Food Woes...

I know he looks happy. He probably is. Behind him is me, covered in sweet potatoes and distinctly unhappy. I don't like having pureed baby food sprayed on me every time he takes a bite. I don't like wiping it up from the floor, the chair, and the wall. I have to admit, I really hate meal times. And I remind myself every time that today is one day closer to the day when he feeds himself. (Which I realize isn't going to be a clean prospect either, but at least it won't all end up on my face and arms in the form of half spit/half food spray.)

The Murphy's Laws of Being Monkey's Mom

1. If he hasn't pooped in 4 days and you are alone in a public place with only one diaper, 4 baby wipes, and no change of clothes, he will poop. A lot. And more than once.

2. If he just pooped before you left the house and you are just running to the grocery store for 2 things and don't take the diaper bag with you, he will poop again.

3. Everything that is within reach goes in his mouth. If it is not within reach, he will spend 45 minutes trying to reach it, will knock over breakable things, bonk his head on the floor at least twice, and finally reach it. And put it in his mouth.

4. If he hasn't learned to roll over, and you lay him in the middle of the bed at grandma's to nap, he will discover how to roll over in his sleep and he will hit the floor.

5. He will begin to eat solid foods, love them, eat them a lot for about 3 weeks, and then just when your breastmilk supply has started to decrease due to less demand, he will boycott solid foods and only want the boob.

6. If you really need to nap when he naps, he will sleep for exactly 24 minutes. If you don't need to/can't nap when he naps, he will sleep for 3 hours.

7. His favorite toy will be the hard plastic one he can't stop smacking into the side of his head.

8. When you attempt to feed him solid foods, he will spit them out and rub them in his hair, up his nose, behind his ears, in his eyelashes, and on his clothes, making it seem like he ate half the container, when in fact he is wearing most of it.

9. His favorite bottle will be the one you left at home and you won't realize this until you have gotten to grandma's house, which is 2 hours away.

10. You will realize this at 10:30 at night when you are in your jammies and he wants his late night feeding and you will spend 15 minutes trying to get him to eat from another bottle when it would have taken you that long to just go to Wal-Mart and buy another one.

Likes/Dislikes

Things Monkey likes:

cold banana baby food
being upside down
naked nap time
boobs
stroller walks outside
standing up by himself in his crib
using his one tooth to chew on his finger
schreeching at the top of his lungs
shredding paper
daddy's goofy faces
raspberries on his neck
morning oil massages
toenail trims
KD Lang and The Avett Brothers


Things Monkey does not like:

warm banana baby food
pacifiers
diaper changes at 5AM
falling down
teething gel
waking up in the car
fingernail trims
socks
raspberries on his tummy
Prince and Eminem
more than 5 min in the high chair
booger removal
not being able to crawl yet

Family

Family is more than shared last names and blood types and partial DNA. It's more than the obligations people often feel because of those shared things. My family has always been a hodge-podge of people that were more collected along the way than established at birth. I have some connection with a few biological relatives, certainly. But the people I have identified as my core family have been people my mother found, and brought into our lives. As the years have gone by since her death, and to some extent even before that, those people have drifted away. Ties have been severed, or simply come undone and haven't been re-knotted. And I am realizing that I don't have much to give my son in the way of family.

My husband has a family system that is made up of quite a few biological and step relations, and they are relatively tight, though a few people are more so than others. He has not lost all of his grandparents yet, and his parents and step-parents are still alive and in contact. His sister makes a great deal of effort to stay involved in his life, and is a strong presence for us. He has a daughter who is now 10 years old. He has family to offer. He comes to this marriage with ties that are not likely to be severed, and a support system that isn't likely to disappear. And I am incredibly grateful for that.

I don't have that system. Instead, I bring friends to the equation. Friends like Larry and Marjory, Aunt Pandy, Uncle JRod, Chris and Rachel; friends who will be a part of our lives for a very long time. Friends who have become family to me. I have a cousin, and my dad, too. They stay in touch, they visit, they support our life and our events. But the 'family' I have to offer my son resembles more and more the hodge-podge that my mother collected for me. And I vacillate between feeling guilty about that, and feeling proud of it. I loved the people my mother loved. And I grieve their absence. I grieve the loss of them. Maybe what I am worried about is one day losing the family I have made for him, and putting him through that same grief...we have already lost people along the way, even just since I was pregnant and he was born. He is too young to know it, but someday he will be aware of it when people are no longer a part of the fabric of his life.

I wish so much that my mother was still here. She would rally family members, she would mend the broken fences that needed it and burn the bridges that weren't going to be fixed, she would cast her net far and wide to make a family for my baby boy. And she would stake herself down in the middle of it all, and never walk away. All I can hope for is the ability to do the same thing, in my own way, for him.