Five Months

He’s five months new today. He’s wearing nine months clothing, trying oatmeal (avocado up next), giggling with his brother, and jumping in his bouncy car. He’s jumpy and sensitive, easy to laugh, and intently curious. It is a relief that five months have passed! Newborn stage is the hardest stage of all.

Some days are so difficult. I haven’t showered today (yet), the sink is full of dishes, laundry needs to be folded, and there are half packed boxes in the living room. I survey my surrounding and wonder how I let it all happen. Then one of the boys cries, or the dogs start wrestling and knock over something, and then I become amazed that I manage to take care of anything at all.

Despite the weather I adore (not cool, not hot, cloudless blue skies, light breezes), I’m quite discouraged today. When Mini Gwinn was five months, I had lost the baby weight and was working out regularly. With 2.0, I’m still carrying an extra ~15-20 and have been to the gym a grand total of nine times. It’s disheartening.

But worse is that we’ve been on the cusp of buying the most amazing home. Dream home, really. And the closer we get to our closing date, the less likely we are to buy the home, all because of a horribly, terribly off the numbers appraisal. With the heartache of growing so emotionally attached to such a wonderful home for our children, I can’t invest any more feeling into loving this house. If we hear good news I’ll be happy and surprised, but expecting the best now is setting myself up for a heart break.

For now I’m trying to focus my attention my precious kids and the beauty of the day.

Like Weeds

On Wednesday, 2.0 will be five months old. He’s been wearing 9 months clothing for a couple weeks now.
Mini Gwinn has gone from a size 7 shoe to a size 9 over the course of the summer. He started the season in 2T, and now 4T shirts are fitting beautifully.

My kids are growing like weeds.

Earlier this week we were at Home Depot, Mini Gwinn’s favorite store (he loves all the door knobs and the race car carts), and I saw a gorgeous plank of Poplar on which I imagined a rustic growth chart for the boys. I envisioned the plank, colored with age, marked with different heights and dates over years. In an instant I could see the marks over my own head, and my heart sighed. One day, my children will be too tall for me to sweep into my arms. One day, they will be too embarrassed by the flurry of kisses all over their faces. One day I will be nostalgic for this day.

It was a silly, errant thought to have in the middle of the lumber department of the store. As we were perusing the types of wood we would like to use for our privacy fence, my mind was wandering through the future of the home where we will raise our boys. The pitter patter of their bare foot steps will be replaced by stomps weighted with size and age.  In this time of our lives, when we are looking at our (hopefully!) new home and planning for the immediate future, my mom brain was focused on something far down the line. I was pulled back into the present as Mini Gwinn’s voice echoed through the warehouse, and I watched his long, lean legs carry him down the aisle as my husband chased him.

Gold Diggers in Pink

Maybe you’ve seen these interior decorating choices for little girls’ rooms. Perhaps you’ve seen the tiny shirts emblazoned with these seemingly innocent, yet subliminally superior messages.

“Boys, noun. Noise with dirt on them.”
“Mommy’s a queen, I’m a princess, and daddy is lucky.”
“Mommy’s shopping buddy. Daddy’s broke!”

What kind of message are we sending to our children, both boys and girls, when we endorse this kind of attitude as parents? That it’s OK for little girls to feel superior to little boys? That men are the submissive, subservient support to their wives and daughters? Are the males in our society now the butts of women’s jokes? I have a feeling that if I put up a wall decal on my boys’ rooms that said, “Girls, noun. Gold diggers in pink”, I’d make the news with my offensive, berating attitude towards all females ever. So why is it acceptable to teach our daughters to treat the opposite sex as inferior, when we would never encourage our sons to do the same?

I saw this quote from Doris Lessing (image courtesy of imgur.com, user CremedelaHwhipped) recently:

Maybe some women will cry, “Feminism empowers my daughter and me to step over these boys” or worse, “my husband knew what he was getting into”, but how has this become the societal norm? Really, why has ” feminism” been misconstrued for “female superiority”? Why is it acceptable to disrespect an entire sex? Simply put, if we all treated others with the same respect and kindness with which we would like to be treated, these types of messages on playroom walls and tiny onesies would go by the wayside.

I was relaying this idea to my husband last night. He is an excellent source of wisdom, and while the two of us rarely interact with other adults, we often have meaningful, deep conversations. While my scope of perspective is currently focused on our home and our children, his also involves his career and coworkers, who usually represent the complete antithesis of whatever we believe. Captain Laser Pants had been mulling over a similar concern, but not with wall decals and toddler shirts. Essentially, the conclusion we found while talking together (he and his coworkers often openly debate social and political issues) is that people are encouraged to feel superior to others. Comedians capitalize on sarcastic, belittling observations relaying the message that everyone that disagrees with you is an idiot. Marketing gurus push the message that you’ll be better than x demographic if you take part in their product. News sources bank on the principle that their viewers feel superior to other news source viewers, and anyone who watches any other news source is ill informed and ignorant. It’s perfectly normal to invest in arrogance and treat anyone different as inferior.

Circling back to the ides of calling my children noise with dirt. Discrediting my boys’ worth before even getting the exquisite joy of knowing them? Shame on you. I’m not an idiot, I know these wall decals and tee shirts aren’t aimed specifically at Mini Gwinn and 2.0, but they fall under the blanket statement and idea that “boys are dirty and loud”. All kids are dirty and loud, don’t kid yourself. And your daughters aren’t princesses, unless you’re royalty. Stop putting our children on different playing fields. They’re children, not walking advertisements for their parents’ ideas. In the parenting community, others rely upon me to teach my children well, and I do the same for others. Please, for the sake of all our kids, stop peddling superiority.

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Really. This was a well thought out post in my head. Maybe I’ll come back with an edit or two after more coffee and sleep. For now, this is an unedited, first draft stream of consciousness post.

At the park