Four Tiny Cups

Her chin is quivering before she even walks in the door.

"Hi there, lovey. What's going on?"

"My toe hurts." Her words are barely perceptible, save for me watching her lips move.

"Your toe hurts? That's no good. Let's do your ibuprofen and see if that helps."

She's nine, but the size of a seven-year-old, and she ripped her toe open on the beach the other day. I will grant her that it probably hurts, but the quivering chin and brimming eyes seem to be about more than a banged-up toe. She takes her medicine like a champ, but the minute I brush her hair away from her face, the tears overflow.

We sit, my arms around her as she sobs on my lap. She nods emphatically when I say things like, "It's hard to be away from home, isn't it?" and "Camp is fun, but the first few days are really tough to get used to."

Eventually, she sips some ice water and we listen to three Bruno Mars songs on my phone until she's humming along the tiniest bit. We agree to write a letter to her parents this afternoon, and we talk about how much fun swimming will be tomorrow when we take the bandage off her toe. I piggyback her to her cabin and tell her I'll see her in three hours for some Tylenol.

This time, she's limp-running in through the door.

"I need four tiny cups! Please!"

"Well, sure you do. What are you guys doing in arts and crafts?"

"We're making a moose out of leaves and twigs and the cups will be his feet okay thanks for the cups bye!"

And she's off. And the Tylenol is long forgotten, and I can't wait to see this moose-creation with cups for hooves and twigs for antlers and leaves for fur.

Sometimes I miss midwifery, but all day every day, I love this job. Even in the moments when I hate it, I still love it (I know that makes no sense.). Being a camp nurse is like nothing I could have ever imagined, but so much better than I could have ever predicted.

Four(teen)

June has stopped asking me if it's okay with me if she gets any bigger.  Come to think of it, I don't think she's ever asked me.  Girlfriend turned four this weekend.

No more lisp.  No more shy smiles.  I walk in to the party, and my once-upon-a-baby stands up on her chair, face lighting up like the sun, and proclaims, "Caitlin's here!  And I love Caitlin.  And she loves me."

"What if cake was a vegetable?" she asked me.  "And vegetables were cake?  Then we could say no to vegetables, because you can always say no thank you to dessert."  Pause to shovel spoonful of cake into mouth.  A contented sigh.  "But I would never say no to cake."

I love them.  Pure and simple.  I'll still be squeezing them onto my lap when they're twenty-five and twenty-one.

Happy birthday, Junebug.

Three Going on Seventeen

Getting an invitation to a birthday party is always exciting.  Getting an invitation to a toddler's third birthday party - from the soon-to-be three-year-old herself - is even better.  Apparently, the soundtrack of the last few weeks in my former nannygirls' house was a constant repeat of this conversation:

June: Mommy, how many days until we see Caitlin?
June's mother: Well, one less day than yesterday, so __ more days!


When I walked into the ice cream parlor where June's third birthday party was being held, this is the face I was greeted with:

Talk about a self-esteem boost!  Nothing beats rocking a little one's world, purely by showing up.

Only after a truly astounding amount of ice cream was eaten did the party begin to wind down.  I wasn't quite ready to leave the girls, so I headed back to their house for an idyllic afternoon in the September sunshine.  Big sister Sage used to be so scared of the monkey bars that I had to hold onto her waist the entire time.  Not any more, that's for sure.

Girlfriend is almost eight, which, as we all know, might as well be twenty-five.  Good thing she'll never be too old for me to tickle these puppies.

Not to be outdone, Junebug wasted no time pulling out her best trick.

Did I mention she's three?

A lot changed in the transition from two to three for this one...

Sage: Mommy says that Juney is on the South Beach diet.
Me: Huh??
Sage: Because she doesn't like bread!
Me: Juney, you don't like bread?
June: Yes I do!  When I was two, I didn't like bread.  (Pause.)  But now I'm three.

 

She may have just turned three, but I know only too well that the next time I turn around, she'll be graduating high school.

So blessed to know them.  So happy to love them.  I don't care how many birthdays go by, they will always be my baby girls.

Late Night Dreams

It's no secret that my anxieties keep me awake at night, often for hours at a time.  Every night for the past few weeks, it's taken longer and longer for me to drift off, as I panic about needing to wake up so early (what if my alarm doesn't go off?), needing to interact with my bosses (especially now that I'm finishing my last two weeks), needing to say good-bye to my sweet, darling boy, and wondering, as all twenty-somethings seem to do: what am I doing with my life?!

No, these are not productive or healthy ways to spend one's minutes and hours before sleep, but they're what occupy my mind unless I make a huge effort to replace these thoughts with others.  Last night, as Alix and I laid in bed and I started working myself into another round of useless panic, I stopped myself and quietly asked her, "Can we think about something happy so I can fall asleep?"

"Of course," she said, pausing to think for a minute.  "Let's think about the day when your belly will be so big, it'll be impossible for me to hug you because our unborn child is taking up three quarters of our (not very big) bed."  A slow grin spread across my face and stayed there as we whispered to each other for at least another hour about what it will be like to embark on such a remarkable, terrifying journey.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, there's something very sobering about the fact that pregnancy and parenting will never just "happen" for us.  No matter when it happens, it will be a very deliberate, very expensive, and very labor-intensive (no pun intended) task.  But last night, as we talked of the cradle my father will build for us, the blonde curls that will grace our first child's head, and the knowledge that this person exists because we (plus some generous anonymous sperm donor) created, all I could think about was how happy the idea made me.  No matter what I'm currently doing with my life or what I wind up doing with my life, or what catastrophes come our way, knowing that I've found the person that I want to create and nurture new lives with is a blessing I can't even fully comprehend.  How on earth did I get so lucky?

And then, yes, I fell asleep.

A Hairy Situation

Scene: My buddy and I are walking home from Starbucks (ahhh the caffeine addiction!) on this gorgeous, spring-like day.  He is content in his trusty sling and I am content hefting him around, sipping away at my coffee.  We pass by a mother and her five-year-old daughter.  We smile conspiratorially at each other, silently acknowledging the cuteness of each other's children.

Mom (to daughter): Isn't that a cute little baby, sweetie?
Little girl: Uh huh!
Mom: You know, I used to carry you around like that when you were little too.  You loved being all snuggled up against me.
Little girl: Yes...(pause for dramatic effect)...but I had much more hair.

I burst out laughing.  I couldn't help it!  What a precocious kid.  As if she could remember how much hair she had as a one-year-old, but by golly, she knew it was more than THAT.  My poor monkey.  He has hair!  It's just very wispy and short, as all blondies are.  Not once has anyone thought I was his nanny as opposed to his mother because we look so much alike, right down to our wispy blonde hair.  In fact, one time, some woman stopped me to ask if I would like to hire her as a nanny for my baby.  Not only was this a supremely weird question ("Why yes, I am looking for a nanny!  The street is a perfect place to meet one.  Start this Monday, 6 AM."), but it made me wildly uncomfortable and forced me to respond, "Um, well, actually I am his nanny."  Yeah.  Definitely awkward.  Or the time when the subway was delayed between stops and Alix and I got to talking to this very nice man who could tell we were a couple and who then assumed that the baby I was holding was ours.
"So, how did you guys go about getting pregnant?" he boldly asked.  "My sister is trying to figure it out with her partner right now, so...?"
"Uhhh....well...." <-- aren't we eloquent????
Then the train started moving and the conversation did too and we were saved from having to explain why we had a baby that wasn't ours.  Thank heavens.

Long rambling post short: my buddy will grow hair when he pleases, thankyouverymuch.  Until then, he's still cuter than a baby hedgehog (and they're pretty darn cute).