Marchie's World

I love my son. Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter too, but that’s not what this is about. I am so in love with my son. Somehow he’s gotten to be 4 ½ months old without me really realizing it. I have spent the past two months feeling bad for him because he is the ‘second child’. The poor second kid, destined to become the dreaded middle child, who hardly gets any attention because their older sibling (and any subsequent children born) requires so much attention. I spend most of my day dealing with potty-going, book-reading, meal-prepping, nap-taking, cartoon-watching (most of that all before noon some days) with Rachel, that poor Archer spends a lot of his time on the sidelines, taking it all in. The one handicap in being an easy baby is that it is easy to not be seen and get a little lost in the periphery. But now I think we are coming to his “time”.

He laughed for the first time yesterday while driving home from the grocery store. I have been waiting and waiting for this to happen. He thought it was funny when Rachel was banging her Trader Joe’s balloon on his car seat handle. Of course when I had finally pulled over and got my camera out to get a video of it, we couldn’t reproduce it. Ugh. There’ll be many more to follow I’m sure, especially if we have anything to do with it. You don’t last long in this world, let alone our family, without a sense of humor.

Then when we got home from running errands later in the day, I opened the door to take his car seat out of the car, I stopped and watched him for a moment because he was awkwardly holding the pacifier that is clipped to his seat strap in one hand. I just waited for a moment and watched while he very purposefully, and successfully, stuck it in his mouth, then sit back and relaxed as though he had been working on it for a bit and he just wanted to relax now that he had it.

My amazing and wonderful son can now (what seems like completely out of the blue) roll from his front to his back (only ONCE so far), can rotate himself in a clock-like fashion while on his belly, inches himself forward (at a snails-pace, mind you, but he does make progress, I assure you!), and he is getting better and better at reaching for things that he wants, and usually putting them in his mouth (as illustrated above with the pacifier incident). This new skillset of his, unfortunately, puts us into the joyous age of hair/glasses/earrings-grabbing which lasts for a looooooooooong time. One cute new thing he’s doing is he will put his fingers into YOUR mouth, and then smiles at the way it feels. 

As much as I miss with him, I feel I am able to savor the developments that come along, that I DO see/experience (like his laughing), more. BECAUSE of that first child, I know what to expect. He is a known entity, unlike the first one where you’re waiting for the kid’s head to pop off at any given time. I enjoy the little bits of quality time with him so much more. Even the one-on-one time I should get with him while nursing him is constantly interrupted with the repeated “finish your {insert appropriate meal here}”s, “put your clothes (back) on”s, “leave the cat alone”s, “don’t do that”s, etc., etc.

When I do get quality quiet time with him (usually after everyone else has gone to bed), I soak up as much of him as I can because now I see how fleeting it is. When he lays on my chest, it brings me a peace that I don’t remember getting with Rachel (though I’m sure it was there, I just didn’t realize it). Something about the smell of the top of his head, the sour milk breath (or as we call it “milkmouth”) just helps release all the tension in my body from daily life with a toddler. Like similar sayings my friends and I have been known to come up with “breathe in the baby, breathe out stress”. It truly is an amazing thing, the way a woman’s body was designed to create, birth and nurture a new life, and really how that new life almost returns the favor. It gives you so much more than you could ever imagine, and that’s what I think I am MOST grateful to my son for. Giving me that opportunity to experience it all again and (hopefully) enjoy it more.

The best part in all of this going back and forth between Archer and Rachel, is that she truly loves him too. Sure I know a lot of her need for her parents’ attention is because of him, but she doesn’t direct one iota of negativity or hostility towards him. She is kind and gentle (for the most part, when she is paying attention) and loving and that makes me so proud of my two kids and the job my husband and I have done of raising them so far. As for the next 16-18+ years, that is a whole OTHER thing.