Baby Boy

I have been remiss with a capital "R." I fell away from writing on this for a while (understatement of the year), and then I got all freaked out, like "Oh no! I haven't written forever! What will my three readers think of me! I am a horrible person! I shall never write again!" and then some things happened in my life, and now I want to write again.

Henry Stewart was born on March 13th. He is a chubby, moist little sausage with huge, deep blue eyes and Angelina Jolie lips, and I kiss him every day and run my fingers over all of his rolls to try and memorize them forever. He is quiet and smiley, except when he is hungry, which happens about every hour it seems. Then his lower Jolie lip sticks way out and his face gets all red and he says "Mwowah!" in the saddest way. He just sits and looks at his sister placidly as she throws her temper tantrums - you can almost detect the faintest hint of a crack-up on his lips. He is a love.

Olivia is my love, too. And she is a pain. Somewhere I learned to never say, "I love you, but . . ." to someone you love. So I had a choir director who told us once, "I love you all, and you're doing it wrong." Like the doing it wrong is all part of the package of my love for you. I like that.

Oh yes - Olivia is 2. And a half. I thought we were going to breeze right through the twos - my adoring, adorable daughter and I. But oh, no. We hit them smack on, about the same time that Henry came along. Now she has discovered the word "No!" and uses it at every opportunity. Or she's good for a minute and then turns around and kicks the dog. Or starts jumping on the couch. Or eats a little bit of the page of her library book. I tried - oh, I tried - to be all P.C. about it in the beginning. Saying things like, "That's not okay, Olivia - okay? Can you please put the book back on the shelf? Please? I love you!" But my little daughter did not want my polite requests. Or constant verbal reminders of my love. That was not working for her, and she let me know it right away. What she wanted was for me to SHOW her the way of the world. In black and white. Constantly.