Exhibit A:

I swear I am not scowling angrily at my 12-month-old for wanting a drink. I’m trying to help him use a straw so he doesn’t dump ice water on himself. I’m just concentrating! Geez! It’s no wonder I often hear Violet say, “Mommy, are you angry? I want you to be happy!” or Rob say, “What was that look? What did I do?” when really I’m just squinting into the sun or calculating complex equations in my head.

Seriously… should I inject poison into my forehead to avoid people thinking I’m pissed at the world? Just wondering.

Saturday morning I kept him home. Boring for both of us.  Rob and Violet got to go have fun at a park.  Then we decided he just looks like a leper and is not contagious like one so we went ahead with our dinner plans. Rob had a gig at Freddie’s restaurant. It was odd to see people give Graham a double-take, not because he is cute, but because they’re clearly wondering why we’re either a) torturing a sick baby by dragging him around town or b) infecting the population.

Here’s Graham looking icky and grouchy.

Now here are reasons why Graham rocks (in case we forget while he is feeling icky and grouchy):

• he gasps and whispers “oh wow” when he sees something amazing
• he would rather climb than walk
• he sits on his knees like a big kid
• he has a gap between his front teeth
• his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles
• he is the biggest couch potato and would sit motionless watching videos for hours if he could (something Violet has never been able to accomplish in all her 3 years)

Here’s the original.

Remember when I said that vacationing with 2 kids is 25% fun and 75% hard work? Well, I think it holds true for parenting in general. Of course, the fun is BIG FUN, so I guess that makes up for the hard work, right? But when you’re in the throws of, say, the above picture, boarding school doesn’t sound half bad. Or if you’re getting the newspaper on a Sunday morning and your toddler takes off running down the street laughing manically while you shout and sprint after her, bra-less and in ratty pajamas. One minute of time-out per year is just not enough. Or how about the constant whining? Or the dawdling? Dear god, the dawdling. How is it that she can run so fast and yet take 30 minutes climbing into her car seat? As I’m typing this I’m having visions of running into her room with duct tape because the screaming is keeping Graham awake.

But then she is also sweet and hilarious and says the most amazing things. And then I can’t remember why I’m so angry that no one told me how hard this parenting thing was going to be.

So now… seven more days of antibiotics, another pee sample and an appointment for the ultrasound and VCUG procedure. The results could come back positive for some kind of kidney or bladder problem. But most likely it’ll be vesicoureteral reflux, which is basically when the urine washes backwards a bit from the bladder. If that’s the case, she may have to be on mild DAILY antibiotics for a year until she outgrows the problem.

Sigh.

…in our dining room. Recently Rob imported our old digital camera photos into the slide show screen saver we constantly have running. This made me surprisingly happy. Before this, the slide show was mainly of Violet, the most well documented child on the planet. But our old camera came with us during our travels in Asia and around this country, including our first years in Austin. It’s my life before kids. Do you hear that people? I had a life before kids! And I am so happy to be reminded of that on a daily basis. Since our “office” is in a corner of the dining room, during dinner Violet is mesmerized by the images and asks “What’s that?” “Whatcha doin’ Mommy?” “Who’s that?”. I’m glad she gets a chance to see her parents doing things outside of carting her around the playground.

But sometimes, remembering my old life is a kind of torture akin to slaving away on homework while the other kids play in the sprinklers. So when I got an email that Stephan Krashen was a guest lecturer for a small class in my old Foreign Language Education department at UT, I jumped at the chance for a little “adult world” time. Dr. Krashen is, as Rob said, a “rock star of language acquisition research”. So I snuck into the back of the classroom with Graham and excitedly listened, practically keeling over with nerdy delight when a quarter of the lecture went into random theories of how Star Trek’s universal translator is possible. Still, I was a bit of a freak being the only one toting a newborn. And I learned that, in a quiet classroom, Graham is a very noisy nurser.

So, I know it’s kind of cliche to bemoan the loss of self after having kids. But really, it wouldn’t be cliche if it weren’t overwhelmingly true. (Here’s yet another example from a friend of mine).

How to reconcile this is a work in progress.

But the boy… well, just look:

What Graham is doing:

He smiles and gurgles. He’s still very laid back but is getting more insistent on being held at all times. Last night he slept for five and a half hours! Oh the luxury. We can only hope it’s a trend.

What Violet is doing:

She got a big girl bed. She even picked out the linens herself. She is very excited about it… right up to the second we leave the room. Then she asks to sleep in her crib. Ahh well… she’s much easier to contain in there.