Homemade Halloween

Harry and Daddy were hard at work this week in the garage. We heard the crinkling of foil furnace tape and infectious giggles as the two of them constructed Harry's Halloween costume. Our garage was transformed into the laboratory of a mad scientist...scratch that...mad engineer and his eager miniature assistant. Together they reconfigured a couple diaper boxes, some tubing from the dryer vents, light switch covers, and pipe cleaners into a robot costume which Harry wore to the Halloween parade in town today. My eager little robot loved waving at the crowd in his homemade creation. And, he caught the eye of quite a few other kids and parents, happily smiling at their compliments on his costume.

Not to be outdone, my littlest one donned a homemade costume inspired by Not the Kitchen Sink on Etsy. A white onesie, orange washcloth and fish bath toy, tied up with a large black ribbon made for Luke's sushi costume. Oh my happy little salmon maki!

Both of them will venture out tomorrow night for our first trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Happy Halloween!

Video from today's parade can be found at All Things Media.

A few finishing touches

Well, the everything-but-the-cake birthday box is almost complete. I just need to finish putting together the party hats, sample thank-you card, and the high-chair banner, take some pictures, and post it to my Etsy shop tomorrow.

The boys and I had a wonderful time making cupcakes this evening so that I could show off how the cupcake toppers looked in photos. Take a look!

A Mother Knows?

While standing in the kitchen of a friend's home this weekend, my little one, eight week old Lukas, let out an ear-piercing wail. I carried him into the living room where I laid him on the couch and starting pumping his legs, bringing his knees up to his chest and letting him push them back down. Almost instantly the cries stopped, and Lukas gave us a gurgle and wide-eyed smile. "It's amazing how mothers just instinctively know what each cry means." Not yet a mother herself, my friend made the same assumption that I did prior to becoming a mother for the first time two years ago, that mothers have this natural intuition when it comes to their infant's cries: we instinctively know what each whimper and wail means.

This is not the case.

It's a myth that mothers can simply tell by the sound of a cry what their child may need. However, it's been repeated so many times in parenting magazines, books, blogs, and by well-intentioned grandmothers that as a culture we've convinced ourselves that mothers must have nearly magical powers when it comes to their children, that all women are born with these magical powers of premonition. I'm here to tell you this is not the case. I may have other magical powers, but I certainly can't distinguish between the cry for food versus one for a messy diaper simply on sound alone. "It's a myth that you can tell what's wrong by the sound of the cry," says Harvey Karp, author of The Happiest Baby on the Block. "Babies are like smoke alarms: You can't tell if you burnt the toast or if the whole house is burning down."

So why do new moms (and even not-so-new moms) berate themselves for not being able to decipher a need to burp cry from my-feet-are-cold cry? We drive ourselves mad, buying each new book or DVD that might help hone our intuition, in an effort to be the natural-born mom we think we should be. It is not intuition that makes us parents. It is experience.

Unlike two years ago when we were first learning to be parents, my husband and I are much less anxiety-ridden, or at the very least, we are less anxious about the little things when it comes to our newest arrival. We don't know what every cry means. Instead, we're more comfortable in the not-knowing. Each time Lukas lets out a cry, we don't rush to the baby, worry-faced, concerned that each cry indicates something horrible. We've learned that babies cry. They just cry. Instead, being a parent has taught us the importance of being patient, taking deep breaths, and remembering that our newborn is learning just like we are.

In the case of this weekend, I knew that I had fed Lukas about an hour earlier and that he tends to be a bit gassy following a feeding. So I took a guess that Lukas was crying because he needed to pass gas. I pumped his legs to help relieve his tummy. He gurgled and smiled when he filled his diaper. It wasn't intuition. It was gas.

Happy Birthday

I'm almost finished putting together our first birthday box - a monkey-themed first birthday set that includes:

• 10 invitations - customized with your party information
• 10 thank-you cards
• 1 large banner
• 1 high chair banner
• 1 door sign
• 3 smaller signs
• 15 cupcake toppers
• 15 napkin rings
• 18 stickers for treat bags
• and a booklet of even more ideas to help you plan your party!

Watch for it to hit our Etsy store early next week!

Hand-Me-Down Baby

(originally posted at Teacher Et Cetera July 26, 2010)

I've heard the same comments so many times recently that I'm starting to repeat them.

“No need for new clothes. After all, they'll be the same season.” “Oh, how nice, you won't have to redecorate. You can just use your first son's nursery items.” “It makes it so easy and so affordable to have two boys instead of one of each.”

I feel like this is what I should say, what everyone expects me to say. But it saddens me to think that I will be raising a hand-me-down baby.

I'm expecting my second son in a few short weeks, two boys, a little less than two years apart in age. I imagine them running the neighborhood together as they grow: the older boy gregariously greeting all our neighbors with his little brother in tow. When I start to write down some of these hopes in my newest pregnancy journal, I realize that everything I am writing is tied to my first son. “When we first learned that you would be joining our family, we started to teach your older brother how to say 'baby.'" "At the first ultrasound, your older brother giggled when he saw your little shape moving on the screen.”

Prior to my first son's birth, I journaled weekly, posting my reflections on a blog for long-distance family and friends to follow. I reflected on my changing roles, my changing identity. I spent hours planning and painting the new nursery, picking out just the right organic bedding set, scouring through Craigslist for gently used cribs and rockers, strollers and gates, changing tables and toy boxes. The monitor was hooked up long before the baby's arrival. The new clothes, freshly washed and folded, were neatly stacked in the little dresser months before his arrival. And all of this is meticulously recorded in my first son's pregnancy journal, pictures, cards, ultrasound print-outs, and all.

And although I'm already 35 weeks along, I have very few pictures of my belly, of this pregnancy. My newest little one's pregnancy journal sits safely tucked away in our bedroom bookcase, a thin layer of dust on its binding. I pulled it out last around 22 weeks to record my weight and the date of the most recent appointment with our midwife. I've brought the old baby clothes out of a rubber tub in the basement. No need to wash them again. I did that before packing them away. No need to get a new car seat. The old one will do. Our new little baby boy will fit right in to his older brother's model. My hand-me-down baby will fit right in.

And that's when I started to worry. How do I make sure this new little life grows into his own person and not into the mold of his older brother?

But when I watch my nearly two year old son excitedly gobble down green beans, splash in the tub, contentedly sleep, I am reminded of just how unique we each are. My son did not learn to be gregarious from me or my husband. I'm pretty sure he was just born friendly. As much as I coaxed him to say “mama” or “dada” as his first word, he clear as day declared “cat!” soon followed by “bus” and “skkrrrl” (squirrel). He seemed to born with his own unique perspective on the world.

So although his younger brother will grow into the clothes his older brother now wears, I will find ways to honor our new little boy's unique personality and perspective. There would be no hand-me-downs if it weren't for this new little life, no one to hand down to. My first son would not be a brother without him. And so I honor this new little person by handing down what I learned from parenting his older brother. I learn from my mistakes. I hand-down my wisdom, my patience. I hand down my love and respect. I create spaces for him to share his unique view of the world. And I hand down my open heart to his open hands. I hand down the best of myself.