I think the hardest part about two under two for me so far is remembering my children's ages. Adam is such a big baby. Well, I'm sure to somebody else, he's just an average sized kid, but Ella was a tiny little tortoise, and Adam's current weight at 2 months is what Ella weighed at 4 months. Adam's current length was Ella's length at 6 months. Even now, Adam swallows Ella when he is in her lap. He's a big kid. And I forget that he's only two months old. So sometimes I'll look at him and think "Why aren't you holding your head up? Why are you still cross eyed? I feel like you should be cognitive enough to know that I'm super funny and smile at me constantly. Why do you make me work so hard for a grin?" And then I remember the kid is still shiny and new. He's still just a wee little kitten. It's okay that he doesn't do those things yet. Meanwhile, Ella was born three weeks early and was the tiniest little mouse, but she was always leaps and bounds ahead developmentally. She smiled consistently at three weeks old, figured her eyeballs out fairly quickly, and was so alert, all the time. She's still that way. Adam isn't. Homeboy likes sleep as long as the sun is out and everybody else in the house is awake. Come moonlight and REM sleep for the rest of the class? Bah, humbug. That's the time to party. Bleh. Anyway, like I was saying, just as I forget how little Adam is, I do the same thing to Ella. I guess that once he was out and tiny and officially in the role of "baby," Ella got shoved into the "big sister" corner, and she's been adamant about being released. And lately, it's been important for me to remember that she's really not a big sister. She's still very much a baby herself. Some of my greatest frustrations this month have involved "Ella! You know better!" but then I had to stop and think... "Wait... does she? Is this something she already knew?" And usually the answer is no. So these days, I've taken on the role of "Bad Cop" and there's been a few wars while Ella learns what limits she can stretch and what buttons can't be pushed. Cody (aka Good Cop), usually unaware of the war zone he's walking into at the end of the day, is greeted with shrieks and grins, occasionally kisses and hugs. And by occasionally, I mean always. Nine days out of ten, it infuriates me to watch. Confessions of a real stay at home Mom. I mean, hey little girl! I carried you for nine months... oh, and remember that time that I couldn't go on a date lasting longer than an hour because you wouldn't take a bottle? But I breastfed you anyway, because it was the best freaking thing FOR YOU?! Or maybe when labored for thirty one hours and still ended up being filleted like a fish because your eternally stubborn butt wasn't having it? No? None of those things ring a bell? That's fine. That's fine. I'll just be here, counting the diapers and rejected meals. Someday you're going to come to me crying with your own daughter's troubles, and I'm just going to point and laugh.
All jokes aside, we're still looking for the normal. Things are so much smoother than last month. She still smothers Adam, but Adam is learning how to be vocal about his annoyances. Maybe we've reached the light at the end of this excessively affectionate tunnel. I think Adam might be like me when it comes to affection. It's on our time, and usually the clock runs out fast. We'll work on it. In the meantime, everybody soliders through Ella tantrums and Adam keeping us awake at night. The great news is that my husband whisked me away for a weekend, and it was food for my weary soul. Technically, he whisked me away because we had to go to Fort Worth for Adam's appointment, but he was sweet enough to book the hotel for two extra nights, arranged for Ella to hang out with my parents, and lined up dinners at some of my favorite places. Adam was a champion traveler, so all in all, the trip was good for my soul. I've felt motivated to do things for the first time in six weeks. I've tackled a chore every day. Yes. One chore. Judge me! I've returned with a need for organization, so I've also organized one part of our lives every day. I feel refreshed. I feel vibrant. Basically, while I don't want to say "I needed a break from Ella because I have bald spots from her new tantrums!" I do feel okay saying that I needed to get away from my house, and our hometown, and all of the mundane that comes with it. I needed to wrap my arms around my husband, and sit at a restaurant with him for two hours and look at our phones saying "We've been here two hours?!" After Adam's appointment, we didn't have anywhere to be but with each other, and it was wonderful. We talked and laughed and walked around Lowe's planning the rest of our kitchen. We ate at restaurants we wouldn't dream of taking our toddler tornado into. We stayed up late watching "Criminal Minds" and weren't ashamed. We walked around a ritzy outdoor mall and pretended like we had the money to spend on petty things. I picked up a 94.00 DINNER PLATE and casually said "That's not bad" while I prayed to the God above me that I didn't have a klutz moment while putting it back. My husband basically followed me around the stores that I love to look around, and never said a word about whether or not I was purchasing anything. I should say I hate to spend money and never buy anything when we shop. He sees it as a waste of time. I can't totally disagree, but I'm also not going to change... so it is what it is. I could go on and on, but we spent two wonderful days together, then really started missing Ella, so we were relieved to see her on Friday, when my parents met us in Dallas to finish out the weekend.
How did Adam's appointment go, you ask? It was everything we hoped it would be. I was obviously nervous about the unknown as we walked up to the hospital, but almost assuredly the Lord placed a familiar hymn on my heart:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
His mercies never come to an end
They are new every morning, new every morning
Great is Thy faithfulness
So I felt a certain peace as we rode the elevator and gave Cody's hand one last squeeze before we entered the office. There was no insane wait time in the office, the Doctor was an absolute dream, and we left feeling assured that Adam was going to be fine regardless of results. I will say that I went in with a really bad attitude and left with a new, humbled perspective. I felt peace about my son, yes. But I also knew that he was about to be poked with a needle for what was likely to be no reason at all. So that allowed my mind to wander. My baby was huge, thriving, and showing no symptoms of this disorder that just wouldn't leave our vocabulary or lives. I didn't want want to be in Fort Worth at a hospital, and I certainly didn't want Adam to endure more tests and more hypothetical results. When would it end? Would today's tests lead to more tests? Would this be our lives for the next eighteen years? We were in the waiting room filling out the paperwork that accompanies these visits, and a family walked in with a sweet baby girl, no older than Ella, with very obvious learning disabilities. I watched her grandmother try to control her, only to be met with angry shouts and violent tantrums. I saw the embarrassment on her face as she quickly tried to distract the little girl from her rage. Shortly after, another family walked in with a little boy in a wheelchair, his eyes distant and unaware of his surroundings. It hurt my heart. Here I was, annoyed to be here because there wasn't anything "obviously wrong" with my baby, while there were families all around us that very obviously needed to be in the care of a physician. Even now I look back so ashamed of my heart and my attitude, but so thankful that I quickly became aware of it. I don't have the answers as to why I have healthy babies and others go through such struggles. I never will. I can only pray that I never lose sight of how humbling the entire experience was for me, and how thankful I am for modern medicine, as they can offer those families support and maybe even a little bit of hope.
Basically, Adam's initial results were so borderline that the doctor considered clearing us without having us come to Fort Worth... but since there were a couple of diagnosed cases in his range, she didn't want to take any chances. She sent us for the necessary labs (break my heart in two) and told us she would call us in 7-10 days with results. A boiling anger started to pop up, since we had basically driven all the way to Fort Worth for a blood test with no immediate results... but those images of those babies kept popping back into my head, so I said "okay." and we went about the rest of our trip that I've already oogled on and on about. We received a call 5 days later, were told that Adam is carrier for the disorder, but does not have an active gene. He's totally, completely, one hundred percent healthy. Should he marry somebody that also has an inactive gene, there's a 50% chance of it being passed to his kids, but let's deal with that in forty years, when I allow him to marry and reproduce. Basically, they are the results Cody and I were expecting, as there was a 1 in 40,000 chance of Adam having an actual diagnosis of the disorder, but I'm thankful we walked through it. Those first six weeks of being his Mom were hard for me. I had to worry about things healing when we left the hospital, then he got thrush at one week old and the medicine kept his tummy upset, then we got the call about the newborn screens, then I watched my newborn baby scream during labs, then we were told he was fine, then we were told we had to go to Fort Worth. It felt like it was never going to end. There was something new every day. Fortunately, the church has been doing a series on steadfastness, and since I haven't been to church almost three months, I've been playing catch up over the last month or so as nap time allows it. And it was just everything my heart needed to hear. I've hated missing church, but I believe that the timing in hearing those messages was no accident. I listened to one at least every other day, and every time there was something I needed to hear. I'll probably tape the pages of my journals to Adam's baby book. The Lord is so good to us, and not just because we received the results we wanted. God is still good to us even if Adam had been diagnosed with the problem. In the face of my worst nightmares, I believe that God is still good. And that his mercies never come to an end. And that his love never ceases. Great is thy faithfulness.
Since then, we've been at home enjoying the quiet. I've obsessed over typical Mom things, like why he sounds hoarse (air conditioning dries his throat out) and why his percentiles didn't add up on the paperwork we got back from Cooks. I've been so relieved to have such simple problems that I've totally abused the "email" option on the patient portal with our pediatrician. I email any question that comes to mind. I'm sure when we go for his check up, his doctor will do a silent evaluation of me to make sure that a looney tune isn't responsible for two kids... but I'm okay with that. We put our garden in the ground for the fifth time in Cody and I's marriage, and it gave me some feelings. We've been doing life together for almost seven years now, and five of those years have been married. Our first garden was an oasis in a ghetto, sad little house. No sooner had the garden died out, the house was broken into, and we got out as quickly as we could. The next year was a rough year, full of "container" gardens... I don't think we harvested anything that cycle. The next year was a bountiful harvest, in the first home that we ever owned. We tilled that soil because it was ours, and we were never so proud of anything. We had vegetables out of our ears that year... almost to the point that we were ready to pull the plants because we couldn't do anymore. The next year, I was 8 months pregnant with Ella when the garden went into the ground, and wasn't super involved. It was an okay year, but not the best. Last year was our first garden in our dream backyard. Again, pregnant, but in the first trimester and too tired to care about the garden at all. Too sick to enjoy any of the produce that we ended up with. Frustrated that we were throwing things away because they sat on the kitchen counters. And now, here we are again. A new baby in my arms, a toddler in the swimming pool across the yard. Two people, still committed to the same dream that we dared to dream when we got engaged. Recognizing that God has been faithful and carried us through the good gardens and the bad gardens. Blessed us with two beautiful babies in perfect health. So many feelings. If I could freeze time, I would. Sleepless nights, rage filled Ella fits, scraping by on the grocery budget, and crazy filled schedules included. Our life exceeds any expectation I ever had, and words fail to express how thankful I am. So, I'm probably just going to stop before my emotions trigger a letdown and I have to wake Adam up to remedy it. Yes, I said it. These are the days of our lives.
I think that wraps the month up in a very wordy nutshell. Adam weighed thirteen pounds at his appointment in Fort Worth, and my arms are only growing more weary holding him during feedings. His check up and immunizations are next week, and I won't be surprised at all if they tell me that he's over fourteen pounds. He's wearing size 6 months in clothing, so I've basically just stopped buying anything "cute" until we hit a size for longer than a week. I'm thankful. He's fat, but he's so obviously healthy, and that's carried us through the past two months. Here's his deer picture, and another picture with his sickly sister. We're battling our first real illness at casa Gaines, but I think we're going to make it. I don't know how many more of these sweet pictures we're going to get, because I don't know how much longer the chair is going to hold them both. So sad. Anyway. Until next month!
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