Dear River,
This has not been an easy month for us. Things have been hectic and we're all tired around these here parts. Not just because of your little sister who sleeps wonderfully--minus all the crazy grunting. You've been acting like the world is ending in fire and brimstone. Or, in other words, teething. Those pesky two year old molars that I just knew would wait until the baby was here to torture you. That means days, off and on, of you refusing to eat, whining incessantly and acting all out emo--since, obviously, the world is out to get you via your mouth. After all that drama one tooth is still not broken through and the other has created the smallest of small holes. (More drama is sure to come!) I hate your teething. Some kids actually get teeth rather quickly. Your teeth take about two months to come in--when they finally get around to coming in at all. But you're like that with everything. You take forever sitting on the potty. You take forever to eat your food. I have to restrain myself from strangling your father--the slowest man alive--for bequeathing you the pokey gene.
You know that whole terrible twos thing I thought was a sham? Yeah, this month it exploded in my face and I cried blood. I don't know what else to say but that you can be a real shit. The cutest shit I love more than any other shit in the world, but a real shit just the same. There were two days where you threw a tantrum about everything I asked you to do.
"Come here, River. Let me get your shirt on."
"No! I don't want to wear a shirt!"
"OK. It's a bit cold, but whatever. I'll just put the shirt away."
"But I said I want to wear a shirt!"
"......No. You didn't."
"I want a shirt!"
"OK. Here it is."
"Not that shirt!"
"What shirt. Pick a shirt."
"I don't want a shirt!"
At this point I grabbed you and wrestled a shirt over your head as you kicked and screamed and then left you in a pile of drool and snot on your bedroom floor and went into the kitchen to lick my wounds.
And this happened over EVERYTHING for THE ENTIRE DAY for DAYS.
It got so bad I took a parenting book out of the library and put post-its up of things I should try just to manage you without loosing my temper and calling you a turd before throwing my own tantrum on the floor.
Now everything is in the form of a question.
"Would you like to wear a shirt or not?"
"I would."
"Would you like this shirt or this shirt?"
"That one."
"Would you like to put it on yourself or do you want me to do it?"
"You do it."
"Yes, master."
I'm lying. I never call you master although, I frequently feel like your bitch.
I think the bulk of this defiance has been caused by you needing to feel like you have some control over your life since things have been thrown so far off course. Sage, visitors, preschool, teething and then you got sick and...lost your mind. I try to understand, but sometimes I don't. I look at you with guilt. I worry about you always. Things were easier when it was just you and I, but I think we all needed Sage. Sharing your life with her will make you a better person. I realized how extremely our lives revolved solely around you when you had a shrieking fit that you wanted a new toy from the store, now. NOW! NOW MOMMY! In fact, most of the day I hear "I want this/I need this".
My response,
Dude, have fun sharing all your shit with you sister. HA! (only I don't say those cusses around you or you'd be tossing a shit out here and a shit out there just to hear me scold you so you could then smirk, laugh evilly, and run around me in circles.)
So, we were invited to join a community preschool. And you've surprised me by becoming extremely introverted. Yes, you. Now that I think back, the seeds of this have been in place for about a month before Sage arrived but I didn't really notice that you were becoming more watchful and less friendly. It took a whole new setting, new kids, a new routine to see that you are not a fast to warm up person. You are so much like your father. You often refuse to participate, hang around the fringe, and clutch a book in your fingers. You watch. You frown at the other children. And slowly, slowly you warm up. But you do pay attention and you do learn. It is only when we are home and you are singing a song you hardly seemed to even listen to in class, that I know you were paying attention. You interact easily with adults. You are quick to ask why or show concern for an injured or upset classmate, but you don't want to try anything new. A perfect example, it took you about twenty minutes to even try a Twizzler and when you did, and learned you liked it, it took you twenty more minutes to eat the damn thing.
When you best buddy was here, you often would stop playing to sit with a book or beg for your video game. You need time to yourself. It took me awhile to understand that it's okay. That it is just who you are now. That being said, you love playing Mario on the DS. At first you sucked hard, but now, you are better than I am. A two year old who can play video games..well! Your father is very proud. You have an amazing attention span for things like this, but asking you to play by yourself is like asking you to stop talking. Neither works very well.
During our most challenging week, you started hitting. You haven't hit me since...wow...since we had our last really trying time when you were about a year and a half old. You hit both your father and I and haven't done it since, but it was intense. You lost your temper, yelled, flailed and then smack! Your father was far more understanding. I, very sternly, told you it was not OK to hit and put your butt in time out. And even though I felt badly because you were teething and sick, I watched you cry and drool down your shirt while you bellowed, "I'm sorry, Mommy!". I'm just that mean. And then I hugged you when your time was done. Now you punch pillows or the floor. After some helpful advice from a friend, I encourage that. "I know you're angry. That's okay. Go ahead and punch the floor." It seems to work...for now.
I wonder how you grew so fast. How you went from the sweet blob that your sister is now, wearing your old clothes, to this long little boy who laid on my belly today and giggled. Who once, somehow..someway, fit inside my belly, grew there, was born, nursed at my breast, babbled, said first words, took first steps...to this. To arguments, opinions, and long bath times spent playing pretend (a captain, a pirate, a race in a hot air balloon, a castle we built out of bubbles and so much more). I miss our days when it was just you and I. When life was simpler and we had hours of play. When I wasn't always saying, "You have to wait. No, I can't right now, River. I need to do this--" But then you find a bug on the playground and you get close to your sister's face and say, "Come look at this baby Sage!" and I imagine I see the two of you running hand and hand across the wood chips on the playground. It's like a mirage on the horizon when I'm dying of thirst, but it's real. It's coming, day by day by day. We'll get there. We'll find our pattern, our new niches around Sage and with each other. One day when you reach out and hold her hand, she'll hold it back--interlacing her fingers into yours--and that will be my small, sweet reward.
Love,
Mommy
It's hard to believe a whole year has passed. That since then, Sage (down for the night during our pumpkin massacre) was not yet even created. We had no idea then that I'd be pregnant in less than two months! Next year she'll be shoving curious hands into the family pumpkin and likely attempting to eat her findings. Sigh...
River picked out the white pumpkin at a local Harvest Festival. The damn thing is creepy. The insides felt foamy as opposed to the usual slime and were tinged green. Zombie pumpkin, I suppose or maybe vampire pumpkin. After the newly formed Jack O' Lanterns were lit, River insisted we had to sing Happy Birthday and then blow out the candles. So there we were, three adults and one pleased toddler singing Happy Birthday to a couple of over sized, gutted gourds. I realized, this is how family traditions begin. That every year from now on, I will insist we sing Happy Birthday dear pumpkins! I'll insist until the kids stop singing because they think it is lame and they sigh with exasperation every time I tell the story of River insisting we sing. That one day they will exchange bemused, indulgent expressions and once again sing along with their precious, if a bit nutty, mother. Through the exhaustion of ten hours solo with two needy kids, I felt a pleasant glow of contentment.
If you're wondering about Heather's pumpkin... Well that's the Jason porn-stache pumpkin. Remember that insane thing he had growing on his face? He seemed a bit miffed to have his likeness as a pumpkin. I'd be honored! Hey, maybe I should let my 'stache grow out. I am half Italian after all. 
I no longer feel the need to hide in the house. I no longer have to struggle to get through the days. I know those days will still happen. They always do--with one child or two. But, I basically feel like myself again. Although, I'm still marveling at saying I am the mother of two, of talking about my children and saying "My son, River and my daughter, Sage.", of watching the big one climb the slide and barrel down head first while I hold a floppy baby against my chest in arms that still remember days upon days of holding her brother when he was this small. Like riding a bike, you never forget how to care for a baby. Mothering is natural, easy, familiar now. My body knows the way, even as my mind sometimes freezes over the fact that here I am. 
silly girl
Raising these kids is like a long television series. I look forward to the next episodes and get nostalgic over things that have passed and can't be lived again. Jason and I already talk about the sounds and phrases and messy words that have faded from River's speech. Already Sage changes and sheds her mannerisms as she grows. She doesn't purse her lips and pant when she wants to nurse anymore. She doesn't stick her legs straight out, tense, when she latches during a feeding. We're all learning to sleep through her night time grunting. Changes keep on coming.
We have moments, flashcard fast. Like nursing Sage in bed while I opened my birthday gifts. River taking the boots the "kids" bought for me and insisting on wearing them both and then dancing in bed. Moments.
Yes, I'm exhausted. Raising children is work, but these are happy days. As my memories fade and blur, I am left with a feeling of deep, satisfying, contentment. 
Thanks be for the fathers in our lives.
I've mentioned that River is in a community preschool. If you're anything like me, you're probably thinking--WTF is that? 
A community preschool is a mom/dad run preschool in your community. River's preschool meets twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, for two hours apiece. We have a set list of topics and a weekly letter. Each mom teaches twice their assigned week. We cycle through our rotation hosting class at the "teacher of the week" 's home. We work on classroom rules (sitting still, listening, sharing, raising hands, answering questions) and each week we sing with the kids, play a game or two, do a craft, and read books about our topic. We also allow them a snack and play time if they behave. Otherwise we lock them in metal cages and poke them with sharp sticks. So far they've been so well behaved, that I've only been able to use my stick as a back scratcher. Shucks.
For my week I taught about farms and the letter 'A'. Our only little girl was absent and my friend was visiting with her son, so there was a total of five little boys (ages 2--3 years. River being the youngest.) I loved it. It always takes me working with children to re-realize how much I thrive as a teacher. The only problem for me being the politics and administration that goes along with public education and always throws me back onto the, "I don't want to use my very expensive degree because teaching sucks hard" wagon. Of course, that does not apply in community preschool. Though neither does five day work weeks and a pay check. 
What is also great about community preschool (beside the cost---free!) is the flexibility to do what we want. We are taking major advantage of our local community to enrich our mini lessons. So far we've gone to the zoo when we learned about...well...zoos. We also went to a farm* (hay ride, petting zoo, pumpkins, etc) my teaching week. If you think field trips don't count as teaching, guess again. My expensive New York State teaching degree was quite adamant that learning should have as many real-world connections as possible. What is more real about learning about farms than watching a bunch of sleeping pigs?
River is very much not ready for a traditional preschool. I know that now watching him in our preschool. So this is providing him a nice, safe, transition into the real deal preschool I may or may not enroll him in next fall. Right now it is about getting used to being somewhere other than home with someone other than mommy, learning classroom etiquette, socializing and being exposed to new topics and ideas. 
Home from the hospital with Sage--the deflated balloon belly
Four weeks after--the mama hips
Five weeks and change. I can button my pre-pregnancy jeans, already.
You have grabby little fists. Daddy told me how you grabbed my hospital robe right after you were born and the midwife had to pry it out of your hands before she could give you over to the nurses. You've grabbed my glasses, my hair, and your own hair in a death grip. The latter caused you some tears.
You have a calm, watchful little personality. You enjoy getting your diaper changed. While you brother wailed every second of his changes when he was a newborn, you lay there peacefully looking up at me, legs bent, and feet curled in. Your fat little milk belly spreads out to either side and your small hands remained fisted by your face. You have made up for the fact that you can't pee on me by pooping violently enough to splatter my hand. I call them rocket ship poops and you have killer aim.
While River had horrible colic that induced two hours a day of evening wailing, you have a more motivated approach to gas. It involves very loud old man grunts that wake us up throughout the night. Often these little grunt episodes are followed by some loud, old man farts or even a rocket ship poop that has enough force that the walls tremble and dogs start howling up and down the street. I'm exaggerating, but only a little.
You hardly ever cry. Sometimes there is a lip tremble and an angry little yell, maybe a whimper. Usually if you don't get the milk fast enough after a diaper change when you know it is coming. Your eyes get wide, your lips purse and you smack eagerly. Your arm and leg movements become jerky. I know that look for your brother. Your hungry look. I enjoy dressing and undressing you to watch you root towards the fabric that rubs by your cheeks. In this way, you and your brother are just the same. I find it just as amusing the second time around.
You love being held away from my body and aren't very fond of baby carriers. Your brother was so snuggly. You, not so much so. In fact, you can put yourself to sleep. Oh and, most of the time (like all of most nights) you sleep by yourself. Oh, and and AND that would be in the bassinet. Yes, that's right. Your nearly three year old brother still can't put himself to sleep and sleeps most of the night between mommy and daddy. Let's all just start calling you Miss Independent. You also sleep all night, minus getting up for changes and nursing. That's right. This is my baby who understands that night means sleep. Did I win the awesome baby lotto? I think so. You make up for being so incredible by fighting naps all day. Too much to see. Too much noise and you hate noise when you are sleeping. Thus, your only major nap today happened when River and I were also napping in the typical day time nap formation of mommy sandwich. It looks like so:
I hope you stay this easy, but even if you don't... Even if you poop on my hand again and spray poop shards across the changing table and onto the floor--I adore you. You're my daughter. I still haven't quite gotten over the awe of being able to write that.
