This Week in the Land of E...

Yeah, I'm a blogging slacker. I am finding myself saying, "Oh, I'll have to write about that..." or "That will make a great blog entry," and then I go on to something else, like trying to convince my child that a table is NOT something we stand on. So far, he's not buying that argument.

So I end up deferring to Friday mornings, which have become my "me time". I finally bit the bullet and now my fabulous baby whisperer spends three hours with Ethan every Friday morning. He is thrilled and doesn't seem to miss me for a second (*sob sob*) and I get to do things like sit in front of the fire at Panera, sucking up free wireless and tea. Today I have a serious agenda of blogging, crossword puzzle doing & book-club book reading. It's hard work cramming that all into three hours, but somehow I manage. My only complaint is that the comfy chairs are positioned in such a way that I get a scalding glare off my screen and dear god, has my child been licking the monitor??!!!

So anyway...this week with Ethan. There was lots of whining, very little sleeping and a whole cornucopia of creative word play. And by creative word play, I mean trying to figure out what the frick this child is trying to say and MYGOODGODCHILD,WHATDOYOUWANT?!. But more about that later...

Lots of whining and very little sleeping seem to go hand in hand. Husband and I are hoping it is a sign of impending eye-teeth, but holy moly, can this kid whine. Becca (I don't know how to make her name a clickable link because I suck, but she's Academomia) already made a list this week of things that make her Charlie cry---I won't copy her work, but if you'd like to see a pretty complete list of the things that have made Ethan cry this week, click on her blog and just scroll down a bit. It's all there.

Sleeping has become a sadistic joke. We will think he's asleep, we will tip toe to the door, we will step on a creaky floor board and SCREAMS!!!! Not crying, people. Not merely minor complaining. No. "I'M ON FIRE! I'M ON FIRE!!" type screams rip through the air and do not subside until you give up your entire evening to lying next to him, staring into the dark, wondering if the el monstro has finally passed out.

The nights that I have slept in his room with him, he has literally needed to be ON me. ON, people. That's cool when you're an 8 lb three-month old. When you're an almost 20lb almost two year old, not so much. I'm exhausted.

Obviously, those types of nights lead to days of serious discontent. There has been much pouting and whining in our world this week. Ethan's been cranky, too.

As for the word play?! Ethan is so in love with words right now that trying to communicate with him is an exercise in futility. He simply says words he wants to say, as he wants to say them, without any context or connection to what you're trying to get out of him. A conversation this morning went like this:

Mama: "Ethan, don't you want your pancakes?"

Ethan: "Dada, shoes!"

Mama: "Yes, those are daddy's shoes. Do you want your pancakes?" (Mama takes bite of said pancakes to demonstrate their yummy goodness. Gee, why is Mama toting around an extra 20?!)

Ethan: "Mama, shoes!"

Mama: "Yup, Mama has shoes, too. Do you want some banana?"

Ethan: (shaking head no) "Nana!"

Mama: "Okay, no nana. Would you like some toast?"

Ethan: "Toast. Toast. Toast. Toast. Toast"

So, I took that as a sign that perhaps he'd like some toast toast toast toast, and made him a piece.

Nope. He just likes the sound of the word "toast". Sigh.

Hopefully the baby whisperer can find something he wants to eat because Mama could not interpret the Ethanese this morning.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining. I could listen to him ramble on all day (and do so, happily) with his words. His voice is my favorite sound in the world--I still find myself catching my breath that I had a hand in creating him and that he changes every day and is absorbing the world around him at such lightening speeds. It's hard to believe, when I see other moms and their other babies, that we all have such deep and intense capacities for love. Surely I love my child with a love that is unprecedented; it's so powerful, how can we all exist feeling this without just exploding into big gooey messes of adoration?

But then I realize that we DO all have this capacity and it is part of all of our realities (with the exception of some sad, sick mamas out there who have turned their back on it). When I realize this, no matter what other horrible things are going on in the world, my faith in humanity is restored, even if just a little bit.

Sigh. Even a craptastic week of whining and sleep deprivation has me waxing poetic (or idiotic, if you so desire) about how fabulous my child is. I'm either delusional, or he's pretty great.