Musings About Life... After Birth

Last Friday Momtourage member Melissa and I were at KB Toys shopping for a birthday present for her friend’s son’s 3rd birthday. Naturally, our sons (okay, mine) went nuts when we ventured into the truck aisle.

“Ohh...look at this one!” she cooed, handing my squirming kid a yellow mini CAT dump truck.

“The LAST thing he needs is another truck,” I protested.

“Oh, come on, it’s only $5.99. It’s cute!” she reasoned, and I relented.

Soon, my son discovered that the dump truck had buttons that when pushed, made all sorts of annoying, loud dump truck noises. He found this absolutely delightful. Me, not so much. Of course, an attempt to pry it away from him during the checkout exercise was futile. I forked over the $6 and we were one dump truck richer.

This dump truck has not left his sight - or hands - since Friday, and of course, its obnoxious noises have not left our throbbing heads. He is so obsessed with this truck that he even insisted on bringing it into the crib with him last night. All evening, filtered through our baby monitor, my husband and I heard “Caterpillar!” and the jarring “beep beep beep” audio of a dump truck backing up. When the kid finally fell asleep, we removed the truck and hid it. The first thing he asked for when he woke up? You guessed it. Damn.

Melissa’s kid is so getting an ant farm for his next birthday.

This excerpt from a friend of a friend’s blog makes me wonder: How long before the term “Momtourage” is added to Webster’s?

Even though we have an incredible pool in our neighborhood, sometimes my husband and I just don’t want to schlep all of our crap over there for a 30-minute play. The amazing alternative? A backyard stocked with the I-Play Sand and Water Table (that I just use as a water table) and the River Run Water Park from Step 2, both of which my son adores. I also have a sand table and a few other things still in boxes, but I figure, one step at a time, you know? I’m trying to not to be that Mom - you know, the one with like 15 big, ugly plastic toys in her backyard that sort of fade and get dirty with time? For now, 2 big ugly plastic toys is my limit.

Though pretty hideous, I am now beginning to understand the allure of these toys, as they have been lifesavers for us recently. The past two Sundays we’ve had friends - both of whom had two young daughters each - over to barbecue. We suggested to them the options of going to the pool or just hanging out in the backyard, and both couples chose the latter. It was manageable, and allowed us to visit and snack while the kids played in a contained environment. Everyone wins.

Recently, I’ve been waxing poetic about these toys, so last Friday, The Momtourage gathered at my house for an afternoon of backyard water Nirvana. Of course, the kids were elated:

My baby looks nothing like me, and I have a major complex about it.

As you can see from the photo to the right, I’ve got your typical Nice Jewish Girl looks: dark (well, not totally, thanks to my highlights, but naturally dark), curly hair, darker skin, 5’2” on a good day height…you get the drift. My son, however, is my Aryan polar opposite: translucently pale skin, white-blonde hair, blue eyes and, according to his recent nine-month check-up, he ranks in the 90th percentile for height.

???????

Everyone seems to think he looks like my husband, who does have the fair skin and blue eyes, but like me, has dark hair and when it comes to height, let’s just say he isn’t exactly being actively recruited to play for the NBA. Regardless, when I carry this kid around, I don’t doubt that others probably mistake me for his nanny. This irks me for a few reasons: 1) Not only did I endure 9 extremely uncomfortable months of pregnancy, but also 7 months of needle-filled fertility treatments, eventually hitting the jackpot with our first round of IVF, to bring him into this world. Is a slight resemblance so much to ask for? 2) I look exactly like my mother. Like, people stop us on the streets and tell us we should enter a contest (seriously, do they have those? how weird….). Because of this, I always assumed my progeny would look like me, because that’s how things work in my family. 3) My genes are the dominant ones! Even biological science is dumbfounded by my kid’s looks.

For a while there, I was convinced that by some accident in the IVF lab, the Kaplan Petri dish was somehow switched with that of Sven and Inga, a nice Swedish couple. “Perhaps your son was a clerical error,” my dad would joke, except I actually believed it may be true. Insert Carrie Bradshaw voice here: Was it possible that somewhere, Sven and Inga were feeding Swedish meatballs to a small, dark, curly-headed hairy baby, wondering where the heck he came from?

I even went so far as to bring these fears up to my momtourage. My pal Becky, a forensic chemist who works for the FBI (dude, how CSI is that?), offered to DNA swab me and him, clearing up my doubt once and for all. I balked, wondering what I would do if my suspicions were verified.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a baby photo of my husband at six months. I had never seen one before, as my husband is the youngest of three, and his mother literally has no baby photos of him (don’t even get me started….). However, his brother, Michael, managed to dig one up and I gotta tell you: MIRROR IMAGE of my son. Freakishly exact. Just like me and my mom.

Perhaps Sven and Inga’s baby is blonde after all.

It’s cherry blossom season in D.C.! For one week every year, DC’s famed cherry blossoms are in bloom, and the whole town (and thousands of Japanese tourists in to visit their country’s gift to the U.S.) goes wild for the gnarly trees an their pale pink blooms. Yesterday Momtourage member Melissa and I took our sons to go check out the trees, and they did not disappoint. Below is my little guy enjoying the day:

If you’re ever planning a trip to in D.C. in spring, do all you can to make it coincide with cherry blossom season - it really does live up to the hype.

Momtourage member Jamie is in many ways a hero to me.

A few years ago when she was barely 30, Jamie married Jeff, a fantastic guy who has custody of his 6th grade daughter. I imagine that a lot of women her age would have balked at the thought of marrying a guy if it also involved taking on mothering his preteen girl, but Jamie didn’t. She embraced both Jeff and his daughter with a heart full of love, and has never acted as if Jeff’s daughter is anyone other than her very own child. When we first met and I heard her story, I asked her how she deals with the difficulty of raising a surely hormonal, eye-rolling preteen girl. To my surprise, she giggled and was totally nonchalant about it, saying it is “totally fun”. “I love schlepping to cheerleading competitions and listening to the Black Eyed Peas song ‘My Humps’ so often that I’ve memorized all the words,” she laughed.  Sure, Jamie has moments of motherhood-induced stress and nuttiness, but don’t we all? She’s one of those moms who’s doing the best she can, but as far as I’m concerned she does a heck of a lot better than most.

Jamie, I so want to hate you because you’re smart, beautiful and you lost your pregnancy weight in a minute (the photo above was taken when her son was six months old - seriously, who looks this good in a bikini ever, much less six months after popping out a baby?), but I can’t; you ‘re a great friend and a terrific Mom. This one’s for you.