Moving Forward

Little Mister, as I have mentioned, has been working hard.  VERY hard.  Very, very, very hard, for the last few weeks, whenever He has had a chance.  Trying (so hard!) to figure out how to get There.
"There" being a place or object, always in front of Him, and always barely beyond reach.
His expression during these times is just as a lion would have, if starved for a month, and placed on one side of a plexiglass wall, with a herd of Zebra on the other.
Or, even better, imagine there is no plexiglass, but the lion is put into a straightjacket.  Imagine the contortions and exhausting flopping about this ravenous lion would throw himself into.  If our lion were bald, we wouldn't know the difference between him and Little Mister.
For about a week now, I have observed this circus act suspiciously, shaking my head and murmuring to J, "We have GOT to get this place child-proofed fast! He's going to figure it out any day now.  Any day!" 
Well, Peanuts.
Today was that day.
And, if you can imagine the lion bursting through his straightjacket and finding himself to be free, FREE! in a field of zebra- the crazed free-for-all, pouncing here and there and laughing hysterically (sure, lions laugh) and tearing around until he's so tired he can't.move.another.muscle- well.  Then you will know how Little Mister spent His afternoon.
He's not got a proper crawl going yet; He's still commando-style.  But He can get from Here to There with almost alarming alacrity, and nothing (I mean NOTHING) is safe from His curious, pudgy little fingers.
Guess what I did today?  I followed Him around, saying, "Oh, yikes, Mister, not that! Here, play with thi- NO! No thank you, sweetie not that.  Take this toy inste- NO! No, let me have that and I'll just move you over here, ok.  Now I can- NO! Nonnonoo that is NOT good for babies and now, Little One, I can get your-NO! NOT THAT EITHER!" while extracting various treasures such as barbie crowns, bits of paper, electronic cords of every diversity, a shoe, and so very many plastic strands of disembodied pom-pom.  
There will be no rest, Peanuts.  No rest.  For YEARS.  There will be no peace.  There will be worry, and paranoid checking of things.  All the things.  There will be much lifting and relocating and chasing and floor-cleaning.  It is a new era of wow-three-kids-huh-how's-that?
But. If you can imagine the face of a lion, who has been starved, in a straightjacket, in a field of zebra and then freed- freed among the zebra and the big, wide, wonderful world, well.  You can picture the face of my Mister.
So, I can't help it.  I cheered Him on.

Pat-Pat

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker man.
Bake me a cake as fast as you can!
Roll it, pat it, mark it with a "B", and...
THROW it in the oven!
For Baby and me.


This little nursery rhyme and game are a great love of Little Misters.  This boy loves to pat some cakes.  He also loves the book, "pat the bunny".  He loves to pat in general.
I guess, without realizing it, I have always tended to gently pat Him on the back when I pick Him up, when I rock Him, when I'm comforting Him.  He likes that.  It soothes Him when He's sleepy or upset, makes Him giggle when He's playful and happy.
Once He got old enough to start controlling His limbs a little, He began to spread the love by returning the favor to me.
When I pick Him up after He calls me, when He's feeling snuggly or sleepy, or silly and giggly, He reaches out and pat pat pats my back.  He's proud of this.
It is pretty sweet to see such a little thing patting His mother on the back, with a goofy grin.  My mom was enamored with the process.  And so She'd coo at Him, "are you patting mama?  Pat-pat! How sweet! Pat-pat!"  He ate up the attention and soon learned to put the words "pat-pat" together with the action, so that now He has a fun party trick!  We can say, "Little Mister! Can you give Sister a pat-pat?" And He will joyfully oblige.
In fact, not long after acquiring this fabulous skill, we noticed that He began to also mimic the sound.  Until it has become undeniable that Mister is not only doing His "pat-pat" party trick, He's saying it!
When He pats me on the back, or when anyone makes His day by initiating pat-a-cake so that He can clap His hands together, at the same time He burbles, "Pat-pat, pat-pat!" over and over.
Which means that (drumroll please.  Crashing cymbals.) He's said His first word!
It's kind of a random one.  But given the context, also sweet, I think.
I love that His first word began as affection and fun.  I love that it is so Little Mister's baby personality to have His first word be such an interactive one.  I think that when He says "pat-pat", clapping His hands together and looking up at me, He's really communicating.
Mister's other sounds are many and diverse, and while no others have materialized into decipherable English, I have a feeling that (as is typical for Him, we are learning) now that He's started, there will be no stopping Him!  I can't wait to hear what else He has to say!

Seven Months

Well. Little Mister.  His sixth month of life was so crazy that He got almost to eight before I knew what had happened.
When He turned seven months old, we had just arrived in a new home and were bravely conquering hordes of boxes.  We had just wrapped up two months on the road, and we were all in a whirl of sorting and settling, exploring and adjusting.
Except Him.
He had His own world of stuff going on.
At seven months, Mister had acquired the cutting edge of His first tooth.  He was not super thrilled with this.  He had come to the conclusion that there was a world beyond Him, full of wonderful things to gnaw on and shake, but it was always (always man!) just barely beyond reach.
He was coming around to the general conclusion that there might be a way for Him to move in such a way as to get at this big wonderful world, but the means were still elusive.
On His tummy He would stare with incredible focus at some object of ardent desire, and reach- rreeeeaaaaacccchhhhh- for it....wiggle the fingers and ssstttreeeettttccchhhh them as far as they could go (about 3/4 inch).  But no.
So He'd swoop His arms forward and back, kick furiously, and call to it.  We're not sure; He was either attempting to swim or to fly to it.  But again, no.
Finally, after long days of intense effort, He got His chubby little motor going so hard, that He started moving! Inching, slowly, along the floor!.... Backwards.
This was the first time I've ever seen His patient nature fail Him.  He would put such a heroic, all-out effort into getting to something just inches away, only to watch it slowly get further and further from Him, the harder He tried to reach it.  Finally He'd just screw up His face and give it a scream, then flop His face on the floor and lay there flat.  Giving up. A moment later mewing, "mamamamamamama" until rescued.
Never to give up completely, Mister would always rally to try, try again.  Finally, He perfected the art of forward locomotion in a style which, after caring for dozens of babies I have actually, truly, never witnessed before.
He would get up on His hands and knees (woo hoo!) and start rocking.  As He rocked, the Coveted Object would get closer, further away, closer, further away.  After awhile, He'd realize He was stuck in a vicious cycle and would just give it one huge, Hail Mary, 100% effort and lunge His whole body forward!  Landing squarely, flat on His face.  After a second of still recovery, prone, He'd peep up and check.  His eyes would light up- YES! VICTORY! Coveted Object was closer! So He'd get His arms back under Him, pull His legs back in, zero in on the target, start to rocking....and start the whole thing over again.  Until, two inches at a time, He would *face-plant* across the floor and reach His prize.  He was darn proud of Himself when He got it, too.
At seven months He also mastered jumping in His jumper, holding things out to show off, throwing stuff (all the stuff), waving "hi", and banging on things with every degree of enthusiasm imaginable.
Seven-month-old Mister didn't really care about all the moving in, He was just happy when finally He got a quiet room and a crib to sleep in at night, and room to stretch out and face-crawl during the day.
He continued to love snuggles, though His desire to see the world made Him quite wiggly to hang onto as He was toted around.
He still loved baths/swimming, silly antics by His Sisters, and being talked to more than anything, and still disliked practically nothing.  Mister at seven months was an easygoing, independent, but super sociable and friendly, guy who was (not that I'm biased) completely delightful to be around.
The best description I could give would be that of a great big, beaming, toothless smile, surrounded by cheerfulness, extending into playful curiosity, and really cute toes.
Plus, He truly was calling me Mama, and calling out for me when He wanted me.  Despite the fact that He mostly wanted me to be His minion and fetch Him things, the magic combination of sunshine and "mama" made me only too happy to minion whenever He wished.
Seven Has always been Mister's special number.  And this month was a sort of a crossroads for Him.  As Mister turned seven months old, He was beginning to leave infancy behind Him.  Rather than merely being the center of the world, He was heading out into the vast uncharted territory of becoming an interactive part of an infinitely larger world around Him.
It is clear that my days of containing all of His squishy cuteness and all of His attention inside the circle of my arms are waning, and already He's off on the long and inevitable road children travel- away from their parents.  Still, as much as I miss the tiny bundle of baby to snuggle, I can already tell that being a spectator, cheerleader, and guide along His way is going to be a whole lot of work.
Oh, yeah, and fun.
Happy seven months, Little Mister.  

Settling

The good news is that the basement is painted.
Little One would tell you that it took, like, sixty-five million-baJIllion-GILlion cans of paint! But it only really took six.  In the end, I really needed one more, but decided I'd just cover that wall with some finger-paintings or something.  It just needed another coat...but who cares?
In some light it looks like daiquiri ice, sometimes like mint chip.  But it's cool and it's clean and, frankly, anything is better than dirty plywood.  Anything.
Today my super-mom and I took off the tape, scrubbed some splatters from the floor, and arranged the furniture and what-not.  It looks like a room! A play room!  The best kind of room.
The Littles lost no time at all in getting some major playing on in there.
It's still not perfect; I still don't feel "settled".  It's funny how, in this military life, taking more than two weeks to completely move my entire family and household into a new home/neighborhood feels like a failure. I guess I'll embrace my civilian side and let it go a month before I get pictures on the walls and call it done.  At least it's mostly safe, pretty much live-in-able.  And since it has most all of my favorite people inside it, I'd say....yeah.  Feels like home!

Vacation

I've spent the last two days in a basement dungeon trying to paint some ugly plywood walls. Have you ever painted plywood? Cause if you haven't, and you're thinking of it, my best advice is to not to.
I'm five gallons in and can't turn back now- but you can save yourselves, Peanuts!
In the meantime.
My mom is superheroing on, helping paint and taking Littles on grand excursions while I do plywood torture in the dungeon.
And J? Has started residency in earnest.  It's been such a nice, long, three year break since we last did this that I almost forgot.  But I'm getting reminded of what the coming years will be like.
Here is how I know that J is really back in residency:

1)  I am awakened in the dark by a kiss on the cheek and have no idea whether he's just getting home, or leaving for work.

2) sometimes his dinner sits on the back of the stove for three hours before he gets home to eat it

3) sometimes it sits on the stove for three hours before I wrap it up and put it in the fridge for tomorrow.

4) he gets home one night just in time to give the Sisters a goodnight hug in their beds. Eventually I go looking for him and find him sprawled on the floor in their room, fast asleep on top of a giant pink teddy bear.

5) the three-year-old asks when he's coming back from "vacation".


Yeah, sorry Miss. Vacation is over.

Cut To Scene

I think it's so annoying, in movies, how there will be this one scene, and then suddenly the next scene makes no sense because there's a terrible discontinuity. But then the movie tries to get you to waive all that by flashing a little subtitle... "*Two Months Later*".
Lazy.  That's what it is guys.
But that's basically what this post is.  I want to share more about our Great American Road Trip! But for now lets just say that we left off somewhere in Indiana, and now:
*Two Months Later*
Here we are in Maryland.  Ta Da!
The scene begins in total and utter chaos, with me wondering about without even decent shoes on, looking a little like the survivor of a zombie apocalypse.  Moving piles of Things up and down stairs, and here and there, and drinking a little too much coffee.
Of the six we have made together, this was the roughest move we have had so far, for several reasons.  Add that to also trying to unpack and recover from a two month trip, and add that to the fact that J has started residency in earnest and now only exists in our scene as one of the aforementioned zombies, shuffling and groaning occasionally through the background, and what you get is overwhelmed.
Oh no, sorry, that's me.  I get overwhelmed.  I get overwhelmed and drink some more coffee.  (Because caffeine is great for raw nerves.)  What you get is nada, because who can type when the laptop is lost in a sea of ohmigoshwehavewaytoomuchSTUFF?!
Thankfully, the scene has a hero, and it is my mom.  My mom who is taking children to zoos all day, cooking, cleaning, painting walls, sewing curtains, and making some more coffee.  She understands me, Peanuts.  Thanks, mom.
Add mom to the fact that my kids are amazing and rolling with the punches (like how I rearrange their room every day), and J somehow in the little time before he turned into a zombie built a whole ton of stuff and bought food, to the fact that the neighbors are super nice, the neighborhood is cute, and we have already been welcomed in the most generous ways by good friends, and what you get is hope.  Ok, right, that's me again. But hope is good for all of us, Peanuts, amiright?
We're going to work it out.  As for the trip and some pictures and maybe something interesting (the last one might be too hard), let's just say...
*To Be Continued*