Toddler to Teen

I think I need an 8 year old.

Toddlers want to help All. The. Time. Every morning Andrew "unloads" the dishwasher. Of course he goes straight for the knives, buddies up to the pizza cutter, and sneezes on the Tupperware. His help is adorable, slower than cooling magma, and kind of gross. God forbid I forget to run the washer the night before. He does NOT understand why I do not want him to deliver slimy dishes to the cabinets. Of course he will also sit in a poop diaper, so I'm guessing cleanliness is not his #1 priority.

Big Sister considers household drudgery beneath her, certainly not worth leaving the comfort of her bed and Netflix. When forced to assist, she looks around the kitchen as if uninformed as to where we keep the drinking glasses. You would never guess she used to beg to clean the toilets.

Other chores? Sheer joy for a little one. I got Andrew a miniature Swiffer for free at a yard sale. It will be his "big" Christmas present. If I gave Big Sis a Swiffer, I think she'd call CPS. Her Christmas list includes cropped tops, oversized sweaters and expensive makeup sets with names like Sex and Pervy. On this ambitious list, items 1-16 totaled more than the cost of my wedding dress.

I told her how our family used to do the 3 present rule-- after all that's how many gifts Baby Jesus got. She scoffed and pitied her former ignorant, compliant little self.

Truly, an 8 year old would be perfect.

He might not be as eager as a toddler to do chores, but quality control would be less of an issue, and I could get some good work out of him before the teen years.

At least that's what I think. Check back in with me in 6 years and we'll see if Andrew's enthusiasm for helping has waned. I hope not, because Mom and Dad aren't getting any younger.

In the mean-time, I wonder how long it will take Big Sis to clue in that she can train Andrew to deliver a chilled La Croix and Cheez-its right to her bed, a germy smile on his face.

Redemption

I am often asked what it's like to have another little boy, when my first boy went to heaven. It's different than I expected, and much, much better.

I remember meeting with a lovely bereaved mom while I was pregnant with Andrew. Her two young daughters died tragically. She had a sweet toddler boy at home, and was hoping and praying that she and her husband would someday be able to have another girl as well. I didn't really understand what she meant when she talked about wanting to use the girls' bikes in the garage, and their hair ditties up in the bathroom again. That sounded painful to me.

And wasn't the joy of a new baby, regardless of gender, what was important?

I didn't get it.

In fact, I secretly wondered if the little boy I was carrying, who might, gulp, look a lot like his big brother, would hurt my heart more than a baby girl would. Just accepting that I had an unplanned pregnancy at this age and would be starting the whole parenting journey over again was MIGHTY SCARY-- did we really need to it be more difficult in another way too?

I get what that mama was saying now.

I experience it daily, and the closest word I can come up with is REDEMPTION.

For more than four years, I couldn't walk by the boys' section of Target without aching. It didn't matter if my eyes landed on a toddler outfit, or something for a teen-- my heart seized with pain as I missed Jack at every stage, even the ones he never got to.

Now, I hold up little boy shorts and ponder whether they will fit around Andrew's prodigious belly. I shudder to think of going into the toy aisle again, not because Jack died, but because it's mind-numbingly boring, yet I know I'll go there with Andrew. I see super hero paraphernalia on an end-cap and wonder if I'll need to learn the good guys' and the bad guys' names for the very first time.

Andrew shifts me to today. To next week. To the future.  He doesn't take away or diminish the past, but he somehow redeems much of it. I can think about Jack's love of baseball now, and try to guess whether Andrew will play, or whether soccer will be his game. Each stage Andrew is in takes me back to Jack and Margaret and the happy memories of their childhoods. Instead of tears, there is the remembrance of their own quirky cuteness, the chaos, and their snuggly love. It was a sacred time, even though I didn't know it then.

There is also a joy that comes from experiencing life through a toddler's eyes. Margaret and I've noticed we get excited about the little things-- a butterfly, a turtle, a fire truck, a helicopter-- when  we wouldn't have paid attention to them just a year ago. He has brought wonder back into our lives.

My delight in Andrew is not because he's a boy, or because he looks a bit like Jack, but his being a boy has been somehow healing.

I remember a sad scene in the movie Finding Neverland, with Johnny Depp playing J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. Depp's character says the one time his mother ever truly looked at him with delight, was when he walked into a room dressed in his dead brother's clothes.

Ouch.

Andrew may wear a few of Jack's things that I had saved for grand kids, or play with Jack's toys, but Andrew is Andrew, and we see him, love him and delight in him. Ok, not so much in the middle of the night, but you know what I mean.

Somehow Andrew helps us look at the past and remember it with joy not sadness, and he helps us look ahead at the possibilities that await us in this weird, exhausting, wonderful life. If he has also taken the sting out of Legos, toy cars, boy clothes, and Target, I am grateful for that.

And I know any joy, gratitude and hope that we have makes my first boy happy too.

Toddlers are Weird and Fabulous

From the Toddler Files:

Andrew woke up from a nap and was pretty attached to his Lovey and Pacifier. He wanted a snack, but didn't want to relinquish either. In the absence of pockets, he found his head to be a great place to store Lovey:

This continued outside as he played with the dogs and explored the yard.

I can't even deal with the cuteness.