Thanks, Not Tanks

It's been two months since I've blogged - I've thought of it many times because I could now easily supply another Top 10 most incredible things I've heard out of Noah's mouth, or share details about the miserable process we've gone through to get to the closing on a beautiful parcel of land and construction loan, or in the bigger world could talk about the fact that we now have our first African American President-Elect and the country may be extricated from the nasty war we've been fighting the past several years.

But today, amidst cleaning house to prepare for thirteen dinner guests tomorrow, and reading Noah story books before naptime, and thinking about running away by myself for a few hours to buy myself multiple pairs of earrings, I have one echoing experience to capture here.

Noah has been sleeping with us again. I find it quite ironic, because Matthew couldn't wait to get him out of our bed back in January or whenever it was. He'd had it with cosleeping, and to be fair, none of us were sleeping well at that point. Noah did not, and still does not, like covers, so would kick them down and we would get very cold while he lay perpendicular between us, a wedge, which he was becoming of sorts.

Since being in our rental, I've done my best to keep Noah in his routine of sleeping in his room, but after a stint with a cold, a few rainstorms with fierce winds coming off the water, and his father eagerly inviting "Do you want to sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed tonight?" it's been about two weeks now that we just put him down to sleep in our bed at night.

The downside of this is that I now have even less time in any given 24-hour period to be a little bit free of his energy. Time when my own center can stretch and inhabit the space a bit more. This is also known as "A Break". And A Break when unconscious still counts as A Break.

The upside, which is a major upside and the point of this post, is that I get to wake to his face again. His two-year-old face and his immediate song and chant, "Maki, maki, maki, I want maki, Mumma, maki." The Milk Song. His round cheeks and chin. Every morning, even if I am squinting as I was this morning because we had a massive wind and rainstorm last night and the vent on the kitchen stove sucked air and went "Bam!" every seven minutes, I wake and feel like it's Christmas. Noah's blue eyes, his sweet words, big head of orange-brown hair, smiling and ready to enter another day, full steam ahead. And seeing Matthew excited to experience Noah of course doubles my pleasure of the whole scenario.

Whoever dubbed this stage "The Terrible Twos" when discipline and structure are all-important - bring out the tanks and heavy artillery - left out the way a two-year-old can make any grinchly parent's heart grow three sizes, and grow again, and again, and again. On this Thanksgiving Eve, Santa is surely on his way very soon, but has a tough act to follow with these special mornings when my husband and I wake to our beautiful son.