Hardee - 1991(?) - 5/15/2009

Belated

Dear Munchkin,

Your second birthday included an accidental party. We hadn't planned on having a real party — just your Nana, and Grandma and Grandpa Murphy, and us, with a trip to the zoo. Then we decided you might like your friends Charlie and Luke to join us with their parents, and your buddy Pamela (she is among your favorite grown-ups in the universe). Add a cookout, and suddenly it was a party! Unfortunately, I was unable to go to the zoo with you (although everyone else in Columbus was there, apparently), but your daddy took videos and I got to hear stories about all the animals you saw. Once you got home, you had a wonderful time opening presents: musical instruments from Charlie and Luke, a laptop and tool belt from Nana, gardening tools and a book from Grandma and Grandpa. I made you cupcakes decorated to look like Oscar the Grouch, and you seemed to approve of the design, even though you identified them as frogs first. For the next week or so, any time anybody mentioned the word "birthday," you'd announce it was your birthday and ask for a cupcake.

You go to school on weekdays during the school year, a few days each week during the summer, and you love it. It was tremendously hard for me to start sending you to daycare at five months old, but finishing my MA was important to me, and at the time I was pretty sure I wanted my PhD too. Now I am close to done with the MA, and not at all sure about continuing with a doctorate, because I'd much rather stay home with you. The same guilt I had at the beginning now pushes the other direction; if I were to pull you out of school (whether to save money or to spend more time with you or whatever reason), I'd be depriving you of your friends and of a social network in which you, little extrovert that you are, thrive, and which I cannot provide. This summer, you will be back to part-time at school again, and we'll need to decide how to proceed with the next few years. I hope we choose right.

You have begun to catch my outdoorsy-gardening-tree-hugger bug, which is both a thrill and a relief. The last two summers, you have only been willing to venture into the yard if you could be on a blanket, in no danger of contact with actual grass. This year you are steadier on your feet, and while you still aren't wild about the feel of grass on your bare skin, you no longer have any fear of running about and exploring, as long as you know where we are. You are starting to enjoy digging around in our vegetable garden, and will happily announce any animal, from bird to squirrel to deer, that comes within visual range. Your only real fears anymore are the big hill on Yauger Road (which, from the vantage point of your car seat, looks like a drive off a cliff), and the swings. It will probably be a while before you get over the swings. You were this close yesterday, and as we walked over a child fell off his swing and, while he wasn't hurt, he was shaken up and so were you. As for the scary hill, we warn that it's coming you each time, take it slow, and at the end you are all smiles, proud of yourself for doing it. "Not scared anymore!" you announce. It's kind of amazing.

With your father, you share a love of anything electronic that has buttons (OK, I have that gene too), and you may be destined to become a bit of a clothes horse like him, too. Although I usually give you limited choices on what to wear, every now and again I give you free rein. This photo will probably humiliate you in front of a prom date some day, but believe me when I tell you that this particular ensemble is not the most spectacularly awesome thing you've ever wanted to wear. I especially like the striped socks worn as opera-length gloves, by the way. You choose your clothes the same way you dance, the same way you make up songs, the same way you combine foods: completely confident, and totally unconcerned what anyone else thinks. In this way, you are probably the bravest person I know, and I envy you this fearlessness.

There are many things I wonder about you, but will probably never truly know. Every now and then I try to ask, but you never answer — at least not in any way I understand. When you are chattering away at night (you actually talk yourself to sleep sometimes, and your teachers have been known to pull your blanket up over your head at naptime, like a parrot, to quiet you down) are you re-living events that happened that day? Or are you inventing possible future scenarios in your head?

How is it possible that you can be so fastidious and so messy at the same time?

Do you really remember being a tiny baby?

Why do you nearly always cry when you wake up in the morning?

How am I doing so far?

Anyhow, happy belated birthday, Munchkin. I'm looking forward to more of everything. More trips to the zoo, more stories, more morning nosh time, more gardening, more baseball games, more picnic dinners on the porch. All the new things too. A psychology professor your daddy knows told him, when you were very tiny, that kids go through a zillion different stages and they are all fantastic in some way. So far she's batting 1000.

Love always,

Mama

Fun with numbers

The Munchkin is, at this moment, 1 year, 1month, 1 day, 1 hour, and 1 minute old. The next cool numerical birthday will be June 20, 2008 2:40am, followed by May 23, 2011 12:41am and March 30, 2020 10:47am. Yes, we do celebrate Pi Day at our house. Why do you ask?

Many Happy Returns

Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday, dear Munchkin Happy Birthday to you I am now the mother of a one-year-old, and pretty soon a toddler. It boggles the mind. Oh, by the way - all those of you who hummed the melody as you read this owe the Hill sisters a buck.

Romper Room

Things I didn't know were toys until I had a son:

• pillows
• an empty Kleenex box
• a square piece of cardboard that came in the bottom of a packing box
• a spoon
• the stereo (last night he programmed it to come on at midnight and play jazz - we did not know it was programmable)
• an empty film canister
• junk mail
• an empty container for wipes
• the television remote
• a coaster
• Joe

Should we talk about the weather?

My recollection of Januaries growing up is that it was always very cold and extremely snowy. Now maybe it's the result of global warming, or maybe it's because I've moved a few hours south (not a significant change in a lot of ways, but far enough to move us out of the reach of the lake effect). Or perhaps my memory of the winters of my youth has been colored by the blizzard of '78. Whatever the reason, I suspect the Munchkin will have a different memory of how winter goes. "Yeah, it was always cold and sunny and snowy on weekdays, but then on the weekends it would rain and all the snow would melt." Such is the curse of the child with a new sled for Christmas.

Of Blogs and New Beginnings

Once upon a time, I had a blog. It was one of those all-purpose blogs where I would jot down things about my life as they happened. Then, as so often becomes the case, life got busy enough that I ran out of time to post. Actually, that's not quite fair - it was not just that I was too busy to post, but that the things that were happening either seemed too big or too small to commit to the interwebs.

In the intervening months, while I was on this unplanned hiatus, a whole lot of life happened. In no particular order, I had a child (now more than 8 months old), that child acquired a few cousins, some friends got married, others got separated or divorced, I stopped teaching in the interest of actually getting my thesis done, cut back to part-time at school, and seriously questioned whether or not I want to continue in musicology after the MA. I still enjoy musicology, love teaching (except the grading), and sometimes really enjoy research, but I felt like I was missing out on too much of the Munchkin's life, and frankly too much of my own.

Looking back on some of my posts to the old blog, although many still ring true (the quality of student papers is an eternal headache), many seem to have been written by someone else. I no longer have the urge to post about politics or social causes, much as I still care about them. At some point I'll no doubt want to write about music for fun, but at the moment it's a job, and I like my blog to be an escape of sorts. I'm no longer teaching, so I cannot really write about that, and while motherhood is turning into quite a journey, the ins and outs of diapers, breastfeeding, sleep problems and the like are really only interesting if it's your child. Besides, I know how embarrassed I am by some of the home movies my mother took when I was a baby - can you imagine having all that detail out there in the ether for eternity? The Munchkin would be in therapy for years.

One goal for the new year (I refuse to call it a resolution) is to pay more attention to the changes around me as the seasons progress. What is in bloom, what is poking up through the ground, what is dying off, what birds are visiting the feeder, what fruits and vegetables are at their best? This is where I will be doing that. It may eventually turn into a real garden blog, as the yard eventually turns into a real garden, but that will undoubtedly be a slow process. It will, I hope, be interesting.

Happy 2008, all.