids, but not you. You just...sure love them a lot." So diplomatic.

12. His ear lobes.

13. His chubby wrists.

14. Honest to God--changing diapers. Nothing keeps you vibrant quite like a wild diaper change filled with the unexpected.

15. Waiting and being rewarded. First because it was my most miserable pregnancy. Then, all the milestones. They felt like they took forever--smiling, laughing, sitting up, crawling--and in some ways Max definitely took his time. But I didn't feel the rush so much this time. I loved him being squishy and round and all the things he is. When all the milestones finally happened, it was just more of an excuse to squeeze him and love him. (As opposed to how we were with Joey, who probably will find all kinds of Ivy League brochures in his baby books when he grows up because not only was he early with all milestones but achieved them with real panache. Apparently.)

16. His eyelashes.

17. He said "Mama" first but now prefers to fling "Dada" in the faces of all loved ones. "Dada" and, weirdly, "Poo." He says it like a little pigeon.

18. He loves music. He's instantly calmed by it and loves to dance around with his mama.

19. He loves his brothers. He (quite mistakenly) puts all his faith and trust in them.

20. He is all the good of all of us rolled into one little person. He is Joey's sound sleep, Noah's earnestness, Joe's silliness, my amazing charm and wit.

It was easy a year ago to know that each life in our family would change with Max's arrival. It's easy to say that they did. It just isn't easy to explain how. One small person, filled with so many smiles and so many poops, made us disorganized, out of control, confused, and crazier than we ever were. He changed all of our roles in this house in a huge way and we won't ever be the same. 

We'll forever be better, and happier, and more full of love because of Max.

(above photo taken by Natalie Komosinski)

Only Boys

I've been rather shy about boldly declaring: THIS is what it's like to be the mother of boys, definitively. In the past, if I point out, ugh, driving them to sports, or ugh, they play so rough, I'm inevitably confronted by the indignant mother of a girl who's all, "My girl is just as athletic/rough/mouthy/physical/messy/etc as any boy." And I get it. I went to an all-girls high school, where they were great at empowering us and making us all well aware that we could do anything THEY could do better. THEY being the boys.

So, yeah.

But here is one thing I'm pretty sure is unique to being the mother of all boys.

The gross bathroom.

I'm going to start by saying that when they reach a point where I think it would work out well for me, I'm making them do all the cleaning. Right now, I don't think asking that of them would be beneficial to me. It isn't worth the fight and the re-do.

I consider myself a very clean person, and I also think I'm a pretty good mother. Those things combined should equal some tidy, fastidious children, but, shockingly, it doesn't seem to follow in that way. Joey and Noah understand that having a clean bathroom is the ideal. They are quite reasonable when I point out the situation behind the toilet. Day after day. Hour after hour.

"Boys, do you understand that you have to aim into the toilet?"

"Boys, do you see how there's a hole in the bottom of the toilet? Can you point the pee that way?"

"Boys, you know it's never a good idea to pee in the same toilet at the same time, right?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Sure, Mom."

"OF COURSE, MOM." (Bold and italics here because it's my favorite response and they know it, but forever use it against me, like telling me I'm pretty.)

And yet, every time I go in the bathroom, the grout around the toilet is just a shade too dark. There's a funk in the air I don't care to describe to you. There's the issue of the baseboards behind the toilet, also not worth sharing in detail. And all I'm left with is the bewildered, "What the hell?"

I said to our babysitter the other day, "It's very important to me that you know I clean that bathroom every single day, multiple times a day." And I do. Bleach. Spray bottle. Scrub, scrub, scrub. You can't mop it, you know. It's all hands and knees and cheek pressed to the toilet bowl as I reach around with a rag or even a paper towel, pressing the bleach into the porous grout, soaking up you don't want to know what but can probably guess. So, yes, please world, acknowledge my efforts.

You know what the babysitter said? "Okay." Like, all condescending. Like, yeah right, Mary Pat. That bathroom looks like ogres had a pee party for a week without quitting and you just let it slide.

And how about the fact that Noah announced he was heading in to take a shower, and I saw him shed his clothes (he's the sort of fellow who leaves a trail behind him in case he might lose his way and need to retrace his steps) and I heard the shower door close, and then....nothing. No water running. No fumbling with a shampoo bottle. Total. Silence.

"Noah?" I called, entering the bathroom. "Are you okay?" I asked, opening the shower door to check on my second-born.

Only to find him standing there, free and loose, peeing all every which and where (because don't underestimate the power of projectile and trajectory and all the other jects that were going on), and looking like he was quite enjoying the freedom to just Let it go, let it goooo, because apparently he just couldn't hold it back anymore.

Never mind that the toilet is a mere twenty-four inches from the shower, and looks to me like it's far more accessible in a hurry.

"What are you doing?" I cried in horror. Because, like I said, I'm a pretty clean person. I'm also reasonable. If you're going to pee in the shower, at least let the water run and wash it down the drain. And once that thought came into my head, I was further horrified that it's come to that, where I'd have a condition where it would be okay to pee in the shower.

"I'm going to the bathroom," he said, looking from side to side like, Isn't it obvious, you idiot?

"You can't do this!" I said. "You can't! It's not okay! Animals do this, not people! Not Bieleckis!" Like somehow our surname, our family line, our heritage, might preclude us from such base behavior.

"Mom," he said calmly. "Animals don't take showers."

"But you can't do this!" I said again. "Aren't you ashamed of doing this very bad thing?"

"Well, I'm ashamed that you saw me do it."

Later, after he'd gone to bed and I was spraying down the shower, scrubbing the grout, pressing into the pores of the tile, I thought, "Yeah. Find me a girl who ever did this."

Making It Great

Today was set up to be another ordinary day. Noah had a checkup at the pediatrician, which meant I had to fly through the house to find sports forms and school forms and what-have-you, of which I had none, so I had to then fly through the house to hook up to the printer and find printer paper and then print said forms, and then Noah had a meltdown about...something, I have no idea what, and was declaring to the universe that TODAY was going to be a VERY BAD DAY.

I didn't disagree.

Further, in the in-between of it all, there's Joey leaping out of cardboard boxes, as though I'm in the mood for such shenanigans while printing forms and dealing with insane-o-crazy Noah, and Max is doing this shrieky-whine thing he does that reminds me uncannily of a dentist drill, and Joe is appearing from the next room with a dress shirt held out in front of him, saying, "Can you get this grease stain out?" and I'm all...Calgon take me away!

So, yeah. An ordinary day.

I did appreciate the fact that I had a babysitter to stay with Joey and Max during Noah's doctor appointment, however, since I really feel like it's best to only focus on the one with the doctor. I once brought a second child along on a routine visit and found that I'd left my brain at home and amidst the "don't touch thats" and "please sit downs" and "Mommy's talking," it was really best to never repeat the whole ordeal that way.

So off Noah and I went, him sniffling in the backseat, still very certain that today was a bad day, and me wishing hard that he could realize the whole day was in front of him and maybe we could, as I often tell him, choose to make it a great day.

I was so hung up on this that when the doctor came in and asked me whether I had any concerns, I shared that Noah was having a hard time understanding that he has the personal power to turn things around for himself.

She said, "Noah, how many times have you seen Frozen?" What a great question.

"A million?" he said with a grin.

"Me, too! Do you think that when bad things happen you can work on trying to, 'Let it go! Let it gooooo!'"

I kind of have a crush on our pediatrician.

Anyway.

She went on to discuss all the merits of modeling the superpower of making spirits bright, and I cringed a little inside knowing, well, I probably don't always do that. But I vowed I would try harder, since that's all I can do.

After the doctor, we went for a haircut. The haircut place was full, and we were told our wait would be long. I optimistically sat down, and Noah asked to play on my phone. I am completely a parent who lets her child play on her phone in support of good behavior in public for limited amounts of time.

But while the clock ticked by, I took note of the person snuffling beside me. Snuffling is different than sniffing. Sniffing is like...glorified smelling. Or a side effect of sadness. Snuffling indicates a person has an under-the-weather need to blow their nose. Then there was a cougher. A phlegmy one. A persistent phlegmy cougher.

And still the time ticked on and it was not Noah's turn. Upset, I decided the wait was too long, not worth it, and we left. I was annoyed. I was worried about the airborne germs that probably still clung to our auras as we climbed into the car. Noah had really needed that haircut, and now we'd have to wait who knew how long to come back another day? And what about lunch? I was starving, but almost too crabby to go for my original plan, which was to surprise Noah by taking him out.

As I drove, focusing on all of these things and more, Noah said, "I hope you remember what the doctor said, Mom. We can still turn this day around!"

I can't even begin to tell you what an idiot I felt like. Immediately. And it was hard to let everything go. But in my mind, I heard my hero pediatrician's voice telling me to emulate good behavior. In the rearview mirror, Noah's eyes were sparkling in a knowing way. He knew he'd caught me. And beyond that, I was incredibly proud of him for paying attention at the doctor's office and regurgitating exactly what I'd hoped he'd learn. (Although I rather hoped it'd be more self-directed, if you know what I mean.) So, I changed lanes, heading in a new direction. We went to a different hair place. Noah's optimism paid off. They took him right away, no wait, and he smiled adorably through his entire haircut. We went out for lunch, Noah's pick (Red Robin), and I had a delicious strawberry lemonade with a free refill! And then, the ultimate moment of adventure: we went to Wegmans.

What did we buy?

A dozen roses.

For whom?

Inspired, we decided that they would be for Noah to give out, one at a time, to anyone who might need one. And here is how that went.

First up, a little girl with her brother. Noah was feeling shy, and definitely wanted to start with someone his own age. The girl accepted the flower, and ran to her mother all smiles. "Thank you!" her mother said, beaming. 

Next was a woman in the food court at the mall, eating alone. "This is for you!" said Noah, a little less shy. "Have a nice day!" You can see that she was at first surprised, and then couldn't help smiling.

Then there was this guy. We passed by an Auntie Anne's pretzel booth, and Noah stopped, turned around, and waved me down to his level. "That guy looks pretty sad to me. Or maybe a bit bored."

"Should we give him a flower?" I asked.

"Yes." And he went back to the booth, around to the side, and presented this pretzel fella with a rose. "Have a great day!" The guy clearly had never received a flower from a six-year-old boy before. It took him a minute to get over being stunned, and then he gave a nice smile and a shy but enthused, "Thanks, buddy!"

These mannequin butts have little to do with Noah's mission, except that they made him laugh hysterically.

Noah searching high and low for just the right recipient. It was very important to him to make someone smile. A lot of people spotted him on his mission and said in a pushy voice, "I SURE LOVE YELLOW ROSES!" Noah was unmoved by such behavior and simply walked on.

This gal, working at Customer Service, looked like she was just waiting for five o'clock to roll around. Noah, as you can see here, was too small to see over the counter, so he shouted, "Excuse me! This is for you!" and slid the rose over the top of the counter.

 This little lady, the one in sunglasses and a tiara, was getting her ears pierced. Noah said, "Be brave!" and handed her the rose.

Noah spotted this girl on crutches from across the mall. Don't let her fool you; she was quick! Noah caught up to her, though, and made sure she got her rose.

Next were these two special ladies, doing a little mall walking and perhaps some shopping. I particularly like the look of the one on the left. The brunette, as shown below, was a bit confused at first. Maybe she thought he was a bandit, aiming to grab her purse and run. "What is it for?" she asked skeptically. "Just for you," he said.

Moving back through the mall, we passed our little ear piercee, who began gesturing wildly at her forlorn and flowerless younger sister. Noah gladly stopped to balance things out.

You can see the ladies at the jewelry shop appreciated the gesture. The girl shown here said, "Can I give you a hug? You made my day!" But Noah wanted no thanks. He just kept turning back to me and saying, "Did you get that smile with your camera, Mom?" 

And last, but certainly not least, Noah saved one flower for one of his favorite babysitters in the world. Thanks for making it all possible, Amanda!

From the bottom of my heart, I wish you a great day. And Noah will tell you that the fastest way to help that along is by doing something nice for someone else. 

"Mom...I don't get it, but when they smiled, it made me feel happy for some reason!"

Kindergarten Graduate

Today I stood with a camera in hand as my six-year-old son accepted his kindergarten diploma. He turned around to face the world, laminated certificate in hand, and his smile nearly broke me.

An hour earlier, I had dropped him off at school, late. We walked into school together, him carrying a card for his teacher which he'd signed in "fancy writing," and me toting a dripping flower pot filled with, well, I don't know what they were. Pretty flowers. Plants are not my thing. The teacher greeted me at the classroom door, bringing Noah in for a tight hug as he puffed up and presented her with his card.

"Thank you," she said in her kind, soft voice when I handed her the flowers.

"No," I said, horrified by the severe earnestness in my voice. But I couldn't keep myself from rushing on. "Thank you. So much. For everything." I was further embarrassed by my clipped sentence fragments. I swallowed, realizing my nose was burning and my eyes had filled. I had to get out of there before I caused a scene. "We appreciate it all more than you could know."

Luckily, I think she understood what I meant. I think that, despite my ridiculously earnest remark to the contrary, she did know. The thing was, my sudden onset of overpowering emotion was something I myself had not expected. In that moment, I found the whole school year flying through my mind, a whizzing reel of events and trials and so much learning and love, and I was overcome.

I turned then and walked briskly down the hall and out to my car, being a bit too early for the actual graduation ceremony. I climbed in, feeling the hot sun beating in through the windshield, flicked on the air conditioner, and gripped the steering wheel.

Noah is not my baby anymore. Probably, we all look at our graduating kindergarteners and feel some onslaught of emotion about that. But...Noah was my baby, and then also, Noah was what I believed to be my last baby. If anything in my life had gone according to plan, this would have been my last kindergarten graduation. But because God saw fit to give me something else, something more, yet another wonderful little boy, I'll get one more kindergartener. That should be a relief, right? But when I look at Noah, it just makes me want to hang on to him even harder. Make today last and last so none of them will get any older.

And then, too, there has always been something about Noah that has made him seem so much more a baby to me than Joey, my oldest, ever did. With Joey, it was all about the next thing. Learning to sit up, then to crawl, then walking and talking and singing and dancing and doing science and...it's always been something. With Joey, he hasn't even had his birthday yet and I already tell people he's nine. With Noah, I still sometimes slip up and say he's five, even though his birthday came and went at Easter time. Why is that? I often wonder.

But more than any of that, I sat in my car today, not quite ready to push it into Drive, and realized that Noah is also aware of all of this. His whole entire life, he knew with certainty his role in our family, and in my life. He was my baby. He was our littlest one. When I told stories (tragic trauma-filled ones) about being the youngest in my own family growing up, it was for him to learn from and relate to. And while he loves, adores, is thrilled with (and really, I'm not even being the slightest bit facetious) his new baby brother, this year has been a very, very hard adjustment for him. And that was why I had to overtly thank his teacher, and why a lump filled my throat when I had to do it. Because she, too, saw the struggle Noah went through. Frustration when things got just a little too hard, a few too many times. Confusion when his mom forgot to check his homework folder. Again. Anger when something went awry with a classmate.

At bedtime, Noah huddles under a blanket on the couch while I put the baby to bed. While I clean up Cheerios and Gerber Puffs off the floor, while I grab everyone's pajamas and rush Joey into the shower and rinse out bottles. All the while, he's waiting. For his moment. For his turn. For his chance. And when it comes, when I finally set my eyes on him and reach out my hand for him to come along to start our routine, it doesn't matter what else happened that day--and it's always something. Getting too wild and falling over something. Crash. It breaks. Boom, he's hurt. Thud, he's wailing. "Oh, NOAH!" I always groan. But in that moment when I reach my hand out to him, all at once the blanket slides from his head and his eyes shine and he smiles his great big smile, the one that has earned him the title of Sunshine in our house, and says, "I love you, Mama." Not Mom, like when he's trying to be as big as Joey. Not MAWM, like when he's rolling his eyes at what a marvelous idiot I am. Not mother, like when he's declaring he needs a new one. "Mama."

I finally was able to get my car moving and go meet my husband and while away the time until the graduation began. My heart was heavy and I wondered if I could possibly put what I was feeling into words that anyone could understand. My baby, who isn't my baby anymore, is growing up, but...he is still my baby. My Noah. My boy who, though he'd be damned to admit it, needs his Mama.

And I do so love my unexpected little angel. Having Max is magical. It's another beginning, but it's a heart-clenching collection of endings, too. To have to pack away infant clothes for the last time, again, is awfully hard. But to prop up a chubby, slippery body in the bathtub while gently rinsing suds from tufty baby hair, my husband beside me and both of us with wet, soapy elbows and big excited smiles, it's wonderful. It's a gift.

But that's the odd thing about having children. Each one is so different, I never expected to appreciate them so individually. I thought it would be a collective thing: I love my children. But it isn't like that at all. I love Joey. I love Noah. I love Max. And for each one I feel like I have to be a totally different mother, a totally different kind of person. There's no formula, no one right way that I can carry from person to person. It's exhausting.

But one look at this smile today...

...and I know that even though I'm very, very tired, I also have a fat, full heart. And I am crazy lucky.

Little Ninja

I leaned into Noah's ear and whispered, "You know what I think? You can be anything you want. Because you. Have. It. All."

He said, "No, I don't. I don't have brown eyes or red hair."

I said, "No. I mean that to have a job, you need certain special things about you. Skills. And you have them all. You're very smart. You also have a great personality, which means that you could work well with people since they like you a lot. You're very creative, so you come up with new ideas that people think are interesting. And you're so handsome. Which means, you know. You could be a movie star. If you wanted."

He smiled and nodded knowingly.

"Oh! And you also have these careful little fingers!" I added, remembering that the other day, I showed him how to tie his shoes just once and he was instantly able to copy the task.

"Yes," he agreed. "I am good at everything. But I'm really just hoping to be a ninja."

Happy birthday, Noah. I already love you being six.

Someone In My House

I make really delicious ham. I feel like I can say that with confidence, because I've done it twice and both times, it turned out delicious. So. Good job, me. But that's not even the wonderful part. The wonderful part is that when anyone in our family cooks a ham, my sister takes the leftovers and creates the most magnificent pea soup in the whole wide world.

I made ham for Easter and was eager for Jane to take the ham leftovers yesterday, but she didn't come to my house to pick it up until exactly the time I was putting Max in for a nap. With his white noise machine. While he was crying. So I missed that, to both my and my sister's annoyances. She was annoyed about banging away on my door, probably, and I was annoyed that I had to wait even longer for my pea soup.

Today was the day the stars aligned. The ham was procured, the soup was created. I was on absolute pins and needles, I tell you. But when to get it? So much was happening. Report cards came home with my older boys today--the excitement was barely contained because I am and ever shall be a huge dork--I made a delicious dinner that my children actually ate, Max took amazing naps, and, also, and this may not seem like much to you, but I'm reading a really good book. It's hard for me to follow what's happening in the real world when I'm reading a really good book, and once you throw in report card day, I'm not ashamed to admit it's all too much.

Anyway.

Joey had baseball tonight, which meant that I set Noah up watching his favorite TV show (Ninjago, which I'd never even heard of until a few weeks ago) while I gave baby Max his bath upstairs. Max was exceptionally cute tonight, waving his naked arms all about and blowing raspberries and making all kinds of declarations in a new and bold way. I took a little longer than usual, then, because I couldn't resist kissing his big round cheekies and giving him raspberries right back. (Last night, as a complete off-topic share, I tried giving him a "big boy bath" in the big tub. He wasn't a fan.) Anyway, after he was all clean and smelling delicious, I bundled him up in his towel, a "baby burrito," I call it, and took him to his room for his pajamas. As I was dressing him, Noah appeared.

"Do you need something?" I asked, but I might as well have not spoken at all. Noah walked right on by, into his own room, and began searching. And I mean really looking for something, ducking down to look under his bed and peeking around the corners made by furniture.

"Noah?"

"I'm looking for Janie," he called, but he didn't turn around. I could tell by his voice he was perplexed, though definitely not as perplexed as I was.

"Janie my sister?" I clarified.

"Yes. I'm sure I saw her pass by. She's got to be here somewhere."

Not knowing what else to do, I looked out the door of Max's room, side to side, understanding it was ridiculous but wondering if perhaps my sister was in my house without my knowing it.

"Noah, why do think Jane is here?"

"Because. I'm sure I saw her."

Now he came into Max's room, marched right past me, and flung open the drapes to see if her car was in the driveway.

"Well, that's weird," he said, his eyebrows furrowed. "Where's her car?"

"Noah, I don't think she's here."

"Huh. I mean, I guess I could have been wrong."

"Well, I'll have to call her and see what happened."

"Oh! Good idea! And have her come back with the cousins so I have someone to play with!"

"Noah, it's a school night. Jane is not bringing your cousins over."

"Oh. She should have brought them the last time she was here."

Right. During her fictitious visit to my house. The whole scene made me start to giggle, and in my head I couldn't wait to get my sister on the phone to tell her this story. I hoped my husband would be back from Joey's baseball practice so he could hear me tell the story and I wouldn't have to do it twice. It's always best the first time.

After I tucked Max into bed, it was Noah's turn. The whole Janie thing forgotten, I helped him into his jammies and read him the next chapter in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, and then tucked him into bed. It wasn't long after that that Joey returned from baseball. Once he was all showered and bejammied, I tucked him in (are you feeling the exhaustion of all the tucking? goodness!) and finally, blessedly, came downstairs to the quiet of my house at night. Grownup Time.

Excited to see my husband, I began crossing through the kitchen to the family room, when something stopped me in my tracks. A large Tupperware container on my counter. Not mine. Not one I'd placed there. And it was fancy Tupperware, which could only mean one thing. It was Jane's.

"Joe!" I hissed. "Joe! Where did this Tupperware come from?" Before he could answer, I lifted the lid. Sure enough, it was filled to the brim with tantalizing pea soup. "Jane brought the soup!"

"Oh," said Joe, distractedly reading something on his laptop.

"Was Jane at baseball?" I asked, frustrated that he wasn't paying attention to me. I'm always frustrated when people in my life don't pay me enough attention.

"Yes."

"Did she give you the soup?"

"What? The soup. Yeah."

I started laughing, looking around for the phone. "This is a funny story," I called to him, already dialing Jane's number. "You have to hear it."

When Jane got on the phone, I laughed hysterically while relaying the whole story.

Jane, however, was only politely laughing. Like, humoring me.

"But I was there," she said. "Noah is the one who let me in."

"WHAT?!" I said. "But...he was so confused while looking for you! And then I figured Joe must have brought the soup home from baseball..."

I shook my head. Joey had brought home this little beauty from art today:

So I thought maybe Noah had just drunk from the same water bottle. I mean, how could he not realize he'd got up from watching his favorite show, unlocked our door, and let a person enter the house? Especially his favorite visitor in the world.

But THEN. 

Jane said, "The weirdest thing is that he helped let me in. He unlocked the door and everything."

"Noah did?"

"No, Joe did."

"WHAT?!!" I whirled around, the phone still pressed to my ear. I shouted at my husband, twelve inches away, "Did YOU let Jane in the house??"

"Of course," he said calmly. "I thought you knew that. Now I see why you're confused."

Now Jane was laughing real, genuine laughter while I sputtered at both of them. At the whole situation.

"Ugh!" I shouted. "Nobody ever knows what's going on! Nobody gives good information around here!" And then, over Jane's giggles, I blurted the real truth: "I hate living with boys!!!!!" 

I hate it so much, I end up with pictures like this:

Hating Kindergarten

Noah is in kindergarten and he does not enjoy it. Worse, he brings his misery home with him and inflicts it on all of us during homework time. He laments the work itself, but also the teacher, his classmates, the number of hours in the day, all until he comes to the apparently inevitable conclusion that everyone must hate him if they expect him to go to school only to come home and do homework.

I have tried various things to combat all of this, but the problem is as it has always been: Noah is supremely stubborn. Unfortunately, I don't think I can communicate the degree to which this extends in any blog ever. I'll either come off as an inept mother or a terrible exaggerator (and I'm a bit of both, I'm afraid). I try to explain to people how Noah refuses sleep, and they smile smugly, turn up their noses, and say, "Oh, that would never fly in my house." When potty training Noah, it was more about advice. People couldn't seem to accept that he understood the entire concept and was simply going to do things in his own way at his own time. "Buy him toys!" they insisted. "Lock him in the bathroom for two hours!" "Take away his toys!" "Make him be naked!" Goodness. All that advice made me crazy and in the end, it worked out, anyway. It just had to be done Noah style.

Noah has missed a lot of school recently, first because of a terrible ear infection and then because of a family trip. At first it was all fun and games. He was thrilled to be out of school, and as I feared, began to seek new reasons to not have to go back. But upon his return, he discovered the mountain of make-up work that had been piling up. "Take the February break to complete this," his teacher said generously.

That brings us to this week. Every day has been excruciating and painstaking trying to get Noah to do schoolwork, though I know there is simply too much to complete all in one day and the longer he procrastinates the more miserable he will be in the end. So today I said, "Noah, you need to do your homework today. You must do it."

"No! I won't!" he declared. "It's the terriblest, worstest, most awful thing and I won't do it!"

Meanwhile, I intermittently go online and read about kidnappings, murders, child molestation, and terminal illness, but, yes, Noah, homework is the worst.

During a break he and I sat on the steps with his now four-month-old brother Max. The second Noah joined us, Max's face broke into a wide smile, the sort he saves only for his brothers.

"He's smiling at me," Noah pointed out unnecessarily. But it was necessary to him. Making Max smile is a point of pride for him.

"Of course he is," I said. "He loves you very much."

"Why?"

"Because you're his big brother. Little brothers and sisters always love their big brothers. No matter what you ever do, Max will always think you are the greatest thing ever. He will love you no matter what. He'll look at you and say, 'I want to be just like Noah.'"

Noah grinned.

"That's a pretty big responsibility, you know."

"It is?"

"Well, yeah. Max won't always realize you're doing anything wrong. He'll just think whatever it is you're doing is cool, since it's you. So it's your job to make good choices so he learns that being good is cool."

Noah frowned.

I went on. "You know, maybe Max will hate school when he's in kindergarten. Are you going to want to hear him moan and complain and say he's not doing his work? You'll be in fifth grade by then. What would you tell him?"

He didn't hesitate. In his great big voice, he said, "Oh. Well, I would listen to everything he had to say, first of all. THEN, I would say, 'I know. It was hard for me, too.' Because IT IS."

Having Three

Joe and I, having been "in love" for ages now, didn't mind not having a babysitter on Friday night for official Valentine's Day. He brought home some sushi and we had a little wine after the kids were all in bed, and then, to avoid crowds and craziness, we went out to dinner on Saturday night instead.

Joe didn't remember this, but eleven years ago, Valentine's Day fell on a Friday. He sent me flowers, but back then we were only friends and he wanted to avoid the complication of seeing me on the official day of looove. So we went out on Saturday the fifteenth instead, which was the special night we held hands in the car and he kissed me for the first (second) time ever. (Our first kiss had actually been five years earlier but we don't count it because it was such a bomb.) So much for avoiding complication.

But then what I didn't remember was the significance of yesterday. One year ago yesterday was the day I discovered I was going to have Max. I remember the panic of realizing the possibility of being pregnant, and knowing I had exactly one pregnancy test somewhere in one of the bathroom drawers. (I really like taking pregnancy tests. It turns out I'm really good at them.) I had been wide-eyed in my bed at three a.m. with the awareness of it, and by four I was in the bathroom, blinking blearily in the too-bright light as I waited for the second pink line.

Unlike our first two pregnancies, Joe and I really knew what this third one meant. We'd spent a lot of heart-wrenching conversations discussing what another baby would mean for our family, so that little white stick with the two pink lines was more than just a thrilling moment. It's the only pregnancy test I kept of all three of my children, and I think it's because it was the only time I fully understood how different my life was going to be.

I wrote the rest of this blog in my head tonight while I rocked Max to sleep in the nursery upstairs. All of my boys had unique nurseries, something that is inexplicably really important to me (though it might have something to do with my being born third, not having a room, and being housed in the bathroom). Max's room is my favorite one of all, decorated with blue stripes and accents from Where the Wild Things Are. I toyed with how cliche that was, but in the end decided I didn't care. It's a wonderful, magical story, and I love how many times I was able to find something small that said "Max" on it.

Max had a fussy day today. In general he is a fussy baby, afflicted by reflux and a strong personality. I never got to have one of those easy, breezy, on-the-go type babies you see strolling through mayhem whilst sound asleep. The pediatrician actually commented on that early on during an office visit. Anyway, Max gave me a hard time going in for bedtime tonight, polishing off his whole bottle but waking himself up at the last second with the need to spit up. Poor buddy. If you never had a refluxer, count yourself lucky. It isn't necessarily the worst thing at all, but it is hard to see your little one so uncomfortable and unhappy all the time. 

So there I was, playing mind games with Max trying to get him to sleep, bouncing him this way and that, making "sh-sh-sh" noises, and carefully not making eye contact with him because that seems to be an indicator to him that it's Awake Time, and mentally writing this blog. I came up with a concise one through ten list of the changes in our lives because of Max. But when I went to ease Max into his crib, he decided he wasn't ready to sleep and I had to start the bouncing and the shushing all over, so I re-wrote the whole blog a second time, including entertaining details about the difficulty of going from two to three children.

And then I sat down to write it. The cursor blinked at me, the white screen stretched endlessly, and I felt...quiet. My mind and my heart went quiet, thinking over the details of the last four months, and of the last year. The changes seem obvious, but then profound, and then...unimportant. Not because Max is not wonderful and amazing, but because he is. I expected him to be like Joey or like Noah, or like me or like Joe, and I am amazed that he is completely his own person. Already. I am amazed at his tiny ears and his tiny hands and the amount of toe jam one small person can accumulate in a single day. I am amazed at his voice and his sounds and his belly button and his rosy lips. I'm amazed that he knows and loves each member of his family so much already, and that his brothers have loved him without thought or question since the moment they first saw him in the hospital. 

Having a baby is not an easy thing for me. Having three children seems impossible a lot of the time, like I'm having a dream where I watch this messy, chaotic version of myself try and deal with problems that can't possibly be mine in real life. But there is one thing that comes very easily to me, and I am grateful, deeply, that my children share this same gift. I  love my family. I love these children. Here I wanted to avoid being obvious or cliche, but it is the most profound thing I can think to say. That when I reached a point in my life where I believed my love was all used up and given away, the Universe found a way to reach deep inside me and show how much more there was. It is hard and I think I am awful at it, but I love my children and am very glad to be their mother. 

That is all.

Fussy baby yawning. <3 p="">

Lucky

Tonight I went to the grocery store to replace a bottle brush that had fallen into the gummy, questionable depths of my kitchen sink drain. It had been a long day: Max's christening followed by a party I didn't want to have. I never want to have parties. I love my family, both our families, but I hate entertaining. Everyone wears shoes on my rugs and rummages in my kitchen. These are things a germophobic control freak simply can't abide.

Anyway.

I realized about halfway through Wegmans that my face felt stiff and starchy, and I realized it was still streaked with tears and mascara from an episode Noah, my second born and beloved five-year-old, had had earlier. It should not surprise anyone if they see me with a tear-stained face. I had a baby seven and a half weeks ago and my emotions and hormones are still a mess. But add my Noah into the mix, and, well, you just can't imagine.

Seven and a half weeks ago, my Noah went from being a second-born to being a middle child. You think that doesn't matter? Well, I've got news for you. It definitely does. I knew it would, but I had no idea just how much.

How many times a day do I shout SHHH! The baby's sleeping!  or, Watch out! The baby's right there! How many times a day does Noah hear me say No!  or Oh, Noah! Maybe I always spoke sharply to him. I think I did. But now, it carries an entirely different message to him. Now, it says, "Somebody else is more important." It doesn't matter that it isn't true. It matters that it's what he feels. And, yes, he is five, but his feelings do matter. At least, they do to me.

This weekend, knowing it was Max's big weekend, I arranged for a special "Noah and Godmother Day" with my sister. It turned into a sleepover, which Noah was absolutely thrilled about. What we didn't bank on is that he decided at some point it was not just a sleepover, but a life swap. He wanted to trade families altogether and move in with my sister as his new mother.

I can't say this didn't hurt.

It exploded at the christening, during which he must have leaned over and whispered to me several hundred times to double check whether I might let him go through with the swap. To deter him, I kept hissing things like, "Shhh, we'll talk later." This was a major mistake, apparently, because "we'll talk later" translated to Noah as, "We'll pack your things later." I had no idea what I was in for.

As the party progressed, I found out just what was going on with my most tempestuous little boy. Realizing that no one was taking his plan seriously, he began urgently seeking out anyone who would listen, insisting they help him gather his things and wondering why no one else was on board. Finally, I pulled him to the side and gave him the truth as gently as I could. "Noah," I said, "you can't go and live with Janie. You have to stay here with me."

Noah has the biggest roundest eyes I've ever seen on a little boy. The other day, he said, "I can make my eyes ginormous, wanna see?" In this moment, they were soaked with tears that spilled over his long eyelashes, and his chin puckered as he said words I don't ever, ever want to hear again: "But I don't want to live with you."

I'm a smart enough, pragmatic enough person to know that he is a child, and that he had no concept of what he was truly asking. However, any mother knows that those words hurt, no matter how empty or fleeting they may be.

It was a long haul from there. Jane spoke to him, my mom spoke to him, Joe spoke to him. No one could get through. It wasn't much helped by the fact that his cousins seemed to think the whole thing was a grand idea and kind of encouraged it. Finally, the guests left the house and I was left with a crying middle child in my arms. A little boy who knows he has a big brother who gets everything first and a baby brother who has more important needs than anyone and two parents who just can't seem to give him what he needs, apparently.

He cried in my arms that my sister wouldn't take him, and that he didn't want me.

I looked at Joe and said, "Let me take him alone." Joe, for once, realized the importance of this and took Max to another part of the house. Joey set himself up with video games, and I brought Noah to my bedroom and closed the door. While he whimpered and waited, I reached into the bottom of one of my drawers and pulled out a book that I've had since he was born. I always meant for him to have it when he was grown up. Maybe when I died. (Do you do that? Imagine what you will leave for your family when you die? I'm kind of obsessed with it.) The book is called The Mommy Journal: Letters To Your Child and was created by Tracy Broy, but it's written by me. It's a journal with blank pages so that a mother can write to her child short little epistles over the course of his (or in some cases, her) life. I have one for each of my boys, and tonight I showed Noah his.

We sat on the floor together. I opened to the inside cover, where I'd begun five and a half years ago by etching an inscription.

"'To Noah,'" I read aloud, "'I never knew how much love I had to give until I had you. Love, Mom.'"

This is when I began to cry, too. When Noah's face turned to mine, he was aghast.

"But you're crying," he whispered.

"Yes," I said. "Now just listen."

I turned to the first letter.

"I wrote this one in May," I told him, and began to read.

Dear Noah,

You are two weeks old. Last summer I asked God for a baby. I immediately knew you were a boy, and that your name should be Noah. Dad disagreed, but my "mother's instinct" won him over. While you lived in my tummy, you moved constantly--especially when I tried to sleep. You desperately wanted to come out and be part of the world--proven when labor didn't move fast enough and you had to be a c-section. After the moment you were born, they placed you, shivering, in my arms. They bundled us up in three blankets so you could stay with me longer, because they knew we had bonded instantly. Now, you are an angel. Golden blond hair and deep blue eyes. I loved you immediately, so much more than I thought possible. You are snuggly and sweet, so alert and smart already. You coo and cry so cutely, with a quivery lower lip. They say you look like me. I gave you a bath tonight, after which you promptly spit up and pooped. I love you. Welcome. 

Love, Mom

I was shaking with sobs as I finished this letter. Not because I love Noah so much now, which I do, but because of how true every word already was even then. His stubbornness, his strength. His insistence and impetuousness. Everything that made him Noah even as an infant. He looked up at me, crying, too, and said, "You wrote that when I was a baby?" His chin pulled up and he swallowed. I nodded, and put my arm around him, reading on. I read him four more letters before he reached out, closed the book, and pulled away.

"You don't want to read anymore?" I asked, my nose covered in snot now and my voice heavy with crying.

He shook his head. He looked at me. He said with some confusion, "You're making me cry even more."

I took the book from his hands and set it aside. "I know things are hard right now," I said. "They're hard for all of us because we're learning. But I want you to know, you are the one boy I asked God for. Joey and Max were surprises, and I love them very much. But I asked for you. You are everything I've ever wanted."

He nodded, closing his eyes and more tears spilled out. "You're making me cry more!" he said again.

"There's no one else like you in the world," I said, still thinking in amazement over all the personality traits he'd shown even in his first months as a baby. "You are the only Noah, and I would never ever want to live without you. I love being your Mom."

He look into my eyes and said, "And I love being your Noah."

Maybe I should have been embarrassed as I walked through Wegmans all tear-stained and starchy, but I wasn't. I just felt lucky.

Nobody Told Me

When you have a baby, the first thing people like to ask is, "Is he a good baby?"

I have no idea what to make of that, and it's probably because I don't think I've ever had a "good" or "bad" baby. My babies cry a lot and they poop a lot. Joey was colicky and had some wild reflux, while Noah never slept. And Max seems to be somewhere in the middle right now--who knows how that will turn out?

The other question people have been asking this time around is how everyone is adjusting. That's more valid, and as I love to talk about my family, I have a much easier time answering this one. Basically, our world has been turned upside-down. I knew it was coming. It's sort of like watching a storm blow in. You see it out there on the horizon, and you think, "Wow, it's so beautiful. It's awesome," but that isn't necessarily what you're thinking when you're right there in it. 

The other day, Max was having a much-needed snooze in his swing. The boys were watching TV and Joe and I were in the next room. The whole thing was this freak moment of serenity and all I wanted was to have it last a little longer.

That's when I heard Noah.

The sounds coming from the next room could only be Noah, unless there was a rabid jaguar loose in my house. Sounds of  "RAWR! RAAAAAAAAWRRRRRRRR! SNAP! SNAP! I'LL EAT YOU UP! RAWRRR!" reverberated through the house. 

It was one of those moments where you think, "Nah," but your heart is already racing.

"You don't think he's...bothering the baby, do you, Joe?" I asked, my voice carefully controlled.

Joe didn't look up. "I can't say I don't think that."

I stepped around the corner and found Noah shaking THIS Halloween mask:

and making scary noises at a sleeping Max. 

"NO!" I cried. I ignored the fact that Max was snoozing right on through this ridiculous display and zeroed in on the real problem. "We NEVER EVER bother a sleeping baby! And you should NEVER growl and shake scary masks at them!!!"

Noah turned around. Slowly, calmly--like I'd just asked him to consider the meaning of life or the history of time. His face morphed into something of annoyance and then he glared at me.

He said, "Well, sorry, but nobody told me not to."

I love ya, tomorrow!

Somehow, I have made it nine months through a third pregnancy. I can't imagine how long this has seemed to Joey and Noah--probably like an eternity--because to me, it's felt like I'd never be anything but pregnant again.

We have taken the last couple of weeks and slowly made our house into what it inevitably becomes when a baby arrives: a circus center of chairs and baby holders that are meant to soothe and charm and sleepify baby. Drawers are filled with the tiniest clothes in the world, clothes so small that when I hold them up I can't imagine my two big boys could ever have been that size. And, I must say, when I hold those teeny-tiny onesies up to my belly, they do feel unfairly disproportionate.

My biggest fears have remained the same, and can all be boiled down into the same question. What is our family going to become now? I still can't believe that the Universe has blessed us in this way, because (and I can't say this enough), it really isn't what we expected. I look down at my huge belly and I just shake my head in disbelief. How can this be? But it is. No matter how idiotically surprised I might be, it's happening. It's a thing. It's a-go. It's real.

I pray every day that Max will be healthy. People have loved teasing us about having a third boy, and I really can't emphasize enough how annoying that is. Boy or girl, he's a person. And I truly do not care what gender he is as much as I care that he will grow up strong and healthy like his brothers.

The other night when I was tucking Joey and Noah in, Joey grabbed my wrist just as I was moving to leave.

"Mom," he said, "I have something I want to tell you." This is a new thing he does, and I love it. I mean, sometimes it's some ridiculous had-to-be-there scene from school or a completely inane fact about, I don't know, bubble gum, but I'm so pleased that he feels that he can tell me anything, I'll take it all.

"Okay," I said, sitting back down.

His brows furrowed and his forehead creased as he searched for his words. I leaned forward a bit because the air purifier was blowing and Noah was over in the next bed singing.

"Mom, I don't want our family to change." He hurried on before I could respond. "I love us the way we are, and I just--I don't want anything to change us."

I brushed his fuzzy hair backward off his forehead, something I've done since he was an infant in his crib. In fact, when I do it, if I look at him just right, I can still see him being that small again, arms thrown backward and legs sprawled out, completely comfortable and unafraid of the world.

"What are you worried will happen to change us?" I asked, not wanting to address the wrong issue or possibly plant a new one in his mind.

He frowned even more deeply. "I don't want you to die. Or Daddy! Or Noah! I love us all so much. And I don't want anyone to be sick...or to have anything...wrong."

Bingo.

I'm sorry to admit that I didn't have a ready answer. Mostly because these are all my own fears, the ones that nest deep down inside me and keep me awake in the middle of the night. And not even because I'm pregnant, but all the time, even before I had an idea that Max could be a real thing. I love my life so much, and I would never want anything bad to happen to any of us.

So I responded feebly, "When I go into the hospital, Joey, everything will be okay. All the doctors know exactly what they're doing, and they've been watching me closely for nine months. Doing tests and sonograms--you know that. All of that is so that they could know ahead of time if anything looked wrong. We would know by now if we had anything to worry about." And again, this all came from the things I have become used to telling myself. And I could see, unfortunately, that it did very little to assure my big boy.

Still, like me, it was enough to get him to sleep that night. And then yesterday happened.

Again, it was bedtime, although this time both boys were just pulling their socks on their feet to finish off their pajama sets. They were sprawled like crabs on the floor with me, tugging and yanking at their socks to get the heels and toes exactly where they like them.

"Just two more days until we meet our brother!" I told them in a voice usually reserved for Big Deals, like Christmas and vacations.

Again, Joey frowned. "I'm still a little worried that things will be different." The way he said it, "different," made it sound like an apocalypse was coming.

To my surprise, Noah spoke up. "I'm very excited," he said. He was still looking down at his socks, but glanced up almost shyly through his giantly long blond eyelashes. "This is the first baby I get to have who is smaller than me. And in our family. Our house. And I'll be his big brother."

I won't beat around the bush. I almost started to cry it was so cute. And this time, I'd had time to think about Joey's concerns, and what was right and true. "Don't be afraid," I said, leaning closer toward both boys. I smiled, really feeling the excitement of what I wanted to tell them. "This isn't scary--it's an adventure! It's the first day of the rest of our lives! Once Max comes, we will become the family we're meant to be."

Noah grinned, and Joey looked up at me thoughtfully. Acceptingly. My two sensitive little boys. Mad that I'm not having a girl? How silly that sounds when I think of what their faces looked like last night, so filled with hope and trust and, at last, readiness.

We are ready for our next adventure.

Born Third

Dear Max,

Today I went to the store and bought you diapers. I've decided that makes it official: we're ready for you. And I think, little boy, that you are just about ready for the world.

You are busy moving all the time, and I know that things are getting to be pretty cramped quarters in there. I feel your pain...since I share it.

I have spent a good deal of time trying to figure you out, your personality, your quirks, even what you might look like. Don't worry. I'm not foolish enough to commit to any preconceived notions just yet. I knew that your big brother Noah would be nothing like your big brother Joey, and I was right. I also know that while I can't imagine a third personality in the mix, that you'll come out and surprise us all by being just completely you.

Being born third is a big deal, I think. I was third in my family, and, like you, I was born much later than my older siblings. This can be hard, little boy, because there are going to be times you'll feel left out, lonely, and even forgotten. I've learned over time that that last is never true: nobody forgets you. They keep right on loving you, even when you don't realize it. Especially in our family.

There will come a time when your big brothers will seem impossibly grown up. It might even be right away, because Joey is eight and when you're very small, eight is a big deal. You are going to feel like you will never catch up to them. I hope you won't try, little boy. You are a blessing to all of us, to slow us down and help us hang on to a magic that was almost lost to us. You will be the sparkles in the air around us when we all want is to be hard and cynical and mature. That's an important job, and don't forget it.

There will come a time when your big brothers really will be all grown up, and you will feel so far from adulthood that it will be like having four parents and no siblings at all. It's the time when the third-born feels like an only child. I understand this all too well, and guess what? If you play your cards right, it's pretty great. You get all the benefits of having a big family that loves you, but of being the complete center of attention. It can get annoying, true, with everyone focusing on all your mistakes and overloading you with unsolicited advice, but love it up while you can. Because before you blink you'll be a grownup, too. That's not something I even want to think about.

And don't forget that while you're still small and your brothers are big, you'll quietly witness all of their mistakes. You'll watch them fail and struggle and make good choices and bad choices. The best thing to do, buddy, is just hang back and absorb it all. They'll never want to hear what you think, no, no--you'll be young and inconsequential during their moments of spectacular failure (a thing you shouldn't feel bad about, since they are struggling and don't want to imagine their baby brother might know better than they do). But do listen. Do pay attention. And by all means, do remember. Because your tracks will cross all those same paths, Max, and when they do, you'll be prepared. You'll have seen it all before, sometimes twice, and you'll already know what works and what doesn't. And you'll have spent so much time admiring your brothers, and sometimes hating them, that you'll get to pick and choose which things about them you'd like to keep for yourself and which things simply don't work. You'll see Noah's unending stubbornness and know when to use it and when to let it go. You'll see Joey's heart of gold and know when it's time to put up a protective armor to keep yourself safe.

You, my darling boy, will be the very best of us all.

Because that is what being born third, late, and last means. And in the meantime, we are waiting to meet you. We are excited! We love you so much already, whoever and whatever you will be. That's how our family works, Max. No matter what, and always.

Love,

Mom

First Words

Since I've been pregnant, bedtime has gone from a military sort of affair to a chaotic one. The larger I grow, the harder it is for me to crouch down with Noah or keep up with Joey. For the most part, I think both boys mean to be considerate and helpful, but let's face it. They're two little boys who have a thousand, no, make that a million times more energy and agility than I do right now. I'm pretty sure they look at me and see the lamest, most stick-in-the-mud mom ever. And poor Joey. When I'm stuck on the floor like a turtle on its back, he's usually the one who has to help shove me up in the air. UNPLEASANT, I'm sure.

But sometimes things do go just right, like the other night while Joey showered and Noah, all fresh and clean and smelling delicious, snuggled up to my side in my bed, leaned against me, and said, "Momma?  Can we do stories tonight?"

I love when he calls me Momma, because it's become rare. It's usually Mom, with an occasional Mommy. I also love "doing stories," though it's something my husband started and that he is more likely to get to do. Noah assumes we all have our roles, and he doesn't much like us to be outside of them. So if Daddy came up with "doing stories," it's Daddy who must be the one to do them. But every once in awhile, I get lucky.

"Sure," I said. "Should it be a 'Once upon a time?'"

Noah thought about this. "No," he said. His face turned up to mine with a huge glowing smile. "I like the one about how you met Daddy."

Noah is my little romantic. When watching Disney movies, he makes everyone be quiet for the "love part."

I smiled at him. "Okay," I said. "Should I start, or do you want to?"

"You tell it."

"Okay. A long, long time ago, when Mommy was just a young girl, only fourteen years old, she went to a dance at a school called Canisius High School."

"Mommy?" Noah interrupted.

"Yes?"

"Can we skip this part?"

"Well, what part do you want to hear?"

"What's the first thing Dad ever said to you?"

And somehow, the way his voice became all mystified and whispery, I knew Joe had never actually included that in his own telling of our story. In fact, I realized it was something I hadn't thought about in quite a long time. So long that I didn't immediately remember the answer.

What was the first thing Joe Bielecki ever said to me? And then, it hit me. As the memory flooded into my mind, I found myself grinning as my eyes watered.

I looked down at our little boy, so like us both.

"The first thing Daddy ever said to me was, 'You're short.'"

Noah's eyes widened as this sank in. And then, he opened his mouth wide with a hoot of laughter, flopping over backwards into the pillows and clutching his tiny belly.

"He said that?" he gasped out. "'You're short!'" And then exploded into more giggles.

Yup. Sometimes it doesn't take much to fill your heart with joy and love.

Boy Crazy

I grew up with just one brother, but I had plenty of boy cousins. And I babysat my next-door neighbors for some time, who had six--yes, six!--children, three of them boys. So I always thought that, despite the fact that I envisioned myself with a house full of girls (the sort of thing that would inspire people to chuckle and say, "Oh, poor Joe, with all those girls!"), I would be just fine raising boys.

It's just that there are certain things they do, collectively, that make me second-guess myself or, sometimes, want to faint. Especially now that they are big enough to play together. You might even say they're "in cahoots."

Once, I was at the house of a friend with little boys who were older than mine. Above our heads came the steady sound of thumping and possible wreckage. She sat beside me, serenely sipping coffee, smiling and not noticing my unshakable panic that perhaps someone should check on the upstairs situation. Maybe yelling was even in order. Not only did my friend do absolutely nothing, but she seemed to not notice anything was amiss.

"I'll never be like that," I declared to myself in my head.

But you see, now I have all these boys in my house. I suppose it's not so many. My uncle has six boys out of eight children, and my grandmother had four. I used to be appalled when stories were told of my grandmother's sometimes rather harsh methods of household management (opening the door and letting their beloved dogs run away, for example), but now, I'm shocked to say, I actually kind of understand.

What I do NOT understand, I've come to see, is little boys.

Here are some things I confidently know. The bathroom is a private place. Showers and baths are for bodily cleanup. Underpants are meant for covering things that need covering. Walking is a lovely thing to do. There is a difference between an inside voice and an outside voice. You can look with your eyes, but not with your hands. It is possible to discuss that someone might be wrong in a polite and calm way without any physical contact at all. In fact, physical contact is unnecessary in a lot of every day scenarios.

And yet, while I know things as well as I've know anything, my children do not seem to be catching on to any of it.

In our house, we have a playroom. It's downstairs. When we moved in, my husband suggested that we have the downstairs bedroom be a nursery for the baby and make the upstairs bedroom the playroom. "Wouldn't that be easier for you?" he'd asked. 

"No, no!" I'd said, amused by his foolishness. I mean, did he honestly think he should even bother coming up with ideas on the subject? Clearly I knew everything there was to know about raising our children. 

I don't think I was necessarily wrong on the matter, because it was my thought that sending children upstairs to a space of their own, out of sight and out of reach of adults, was just plain asking for trouble. "They'll never need to be in their rooms, except for sleeping," I'd announced. Really, it is sound logic, isn't it? 

It's just that today, I found myself on the couch with a book. Such a rare thing, you know. Dishwasher running, washing machine going, floors vacuumed. Total down time. And then it happened. From up above came the sound of thumping. Shrieks. Deep voices filled with bluster, which I can only imagine were meant to be warrior-like. And do you know what I did? Nothing. I did nothing!

I am shocked by my own lack of concern. I'm also shocked that somehow, it has happened that my children now have two play spaces: downstairs and upstairs. How did this come to pass? At what point did I look the other way, enough that it became just something they do? Because it certainly has. The pounding above me sounded like the devil himself would emerge through my ceiling. "My God," I said to myself. "I've become my friend, from all that time ago." And I'm not even ashamed.

The thing I've learned about having little boys is that it doesn't seem to matter how nurturing and good I am with them. They're going to think that poop and farts are hilarious (even in fancy restaurants). Last night, they spent ten minutes in their beds laughing breathlessly over the fact that Noah could snort. They flopped over backwards, barely missing banging their heads on the wall, clutching their bellies and trying to breathe, and just when they composed themselves, Noah let out yet another sound worthy of the biggest, fattest pig you ever saw and the whole thing would start all over again. I'll tell you what, there was nothing I could do but finally leave them to it. Sure, I could have stood front and center with my hands on my hips and a scary expression on my face, used my wicked witch voice and put the fear of God in them, but in the end...why?

Sometimes, in these moments, I close my eyes and imagine pink bedrooms filled with ruffles and twinkle lights and fairytale magic. I would have been fantastic with girls. I know this, and I think the Universe knows it, too. But for whatever reason, I've got all these boys. My mom says it's punishment for what a bad girl I was when I was young. I never did drugs, never drank, and really never lied to her, but somehow it happened (often) that I was grounded for being, and I quote, "Wild, out of control, and a very bad girl." I did fall in love for the first time in kindergarten, with a boy named Danny who refused to come into our classroom for three whole weeks. And then again in first grade, and second grade, and every grade thereafter until one day one of those boys was foolish enough to drop down on one knee and say, "I don't know how long I've loved you, I think I always have, and I know I always will." Thank God for that boy. Not only was he true to his word, but he also has this uncanny knack for understand little boys that, now that I've learned to listen, has saved me more than once.

 And more than that, my boys are friends. Best friends. They argue and misbehave and put their hands down their pants for no reason at all, but I've seen Joey throw himself in front of Noah to protect him from harm. I've seen Noah wordlessly squish onto the couch beside Joey, where before there had been no space at all but Joey squishes into the back cushions to make room. And they sit like that, their blond heads pressed together, breathing in sync, without speaking, with full understanding that one belongs with the other and that's just the way it is. I don't think I'll ever stop worrying about them...that thumping and shrieking is enough to give any normal person a heart attack, but I definitely love them for what they are. The Universe knew better than I did, because I don't think there is anything better on this whole earth than the little boys in my life. 

Even with their snorts and farts.

Stay Gold

Today is my oldest child's eighth birthday. Like any mother, I remember the day he was born with perfect clarity. I can attribute each aspect of how his birth went to some part of his personality, and recall the very instant I felt that first rush of love when he was placed in my arms.

Around the time that Joey turned two, I was enjoying all the cool new things he was doing and, especially, saying. Joey was an early talker, and by the time we hit the tremendous twos (he didn't become terrible until he was three and had a baby brother), everything out of his mouth was hilarious and clever and wonderful, of course. I frequently shared "Joey Stories" at work, so much so that when I run into former students out in the world, they say things like, "I don't remember your name, but I remember you had a son named Joey."

One particular time, a colleague was listening with appropriate interest, smiling, chuckling, and nodding at all the right moments (FYI, if you don't like my Joey stories, don't feed me with feigned interest like that). When I finished the story, he shared some of the wisdom he'd gained from raising his own children, grown already by that point. He said, "This is the time that's really the best. From two to about eight."

It was meant to be light-hearted advice, I know, but it stuck in my head ever since. That number, that age, "Eight," like a looming threshold to doom or something. I've loved Joey through each milestone, always marveling, again, like any mother, at how special and unique and amazing my child is. I do like to bolster my opinion with little bits of what seems like sound proof to me, like I'm a teacher and have been exposed to hundreds of kids in my career. Or that I babysat a lot growing up, or that I'm just so naturally right about most things. But in the end, it comes to down to this. Joey is my first experience with all things mom. Even now that I have Noah and baby Max on the way, everything that happens as Joey grows is unchartered territory. And now we are venturing into what I've imagined to be scary, stormy waters until, I'm told, he's pretty much a grownup.

Now that I've arrived here at the Big 8, I find it's like most things I've approached with dread. Childbirth, kidney surgery, failure...the thing about it all is that once it's happening, you're just sort of thrust into it without any other option, so...you just do it. It's not even like failing is an option, it's more just this inherent push to move ahead and get through it. So you do. And with Joey being this child who's leaving behind his babyhood completely, entering this phase in his life where he's become too old for a lot of the things in the toy aisle but too young for much else...I find that more than anything, he's still, well, himself. And that plastering an age or a number on that doesn't really change the person I've known for a small lifetime.

There are things. There is an awkwardness to him that never existed when he was "too little to know better." Things that were once funny or cute aren't anymore. Things that Noah gets attention for don't work for Joey, and he struggles with how to fit into various situations. I think that's keenest difference: the appearance of struggle in his life. And perhaps this is what my friend meant all those years ago. Not that turning eight marked a period that would render my life as a horror film, but that this is where life's real challenges will begin to show themselves.

School will become more about studying, preparation, and work. Friends will start making choices that are unfathomable, or merely different, to Joey. He will have to make choices that will have consequences. Not big ones like he'll have as an adult, but things that will definitely impact him tomorrow, or in a week.

Every day when he leaves for school, I tell him the same thing. "Try your hardest and be nice to everyone." It sounds generic, but it's come down to what I myself value the most in other people. Do you strive to make things a little better every day? Do you give every situation your best effort? And, to me, the most important thing of all, do you treat others, regardless of their situation, with the utmost kindness and respect? That is what I want for my children. To work at success, because it's not a gift, and to be kind, loving people.

There have already been days where Joey has met small challenges with these things, which seem so straightforward and easy. He comes home and says, "But Mom, I did say all the right things, I was nice, but so-and-so still...." and then he shakily recounts an event that occurred outside our script for how other people should be and act based on our own choices.

I can't tell Joey, or my other kids for that matter, that these moments hurt me, too. That the advice that I give them, the things that I teach them, won't always work and that it kills me when some little shit on the baseball team or on the bus messes with the system, with the business of just being nice. Because kids are kids, and that means that for a percentage of time (some greater than others), they really are little shits. It makes me, as a mother, want to pummel them, but I can't. Even if it were morally acceptable and not illegal, it still wouldn't be okay.

Because by this time, it's no longer my job to fight all their battles.

I can't save the day every time. I can't make it better with Band-Aids or popsicles or a hug and a kiss. I'm not the only opinion, the only person who matters to them anymore. I may be able to help. I may able to remind Joey that sometimes the world sucks, but he'll always have one crazy, overzealous fan in his corner, cheering her head off and chanting his name. Even when he messes up. Even when no one else gets it.

But it won't always be enough. I think that's what my friend meant about turning eight. And it doesn't even happen over night...it's slow. It's unexpected. There'll be one bad day, and then things will be fine for awhile. But it will always come up again, and as he grows up, it will be harder and more complicated, because that's what life is. I can only hope that the things I do and say on the sidelines will be enough to help him figure it all out, and hopefully, if I'm any good at it, with a little less pain than I had when I went through it. Because that's another thing we mothers want. We want to just keep that pain as far from our children as we can, and every tiny victory matters, no matter the outcome of the previous or the next situation.

When I look at Joey now, I'm reminded of a book I've always loved teaching to my eighth grade classes. In SE Hinton's The Outsiders, we see kids with problems and issues and interactions we all pray our own children will never encounter, but they probably will, on some or every level. At the end of the story, without giving too much away (because if you haven't read it, you should), one character, Johnny, has met repeated challenges and now faces the world with the eyes of someone a little too broken by it all. His friend Ponyboy cites a Robert Frost poem, quoting the line, "Nothing gold can stay." But Johnny sees Ponyboy as a person who still believes there is good, a person who is still a little bit shiny despite the muck and mire of the world. Johnny urges him, "Stay gold, Ponyboy."

This, in the end, is what I want for Joey. For despite his weirdness, his craziness, his faults...his heart is so unfailingly good. I don't think we can say that about many people, not even all children. So to Joey, on his eighth birthday, I say, I love you, my baby. And stay gold. Always, no matter what...I want you to just stay gold.

No matter how big you grow, you will always look like this to me. <3 p="">