A Tribute To My Child's Eyes

The twenty-mile ride to the school where I work usually takes me thirteen minutes, which I think is impressive. It's mostly Thruway driving, but just the same, I go ahead and rock that drive every day. I have reasons for having perfected it, not least of which is that every single day I'm in a big hurry to get home and see my annoying, stinky, yucky boys. They are my everything.

This morning my twenty-mile ride took me forty-five minutes. Fifty-five if you count the ten minutes I needed to pump gas. They've been predicting snow all week ("they" being the weather experts), down to the hour it would begin. This blows my mind, because you'd think the snow plows would be prepared. You'd think that with us being Buffalo, the snow plows would be prepared. You'd think with us being Buffalo, and having missing two consecutive weeks of school due to a massive snow storm, the snow plows would be prepared.

As of seven o'clock this morning, nothing had been plowed.

This made for a glorious drive for school, in which I muttered over and over to myself in the deafening silence that can only be created by snow, "I don't want my children to live without their mother." I kept my hands at ten and two and said a lot of prayers as the wheels of my four-wheel-drive SUV caught in the two ruts over the highway, dragging me this way and that way through wind and walls of snow. Tractor trailers blew boldly past me, only to be seen jack-knifed in ravines along the side of the road miles later. My windshield wipers kept clogging up with clumpy snow and then freezing, dragging smears of slush across my windshield. Off the Thruway, I had to pray hard as I approached green lights. "Please don't change, please don't change, I can't stop, I can't stop." This is winter driving in Western New York. Basically, a wing and a prayer.

I thought I was through the worst part of my day by lunch, and that things had cleared up by the time I was ready to head home after work. It had stopped snowing, and while the roads weren't totally clear they were drivable, patches of pavement visible here and there. I waited for my windshield to thaw out and began my twenty-mile trek.

Halfway there, my cell phone rang. This is usually a fluke. No one, I mean no one, ever calls my cell phone. Anyone who knows me well is aware I never answer it (I rarely know where it is except at work, where I can't answer it), and anyone else has dialed the wrong number. My dashboard lit up with alerts, the car began speaking to me (this is a design flaw, I think), and the number on my radio flashed to the number of my children's school bus garage.

Alerting me of a snow day to come, I could only assume.

"Hello?" I asked, ready for good news. I was expecting a robot voice, signature of the automatic call system that alerts us to emergency days off and other such nonsense. Once, to let us know the school district's phone systems were down. (Then how are you calling me, creepy robo-caller??)

"Mrs. Bielecki?" a very non-robotic voice said back. 

My heart dropped to my stomach. "Yes?"

"I'm the head of transportation in your children's school district. Your son Noah was injured on the bus. It seems he fell and hit his head on glass. He has a bad enough gash and is bleeding badly enough that we needed to alert emergency services and have them check him out."

Breathing has stopped. Heart is frozen. Knees are gone.

"I'm sorry. You called 911?"

"Yes, ma'am. The police are on their way, as well as an ambulance. Are you...can you get to him?" And he went on to tell me the specific location of the bus, just miles from where I was on the Thruway, but in that snow, in that moment, it felt like the other side of the world.

"I'm on the Thruway," I said helplessly, though I may have been yelling. Not at the transportation guy, but from sheer lack of control. And yet I knew, the driving was bad enough that if I didn't maintain control I'd get in an accident and be even further from reaching Noah.

"How far?"

"Ten minutes."

"Okay, ma'am, I'll have them wait. Can I give the police this phone number to reach you?"

After hanging up, I immediately called my mother. When your world turns upside down, who else is there? I swallowed, realizing that this was what Noah was thinking, as I scrambled through the "easy to use" touch screen to find my mom's number. 

"Stop yelling at me," she said, confirming my earlier suspicions.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry."

"No, don't be sorry. I'll go right now."

By the time I arrived, I saw I had been preceded by two police cars, an ambulance, the fire department, the school principal, and my mother, all parked surrounding the confused-looking school bus, parked askew in a department store parking lot. I flew out of the car, trying not to slip on the slush-coated ice, and was halted by a fireman.

"I don't want you to be startled," he said without preamble. "We did our best, but there was so much blood, we had to bandage him up pretty good. We had to cover the eye that was cut, and we're calling him a pirate. I think he likes that." I began to walk on, but the guy stopped me. "Ma'am? He's a really great kid there. He's been real brave and hasn't cried once."

I moved to the bus door, from which my mom was emerging. She reached out and grabbed my arm. "He's fine," she said. "He's really fine. He needs to go to the ER, but he's fine. Probably just stitches." I nodded, and sort of felt myself passed along between the police officers, propelled up the bus steps. The driver stood to one side, looking like this might be the most surprising thing that had ever happened to him, and a policeman was kneeling in front of a heavily bandaged little boy, an EMT beside him. 

The little boy turned his head so his one eye could see me. The visible part of his face was coated in splotches of now crusty blood.

"Mommy?" His little voice. Small. Tiny. 

I was aware of the police and the EMT continuing to talk to me, of a clipboard being thrust in front of me and papers I needed to sign. But the only thing I really could see or understand was my little boy's one good eye.

Noah's eyes are so beautiful. They are my favorite part of his face. I love his eyes.

It was decided we did not need an ambulance, my mom took Joey in her car with the plan to meet me after our visit to the emergency room. "Everything will be okay," she kept saying. I only believed it because it was her saying it. Anyone else and I might have lost it.

Once in the car, Noah kind of perked up. "They asked me all kinds of questions! My name--they asked me that like a hundred times--and your name, and Joey's name, and where I live, and what my school is....isn't that silly? I mean, we all go to the same school!"

His newly adopted cheer prompted me to ask the really key question in all of this. "Honey, how did this happen?"

"Well, I don't know. The police wanted to know that, too. I was just sitting on the bus, when suddenly it went over a bump--or something--and it shook me so I fell into the wall and bumped my head on the window."

"Just the window?" I asked. "Was it cracked or something?"

"No, the metal part at the edge."

Rather than the hospital or one of the local hospital satellites, I opted for an Immediate Care as it was closest. I drove into an empty lot, and peered into the windows as I unbuckled Noah and helped him out of the car. No one was in the waiting room either. The receptionist leapt from her chair as we approached the doors and greeted us as they glided open.

"Oh, my," she said, eyes widening at Noah's horrific appearance.

We had a zero second wait. The nurses and doctor were wonderful. The gauze bandage that encircled Noah's head was removed to reveal his forehead totally coated in blood, but a completely clotted gash above his eyelash line. I swallowed hard when I saw it. Already clotted. Lucky. Right above his eyelash line. Lucky. Very, very close to his eye, but not his actual eye. Lucky, lucky, lucky. I had to remind myself what it meant to let air into my lungs.

And my little boy? So brave. Impressive, even. Not once did he cry. They tried continuing with the pirate theme. "I don't like pirates," he finally announced. "But I am brave." Yes, Noah. Very, very brave.

As if we weren't already praying our thanks, it was determined that he wouldn't even need stitches. The cut, big and deep as it was, could be glued. Just like that. Like this was Madam Pomfrey and we were at Hogwarts, not Immediate Care, and any second Dumbledore would enter with lemon drops. 

Just as the doctor was finishing up, my mother burst into the exam room. "Joey's at home with the sitter," she said. She glided to the bed upon which Noah lay and rubbed his leg. His uniform had blood all over it and he was wearing his big winter boots. He looked so small and silly.

"When I saw you there, Grandma, I knew everything would be okay."

And I knew exactly what he meant as my mother squeezed my arm, leaned in, and said, "You want to scream, don't you."

I did, Mom, until you came.

I am thankful that Noah is okay. I hope I never have to live through that--the not knowing, the scary phone call, all those emergency vehicles, that powerlessness. I am thankful that, in the end, it was a cut. A cut. My God. It's Christmas, and people suffer all over the world, and my kid has a cut. Thankful is not enough of a word.

But there's more. A feeling just as huge. I am hopeful that Noah will know I love him the way my mother loves me, and trust that I will be there the way my mom is always there. No matter what. No matter what.

And now, a few of the better pictures of my son's beautiful eyes.

 I love you, Noah Michael.

My Thankful Prayer

I'm sitting in the middle of a snowstorm. I have been housebound since Monday night, as storm watches and warnings that I didn't really believe swirled around the news. I'm from Buffalo, and I've grown up with a "take it as it comes" attitude, with a side order of, "I'll believe it when I see it."

The snow is now covering our first story windows. In the street in front of my house, cars are abandoned and mostly buried. I've seen plows and policemen get stuck, I've seen neighbors plug their way through six foot drifts to help them. I saw a person, bundled up on a stretcher, carried down the street by six men. I distracted my children from this. To them, this is an adventure. It should be.

Facebook is flooded with photos and statuses detailing everyone's own personal storm. Many are without power or heat. Most of us have not been able to leave our driveway for days and aren't sure when it will be possible. Most are going stir crazy. They worry about back to work and back to school and groceries and all the things we all worry about even when there isn't a storm keeping us away.

But I think...I'm not just in the middle of a snowstorm. I'm in the middle of my family room bundled under two blankets, one of which is my sacred sweater blanket, the gift I requested and received from Joe the fall he spent working in Pittsburgh while the boys and I stayed behind missing him. My baby is napping, and from the next room I hear the sound of boys giggling together.

I don't want this storm to end. Easy to say, I guess, because I have power and food right now. Maybe I'll change my tune tomorrow or the next day. Probably. But I don't want to be at work, and I don't want to think about tests and quizzes and vocab, given or received (since I'm an ELA teacher). I want to not do anything. I want to not be going anywhere. I want to be, and have wanted since I went back to work in September, right here where I am. I'm not going to wish that away.

Baby Max and I were in my bedroom this morning, me in the rocking chair and him giggling at my feet. Suddenly, he reached for me. "Up!" he demanded. He's delightfully imperious. Imperiousness is only special at this age, of course. It gets a bit tiresome as they grow (evidenced by Noah). I obliged, and he leaned against my arm, smiling with eyes and mouth, the best kind.

I flashed back instantly to a year ago. Where was I then? Trapped at home again, though in a very different way. Max was just a few weeks old, and I was recovering from a very painful C-section and hernia repair. Max was not eating. I can't remember the exact day it was decided he would not be a breastfeeder, but it was somewhere around this date. And I was devastated. Of course I wanted him to grow. He had to start growing. But I had failed. At least, in my eyes. And I hadn't failed through any fault or choice of my own (despite what the midwives told me, but curse them, anyway). I had failed by my very nature, my makeup. I couldn't physically do what God had intended.

I will probably never fully heal from that.

My mother has always sworn that the first year of your baby's life is the hardest. She insists that it's that way for everybody, though I haven't seen much proof of it. Mostly people share the good things. The firsts, the milestones, the heart-to-bursting joy that only comes from being a parent. Some will share a crisis or two, but just enough to scare the hell out of you and then move on. I really want my mother to be right--she is about most things--because I don't want to be the only person who has struggled with things that I always imagined would come naturally.

I'm surprised by the number of people who have noticed the sharp decline in my blogging, more surprised still by those who bother to mention it. I'm flattered. I expected Max's first year to be filled with inspiration for me as a writer, but it has proven to be the exact opposite. Babies are exhausting, and so are nine-year-old boys and Noahs. (Noah, I have tiredly but lovingly determined, will wipe me out any time anywhere any age, just because.) I doubt very much that most people want to hear "I'm so tired" three-hundred-sixty-five days in a row; I can assure you, Joe is rather sick of it.

Returning to work this fall filled me with dread, and yet, there are days I guiltily consider it a reprieve from my real life. I drink hot coffee in the quiet solitude of my early morning classroom. There is no silence quite as lovely as a school without children; it nearly reminds me of a church before Mass. The trouble is, every second that I am at school my heart is aching to be somewhere else. I feel almost outside of myself for missing the life I lived for the last few years. It wasn't very eventful. It wasn't touching a hundred lives at a time through literature and writing (because I'm TOTALLY changing the world right now, making ALL the children love the written word). It wasn't glamorous at all--yoga pants and messy buns and cleaning grout. But it was hugs and kisses any time I wanted. It was arriving early to doctors' appointments and being there, ready to go, when everybody woke up in the morning. It was thankless, I can tell you. But it was heroic and life-changing to me. I loved it.

So. Snowbound with my boys and no hope of leaving? Thank you, God. You forever remind me of your goodness and all that I have. Please watch over those less fortunate than us during this crazy storm you have thrown at the one city I know can and will handle it.

Outside my house:

Inside my house:

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!"

Changed

My days are long, but they are full. My boys are crazy, but they are wonderful. And that has been my life in recent memory.

I was able to go to Joey's awards ceremony at school today, thanks to the complete selflessness and generosity of my husband who offered to work from home for a few hours so Max could nap and I could enjoy the peace of being at a school event by myself. I sat in the back, clapping at the various achievements of other people's children, and then felt the now-familiar sting of happy tears each time I heard my boy's name called.

I was proud of him for working hard and doing well, but prouder still because I know how this year has gone for him. It wasn't an easy road for a little guy. I keep thinking of that quote I see all over Facebook and Pinterest for book lovers, something about how when you finish an amazing book, you put it down and you're shocked that no one realizes your world has just changed forever. Everyone is just going along like nothing happened. That's how I feel about our year: our whole world changed, but if I even begin to try and explain this to people, it sounds pretty lame. And I know in the scheme of things, us having a baby is pretty run-of-the-mill, but as I watched Joey gripping that certificate, his face awash with everything that comes with hard work paying off, I decided to bask just a little more in how well we've come through our personal mountain climb.

My sister had warned me that third grade can be a tough year. It's the first year of number grades, the first year of really studying (flash cards are the best; buy your index cards in bulk!), the first year of really starting the journey to becoming an independent student down the road. At first, Joey dealt with his mom being at work for the first time in two years. Then, he dealt with his mom having just had a baby. A baby who, in the beginning, wasn't easy. Joey had to learn that homework time was going to be filled with baby bottles and burps and spitting up. Studying would have to happen regardless of newborn cries and kindergarten woes (because Noah was no picnic in the whole change-of-life scenario, either). He had so many questions, and every time he had to ask the best answer he got was, "Not now," or, "Try it on your own until I'm done with this other thing."

In a lot of ways, it made Joey better. My little pleaser, always wanting to check in with a grownup to hear praise and be reassured, had to step out on his own and feel his way along to figure things out. And in that way, I bet it made him feel even better to be holding those certificates today. But then...I saw his face when he pulled the papers out his backpack earlier in the year, the papers with red markings that weren't what he wanted or expected. That he sometimes didn't even understand. Those moments were hard for all of us, but I think in the end, they did make us all even more determined to get the whole picture right. And I think we are. Getting it right, I mean. Or starting to.

Tonight, after Max was in bed, I was holding Noah. As I mentioned, his struggle with going from baby to middle child was no small matter. One of his favorite things to do is count his woes, no matter how hard I try to get him to do the opposite. So as I held him tonight, I started a little game. He'd said, "I'm the saddest boy in the whole world." And you should hear his voice as he says this. He'd win an Academy Award. For real. Best Male Actor in a Drama, except for him, the drama is his life.

"Sure," I'd said, "except for, you know, the boys and girls in, I don't know, Africa, who have no parents, or clothes, or food. And they're sick and they just want someone to take care of them. They might--might--be sadder than you."

"Yeah," he said, turning his mouth sideways. "Except that I really am saddest of all."

"Noah Michael is lucky, though," I said, thinking of Joey at school. "Noah is lucky because he has a mom and a dad who love him. Noah is lucky because he has a baby brother who thinks he's the greatest."

"Yeah, but I have a big brother who doesn't love me at all." (Are you picturing Eeyore? Because that's who he sounds like.)

Ignoring that last remark, I said, "Noah Michael is lucky because his Mom buys him cool clothes. Nice clothes. And Noah Michael is lucky because he has a room full of toys. And a house to live in with his whole family."

"Yeah. And my room is pretty cool. That's kind of lucky."

"That's very lucky."

We went on with our list for a few more minutes, until I could sense that Noah's heart was big and full and his Eeyore voice was gone. Then we began a game that involved blowing a piece of paper across the coffee table at each other, which he thought was the funniest thing ever. Noah Michael is lucky because he finds humor in small things.

I tucked him in to bed after a bit and came down the stairs. Joey was at baseball, his dad with him, so the house was quiet. I pictured my big boy with his proud face. I picture my middle boy, with his Eeyore frown turning to his sunshine smile. And...I lifted my shirt from my chest to my nose and smelled my baby, who slept soundly like a little angel just steps away. Who curls against me at bedtime,  eyes closed, drinking his bottle, while I rock him slowly in the chair I didn't think I'd use again. Whose soft fuzzy hair feels like heaven in that space of my neck just under my chin, where he fits perfectly.

I am lucky because my days are long, but full. I am lucky because my boys are crazy, but wonderful. I am lucky because this has been my life in recent memory.

Right Now

We have microfiber couches, and the secret my children have not yet discovered is that the fabric displays fingerprints (and footprints) of all their day's crimes for me to see after they've gone to bed. I step through the family room, picking up and straightening, and I pause by the arm of the couch and look down at the prints of five tiny toes and my heart clenches up and my teeth bang together and I close my eye and say, "Oh, Noah."

For some reason, whether a day has been good or bad, Bed Time in my house is like stepping from perfectly fine weather into a hurricane. It's ironic, too, because when Joey was a baby I set his entire life's schedule by a book called Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, and one of the most important tenets I learned was that bed time should be a quiet time, a time to wind down from the day's activities. I used to carry Joey through house whispering soft good-nights to everything, even picture frames and rugs, all to set the right tone for going to bed. Sometimes, Joe would just be coming home from work during this time, and I would greet him with wide warning eyes and say in a soft, but emphatic voice, "Good night, Daddy."

Bed Time is so far from that peaceful fantastical sunset that I could cry just remembering the easy days of only having one. I'm sure moms of four and five read my blog and roll their eyes at me, as I would roll my eyes at the old me, a mom of a measly two. But I don't think it's the quantity of children that makes being a mom hard. I think it's the need in your heart, the want in my own heart to be a good, nay, a good enough mom. That's what's really behind all my crazy.

Tonight I put Max to bed, gently nudging him onto his side the way he likes and tucking his favorite blanket in a roll behind his back. I turned off his night light and closed the door behind me, and took a deep, calming breath with each footstep that carried me away from his room and toward the bigger boys.

One down.

I settled down in a chair with Noah and a book, one-on-one time my emotional middle child desperately needs, when Max began to wail loudly.

In short, the evening consisted of resettling Max three times, forgetting Joey and Noah's cold medicine and having to re-tuck them in, only for Noah to leap out of bed screaming, "SPIDER ON THE CEILING!" at which point I had to get out a stepladder and kill the spider, which escaped from the tissue in which I'd captured it and began scurrying about the room to the horror of its occupants. They must have added ten extra people to our "God bless" list during prayers, and as I was finally closing their door behind me, Max began to cry again.

I think I probably cry once a day. Some days more. It could be anything that sets me off, from a corny commercial on TV to a phone call from Joe in the midst of chaos. I don't cry for any real reason, and when I look back over my day as I am now, once everything is finally, finally settled and done, I feel the need to stand on a mountain--a very high and isolated mountain where I'm standing all alone--and shout out how absolutely grateful I am for these crazy days and these crazy boys, and for being able to stay home with them every day. Because I am. But the truth is, a lot of days, I take a lot of deep breaths. I count often. I pray often. I wish for the patience everyone else seems to have that I definitely lack. And I look at footprints on couches and I remind myself, "They're just being little. They can't help that they're kids." Because if I don't remind myself, I'll be mad. Like, really mad. And impatient, and more than a little crazy. And most days, I'm probably somewhere in between.

But then, the other day, I called out to Joey, "Hey, buddy, you know I love you, right?" and he turned around to look at me. He rolled his eyes with a smile and said, "Of course I know that, Mom. You tell me a hundred times a day, every day of my life." And I thought...I hope he's always exactly the way he is right now. Because "right now" is so good, well, it makes me cry, too.

Cheesecake

I like to have somewhat meaningful conversations at the dinner table with my kids. Not, "How do we accomplish world peace?" but conversations that let them know I care about them and what they do each day. It's also a good time to discuss anything serious, because I have their full, undivided attention. It's like the first five minutes of class in school. Everyone has just sat down and they're expecting something to happen. So whatever you want to say, say it right in that moment and you know it's heard.

One day not long ago, I said, "Do you guys know our code word?"

Noah was instantly intrigued. "We have a code word? Cool! What is it?" That answered that question.

"Is it cheesecake?" Joey asked. "Because you always say that to Dad."

I had to hide my smile then. "Cheesecake" is not our code word, or the word we have set up so that if my children are confronted by someone they aren't sure of, they can ask, "Do you know the code word?" The theory is, if the person knows the word, they're "safe." Our word is pretty obscure, too, which makes it that much more effective. (Although, if the kids don't know it, then it's kind of pointless.)

When I didn't answer right away, Joey said, "Why do you say 'cheesecake' at Dad all the time?"

So I told him. The reason is connected to something that happened a long time ago. We were at a family dinner at Joe's parents' house, and for dessert there was a large tray of cheesecake slices. It was one of those aluminum trays you can throw away, and it had to be at least the same circumference as an SUV tire. As Joe's mom served everyone tea and coffee, his father brought out this tray so it could be passed around.

Now, the thing about "passing around" this cheesecake tray was that it was just so darn big. It was difficult, too, to set it down anywhere because of all the coffee and tea cups and plates and silverware. When the tray came to Joe, however, he really thought he had it figured out. He placed his giant hand, fingers splayed, under the center of the tray and then began to peruse the selection.

And then the tray buckled under the imbalanced weight of the cheesecakes. It just...folded down around Joe's hand. I watched this like it was happening in slow motion, and it was if Joe suddenly grew  five hands, and they were all dog paddling in an attempt to catch every slice of cheesecake, but rather than save any of them the hands were splattering dessert everywhere. It was really one of the funniest things I've ever seen at a Bielecki family dinner, right up there with the time Joe's dad spent ten minutes constructing the perfect salad and then his little sister accidentally sneezed into it.

Ever since what I now call "The Cheesecake Incident," I use it as a frame of reference with Joe. He's not overly clumsy like I am, but there are just certain decisions he sometimes makes that instantly call the Cheesecake Incident to mind, at which point I simply look at him squarely and say, "Cheesecake." Apparently, this must happen pretty often if Joey decided "Cheesecake" must be our code word.

I was thinking of this all tonight because when I put Max to bed, I realized that his pajamas are too small. All of them. I looked down at his chubby leg rolls, which I completely love and want to kiss every time I see them, and realized that he needed the next size up.

"But that's impossible," I said out loud to myself. He only just transitioned into the 3-6 month size a couple of weeks ago. He's not even five months yet! For a baby who was scarily underweight in the early weeks of his life, I found this to be darn near crazy.

Anyway, I folded up the pajamas I'd initially selected and bent down to his "next size up" drawer to find something more suitable. I slid the jammies under his back and placed his arms inside, marveling that the length was right. One foot after the other tucked inside, and then I zipped everything up and lifted him into my arms.

"You're only four months old, you big boy!" I said to his twinkly blue eyes, and was rewarded with a great big silly smile.

But then I realized that's not really true. He'll be five months next week. Five months! Where did that time go? I turned down the lights and settled into the rocking chair with my baby, loving the feel of his head in the crook of my arm, and then noticing that his legs dangled off the side of my lap. Five months.

When I had Joey, I swear that first year took forever and a day. And then when I had Noah, I thought I was better prepared and I'd finally understand what everyone meant when they said, "Cherish every second! It goes too fast!" but then that first year crawled by, too. What I finally determined was that the first year is just really hard for me, because I prefer toddlers and children who can talk and interact and run and play. I can put them down and they can, you know, sit there. Independently.

As a newborn, Max had a really hard time gaining weight. He dropped well below his birth weight, and it took a lot of troubleshooting and trips to the pediatrician to figure out how to get him where he needed to be. I had to surrender breastfeeding, something I'm not sure I'll ever fully get over, and I worried myself sick day and night. "Here we go," is what I thought to myself. The dreaded first year. It seems like it's always something.

But in just a few short months, Max has eaten his way into a wonderfully cute chubbiness I had feared would never come. Smelling his baby lotion and feeling the weight of him in my arms as he chugged away at his bottle, I suddenly realized I felt like Joe with the cheesecake tray. I can't believe it, but I am loving these months with Max. He's difficult, it's true, being a refluxer and not being able to verbalize his needs in any way other than screaming, but he's got this charming smile, and, oh! when he coos at me it's almost like he's shy. And did I mention those leg rolls? They should be on a sushi menu and I'd order them and eat them right up! I mean, I just love this kid! And when I think of his age--almost FIVE MONTHS--I want to start trying to snatch all the months as they slide off their flimsy aluminum tray, but all I'm doing is making time fly away even faster.

Maybe "cheesecake" isn't our family code word, but it's not just a symbol of a goofy choice, either.

It's trying to hold on to a time that just can't last forever.

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="">

The Gift of Time

Today was supposed to be my last official day home with my kids. Last October I tried hard to focus on the positives: I was having a baby, a beautiful one, and I was able to stay home with him a few weeks longer than originally planned. But the realistic me was focused on the fact that a few weeks longer only meant that I'd still have to leave an awfully tiny baby at home.

Fast forward to now, and I don't have to go back to work after all! And somehow, taking off a whole school year is way easier for me to handle than just half of one. I'm not nearly so focused on having to go back. Instead, I'm thinking of all these things with huge relief:

1. I won't miss baby's first word, which will surely be "Mama," because we're already so much in love. I mean, he loves his dad and his brothers, too, but he definitely loves me best.

2. I won't miss baby crawling! I don't know why, but crawling is almost more thrilling to me than walking. I think it's because I struggle so with infancy so much. I've loved all of my babies desperately, but not because I love babies. Just because they're mine, and because as they grow, they turn into my people. It really isn't about babies at all, who in general I find to be both nerve-wracking and baffling.

3. I won't have to worry about someone shaking my baby. I never worried about this with Joey and Noah, and I blame that on the fact that I was really young, comparatively, when I had them. I spent time worrying about small things, like spitting up and sleep schedules, rather than even thinking of all the other, greater dangers that could befall them. I think that for me at that time, it was easier to believe my greatest worries were such little things. Now, however, I read the news, and it's spoiled my illusions forever. So. Yeah.

4. I don't have to go to work. This is not as lazy as it sounds. First of all, I'd have to leave my three-month-old (and my kindergartener, and my third-grader) and go to be with other people's children who, let's face it, I'm never going to care about as much as the children I'm leaving behind. Sorry, but if you thought otherwise, be real! Second, I was out of sick days. Already, in the first have of the year, Noah alone has missed nine days. Any time I needed to stay home and take care of him, I'd have to take unpaid leave, which equals additional stress. And last, teaching is a rough industry right now. Just saying.

5. I get this many more chances to be the first one to make Max laugh. I seriously thought he would have by now, and I'd be terribly upset if I had to go back without hearing it.

6. I'll be able to go to Noah's Mother's Day celebration at school AND his kindergarten graduation (which I would have had to miss due to not having any sick/personal days left).

7. I get to take my family on a trip during a non-peak season. Because if we had to go during a peak season, we wouldn't be able to afford the airfare for all of us.

I have thought about the fact that I might miss Max's first steps next fall, but I reassure myself by thinking that a) he might be an insanely early walker (though by the looks of things, probably not; he hasn't even laughed yet, after all) or b) we'll have an awesome nanny who will do something cool like knock him over if it looks like he's going to walk before I get home.

In the meantime, I am focusing on how the tough stuff is temporary, how the good things are so insanely good, and how my children fill me up and make everything so, so worth it.

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.