Dear Warner Brother

Dear Warner Brother,

Welcome to our family, my darling boy.  I am so happy you are finally here.  After just over 40 weeks of pregnancy, just over an hour of labour, and just under two years beforehand wondering if we'd ever be ready, you have completed our family - a family that was previously miraculous, but not quite done. 

Now we're done.

You've joined our family with unexpected seamlessness and fulfilled a gap that we knew was there but didn't know if we had the strength to fill.

Before you arrived, I couldn't quite imagine what you would be like.  To begin with, we could not for the life of us find a name that suited you.  We had 35 names that may have been acceptable but none that were exactly right.

Although this time I was able to picture what having a child would be like, I wasn't exactly able to picture you.  In my mind you were maybe a girl (even after we knew you weren't) and you didn't have a face, let alone a personality.  You were a mirage, sitting on the floor in my mind's eye, playing with blocks - but you weren't yet a real person.  I think I knew you would be completely different from Fraggle, but I didn't know in which ways.  Honestly, my darling, you felt a little like a stranger coming to live with us.

Until the day you were born.

On the day you were born, I truly loved you.  I began to feel that well of emotion that is "supposed" to come with a new baby (which I don't think the panic of newborndom permitted the first time).  You had a face, you had a voice, you had a tiny little hand that waved at me.  You were ours, and I was so... grateful to have you.

Within one day, we got to know you.  You had a name and a definitive personality. You became real.

Like your dad, you furrow your brow.  And like your mama, you cry when something isn't right - but I can usually tell what the un-right thing is.  You don't scream, not anymore (although you do have a strong dislike for cold diaper wipes).  You can always be calmed when we hum near the top of your head. You don't crunch up your hands or grasp our fingers with that normal newborn grip, you prefer to stretch and wave. You already love your big sister - you never cringe at her toddler screams and you always let her hug and kiss you. You have a very strong head and neck that leads us to believe you'll actually like tummy time and that you'll crawl before you walk. You don't like to be bounced, you'd rather lay still, dangling weightless in our arms. You want to be nestled, you want to be hugged. If you could choose, you'd breastfeed all the time.  You would stay cuddled there for hours if I let you, and you're growing like a prized pumpkin because of it. You make contented wimper sounds when you're feeding that make me believe I can keep you warm and safe in my arms forever.

I can't wait to nestle you for the rest of my life; to protect you from anything that makes you unhappy; to support you, wrap you up, calm you, and keep you tucked in my arms for as long as you'll let me.  I love you my baby boy. Welcome home.

Goddamit, New Year. Gimme a break.

Happy New Year!  And sincere apologies if you, too, are in the process of readjusting to the throes of Real Life.  

Having 10 days of vacation during the Christmas holidays is a blessing and a curse.  What we actually need is 10 days off beforehand to prepare all the things (Sorry Gram, I haven’t mailed your gift yet but I still love you.), and then 10 days off afterward to recover.  

If you’re like me, you run yourself ragged before and during Christmas (Sure, let’s make lunch for 15 people on Boxing Day.), and then spend the remaining holiday sitting in your pajamas eating Lindt chocolates and watching Downton Abbey.  

Until.  

Until the return to Real Life, where all of a sudden it snows two feet, and shifts from a balmy, non-winter 16 degrees on Christmas Eve, to a painful, colder-than-a-witch’s-titty minus 30 degrees the Monday I return to work.  

This is all miserable for most people, I’d venture.  For me, add a toddler who needs to wear nine layers of wool and can’t zip up her own snowsuit because her giant mittens turn her arms into little, useless, puffy snowman sticks floating off the side of her body.  Plus:  A tiny human growing increasingly cumbersome in my abdomen, making it near impossible to bend, sit, stand, breathe, or otherwise function.  

It’s all a bit much.  

Then today happened.  Still minus 30 degrees, still a floating arm toddler, still a breathless mess, and – wait for it – stuck in a snowbank.  

Driving away from daycare, I misjudged (read: didn’t look at) the width of the poorly-ploughed residential street and drove into a pile of snow/ice boulders and couldn’t move an inch.  I don’t know if you’ve ever floored your car in reverse, but if you’re stuck, nothing happens except a big cloud of exhaust.  

The whole situation left me hunched over the front wheel, seven months pregnant, sad and tiny yellow shovel in hand, ridiculous pashmina scarf in my face, hacking away at the bottom of my already demolished bumper.  At minus 30.  With the gas light on - because of course it was.  

Fifteen minutes and several cursey rants later, I managed to rock my car free and make it to a gas station in time to pump 17 dollars’ worth of over-priced gas at a freezing, windy gas station.   

I’ll take my year on maternity leave with no sleep and a screaming baby now, thanks.