I don't even know where to begin when thinking about Ms. Plum. She grew the most this year, of coarse. She went from freshly baked and itty bitty to an enormous and curious and little baby delighting in exploring her surroundings in what seems like overnight. In just two and half months she will be a toddler and the Pants Family will no longer have a baby in the house. I have treasured her babyhood. She has a very important role in our family. She is the great equalizer. Her attitude has always been so very cool. The coolest, really. I think that this is just who she is. I have visions of family vacations to come where Mr. Pants, Daddy and I are melting down after  hours on the road and Ms. Plum comes through with a well placed, "Chill out, you guys. Jeez!" or "Um, dudes? I refuse to join in on your silly family pity party because life is good. So get with the program, people!". She is our diplomat, our relaxed and happy little lady. I admire her. She picked us for a reason. We will keep her life exciting and full of love and she will keep us focused and loved right back. She has a way of yanking us all back from the edge of insanity. Because baby girl is all about the love. That's all she wants.

Now don't get me wrong. She totally gets pissed and over tired and sad and throws shade. But she is funny in that it never last for longer than getting the point across. As soon as someone is there to fix the problem she is happy again or drifting to sleep or forgiving her brother for bopping her on the head. She is so full of forgiveness for all of us. We can all learn a thing or two from her and her willingness to forgive. I do think, though, that Mr. Pants might be in trouble if he keeps this head bopping thing up. Plum is a big strong girl and I have a feeling she won't be putting up with his guff for very much longer. I mean, she is on the cusp of outweighing him. As it stands they are even, but not for long.  As chill as she is, I fear she is plotting his comeuppance. And I suspect it will be as matter of fact as she is. See, Pants likes to bop her on the head and run. One of these days her foot is gonna slide out and he is gonna bite it. And then she will forgive him. Because that's who she is.

So at nine months, Ms. Plum is full on pulling up and starting to cruise the furniture. She loves solid foods (except eggs!) but not as much as her milkies. We have entered a very fun stage in the nursing relationship. The one where she starts to contort and do somersaults while still trying to nurse. She's just too busy to sit still even when she is hungry.  She's getting a little longer in the middle and has amazing hair. She calls to me throughout the day, "Mamamamamamama!", when she needs me. She squeals and waves her hands wildly whenever there is a dance party going on. Her laugh is killer. She knows the power of a good stare and her eyes light up and twinkle in that second when she sees you coming to pick her up to love on her. She has eight teeth all in different stages of coming in and her cheeks are the. most. kissable. cheeks of any baby ever born. I can not believe all that she has done in these last nine months. Like her brother, she is a light. A bright shining light in my life. I have only been able to hold her for nine months and twenty days, but it feels like I have been holding her forever. It feels like I have known her all of my life.


From her first meal to her first Christmas. This year has been amazing. I can not wait to see what she does in 2012. Whatever it is, it's gonna be great. She can't help it. She's cool like that.

 I've been looking back at the year a lot these last few weeks. I think everyone does that. Just going through all of the different ways that the year changed us. The gifts it gave. Good and bad. We have known great joy this year and also great sorrow. Such is life right? At this time last year Ms. Plum was still baking away and we hadn't yet been told that Pants could be on the autism spectrum. These things were yet to come. And we had hopes and dreams for the bright and shining year of 2011 like I now have for 2012. I wonder what it will hold? I know though that no matter what, we have been given gifts from this past year that we get to keep. Not gifts wrapped up in paper and bows. But lessons and stories. Hugs and kisses. Naked butt prints on my windows, dancing and singing. Learning each other better and growing our relationships as a family. So the next few posts I will be updating the progress our family has made....

What better place to start than with Mr. Pants?

So here we are. Mr. Pants has a few handfuls of words. Three of which really help us out too! I will never get tired of hearing him yell, "HUN-REE!!!!!" like a drunken frat boy searching for his leftover burrito everytime the kid wants a snack. Because he is telling me that he is hungry and I wished and wished and hoped and prayed that he would be able to do that. Now I just have to work with him on maybe bringing it down a decibel or seven because he really does sound quite ridiculous and a little primitive when he uses his three need words. "HELP!!!!!", "HUN-REE!!!" and "BOOOOOOOOOP!!". The latter being a race against time to get to him before the diaper is off and he is walking around bow legged trying to peer through his legs at the poop on his butt, all the while screaming, "HELP!!!". Yeah, dude. I know you need help. That's why I'd like you to not take your diaper off before I am at your service, wipes in hand. I might have mentioned before that kids are gross. The lovliest part is that, while I didn't think it was possible, he seems to only be getting grosser with time.

His pattern behaviors are still there and they are getting more elaborate. On Christmas Eve it involved both floors of my sister in law's house. Touch the train on the first floor, say "bye bye" to the train (again, in the tone of a drunken frat boy being kicked out of the bar and yelling "bye bye" on the way out), open the gate to the stairs, close the gate, go down 3 steps holding the wall, move to the other side on step four and hold the railing, Pick up car at bottom of steps, run to the TV in the basement and put down the car, pick the car back up, leave the car on the bottom stairs and head back up, open gate, close gate, head to train to start again.....he did this about thirty times. They are not always this elaborate, though. And it seems they get more complicated when he is stressed or in an unfamiliar environment or tired. At home he is more relaxed, so they are much more simple. Line up the foam letters, walk them like a balance beam, put them back in the bag, repeat. So goal number one (after finding a new speech therapist, so I guess that makes it goal number two), is helping him pare them down to a manageable size when he is feeling uncomfortable. Some of our other goals include; putting two words together,  a successful dentist visit (I just had a mini stroke just thinking about it. Is he too young for them to gas him?), wearing clothes more often, eating a variety of foods and conquering the almighty potty. Normal two year old stuff.

We have some things to work on, but man this kid is blowing me away with the strides he is already making. He licked an orange! Sure, he immediately made a face as though it was the grossest pile of poo, but he tried it! He is counting and he knows his letters (Genius!). He plays with his cousins and he is naming family members. He loves his school and he gets so excited to put on his backpack and get on the bus. His new occupational therapist is his favorite and he is learning to float in the pool. I recently met with his teachers for a review of his progress these last six months and his receptive communication (what he understands) has jumped up to just under two years old! His expressive communication (what he can speak) is around twelve to eighteen months. This is up from 8 months! I am so proud of the work he is doing and so grateful to his teachers and therapists.  But my favorite thing that he did recently came on Christmas Eve. Bundled up and in the car after the candlelight  service, he reached over and held his sister's hand. Just held her hand. And she laughed and laughed. And he smiled. Knowing he was making her happy. That was better than any test result or achievment. His expressions of love beyond those for Daddy and I are coming more and more. He is becoming more comfortable with his extended family. Sitting in his Grandpa's lap. Giving Grandma a kiss. Hugging his aunties and uncles. Throwing some high fives. They have been around his whole life, waiting for him to be comfortable with showing them affection.  Never pushing him. Patiently waiting. And he is ready now. What a difference a year makes.

Dear Santa,
I haven't believed in you for about 28 years. But tonight as I sit here typing, my hands are shaking, my heart is jumping and eyes are wet. Because I believe again. See, I sent Daddy out to Kohls to see if they had reduced the Christmas pj's enough so that we could get the kids some. Then I sat down at my computer to work on a slideshow of our family. It was about 10:20 pm and there was a knock at my door. Now Santa, I am sure you know that I am a nervous nelly. Especially when I am home alone with my kids. So it took me a minute to peak out the window. But I gathered the courage to look and there on my doorstep I could see something. So I grabbed my shoes and went out to look. My breath was taken from me and tears started flowing. There, on my doorstep, were bags and bags of food and clothes and gifts for my kids for Christmas. It took me a minute to even process what I was seeing. On top of one bag was a box of Kleenex cleverly marked for Mama from Santa. There is everything. Laundry soap, hats, sleepers, and a Christmas dress for Plum. There were two bags with wrapped up gifts from Santa to each of my babies and there was even a gift for Daddy and a bag for Mama. There was a basket of shower essentials, first aid, hand soap, lip balm and vitimin C drops. There was even toilet paper! And food! There was a whole bag of food. I looked through all the bags searching for a note. But there isn't one. No chance to say thank you to your staff here on the ground in Ohio. So I came here to say thank you. There are no words that can describe the feeling that is going through me right now. The joy that I feel. So Santa, I promise you this, I will do this as many times as I can for the rest of my life. Because people are so good. And this right here is not just some gifts for some kids. It has filled my heart to overflowing. It has cemented my faith in love. And I can not wait to share this kind of love next Christmas. Because I am a believer. And Santa, to the person or people who did your leg work tonight, you have no idea how much you have impacted my heart. And your act of love tonight will be paid forward for as long as I live. Merry Christmas to you.

Love, Mama Pants

PS: I know that you must read this blog, Santa. Because the tag for Mr. Pants' clothes said this...

The last few weeks have been a little on the "Oh my God, my life is falling apart!" drama side. I haven't felt much like documenting it and had very little motivation to write. But Wednesday night Daddy came home with three gifts for our children and as I watched him sneak into our room and hide them in my closet, it occured to me that I do have some Christmas spirit. And that the hard part is over. And I needed to get to loving Christmas because Christmas was going to rule dammit!

Our family has been through a lot this year. We finally got to meet our Plum, there were doctors using the word Autism when speaking about our boy, there was elation that came with hearing "not autism" after a grueling testing process and I'll admit a little chuckle at the realization that my kid was just different  (in a "coolest kid on the block" kind of way), learning how to help Mr.Pants to get the sensory input and speech therapy he needs, a  bee attack (I mean, REALLY?), the pain that rose up when Daddy put his first baby girl on a plane back to California and on and on. All of this led to a year ending accumulated ball of stress that became very hard to manage for both Daddy and I. This year has been filled with so many joys and sorrows. But looking back, I see that the joys were bigger. And the joys made the sorrows bearable. Even still, it took a bit for my Christmas spirit to show up. And if you know me, then you know I usually have the Christmas spirit somewhere between mid October and mid November so this was bit out of character for me. 

So how did I find it?
 
I found it because a few weeks ago, a friend I have never met in person sent some Muppet dolls to me. Just because. When I was little, Santa always topped our stockings with a special stuffed doll or animal.  Those Muppets will be sitting atop the stockings of my kids this year. 

I found it because the gifts that my kids will get from us are from the Goodwill. The Goodwill is as good a place as any to spend the little extra money we do have. Maybe even a better place than most.  When I made the decision this year to stay home and raise these crazy kids, I knew full well that our belts were going to be tight for a bit. Maybe even a little tighter than tight. Daddy and I considered all of the possabilities and decided that it was the best decision for our family. But without my salary, Christmas would be different this year.  A Goodwill Christmas. It turned out that the goodwill came in more ways than one.

I found it because our Christmas dinner is being pieced together little by little by my whole family. And they are coming to my house Christmas day. And I am so excited. Because I just love that merry band of crazy people.

I found it because Grandma Pants knows Santa Claus personally and collects things all year long. Preparing for the big day. Being sure that even though the money is tight, there will be gifts under the tree that sparkle and shine. Because my mom lives for that kind of moment. The one where kids see the tree and presents all together for the first time. That moment of pure childhood perfection.

 I found it because when life gets hard, I am surrounded by the love of my friends, my church and my family. And I can feel it.

I found my Christmas spirit when it occured to me Wednesday night watching Daddy tiptoe with those presents, that he is ok. He's had a rough month and on top of everything, he has been a little down about the state of our Christmas pocketbook. While he knows that our kids are little enough to not expect anything this Christmas, it pained him still that we didn't have the means to buy them  a special gift. So, those three presents he hid in my closet? His work had set up a secret santa exchange and his sous chef drew Daddy's name. His gift to Daddy was a big ole Tonka truck for Mr. Pants. And it didn't stop there. Two other friends from work handed Daddy a wrapped up gift for Ms. Plum. And his boss gave him a stack of new books all wrapped up for both of our littles to share. I wish I had seen his face. My guess is that his coworkers and friends didn't see how much this touched his heart. It may seem like no big deal. But it is a big deal. To us. No fanfare, no expectation of glory (or a blog post). Just good old goodwill.

 I found my Christmas spirit because I have always known that people are good. And that people care. But this year, I saw it manifested in so many many ways. Like  people helping a friend and coworker give a little something special to his babies for Christmas. That's awesome sauce.

I found it by watching Ms. Plum roll around covered in tinsel under her first Christmas tree. 

I found it because everyday Mr. Pants and I sing all the tunes from Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas while he pretends to play the kazoo. And he believes that Ma Otter is his grandma. So awesome.

So from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. To all of you. Thanks for coming along and reading about this little family of mine. Thank you to those who have supported us throughout this mixed up and emotional year. I have big dreams for 2012. Big big dreams. 

Merry Merry Christmas everyone!

Love, Mama Pants

*Quick shout out to Mr. Ocean for owning that title phrase until the end of time. I mean, you know you started singing it.


I haven't written in a bit. I'm going to just let this flow and not edit myself (sidebar, I just came back up here to add the part about not editing myself which is itself, an edit. Oh boy). It may not make a ton of sense but there is so much on my heart today. These last two weeks I have been running on empty. I keep hoping that at some point things will just fall into place and make sense. That I will suddenly know how to be a stay at home mom and maybe even start trying to keep house a little.  If you know me at all, you know that housework aint my bag. And now that I have two little humans, it falls even further back on the list of important things. But I digress. And then there was Daddy. He was sinking too. But for different reasons. Depression, anxiety, and a daughter 3000 miles away are his beasts (don't worry, I'm not an asshole. He knows I am writing this). The idea that my babies' emotional and physical health is being held in mine and his shaky hands is a topic that is often circling in my heart. I have a feeling it is for many parents.  So these last few weeks we have struggled. A lot. With finding peace again. And also being grateful for what it is we have instead of lamenting what it is we don't have. We are hoping to find our Christmas spirit stat. Every time Mr. Pants sees Christmas lights while driving in the car, he exclaims "ahhhh!" while pointing at the spectacular sight his little eyes are experiencing. And Plum's delight in crawling under the Christmas tree while trying to make sense of the mystery that is tinsel.  These things bring me back to what I believe in. The meaning of all of this. My purpose (cue dramatic music).

So when I drove past the sign in front of my church the other day to see that the service for Sunday was titled "Living with Purpose", well you know I had to go. I hadn't been to church in weeks and I knew I needed it. And so did Daddy. So we scrambled the kids, dealt with a diaper explosion at the last minute and Mr Pants' desire to run naked and not get dressed. Come hell or high water, I was getting my family to church. Period. And I am so grateful that we made it. 

For both of us, the tears began to flow almost instantly. We've both been wound a bit tight lately. I've talked before about the emotions I feel when I sing. Well, that held true this morning the second I began singing the doxology..."From all that dwell below the skies, let songs of hope and faith arise; Let peace, good will on earth be sung through every land, by every tongue". Tears. Tears that had been waiting to come. Needing released. And they didn't stop there. By the time the service was over, I had been touched on just about every level. From the story of "Sloppy Joe" about a kid that was a messy mess (hey! I got one of those!) to singing the children out to their classrooms, "You've got the light of love inside you, go on your way in peace...", to meditation, to praying for peace and love to rise up for the Hubs and I, to the sermon.  That's the Readers Digest version but you get the point. I sat in church this morning and I cried. Tears of release and anxiety followed by tears of beauty, then tears of sadness as our minister shared a devastating truth. Then tears of release again, rounded out by tears of hope. Hope that no matter what comes at us in this life, there is always healing. There is always love. Even in times of sadness and pain when we feel like we can not trudge through another day. Love waits on the other side. 

What I came to understand this week is that I have to be willing to do the work. And this shit is hard work. But the work has to be done. You have to go through the muck to get to the love that waits. The struggle to be our best self is a daily challenge. At least it is for me. And while I get it right a great amount of the time, sometimes I just don't. Or Daddy doesn't. And on rare occasions, we both miss the mark at the same time. But we made a pledge to each other a while back that we would love each other through these kind of  times (I think my vows even stated clearly, "even if I barf them out all over the internets"). The cool part is that we both put a ton of stock, sweat and belief in those promises. And when we have these times and we need reminded, there's this little dude and lady that remind us that this family we created is amazing. Mr. Pants' mission is simple. To experience this life and squeeze out every bit of awesome  (and ranch dressing) that it has to offer. I want to do that too. And wow, here I am blogging about love again. You are no doubt rolling your eyes and thinking, "Oh great, here she goes talking about how love is all there is." and I will refrain from saying that in this post in an attempt to be less repetitive. Just kidding! Guess what? Love is everything ;) 

Simon and Garfunkel were some genius mother fuzzers. Sometimes you need to lay down over some troubled water for people. And equally as important, know who the people are that will lay down over some troubled water for you. Then when the waters calm, notice it. Thank the Universe for it. Thank them for it.  And spread some extra love in the world to express how grateful you are for it. And when you get through the hard stuff, build a few bridges to prepare for any choppy waters that come down the line. And keep spreading the love. Because love is everything. So work hard for it. It's worth it.


And seriously, do yourself a favor and listen to this man sing this beautiful song live in Central Park. Go ahead...

Yep. I'm the guy that buys these. I am the target demographic for silly headbands. 
It's a problem. This is only about a quarter of my stash.

It's so interesting to me to be around other people's two and haf year olds and hear them talking. Putting together sentances and concepts. Yelling out their needs and being understood. I don't take it personally that Mr. Pants isn't there yet but I do sometimes wish that he wasn't so far behind his peers. I was talking to daddy about this the other day and we both agreed that when the day comes that Pants no longer speaks in Pantsinese, we will miss it. We talked about how when he is older we will tell him stories about how he spoke his very own language and that we loved it. Even if we never understood it. And then we will pull out the videos of him talking his way out of bedtime or chatting up his people on the bottle phone. We will show all of his loves these videos as he blushes and wants to die from embarrassment. That's what good parents do.

It was this week that the realization that Pantsinese is becoming less and less prominent and words, actual English words, are starting to form and become regular chatting material. He has been delighting in naming things. He is requesting (demanding?) snacks by shouting and pointing "Ah Neeeeee!". It took us weeks to figure out that he was saying "I need". He has put together a few choice phrases too. "No no, Loya!"  comes out when Ms. Plum is attempting to snatch a toy from him or "bye bye daddy!" or "de ah go!" when he gives you something. My new fave is "OK!" when I ask him to do something. It's a beautiful thing to hear. And he is super proud of himself. I can see a very specific light in his eyes when he realizes that we have understood him. He gets so excited and tries to start naming everything in the room "Cahhr!", "EhMo!", "Eye!". So we have been working so hard on naming and repeating. Nothing too complicated. Just very simple naming and repeating.

So then, you can imagine what happened in my heart on tuesday when he counted to thirteen. I shit you not. My kid, who doesn't talk, counted to flipping THIRTEEN!  MB, our Head Start home visitor, was here working with him and she gave him a snack. Little Lorna Doone cookies and juice box. Mr. Pants went straight  to work taking them all out of the package and lining them up in a perfect straight line. Then he blew us away. "One, twoooo, teee, fo, figh,sik,sehen,eigh,nine, teh, evan,telp,hurty". And he didn't just count. He pointed to each one and correctly named the number that belonged to them. Distinguishing between cookie number two and cookie number three. My eyes teared up. Did that just happen? I looked to MB and she had a look on her face that said, "amazing". I asked her if I had heard what I thought I did. "Yep. He did. And that's amazing", she said with pride in her voice. I asked her if two and half year olds should be able to do that and she said, "Counting sure, but actually assigning correct numbers and pointing to each one?". That was kind of mind blowing for a kiddo his age.

So it is clear that we, in fact, have a genius on our hands. Obviously. I have the smartest two year old ever born. And yeah, I am only half serious about that but after last night, I just might really think it. Because as I was pointing out colors of the Christmas tree lights and trying to get him to name them for me (he refused all but yellow), he looked at me for a second like he was really in deep thought, stood up, sauntered over to the TV and spelled out SONY. A little backwards but exactly right. "oh,why,ess,ehhn", he said as he pointed to the corresponding letter.  I peed a little in my pants and thought to myself, "Are you for real, kid? Did you seriously just poo poo my colors lesson and one up me by frigging SPELLING?". I put my head down so that he would not see the tears in my eyes. I didn't want him to think that him spelling made me sad. I pulled my shit together and looked up and gave him the biggest grin and encouraged him to do it again. "Where's the S?", he pointed to the S. and on and on. He did it again. And when he felt that I was excited, he got excited too and he laughed and giggled and tackled me. Ow. My little Einstien.