Discoveries

Last night during a fun father-son bath time, Clif discovered with great delight that Daddy also has a 'pee-pee'. He's now a bit confused about Mommy.

No photo to illustrate.

Facts about Clifton - nine days shy of 16 months

Clif is a talker. I haven’t counted up the words he uses, but I have no doubt it’s well over 40 by this point. * We are currently going through a phase of constant demands for ‘cookie’, ‘puppy’, and ‘bah-uhl’ [cookies (or cookie monster, used interchangeably and just as often), pacis, and bottles. Luckily these demands are often accompanied by frenetic lispy ‘peas!’ (please). * Clif is constantly falling. Just like Ryann, this is due to his non-stop rocketing around at top speed rather than a lack of coordination. Of course, an onlooker would probably never know this. * Every morning starts with Clif being brought into bed, wild snuggles, and requests for Cookie (the monster variety). He knows we can play the Muppets and Sesame Street on our phones. He also knows where we stash our laptops, how to pull them out, and how to open them up. Nothing is safe in his never-ending quest for more Muppets Family Christmas. * Our favorite new game is Cuddle Cuddle. As soon as I say ‘cuddle cuddle’ I’m treated to his little head snuggled into my shoulder. Sometimes he’s the one to declare a ‘cud cud cud!’. * Jared has passed on his love to dance. Clif notices the moment any background music goes silent, declaring a loud ‘uh oh!’, and will greet its return with shimmying hips and waving arms. A delicious dinner is also greeted in the same manner. And guests. And Skype. And most of all the Rolling Stones (this was discovered on accident, when a random track sent Clif shimmying in his carseat and bawling when it was changed. same reaction every time since). * Clif loves his cousin Mei to bits. He often wakes up with his first question being ‘Mei-mei?’ as he peers around for her. * One mention of going outside sends Clif running for the doors asking ‘side? side?’. He would spend his life outdoors if given the chance. * At sixteen months, he is easily wearing size 2T. He also seems to be hitting another growth spurt, as evidenced by his suddenly shorter pants and his ravenous appetite. * On the topic of appetite, for his afternoon snack yesterday he had two and a half peanut butter sandwiches. For dinner he pounded half a Totinos pizza, half a clementine, several (adult) handfuls of grapes, some pineapple juice, and his bedtime bottle. * He is crazy for balls. We play in the ball aisle at Target every time we go. He points out the balls on Christmas trees. He will play ball with Jared for a ridiculously long time (their version of ball involves Clif waiting for a ball to bounce down the stairs, into his face, and then running it to Jared for him to throw again. we are blessed with very noise insensitive neighbors). * While Clif seemed to be clear on the baby being in Mommy’s belly for a while, it has now morphed into the baby being anyone’s skin. This week the baby has been identified as Dadd’s back, Clif’s belly, and Mommy’s shoulder. But when asked if he wanted to kiss the baby, Clif will usually drop what he’s doing and run full speed into my belly with arms open wide. I’ll take it.

Photo courtesy of Chris Johnson

The Results Are In . . .

Today was our big mid-pregnancy ultrasound and we were on pins and needles to find out just who has  been rubbing elbows with my innards. However, as much as I've been looking forward to meeting this little one, a large part of me has been pretty nervous about today. Clif's pregnancy was surprisingly worry-free, even though it came on the heels of the trauma surrounding Ryann. I'm not sure why, perhaps due to the simple fact that this little one was not planned for, but I've been fighting recurring bad feelings about this little one. Every time I go in for a checkup, I strain to hear the heartbeat, half thinking it won't be there. I regularly have bad dreams that usually feature Clif in some horrible way. Today I was bracing myself for the ultrasound tech to uncover a heart defect, misshapen spine, or other abnormality. But instead she found a perfectly calm, perfectly formed little man in there.

Walden Elder Hiscock will be joining the family early to mid-May.

Unlike both Ryann and Clifton, who were literally ricocheting around their new digs from our very first peeks around 8 weeks, little Walden has been a calm passenger. At 8 weeks he waved a leg. By this point, the sibs were already treating me as a punching bag and had been for weeks. Walden graces me with a few kicks a day. In Ryann's big ultrasound we chased her around for nearly an hour in order to catch measurements between contortions. Clifton buried his head and followed the probe with his rump the entire visit. We were in and out within 20 minutes with Walden. He wiggled around placidly and only showed a bit of displeasure at having his feet tickled.

Which brings us to his name. Walden literally means 'wooded valley' and is of course made most famous by Thoreau's On Walden Pond. It brings to mind peace and strength, traits we hope little Wally will possess in spades.

The middle name of Elder follows the pattern of Clifton's name, Clifton Sumner. Sumner was a surname on Jared's side of the family a few generations back, as well as being his father's middle name. My father was the only son born in his family and he himself had two girls. Both my sister and I planned on retaining Elder in some form in our married names, however my sis married a Canadian and due to the complications of the paperwork thrown at them, decided to simply take the traditional married name (we love you David!). As a result, I am the last Elder on our branch of the tree. Passing on our surname as a middle name sends it on for at least one more generation.

So there you have it. A calm, healthy little boy. In the last few years our lives have been upended in so many ways, one of which was going from being parents to a girl to now planning for a home full of boys. Some day we hope to again welcome a little girl into our home, but right now we're absolutely delighted to be anticipating Walden's soon arrival.

Links that Made Me Pause

Jared and Clif - these two make me happy.

Cats are mysterious and hilarious and weird.

Jared is vigilant about protecting his hearing, and considering my family history of hearing loss, I should make more of an effort to follow his lead.

"At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again." - C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed. One very apt quote from a wonderful post.

This short test showed me to be an unsurprising 96% left-brained. What about you?

Oh my word. I cannot even handle the cuteness.

Happy Birthday

Ryann, today you would have been four years old.

Today we celebrate and feel grateful to have you as part of our family. Wish you were here with us. I cannot even begin to express how much. We love you to bits.

Happy birthday, my girlie.

Hello Again

I've been a bit MIA on here recently. I think after going through our second May 29 I was feeling a bit wrung out. We were heading into summer with a wiggly little boy and I didn't want to use this space that never fails to make me root around inside my head and study myself. Instead I spent my free time hooting at monkeys and roasting hotdogs with friends and biking through the sticky air with my little family. The summer was lovely and full and now we're undeniably in fall and Ryann's birthday is staring me down.

Four years old in five short days.

Last year was hard and foreign. We couldn't conjure the girl she would be at three. But at four I somehow have no trouble seeing a girl with limbs too long and elbows too sharp. In the past few months, all of her friends have shot up by inches and are suddenly kids and have no hint of baby left. For a while it was easy to imagine that they hadn't changed that much. They hadn't left her behind. Until we realized that the baby brother of one was passing the age that Ryann was at the end. The shock to see him next to his sister was jarring. It hurt. There's no more pretending or imagining. Ryann shouldn't be a baby anymore. And this year I can imagine her dragging Clif around the house, reading him books, helping me in the kitchen, sleeping through the night. She would be twice as tall as her brother, who at not quite fourteen months has already far surpassed her own actual size. She wouldn't fit in my arms easily anymore, although she would still end up there frequently. Bent and jumbled in order to fit. I don't know why I have no trouble seeing her this year, her first as a kid, and couldn't at year three, her last as a baby.

Part of what has driven me back here was finding myself reading to Clif through ragged cry-breathing after a particularly bad temper-cry on his part. I found myself panicking and thinking of his insides twisting and dying and us getting to the ER too late and repeating the cycle again and again and again until my insides have twisted and died and there are no more babies left to lose. I kept reassuring myself as I held him while he screamed that he felt strong and his legs were still working and he wasn't hot or cold and he hadn't thrown up. He seemed normal and healthy and mad, which is really something so strong to hang on to, as any parent of any sick kiddo knows. But my scare over it all made me realize that in being absent from here during our lovely, wonderful summer, I've been repeatedly stuffing and hiding all the little hints of trouble and worry and longing that have popped up. It's not healthy, it doesn't feel good when they finally start oozing out, and it's not necessary.

So this is all to say that I'm back. Maybe not regularly, but surely more often than once every few months. It's looking like this will be a full and crazy year(s) we're headed into - Jared's graduating with his Masters in May, applying to DMA programs (fingers crossed he stays here in NE, we don't want to become a commuting family!), we're expecting a (surprise!) third baby in mid-May, Jared has his debut professional recital at our alma mater at the end of May, I will be spending the month of June hanging with the kids and my extended family while Jared is exiled to Austria (hardy har har), and the last long trudge through graduate school begins in the fall. Agh. Let's just focus on this week - date night tonight!

And of course some unrelated hilarious pictures of Clif making a run for it with his chosen pumpkin.

What the What?!

I was stumbling through the cobwebs of my blog today and realized that these pictures were just sitting in a draft post, never having seen the light of day. How could that be? What a little munchkin he was.