Rescue!

Shay's play has recently become much more interactive, creative, and imaginative -- really fun to watch and participate in.  He has always liked to have company when he plays, but for a long time it was just "Mommy, sit here!" and I'd sit beside him and he'd drive some trucks around.  In the past few weeks, though, he has been using the diggers to dig up legos and the wooden trees from his Thomas the Train set and some plastic Easter eggs, and then transferring them to a dump truck, or arranging them in the play garage. And, if I'm lucky, he'll let me have one of the lesser diggers and help him.  

He has also been staging crashes with his trains and trucks -- the train cars will all "fall" off the tracks, and Shay will yell out, "Oh no! Crash!" -- or a series of trucks will "crash," ending up lined up neatly in a row on their backs.  I wasn't sure if this was creative or just destructive, but today things got more interesting: I looked at a row of little "crashed" cars, and said, "Oh no, they crashed! Who will rescue the drivers? The ambulance, maybe?" and pointed to his toy ambulance.  "No, eh-yi-copter!" he replied, grabbing the helicopter and trailing it through the air.  "Eh-yi-copter flying through the air! Rescue trucks!" He carefully tapped the helicopter on each truck, and once a truck had been tapped he turned it over onto its wheels.  Then he toppled all the trucks again and handed me the helicopter.  "Mommy, rescue, " he instructed me. 

We played crash and rescue for most of the afternoon. 

And I was thinking that this age, almost two-and-a-half, with all its communication and creativity and imagination and joy in little things, this is my favorite age so far.  And then I was nursing Maggie, and I smiled down at her and smoothed her soft hair, and she came unlatched because she was smiling up at me, and so then she was lying in my arms and smiling and there was milk dripping out of her mouth, and I thought, THIS, this is my favorite age. 

Then, later, I cleaned poop out of someone's belly button and someone else handed me a booger, and I thought, these ages really aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Easter

We had a lovely Easter weekend visiting my parents; the kids got lots of great grandparent time. Shay bounced back and forth between the front yard and the back yard, riding a Thomas the Train scooter thing and a fire truck scooter thing around the porch, "camping" in a tent in the back yard, digging weeds, playing baseball, and I don't know what else -- I was too busy snoozing on the couch. Maggie couldn't believe that there were so many people who wanted to hold her and smile at her all the time, and she was cooing and smiling like crazy.  We had one beautiful morning at the beach, and Shay got interested in and excited about the water -- can't wait to take him to the lake this summer!  And, in the midst of all that activity, we also dyed Easter eggs, sent Shay on his first Easter egg hunt, gave the kids Easter baskets, and ate lots of egg salad.  Oh, and this happened:

Sorry, baby girl.  But you truly didn't seem to mind it.

Rainy Day Snuggles

My friend Becky has a post up about looking at a picture of her children from five years ago, and not being able to exactly remember how it felt to be in the ordinary moments with them then.  I'm sitting here with Seamus, snuggled up on the couch watching the rain pour down outside and watching Cars, and Maggie is napping in her swing, and I'm feeling a little bit teary after reading that post -- and as I looked over at Maggie, I was thinking that it's hard for me to remember exactly what Seamus was like at her age.  I know he was similar to her in many ways, but different in many ways, and I can remember some of that but what I mainly can't remember is exactly how it felt to be his mom, then.  I know it felt more new, and overwhelming, and scary than it feels to be his and Maggie's mom, now.  And I know that every day felt long and exhausting and like I was busy every single moment taking care of the baby -- and now, sometimes my parents or Patrick will take Seamus out for the whole morning and all I have to do is take care of the baby, and I'm all, am I missing something? Because this feels so easy, just having one baby to care for.

And then I was also thinking that sometimes the kids themselves do something to help solidify a moment, a memory, that I can preserve and think of later.  Since Maggie has been born, I have been consciously and unconsciously giving Shay some extra snuggles when I can, especially right after I see a little bit of jealousy in his face or in his behavior while I'm nursing or tending to the baby. I get him on my lap or in my arms somehow in the midst of our hide-and-go-seek game, or at the table where the train tracks are set up, and get in as many kisses as I can before he starts to protest.  And I don't think I really focused on the snuggles in a specific way, until the other day he reached up his arms for a hug, and as I hugged him, he nuzzled into my shoulder, wrapped his arms around my neck, patted my back, and sighed, "Oh, mama."  And I realized that he was snuggling me in exactly the same way that I snuggle him, except that I sigh, "Oh, Shay-Shay."  And I think that moment I will remember, even if I forget exactly how it feels to be Seamus and Maggie's mom in these early days, or how Seamus's little two-and-one-quarter year old body feels in my arms today.