Welcome

Dear Ilan,

You were born 8 days early. Your brother was born 8 days late and that, along with being consistently told that you measured small made me believe it took me longer than usual to grow a baby. I didn't expect you for another two weeks.

You came three days before the winter solstice, which marks the change of season from fall to winter. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, and was our first full day home with you. It was a beautiful day, unseasonably warm, and we took you on your first walk outside to let the sun shine on your face while you slept.

You are an easy baby. You have long and delicate fingers and toes. You were born sunny side up, which means you were face up instead of face down. Your umbilical cord was unusually long, had two vessels instead of three, and had a true knot in it, which means at some point, when you were very small, your cord made a circle and you swam through it. There are a thousand small details I could mention, things that came up during my pregnancy, and things that were discovered at your birth, that make your life seem like more of a miracle than most. A thousand small things that could have gone wrong but didn't.

I was sick when I went into labor with you. I had a sore throat and bad chest cold, and hadn't been getting much sleep. After delivery my voice was horse and whispery, and within a few hours it was gone entirely. I spent the first 48 hours of your life whispering to you. In the following days my voice was husky and crackly. Did you wonder where your real mother was, the one whose voice you'd heard booming and echoing for months?

You recognized your brother's voice. Your first night home was the second night of Channukah, and we lit the candles and opened presents. Roan got a finger monster, and he played a game where it attacked us. Every time he laughed or spoke you looked around for him, wanting to join the fun. When you are fussing, you often stop if you hear his voice.

Our lives seem so much fuller already, being a family with two boys. I am so happy you are here.

Welcome.

Ilan Clive Lyons, December 19th, 7:59AM, 6lbs, 14oz, 19 inches

Activities

Roan has recently made the transition to swimming without me. Just in time too, because the sight of my Fred in a bathing suit has become pretty alarming.

Our playground days are winding down... soon it will be too cold and snowy.

One day we tried something new - a place called Bounce U, which has two huge rooms full of bounce houses. It was incredible. They have smaller houses for little kids, and really enormous ones for big kids. At first, Roan was content with the small time. And when I saw the long and steep slides, and the fact that on one, you had to climb up an inflatable rock wall, I was sure my son wouldn't be interested.

Wrong.

An attendant helped him climb the rock wall, which is nearly vertical, and even *inverted* in one place, and then he went down the slide by himself. See the skid marks that start right below his legs? Those are there because that's where your body first makes contact with the slide. Before that you are free falling.

Inevitably, Roan dragged me up the rock wall and made me go on the slide with him. And I was afraid. In my adult life, I don't have much opportunity to experience primal fear, but I felt it that day at Bounce U, perched on the edge of that slide, ready to launch myself into the air. That spike of adrenaline - the sudden knowledge that death is real, and possibly imminent. Roan sat in front of me, his eyes sparkling with excitement. I was so glad he was going with me - I gripped him tight. I didn't want to go alone.

Here we are on a slightly more mellow version of the slide, where you climb up using footholds and a rope.

Birth Plan

Last week I had a meeting with my OBGYN to discuss labor. It went like this:

Dr. Amy: How long was your last labor?

Me: 7 hours.

Dr. Amy: Oh. You should come in after your first contraction.

There was no lofty discussion of a birth plan, no questions about whether we could dim the lights in the hospital room, bring music and aromatherapy, employ a "birthing ball." With Roan, we discussed all these things at length, and then I spent about an hour in the hospital before I pushed him out. There wasn't any time for that shit. Even if there had been, I was too overwhelmed by pain to notice the terrible lighting, the lack of soothing smells, and my screams drowned out any music.

I have a hard time believing Fred's labor will be any less terrible. I respond to pain by becoming angry and withdrawn. I hope to have enough self control this time around to reign some of that in. Though the "labor flashbacks" I've been having are not encouraging. They are traumatizing, and leave me feeling profoundly pissed off.

To psyche myself out I've been playing this game, trying to come up with all the things that people do voluntarily that are worse than unmedicated childbirth. Like running a marathon. Or trekking across Antarctica and having to carry one of those unwieldy backpacks. Traffic school. That's all I've come up with so far. And the problem with this game is that with those activities, you can always just quit, or take a break. Childbirth is unstoppable. You have no control. You can't drop out. There are no breaks.

It's hard for me to have a positive attitude.

My birth plan with Roan involved a lot of props, eloquently rehearsed arguments against any intervention, and a desperate hope for an orgasmic labor, promised to me by the Bradley Method, provided Jay could get those massage techniques just right (he didn't).

My birth plan with Fred is simple: get to the hospital before having the baby.

Roan at 3

Dear Roan,

You love trains and chocolate and books and words that rhyme. You recently went through a clingy phase, but for the most part you are very independent, and will play alone for long stretches, lost in your own world. You are still a good eater, when I can get you to pay attention to food, but many times I have to feed you myself while you check the fire truck's engine or change your cars' tires.

You had, for a month or two, a curious habit of talking out of the side of your mouth that I'm pretty sure you picked up from watching clips of the movie Cars.

When someone does something you don't like, such as push you or take your toy or stand on a train track that only you can see you say, very loudly, "I don't like it, I don't like it!" You don't like to rough house. You like to get up in your friends' faces and make loud train noises, or roar, or whip trucks by people's heads. Sometimes it's hard for me to punish you, because mostly you are very well behaved. When you act like a jerk it's usually because you are strung out and tired and on the verge of tears. You have such a good heart.

You love to be silly and laugh. It's fun to spend time with you. Here are some snapshot moments from this week:

Me and you soaking in our post swim lesson bubble bath, me blowing bubbles all over, you laughing like a maniac, your hair speckled with white foam. You running in tight circles around the kitchen while I play a lively version of Wagon Wheel on the guitar. Me playing with your toes while we make up silly rhymes.

You are very calm and focused. Other moms like their boys to have play dates with you, in hopes that your ability to self entertain for long stretches will rub off. And it works if there are just two of you, most of the time. Insert a third boy and the two of them run around like crazy people while you play alone with play dough or whatever.

I think I was like this as a child, a bit indifferent to what other kids were doing, and to what was going on around me in general. I've never been completely comfortable in big groups, and though I grew up playing team sports I always felt a little awkward with the large scale social interaction that came with it. I want so badly for everything to be effortless for you, especially those things that were hard for me. So I love to see you run wild with your friends, hopped up on communal energy, going along with the group for the sheer joy of being part of something. More often than not you opt out of this kind of group play, and I worry that you've inherited my own awkwardness.

I think as parents we tend to focus on the parts of our children that most strongly reflect or react against our own identities. When I talk to your Daddy about this, he zeroes in on how stubborn you are (you once held a grudge against him for 2 hours, fell asleep for a 2 hour nap, and woke up still mad at him), and how gentle you are. He also talks about how mechanically inclined you seem to be, or at least you are very interested in the way things work. Daddy says you don't get this from him, and then reminds me of a time when we were first dating and he came to my apartment to find that I'd completely dismantled an old TV I'd found on the street.

I wonder, will you ever want all this information? Is it even accurate? Truly there is no such thing as objectivity, especially not for parents.

I write this down because for better or worse, I want you to have a record of who you were. Especially who you were before you become self aware enough to start changing yourself into the person you want to be, or whoever you think you ought to be. This is who we think you are right now, on the cusp of becoming a big brother.

You during the Thanksgiving holiday, when our backyard was full of brilliant yellow leaves.

False Alarm

Dear Fred,

We thought we had it all bagged up. But it turns out, that on further reflection, we just don't like the name Micah as much as we thought. So add it to the growing list of names that were almost yours.

We went back to the drawing board and came up with two very solid contenders. They are neck and neck in the race to be Your Name. With just four weeks left, we are playing for keeps!

I've run both names by Roan, but he is no help. He will not consider any name that is not Fred. "Mommy," he tells me, "the baby's name is Fed. Just Fed." The matter is settled in his mind. He changes the subject and starts talking about trains.