Oliver: Then and Now

Over 5 years ago, I wrote this about our little toddler Oliver:

How long? Not very long. Weeks. A month or two. Then he'll be walking. Then, the gates we've erected to enclose him in the living room are going to be nothing more than punch lines. Soon, soon, he'll be walking up to us with the book that we absolutely must read to him at that very moment right there. Soon, we'll be watching him waddle down the aisles of the supermarket, through the doors of the coffee shops and toy stores. He'll walk to the elevator himself, press the buttons himself, and walk us, hand in hand, to the car.

So I remind myself to savor these moments. They disappear before I realize they're gone. I didn't realize until it was nearly too late that the days of bottle-feeding him were nearly gone, back at the end of June. And then it was the last two days that he'd get a bottle from me, and then it was the last day, and then it was the last bottle, the last time he sprawled on my lap to let me feed him. And then, there were no more left.

Bottles. Child-proof gates. Hah.

It just seems so silly to look back on those days, when he still wore diapers, when he still drank milk from bottles. Was that ever our baby?

Our baby - hah! - weighs almost fifty pounds now. He presses the elevator buttons. He not only walks into coffee shops by himself now, but he knows what he wants to order there. (No, he's not drinking coffee. Mostly, it's donuts and fruit plates and the occasional hot chocolate.) He picks out the clothes he wants to wear to school.

He's in 1st grade now. School has been a little bumpy for him - sadly, he inherited anxiety issues from both me and his mom, and we're dealing with that. It's been stressful, for all of us.

So sometimes, it's hard to remember the baby that he once was. And sometimes, that's exactly what I need to remember. This is our boy. This is the same little guy I used to rock to sleep with one arm, the same little guy who had to learn to crawl and then walk and then say words. He learned all that. So he's got other stuff to learn? We all do. We've gotten this far, together. We can get through our little challenges now, too.

I'm Still Here!!!

Hey!

I know, I haven't written in two months. And you probably haven't read this blog in two months, either. (Because, y'know, math.)

So I figure I need to do something striking to get your attention back.

So here's something striking. My son, Oliver?

Y'know, this kid?

He's turning six.

Yes, really. Six years old.

He's finishing kindergarten next month.

He's reading now. He reads up a storm. Sometimes, he gets out of bed and starts reading books, and two hours later, he's still sitting on the couch, tearing through book after book after book.

He's grown so much this year. Such a personality he has. He's witty and charming and mischievous (like his dad, I suppose. The mischievous part.)

He's big. My kid is getting big.

Democrats Don't Attack Working Mothers

Look, there are a hundred reasons to oppose Sarah Palin's nomination. One is that she was nominated by John McCain, who is a frightening prospect for president.

Her astonishing lack of qualifications. The lies about the Bridge to Nowhere. The lies about her connections with Ted Stevens. Her near-impeachment as mayor of Wasilla. The firing of the head of public safety for personal reasons. The earmarks she got to benefit her small town. The fact that she fought to keep polar bears off the endangered species list.

Lots of valid, political, meaningful reasons to oppose her nomination.

The fact that Sarah Palin is a working mother is not a reason to oppose her nomination. Mean-spirited attacks like Sally Quinn's piece are not going to help our case at all.

Is she prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job? She is the mother of five children, one of them a four-month-old with Down Syndrome. Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make? I'm the mother of only one child, a special needs child who is grown now. I know how much of my time and energy I devoted to his care. He always had to be my first priority. Of course women can be good mothers and have careers at the same time. I've done both. Yes, other women in public office have children. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children, but she didn't get heavily involved in politics until they were older. A mother's role is different from a father's.

Mrs. B is a working mother. Do we really want to start attacking mothers for working outside the home? Take away the number of kids, the concerns about the kid with Down's Syndrome. This is an attack on working mothers.

And it's also an attack on fathers, incidentally. I was a stay-at-home dad for nearly a year of Oliver's life. He was still nursing when Mrs. B went back to work. I fed him bottles of breast milk. I put him to bed. I took care of him. He survived. A mother's role is different from a father's, true, but if Palin's husband is the chief caregiver in the family, there is no shame and no harm in that. And shame on Sally Quinn for insinuating otherwise.

We are attacking our own best interests as progressives and as Democrats when we attack Sarah Palin for daring to work while raise children. Let's get back to the issues at hand and not get distracted by the circumstances of her family. We're better than this.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Sarah Palin's place on the ticket didn't last the week. If/when she resigns her position as vice-presidential candidate, she will blame the Democrats for attacking her and her daughter. She will accuse us of trying to destroy her and her family, and she will say that the Democratic party is anti-working woman and anti-family. Sally Quinn's piece feeds into that argument. Every time a progressive gleefully talks about what a terrible mother Sarah Palin must be, they feed into that argument.

We're better than this.

Bea

Oliver has a baby doll. For the longest time, she was just an occasional toy. He played with her sometimes, but mostly he ignored her. She sat unused for months, collecting dust, just another stuffed thing in the bin of stuffed things. Suddenly, he has fallen madly in love with this doll. He carries her everywhere. He went to bed with her clutched in his arms the last three nights. It's his baby.

Her name is Bea. His name was going to be Beatrice if he was a girl, so Mrs. B took the liberty of naming his baby doll for him. There's something strange about him carrying around something with his alternate-universe female name. It's as if he's holding his other half.

He tells us that she's his baby. That's exactly how he says it - "she's my ba-by," he says somberly. "I wuv her."

I must get this on video, because when he says "she's my baby," his voice croaks with emotion. He says it with a combination of unconditional love and existential dread, like he knows that the love he has for Bea is ultimately going to break his heart and destroy him. (I don't really believe that myself, about Bea or about him, but when he says it, you just hear the heartache in his voice.)


She went to the beach with us last week. She went shopping on Sunday and patiently sat in a chair while he tried on shoes. He eats with her. He asks us to get her sippy cups full of milk and water. When we read stories, he insists that we read to both of them. Sometimes, he comes looking for food in the kitchen and he says "we're hungry."

But mostly, it's the endless clutching and looking at her. And he really doesn't look joyfully at her, like he's thrilled to have a baby. He looks honest-to-God mournful. Haunted. Or maybe that's just his way of looking protective and watchful. But he just looks so burdened. It's hard work being a parent, but he's only three yet - he shouldn't know this.

Three

So the lad turned three years old this weekend.

We went down to Oregon for a big ol' party with his favorite cousin, who celebrated her fifth birthday last week, too. The theme was Mexican - it was a fiesta of sorts, with Mexican food and Mexican beer. Our hosts made "burrito" cakes for the birthday kids. The burrito was pretty clever - the inside was a jellyrolled cake. The "tortilla" was ganache, rolled into an oblong shape and draped over. The "salsa" was made with strawberries, with bits of banana and kiwi for color.

They even made a piñata. (Rule #1 for anyone who ever wants a piñata at any sort of party: always make sure that you a stick strong enough to handle some bashing. The kids were using a plastic broom handle, and it bent before the piñata dented. Eventually, we had to resort to a wooden shovel handle.


Oliver had a blast. Because we were on the road for his birthday, he didn't get his big birthday present until we came home. I don't want to speak for Oliver, but I think it was worth the wait.



I'm going to have to write another post in depth about what it means that he's three. He has changed so much in a year that I can't even grasp all of the changes. He's a little person now. We can talk to him, he can carry grocery bags out of the car, he comments on our conversations.

He's a big boy now. It's preposterous to call him my baby anymore, and yet I still get to carry him sometimes to his bedroom, draped over my arms. And sometimes, I sing him lullabies to get him to sleep just like in the early days. And sometimes, when I lay down in his big boy bed and watch him fall asleep with his arm slung over me, I just watch him. I watch my baby as his gentle breaths come and go, his tiny lips moving slightly with each breath. And I see the adult that he will become, and I see the baby he is and he always will be. He's an amazing person, this thing of wonder, this boy of mine, my beautiful son Oliver.

Wonder - Colin Meloy

P.S. I have more pictures on Flickr (see the right column to see a couple more previews.) You can go here to see 'em. Some of the pictures will not be visible unless you're on my friends list, so if I know you and you know me, email me and I'll get you on the guest list.

You Are Getting Very Sleepy...

I think I just hypnotized my son.

We were driving home from a busy day. I had a board meeting, so I left him at the (awesome) drop-in daycare center. I picked him up, we went to eat lunch. Well, we drove around the parking lot for twenty minutes, trying to find a parking spot. Then we ate lunch.

And then we were driving home around 1:00, and that's around his nap time. So I was hoping that he'd fall asleep in the car so he wouldn't be a basket case by the time we got home. He didn't seem ready to sleep - he was happily jabbering away and singing songs.

I leaned back toward him and said, "Oliver, if you need to go to sleep, you can. It's okay."

I kid you not - he closed his eyes five seconds later and fell asleep.

Five seconds.

I was a little worried that he had passed out instead of, y'know, going to sleep. I kept stopping at stop lights and listening for breathing sounds.

The boy fell absolutely stone cold asleep. And all I had to do was say two sentences to him.

I know there's probably a good reason for this. There's a good rational explanation involving child psychology and developmental stages and things like that. But right now, I feel like I just pulled off a magic trick.

No More Nummies

It's been almost a week, so I feel like I can say this safely. Mrs. B has weaned Oliver.

She cut off "nummies" (our little word for nursing) except for nighttime feedings a month or two ago. Last week, as we were driving home from something-or-another, she told him that the nummies were all gone.

He started negotiating with her - "almost gone?"

"No, honey," she said, "all gone."

"Almost gone," he insisted.

"No, baby, all gone." We both started worrying, and I found myself a little teary. He really seemed upset at this sudden development.

And then, that night, he was fine. He asked once for his nummies, and Mrs. B told him they were all gone, and he just turned over and went to sleep.

The next night, he got a little upset in the middle of the night when he couldn't nurse. But it's gone surprisingly smoothly. She's thinking we could have done this a long time ago, but maybe we just waited until the right time.

How to Double-Swaddle a Baby

It's time for a trip back in time. We're going to go back, ladies and gentlemen. Way way back. Back to the days when this was how Oliver slept.

That's right. It's time to revisit the popular topic of double-swaddling.

I'll confess - I learned about the magical art of the double swaddle through a parenting class. I've never seen it described in any book. It seems like one of those secrets that's been passed down from mother to daughter (because, until recently, most fathers just never got that involved) for generations. I learned about it when Oliver was wiggling and wriggling around for his naps, and the customary swaddling technique just wasn't cutting it. Someone in the parenting class suggested double-swaddling him.

I said - and I remember this distinctly - "Hunh?"

She proceeded to take her own little ball of squiggleness and demonstrate the technique, bundling her kiddo up into a perfect knot of swaddle. It was astonishing. She was wrapped up tight as a mummy and looked happy to be there. After a little practice and trial-and-error, I got down my own technique, which I will demonstrate for you right here and now.

Let's begin with the basics. You need two blankets. You'll want large blankets because you're going to be wrapping both of them around your baby. Don't skimp on length. (See the end of this post for my personal recommendation.)

Lay the first one down in a diamond shape, like this. Fold the top corner down.





Lay a second blanket down over the first one, and fold the top corner down in the same way.

(Pay attention to how far you fold these corners down. If you've got a little kiddo, you can fold these down a fair amount. The bigger your kiddo, the smaller you want this fold to be because it affects the length of blanket remaining.)




At this point, I should introduce our stand-in baby, Winnie T. Pooh. (Oliver's entirely too old to be swaddled these days.)

Take your baby and place him/her on top of the blankets, right at the top. The shoulders should be just about level with the top of your blankets, as shown here. Fold one side of the first blanket down over your baby's arm - and here's the important part! - tuck it under your baby's body. (I found it helpful to rock Oliver to one side gently while I tucked the blanket under him.) Make it snug.

Then fold the other side over your baby's other arm (the order doesn't really matter - here, Pooh gets the left arm swaddled first and then the right arm). Don't forget to tuck the blanket down and under the body, also. Make sure it's snug on both sides.

Notice now that baby can't move their arms! Here's why this method is sheer genius: your baby's own weight is what keeps their arms from getting loose. (Snicker snicker.)


Pull the remaining blanket up under baby's legs, so it sits loosely over the diaper area and maybe on top of his/her tummy. (Don't worry: unless your baby is ten inches long, like Pooh, you won't have this much material remaining.)








You have now secured your baby's arms nice and tight. Use the second blanket to swaddle your baby in the usual way. You can also use one of those Miracle blanket deelyboppers, provided it wraps around the first blanket. Make sure you swaddle your baby nice and tight.

Presto - it's a double-swaddled baby!

The arms are being held tight by the first blanket. The second blanket holds the first one in place and also holds the legs in place. Your baby should now look like it's in a soft cotton cocoon.

Now let's see what a real baby looks like in a real double-swaddle.





See? Snug as a bug!

(Pardon me for a moment. I just got all misty-eyed seeing little Oliver like that. I miss those days.)

This lasted us well into Oliver's second year, when he just plain outgrew swaddling altogether. You'll know when it's time - Oliver started wrestling his way out of both blankets when it was time to give it up. But it took a long long time to get there.

Now let's talk blankets. We got the best swaddle blankets imaginable from the Birth and Beyond store in Seattle - you can order them online here. The blankets are large (42 x 42), thin, and soft as any blanket you will find anywhere.

Email me with any corrections, tips, or thoughts. One last tip: practice on your baby while they're awake. They'll think it's hilarious. Have fun bundling your baby!