Seven Months

 

He's a strong sitter this month and takes advantage of his new favorite position to grab toys with his hands and bang them. There is a sweetness and a gentleness to this boy that is starting to surface. I love to listen to his cooing sounds and bask in his gaze that bespeaks a pure love of mama. My favorite memory this month, though, is watching Charlie kneel down to hug him and say, "Best friends, best friends, best cuties," and seeing Isaac smile back at his brother. How lovely to be claimed at such a young age.

 

With a first child, there seems to be such a hurry to meet every milestone. The third time around, I want to savor every moment, remember what it feels like to lift him out of his crib and hold his little body, knowing how quickly he will reach the point that he will be running full steam ahead into his own independent life.

Orange

 

 

 

The first time he went to Aikido, he sat on my lap and watched the whole time because he was too scared to participate. He conquered his fear and decided he wanted to go back the next week and try it again. That was two years ago, and today he tested for his orange belt.

 

And so it is that we all grow, with a little courage and a lot of practice, supported in community.

Gender Part II

None of my children has been particularly rigid on the gender spectrum for picking things to like and dislike. I also have never felt that because they are boys that we would have little in common or the ways they are like me or not like me have anything to do with their sex.

Right now, Charlie has been exploring a lot of different shows on our Netflix streaming account. Since they have a specific "For Kids" channel, I give him free reign to pick shows (although sometimes that means I have to watch things that make me want to stick a pen in my eye). In addition to superhero cartoons (many of the same ones I watched as a kid), he also likes shows like "My Little Pony" and "Strawberry Shortcake." Currently, he likes a show called "Cake" that is about three girls who do crafts together. Today, we had this conversation:

Me: What do you like about "Cake"?

Charlie: Because she's a girl.

Me: Do you like girls?

Charlie: Yeah.

Me: What do you like about girls?

Charlie: Because they have a heart and they love people.

When people ask me about raising feminist sons, I always caution them to say, it's less about what you teach them, and more about the way you maintain the sweetness they come with and foster their natural desire to love and be loved.

Rite of Passage

 

We all went together, proud that there are now three voters in the family. Nate's not as wonky as his father and I, so he was in a hurry to get back to hanging out with his friends, while we can't wait to start watching results coverage. To paraphrase one of my facebook friends: "it's like Christmas for policy wonks."

 

Voting with Nate today made me think about the first time I voted. Twenty years ago to be exact - Clinton vs. Bush 41. I have vivid associations with all the presidential elections I've voted in. Riding the bus to the polling place from my first adult job in '96; procrastinating on a Church History paper in graduate school while watching the '00 election results incredulously with friends; being an election judge in '04; staying home with baby Charlie in '08 while Josh and Nate went to a Bob Dylan concert. This year, I'll remember being proud that for Nate, like me and his dad, it wasn't even a question as to whether he would go vote.

Negative

I'm Charlotte Flowers, and I approve of this blog post...

In the spirit of election season, Josh and I have taken to talking about each other and the kids in the tone of negative political ads.

"Big Spending Nate McCabe believes in entitlements for adult children that would bankrupt our family..."

"Ellis Huebner only resides in our district half the time, but he's always shown up for votes that would raise his own allowance..."

"Charlie McCabe promised to clean up his toys. Four years later, the volume of toys on our living room floor has only increased..."

"Isaac McCabe lacks the necessary experience to lead our family through these trying times."

"When the baby cries at 3:00 AM can we really trust that Josh McCabe will be ready to spring into action?"

"Call Charlotte Flowers and ask her 'Would it kill you to clean up the kitchen while you are cooking?"

Any friends out there with video skills that could help us make the full versions of these ads?

Half Way Through the Beginning

This boy is six months old today. He needs to slow down because mom thinks this is just going by too fast. Last week, he started eating solid food indicating his readiness by grabbing rice off my plate and stuffing it in his mouth. Charlie and I are having fun throwing all kinds of good fruits and veggies in the food processor to feed him. He's always had a voluptuous figure, so we all joke about how now he can finally start putting on weight.

 

If you put him down on the floor, he manages to scoot himself all over the place. We're not sure how he does it because he's not crawling. Perhaps he is part snake. He also likes to squawk in delight at things.

 

Going through the archives, I found pictures of me, Ellis, Charlie, and Isaac all around the six month mark. The boys and I love to look at the collage I created to note the similarities and the differences. Genetics are pretty cool.

 

Ladies and gentlemen is there any more perfect human specimen than a six-month old baby?

 

 

Remembering

It was the day after my twenty-ninth birthday and I was pregnant with my first son. I was working at a hospital foundation and Josh worked there too, although we were just friends and coworkers then. Mary, our other left-leaning colleague got a call from her husband and she came to find me and Josh to say that Paul Wellstone's plane had gone down near Eveleth, MN. We turned on public radio and stared at each other with a numb disbelief as we listened to the coverage that Senator Wellstone, his wife Sheila, his daughter Marcia, and campaign workers Mary McEvoy, Tom Lapic and Will McLauglin were dead.

Ten years later, when I think about Paul and what could have been, I still get tears in my eyes. Paul Wellstone was one of the reasons I moved to Minnesota when I was a young woman. I wanted people who were smart enough to elect such a fearless, unapologetic voice for justice to be my neighbors. Josh remembers him from his days working on campaigns as a person who took the time to know people's names no matter what level they were at. Senator Wellstone cared about people and he never wavered from his belief that "we all do better when we all do better."

I think I'm just going to keep crying about this loss until there are more people in politics trying to fill his shoes.