Happy Second Birthday to Jack!

My baby turns two today.  I have been wanting to give him a birthday tribute, but Jack his hard to capture in print.  You need to see and hear the wild, sweet little soul in action.  Every day with him is an exhausting, endearing, exasperating adventure.  Words will not be sufficient, but for the sake of record keeping I am giving it a go.

And as fair warning, this is rather a long and selfish post.  Selfish, because this is mostly for Josh and me, so we don't forget the little things our two year-old Jack does.

There are so many things I love about Jack.  His eyes are a deep, sapphire blue, and he can point at them and say: "bruuuuuu."  His golden hair, though shorn for the first time, is still a glorious thing to behold, especially after naps, when it takes on a bouffant life of its own.  It did not lose its curl with the first cut, either, to our great relief.  And because he is a head sweater, his hair is often very curly.  He bounces around with legit ringlets in the sultry Virginia summers. 

Jack loves music.  He conducts, waving both arms with gusto.  Even when he's falling asleep in the car, I can see him in the mirror with one finger on each hand pointed up, determined to keep going even while his eyes are closing.  He loves to sing, and he's getting better and better at picking up on vowels and consonants that he recognizes.  He understands crescendo, and he will let his wordless croonings swell to glorious decibels.  His taste in music is a bit eclectic/nerdy at this point--he loves to sing along to "Misty Mountains" from The Hobbit, "Do You Hear the People Sing" from Les Miserables, "I am a Child of God," "Twinkle Twinkle," "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast, and John Rutter's "Candlelight Carol" (one of the lullabies I sing, and his crescendos on the "Gloria, gloria" part are thoroughly magnificent).  He also loves to dance, caper, hop, and shuffle in a circle to his favorite jigs, mostly taken from the Riverdance soundtrack.  He cannot resist the 1/16 or so of his blood that is Irish.

He loves to read and be read to.  He has a giant box of books, and he will command we bring it to him on the couch, after which he will tip the entire thing over onto his lap, depositing books up to his chest.  In the car seat he will sit pleasantly with a book perched in his hands, and quietly read to himself, which makes me deeply happy.  Then sometimes the book gets hurled across the car when he is done with it and ready for another, which makes me deeply concerned at the thought of his newborn brother sharing the back seat in a few weeks.


Jack does not love food so much.  He will eat a fairly wide variety of it; he just doesn't care about it.  All he really cares about is whole milk; everything else is tedious and extraneous.  He doesn't eat well unless distracted, and then we shove the food in while we can.  He also doesn't seem to feel the cold--something that has been a trial for me this beastly winter.  He will play in 20 degree weather until his hands turn bright red beneath his gloves, or sit happily in a pile of snow for thirty minutes when I am done and ready to be indoors in about three.  It's his disinterest in food and the immunity to the effects of extreme weather that make me wonder if Jack has a career ahead of him in wilderness survival.

Jack has started praying along with us.  For some time he has dutifully clasped his hands together during prayers, and he's said "amen" with gusto ("MEH" is usually how it comes out), but recently he has started muttering along with whoever is praying, and he will join in on the words he knows, usually at high volume: "MAMA" "DADA" "CHURCH," etc.  He also thinks Josh is the only one who knows how to pray well, because pretty much every time we ask him who should say the prayer, he yells: "DADA!"  Oh well.  

Jack has a man-crush on Buzz Lightyear.  He wakes up from his naps saying: "Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!"  And when he watches the opening scene in Toy Story 2, when Buzz flies in from outer space, his eyes light up and he whispers reverently: "Buzz. Buzz. Buzz."  When he sees planes go overhead at the park, he puts both arms in the air and yells: "Buzz!  Buzz!"  At the Disney store, where there was an entire row of Buzz figurines, he went from box to box, pushing the buttons, and saying each time with affection and energy: "Buzz!  Buzz!  Buzz!"  When Josh carries him on his shoulders and takes off running, Jack raises his arms high and flies like Buzz.  You probably get the picture: he loves Buzz.   

Jack loves to help me make cookies; we make them at least once or twice a week, far more often than this lumbering pregnant body needs them.  My favorite part is when he orders me to get the eggs.  He'll look me directly in the eyes, then open his mouth and say as deliberately as he can: "Ehhhhhhggs."  This is a newer word and he is proud of it.  He loves eating cookie dough, but doesn't care much for the finished product.  This is not so wonderful for that part of my brain that always fears the specter of salmonella. 

Jack's energy levels are astonishing.  Perhaps this is why this second pregnancy has made me feel like an 80 year-old hippopotamus.  When he is in his comfort zone, he loves to put on a show.  If we have guests over, and they have proven their friendliness, Jack will sing all his songs, do animal noises, and his favorite party trick: imitating the three suitors from the Disney/Pixar movie Brave (I can't even remember why or how this got to be such a big thing for him, but he loves it).  His all-time favorite is MacGuffin, the beefy young lord who breaks a log in one scene with his bare hands in an attempt to impress Princess Merida.  When Jack wants to put on a really impressive show, he will do his MacGuffin impersonation over and over again: he mimes breaking a log with his hands, and then makes a sound like an explosion going off.  He does it sometimes to the people in the pew behind us in church when he wants to be charming, not realizing how obscure the gesture and movie reference are.  We get a good laugh out of it, which is probably why he does it.  He also went through this phase where he would roll his eyes back into his head and smirk.  We found it both creepy and hilarious, and he kept doing it because when he first started I would usually shriek and laugh in a mixture of fear and amusement... who wants to see their sweet toddler suddenly show you only the whites of their eyes, horror-movie style?

He loves to be outside, and this winter has been rough for us.  It has been too frigid, too snow-covered, or too mud-slimed once the snow has finally melted (and before it has snowed yet again) for sufficient outdoor play.  He has loved being outside since he was a newborn, when it was about the only way we could get him to sleep.  He could be in the worst, tantrumy mood as I'm wrestling him down the stairs of our apartment, but the moment we step foot outdoors, he comes alive.  He takes off running, and is on the alert for all things of great interest: squirrels, sticks, rocks, puddles, birds, firetrucks, and school buses.

He is a dexterous, coordinated child.  He throws balls with surprising and sometimes terrifying
accuracy and force.  He can do pull ups, for crying out loud.  He loves to do jigsaw puzzles, and always knows just which way to turn each piece so it fits squarely in place. 
He adores the moment when Daddy comes home, because Daddy will run with him "rrrrast!" (fast).  They chase each other around the apartment with various kitchen implements--usually spatulas and wooden spoons.  Sometimes Jack demands that I join, and he can usually lap me at this point in the pregnancy.  I shuffle; he flies.  Jack and Daddy also take turns doing "butt bombs" on the bed (jumping up and landing on the bed on your bum).  Jack has learned to do tickle attacks.  He will run up to Josh or me, make the tickle sound, and attack whatever vulnerable part of the body he can find, be it back, leg, or face. 

Jack is a man of passions, both good and bad.  Sometimes for no apparent reason he will call my name and throw his arms around my neck and rest his head on my shoulder, and the world is perfect.  Then there are the tantrums, and the world is not perfect.  It is loud, irrational, startling, frustrating.  Diaper changes have long been nothing short of apocalyptic.  Pregnancy has made this especially difficult, as he likes to kick, and this belly of mine is right in the line of fire.  He gets in what I call his "clear the decks" mode, where nothing is allowed to remain on a raised surface, be it a book, glass of water, toy, lotion bottle, plate of broccoli, etc.  Everything must go flying across the room, and he moves too swiftly most times for intervention.

He is certainly an attached boy to Mommy and Daddy. When I am on the phone, or even just having a conversation with Josh, he bellows my name at the top of his lungs.  Sometimes he will climb up on my lap and grab my face and say "MOM" very seriously, then rest his head on my shoulder (that one works better than just screaming at me). Depending on his mood, one parent usually isn't enough; he must have both, especially around 6am. Both must drag their exhausted carcasses from the bed to go read books or make Playdough figures or drive cars.  Sometimes this gets frustrating.  But when he reaches one arm around my neck and the other around Josh's neck, and pulls us both in against his soft little cheeks, this is not frustrating.  It is rather indescribably precious.

Jack is a true and affectionate friend.  As a much belated follow-up to my previous post, Jack did eventually accept the new Mr. Tiger, and they have been joined at the hip ever since.  He calls to him by roaring.  He also has a hierarchy of blanket friends.  There is the primary, can't-live-without-blankie, called "bees."  It is baby blue with big white polka dots. Then there is the secondary "bees tars" (the star blanket).  It is also baby blue and covered in yellow stars and moons.  It is a small quilt that I made when I was 18 as part of a church activity, after arbitrarily deciding my first child would be a boy, so I am rather touched that he has chosen it as a favorite.  There is also the third tier blankie, which is brown with white polka dots.  He refers to this blankie as "brooooowwwwww" which is said more like a roar than a word.  Often, Jack will not go outdoors unless the entire family of blankets and Tiger go with.  It is one of the cutest things ever to see his little legs shuffling toward me, his body and head entirely covered in the pile of blankets he is trying to bring along for the ride.

I am actually not sure which he loves more -- "bees" and Tiger, or the ultimate pacifier, the ba-ba, or bottle.  I have said he is addicted to whole milk.  This is not really an exaggeration.  He is always at his sweetest when he has a ba-ba.  He automatically becomes cozy, cuddly, and affectionate.  He collapses onto my lap, or pulls me onto the couch, and rests there, one hand stroking his blankie.

I feel like I have not begun to capture even a spark of this life that has utterly revolutionized my own.  Jack changed my world.  I have never known exhaustion and frustration until he came; I have never known such depths of devotion, love, and loyalty until I held his fragile little body.  This second year of his life has been easier than the first, probably because I have slept more, but also because his ability to express himself has increased, and his personality and character emerge with greater clarity every day.  Heavenly Father has blessed our home with a loving, spirited, intelligent, energetic, enigmatic, sweet, ardent little boy.  It is with the utmost joy that I celebrate these past two years with my darling Jack.  Thank you, son, for turning the world on its head and bringing greater sharpness to all our joys.  Happy Birthday, Jack!  I am so grateful to be your Mom!

       

Burning Bright in the Forests of the Night

It's taken a family tragedy to bring me out of a 6 month blog-hide.  So Jack, who is now an 18 month-old dynamo who wrestles, runs, and grunts instead of saying "yes," had this stuffed animal named Mr. Tiger.  I will tell you Mr. Tiger's story.

Last December we took Jack to see Auntie Sarah in New York, and braved F.A.O. Schwarz at

This is what love at first sight in FAO Schwarz looks like.

Christmastime.  It was magical, despite the press of humanity. Whilst walking along a corridor filled with impossibly cute and expensive stuffed animals, Jack fell in love with a baby tiger.  He was only 8 months old at the time, so it was sweet to see him respond to something so ecstatically.  However, after checking the price tag, we figured we could find it online for much cheaper than what the Manhattan F.A.O. Schwarz could get away with.  So a couple weeks later on Christmas morning Jack got a a very similar stuffed baby tiger, 12 inches long, that we found for $13 on the internet.  It was true love between Jack and Mr. Tiger from the start.

This is what love at first sight on Christmas morning looks like.

Mr. Tiger became the privileged stuffed animal very quickly--the only one Jack wanted to sleep with.  Mr. Tiger was Jack's great friend in the manifold miserable moments (how's that for alliteration) spent wailing in his crib before naps and bedtime.  Sometimes Jack would not be screaming, but be jabbering and chuckling.  I'd peek in at him and find him wrestling around the crib with Tiger, his tail flying.  One time I checked on him after he fell asleep and found Jack flat on his back, with Tiger resting his four paws on his chest, as if Jack had fallen asleep staring into Tiger's friendly face.

For 10 months Jack and Tiger have been the best of buddies--lone companions during the long watches of the night, and it has even given us comfort to know that Jack has a friend in there.  For several months Jack wouldn't go outside without Tiger or his back-up, Mr. Doggy.  I'd wait at the door while he scampered around the house, gathering up Blankie, Tiger, and Doggy, and with his great strength he'd haul them all out the door and into the wide world, where they would get muddy and wind-blown together.

Jack on an adventure with his buddies.

Then yesterday morning, we lost him.  I still don't understand how it happened.  If I were a little more superstitious or if we lived in a place with slightly more romance I would blame elves or impish spirits.  I carried Jack from our third story apartment down the stairs, out the building, down the sidewalk, to our car.  I thought he had both Tiger and Blankie (praise all good things that we didn't lose Blankie because his attachment there is even stronger than Tiger) in hand, and I saw him drop Blankie right as we were getting into the car.  I assumed he had dropped Tiger behind me, so I got Jack in and buckled, grabbed Blankie, then turned to grab Tiger, but he wasn't there.  I stepped back to the sidewalk to see if we'd dropped him somewhere between the car and the building, but I could see nothing.  I was puzzled, but I'm mostly braindead most of the time these days, and assumed Jack must have just left him in the apartment.

An hour and a half later, when we'd returned from our errands, Tiger was nowhere to be found in the house.  I put Jack down for his nap and then turned the house upside down.  I retraced my steps time and again out to the car, getting down on hands and knees in the parking lot, searching under cars.  I looked in bushes.  I prayed.  I called the office and they contacted the cleaning crew.  I accosted the maintenance guy who'd been working on the apartment below ours.  I cried.  I knocked on our neighbors' doors and asked them.  I cried again.  I prayed some more. Josh made a "Have You Seen Me?" poster with a picture of Tiger on it, and we posted it on the front door of our building.

Josh and I keep opening the front door, looking to see if somehow Tiger has magically appeared on our door step, or as if he were a real Tiger, come wandering home after hunting squirrels. 

I have come to conclude that Tiger has either been stolen by a neighbor or carried off by a hawk. When the latter thought struck me I started wandering far afield, looking for places where Tiger may have been discarded or fallen from a tree branch.  Oh the places your imagination can take you.

It feels like a family member has been lost to us.  I am tortured by all the memories of Jack looking for Tiger before bedtime, and the joyous giggle and embrace that always followed discovering him.  I would sometimes find Jack lying on the floor, looking out the window, just holding Tiger and Blankie.  Every time he'd wake up screaming in the middle of the night and we'd go to comfort him, he'd be clutching Tiger to his chest.

Part of why this has been so disturbing for Josh and me is because we see daily evidence of how the line between real and imaginary is so flexible for infants and children.  How can you possibly say: "it's just a stuffed animal, we'll buy you a new one, it's not like it's a real Tiger"?  Because he is real, and very much alive for Jack.  Just yesterday, on our morning walk to the lake, Jack and I were sitting and eating crackers next to the statue of our city's founder.  The statue looks like a jolly fisherman (although he was a very wealthy real estate entrepreneur) and he sits on one side of a bench along the lake.  When Jack first saw him, months ago, he treated him the way he treats dogs: half in love, half afraid.  He half laughed, half whimpered; he wanted to draw near, but he was afraid to touch him.  Now, he accepts him as a kindly friend.  He likes to pat his knee, and smile up into his jovial metal face.  Yesterday morning we sat next to him, with Jack in the crook of the statue's arm.  I gave Jack a cracker, and he reached up and offered it to Mr. Statue. That is why losing Tiger has broken my heart.

How has Jack reacted to all this trauma, you might wonder?  Well, I shall tell you: he has been heroic, even stoic about it.  Last night when we put him to bed for the first time without his friend, we tried a few other stuffed animals.  He pushed them away, but finally accepted my old bunny, the one with the two pink heart-shaped patches that my mom sewed on after he got singed by my nightlight back in 1985.  But when Jack awoke in the wee hours last night, and after I had soothed him and put him back in bed, he pushed bunny away, into my hands.  He was ready to face the rest of the night alone with Blankie.

Tonight, we tried again.  He pushed Doggy, Duckie, and Bunny away with loyal disdain.  He would go it with Tiger, or he would go it alone.  He didn't even cry--just clutched Blankie and lay silent while we left the room, heads downcast.

We are ordering him another Tiger tonight from Amazon.  When the New Tiger comes he will be sleek and silky, not matted and fuzzy like Mr. Tiger was after countless washings from his rough and tumble life with his best friend.  He will smell like a new toy, not like a comforting mixture of Jack's sleep smell and laundry detergent.  I wonder if Jack will see in him a counterfeit, or the ghost of his old friend, being dragged through the leaves and mud, getting applesauce in his fur, or being clutched in the trusting arms of a sleeping babe, all well in the night shared by two dreaming friends. 

On Hobbit Holes and other Nerdy Longings

I have been a bit obsessed with the idea of living in Middle Earth lately (we watched The Hobbit this weekend).  My conversation with Josh went something like this:

"I'm obsessed with Middle Earth.  I want to live there."
[Chuckles].  "Wait -- like, New Zealand?  Or Middle Earth?"
"Middle Earth.  Mostly I just want to live in a hobbit hole."

I really do.  I want the lovely round door, the larder stocked with huge wheels of cheese, loaves of bread, and tasty sausages.  I want to sit in my garden, flowers bobbing near my head, talking to Gandalf when he stops by.  I want to sing hypnotic dwarf songs around the hearth.  I want one of those dwarves to look like Richard Armitage.  I can say this because Josh has his own man-crush on Thorin--after we saw The Hobbit for the first time, we had a conversation something like this:

Josh: "Do you mind if I dream about Thorin tonight?"
Me: "Depends on what kind of dream we're talking about."
Exasperated: "Like, where we go on adventures and stuff together."
Me: "That's fine." Pause. "So long as you don't mind if I dream about Thorin."

And so the nerdiness deepens.  I've tried to figure out where it's coming from.  I've been beset with Narnia and Hogwarts longings in the past, but this hobbit-hole longing is palpable.  I mean, I really want to live there. I'm nowhere near the educated Middle Earth nerd that my husband is (he actually knows the mythology), or that my sister Sarah was (she dreamily envisioned accompanying the Fellowship as their cook when she was a 10 year-old reading the trilogy).  I am definitely not the winner when we play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit at McDonald family Christmases (sister Emily usually wins, but I think this has something more to do with Vigo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom than it does Aragorn and Legolas; her girlhood crushes were pretty intense).  My brothers could still probably sing the orc marching songs from the old cartoon version of The Return of the King.

All this being said, I blame the time of year.  There is something about the ripening of spring that makes me want to take to the open road, the backcountry, the anywhere-but-here.  It's a delight to be out-of-doors in this blessed window between the bone-wet cold of winter and the unbearable weight of a Virginia summer.  This is the time of year when I historically took all my back-packing trips overseas.  In 2001, in the bygone days before 9/11 and the euro, I wandered Europe for 5 weeks with two dear friends.  It was a heady experience--my breathless entrance upon the wide world as an almost-grown-up.  Memories of a full moon in Venice, waterfalls and white peaks in Switzerland, folk-dancing in a sunlit park in Barcelona, brioche and chocolate in Limoges, and swimming in the Scottish North Sea at midnight still follow me.

Four years later in the spring of 2005 I walked through Scotland, England and Wales with twenty-five others, and from that Wordsworthian utopia I never recovered.  When May approaches every year I think of grass-clogged hiking boots, rain-smeared journals, the smell of honeysuckle and roses, and the indefinable joy of true camaraderie.  Hiking, reading, learning, seeing, living--it was a sort of personal Eden; a removal from the world that nevertheless equipped me for the inevitable re-entry and deeper immersion into the world.

Two springs after that in 2007 I went to Iceland with my sisters--a crisp, austere, mysterious island, filled with enormously tall, well-groomed, very good-looking blonde people.  The landscape was eerie, still, and very beautiful.  It almost never got dark, and I remember sitting outside our little mountain cabin, overlooking a black-rock desert stretching to the sea, writing in my journal near midnight in sharp, clean, pale light.

Spring of 2010 saw me headed once more for a northern isle with my sisters--Ireland.  It was a week of steak-and-ale pie, buttery scones, Irish cheddar, ancestral lands, coastal hikes, windy hedgerows, and musical people.  We slept in a castle, wandered little villages, walked the Giant's Causeway, and almost sailed to Skellig, the mysterious monastic clump of rock in the Atlantic.  

And then just a year later, in 2011, I went to other ancestral lands with my newly-trothed husband.  For 10 days we hiked around Scotland, rarely indoors.  We scaled deserted mountains at sunset and ran down them again in twilight.  We skipped rocks on lochs and pranced among the bluebells (actually one of us skipped the rocks; the other pranced... I'll let you figure out which was who).  We trod past ruined abbeys, along ancient Roman roads, waving fields of brilliant yellow rape seed, and winding river beds.  We munched on apples and bread and cheese as we went; we nibbled on shortbread and pasties on mountain-tops.  Food tasted better and we slept more deeply; time wasn't measured by minutes and hours but more by the movement of the sun and the hunger in our bellies.   

I suppose every season carries historical association and the weight of memory, yet every spring I wrestle with the restless Romantic (note the capital "R") urge to be up and away.  Maybe my foreign springtime jaunts have ruined me.  But there is something about this visceral period of spring--when color is everywhere and the very air is laden with the smell of sweet growing things--that makes it hard to be an indoor, industrial-aged urbanite.  It is the time to be frolicking through blossoms, drinking nectar, getting grass stains, having dirt under the fingernails.  It is the time to be in the bosom of nature, or at the very least, cozily ensconced in a hobbit hole.

And so this year, instead of wandering the gorgeous, remote places of my girlhood imaginings, I wander Virginia's parks and playgrounds with my boy.  We pick dandelions and clover; we eat Cheerios and string cheese.  We crawl through mulch and get staticky hair from plastic slides.  Instead of Cumbrian bluebells we have Virginia bluebells; instead of wild garlic growing in primeval forests, I watch the dogwoods flower and azaleas begin to open next to trim townhouses.  The romantic wandering in lonely, desperately beautiful places is put aside for another age; for now, Jack sits on my shoulders and smashes cherry blossoms into my hair while I tell him about hobbit-holes and the good things of the earth.

Our Son, Beowulf Dalton

When I was pregnant with Jack, Josh and I would pray often for the baby to grow "strong and healthy."  It seemed the right thing to say at the time.  I remember, however, musing on the phrase one night, and saying to Josh: "Wouldn't it be funny if God took our prayers literally and Jack turned out to be an incredibly strong child?  I mean, for months we've been praying specifically for him to be strong.  What if he ends up like Hercules or something?"  We chuckled at the thought and commenced eating dinner.

I should have known when he was still in utero that he was no weakling.  I may have mentioned before that whenever I was reading with a book against my belly he would kick savagely at the binding of the book with enough force to make it bounce. But now that Jack is nearly a year old, I am convinced that our prayers were, indeed, answered literally.  Throughout the past 11 months, Jack has manifested astonishing physical strength.  On his second day of life he did a push-up off my chest while the lactation consultant was there to witness it.  Her brow furrowed slightly.

"Huh," she puzzled, "I've never seen a newborn do that before."

His power grew as his little body did.  He went through a phase when he was around 6 months old of thigh-clenching.  He would do this every time I tried to change his diaper--clench his legs together so tightly that I had to use both hands to force them apart, grunting and sweating, sometimes hollering to Josh for back-up, just so I could get the diaper up.  All the while Jack would stare innocently and curiously at me, seemingly unaware of the feat of strength that his lower body was performing.

He Army crawled at 6 months, muscling his way around the house.  Shortly thereafter, around 7 months, he began pulling himself up on things, and from there he graduated to full-scale body hangs off the edges of chairs, table ledges, etc.  He went through a Thor's Hammer Chop phase as well, where he would swing his arms violently and forcefully when either happy or irritated, bringing his hands crashing down upon whatever poor frail creature happened to be within reach (usually me).  Our friends, Brett and Lindsey Walker, watched him the night of my sister's wedding, and got to be first-hand witnesses to the strength of both his lungs and mighty fist.  Brett attempted to give him a bottle and Jack straight-up knocked it out of his hands.  "Freakishly strong," was the descriptor Brett applied to our little cherub.

I quail at the power of his terrible hand.  Look out, modern day Grendels.  When he was first learning to walk we would go around outside together, and I often felt like he was going to break my finger off--it would turn purple, and his hand was white from clenching.  Thankfully he now struts around by himself like he's conquered the world, so I don't need to have my blood vessels cut off and finger bones crushed every time we go for a stroll.

Sometimes I think he's just showing off when he walks around carrying both of my 2.5lb hand weights, one in each hand.  That's basically a quarter of his body weight.  At this point these antics have convinced us he is bound for a career in freight (or dentistry, for that matter, as he is also obsessed with teeth and toothbrushes.  Nothing makes him laugh harder than when I bare my front teeth to him).  His new move is to horse-kick during diaper changes, lashing out with both legs.  Not conducive to easy clean-up.

We usually come on the short end of Jack's stick of thumping, swatting, slapping, clawing, and clenching.  But sometimes in the quiet middle-of-the-night nursings he will reach up very gently to touch my chin or nose or cheek, and his little chubby fingers are soft and sweet.  Occasionally these tender moments end in a fishhook to my nostril or a swipe at my lip, but such are the risks in mothering a wild little Hercules such as ours.

Back with Jack

I've been working on a post for Jack for like 2 months now, and because it's so large in scope (his life thus far), it is not getting done.  So I am shelving it and just starting from now: Jack is a babbling, drooling, teething, crawling, climbing, anxious-to-walk 8.5 month-old. He was sick for the first time in his life this past week, which I have discovered is a new kind of awful.  But yesterday and today he has been back to smiling as usual, as you shall see below.

Sitting up like a jolly big boy in his new high chair:

 Trying to climb Mom's leg (note my festive socks) and showing off his new teeth:

This is our little dude!  He loves the washing machine, tinsel on the tree, the knocker on our door, and climbing things that will inevitably tip over and bring about a bonked head.  His newest thing is babbling and muttering while we hold his hands and walk with him all over the house.  It's adorable.  He is currently trying to eat the tablecloth while I type this, which is less adorable. 

I will not be surprised if he walks sooner rather than later.  I thought he was going to skip regular crawling all together (he'd been Army crawling for 2 months), when suddenly a week ago he discovered his knees.  I look forward to having him steady enough on his feet that I won't have to panic about him toppling over and braining himself, which he did this morning while trying to climb my legs while I was trying to wash my hands.  He fell, I lunged to catch him, and in the process smashed my mouth into the corner of the bathroom counter.  I now look like a circus clown with this huge fat lip on the bottom (Josh may be terrified when next he sees me), and I can't say all my words right.  An adventurous baby and a clumsy mom make for a dangerous combination. 

Happy Two Years!

I am resurrecting the blog so that I can wish Josh a Happy 2nd Anniversary!  Here's to two wonderfully happy years and looking forward to many more!  These years have seen us go from this:

The young Mr. and Mrs. Dalton, crossing the Atlantic in Cunard style

To this:

An exhausted but happy and expanded Dalton family!

 My inclination on such an occasion, being more given to the use of superlatives and such, would be to rhapsodize a bit on the many virtues of Josh.  But, having come to know the man by this point, I do not wish to embarrass him. I will therefore be content to just say a few things about why I'm glad I married Mr. Josh Dalton:

(1) The Hair.  I mean . . . honestly, it's remarkable.  We're still hoping that Jack will grow some like Daddy.

Cape May, NJ, Labor Day 2009

(2)  Josh is a selfless, devoted, and attentive father.  The happiest time of day for Jack and me is when Josh walks in the door--Jack starts shrieking giggles and I breathe a sigh of relief.  He loves to do everything with Jack, and always gets up with him in the morning, changing his diaper and playing with him before work so that I can get in an extra half hour of sleep.  That is a magical time for me.   

Daddy, teaching Jack the ways of beanies and root beer.

(3)  Josh does things just to make me happy--note the three Halloweens we've spent together (Halloween 2010 was spent moving into our new apartment, a week before the wedding):

Mary Poppins and Samurai, 2009

Pregnant Mary Poppins and Chimney Sweep, 2011

Tarzan and Jane, 2012

(4) Josh is a truly loyal friend.  This is a quality I noticed very early on in our dating relationship that I loved and admired in him. I feel lucky to have such a man as my best friend.

November 6, 2010: D.C. Darlings

(5) Josh brought Asian food into my life: sushi, gyoza, ramen, mabodofu, sukiyaki, bubble tea, tofu, pho . . . all these were unchartered waters until February 2009.  Back then I gave up in a panic when trying to buy soy sauce at H-Mart; the sheer amount of options paralyzed me, and I fled to Giant and bought whatever they had.  Now I have a pantry stocked with nori, mirin, konbu, shiitake, soba, sesame oil, and so forth, AND I actually know what to do with it.  I also think I've improved with chopsticks, although Josh may not agree.

New Year's Meal with the Daltons, 2011

(6)  Josh has made married life exceed all my girlhood expectations, and this is saying something (I mean, I'm a McDonald...we don't dream by halves).  It's a joy to share life with him, even when it's hard.  His goodness and love make my life a blessed thing and an enduring cause for thanksgiving.
    

The Table, Isle of Skye, Scotland, 2011

Thus is my present to Josh, along with this year's fancy anniversary dinner, in which the crab bisque turned out quite well but the filet mignon ended up medium well instead of medium rare (yet again, grrr).  Thanks for eating it anyway, dearest.

Love,

Ann Marie

I Am Most Seriously Displeased. Where Did Grandma Go?

Vassals and serfs,

The situation has become such that I felt it incumbent to take pen to paper once more.  I have now completed the first month of life, and things have taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks.  I am once again left alone with my bumbling parents after a week and a half of bliss in the company of the worthiest of dames, my beloved Grandma McDonald.

Not only did she change my diaper much more quickly and efficiently than said bumblers, but she also waited on my pathetic mother hand and foot, keeping her hydrated, well-fed, and generally spoiled.  I dined well while she was here--my meals bore the glorious tastes of homemade soups, savory pot pies, sizzling steaks, and authentically English hot cross buns.  In depressing contrast, today all I got was milk flavored by a measly lunch of toast, yogurt, and three pita chips (my mother would try to blame this drab fare on the fact that I was screaming my head off and would not allow her to put me down--utterly irrelevant, I say).  Sigh!  My prospects look rather bleak in this regard.

Alas!  Gone are the late nights and early mornings spent in the company of my beloved Grandmother, when she would take me out of the flaccid arms of my inert mother or off the sprawled, lifeless form of my snoring father.  It was she who kept a clear head when I decided to have a minor fit of acid reflux (that may or nor may not have looked a little like a seizure--details, details!) that eventuated in a trip to the emergency room and rendered my mother hysterical (I made a point of peeing and puking all over the hospital bed, just to show my true feelings on the matter).  It was Grandma McDonald who recognized my diaper rash for what it was--again, my parents were clueless.  

Without Grandma, I'm sure I would have been poisoned a dozen times over by an unsanitized breast-pump and bottles; the dishes would have piled up, the dust bunnies multiplied and replenished, and the bathroom molded over.  She bought groceries, washed my laundry, and showered me with gifts (just wait and see what I'll be for Halloween!).

The day she left I nearly lost my cool.  I thought: "You're actually leaving me alone with these two?!"  I have since shown my general displeasure by exhibiting all signs of full-blown colic. I scream inconsolably unless I am sleeping, eating, or being walked all around the neighborhood by Dad at midnight (hehe--in the rain, no less!).  Take that, Mom and Dad, and bring me back my Grandma.

With condescension,
Jack the Terrible