It’s finally time for solid food! Noah’s first lunch of rice cereal and smushy bananas. He seemed to like it… eventually.

Noah’s First Food Adventure from Chantelle Finley on Vimeo.

Parenting is full of revelations, so I expect there will be more confessions to come in later posts.

1. My Mom was right. About ALL of it. Damn.
2. Being vomited on is no longer enough of a reason to change my shirt.
3. I’ve dirtied a dish just to put it in the dishwasher so I wouldn’t feel guilty about running a completely empty dishwasher just to lull Noah to sleep.
4. I tried baby formula to see what it tastes like. It tastes like barf.
5. Going pee now counts as my “me time.”
6. I once ran the vacuum for twenty minutes to soothe Noah before I realized I could have actually vacuumed the floor during that time. By then he was asleep, so I didn’t bother.
7. I count doing laundry as exercise. Well, it should be; there’s so damn much of it now.
8. Sometimes I forget to turn off the transmitter end of the monitor in our room once Noah  starts crying during the night and I don’t feel as bad about it as I should.  I know that it would wake up Adam while I tried to calm Noah down, but if I’m up, he can be too.
9. The cat once licked his head for twenty minutes and I counted that as his bath for the day.
10. If I have to use the bathroom while I am out with Noah in a carrier and have no where to put him, I have to pee while he is still in his carrier strapped to my chest. Instead of feeling weird about this, I feel kinda proud that I can manage it.
11. When talking to Noah all day I use the word “Mommy” a lot in the hope that I’ll win the “What Word Will He Say First” contest.
12. Mini Wheats is classified as complex dinner preparation these days because you have to add the milk.

I remember every detail of the first time I saw Buddy. There was a tuft of his fuzzy brown head poking out the top of the red plaid gift bag that our close family friend, Robert D, held out to me with one hand.  “You can call him what you want, but his name’s Buddy,” He said, in his characteristic style, at once both caring, and uncomfortable with all the required mushiness that comes with caring for two little girls as much as if they were your own. I looked at the bag Robert D had given me and then back at him before opening it to pull out the furry brown body. I gave Buddy a test hug and it was love at frst squeeze.

It’s been 24 years since that day and Buddy has spent every day of those 24 years on my bed, propped between the two pillows by day, and tucked under my arm at night. I’ve rested my head on him when I needed a prop, smooshed my face into him to stifle my tears and fallen asleep smelling his weird, warm laundry and lipgloss scent. Any embarrassment I may have had at still having a Teddy Bear has faded with my adolescence and though I know I don’t need a bear to sleep with, I still tuck him under my arm even now. He’s warm and full of memories that float out every time I squeeze him, and his little worn body is molded perfectly to the contour of my arm. To me he represents everything about being  kid that I want to remember and perhaps that is why I love having him around, even now. To remind me of the things I never want to outgrow.

Someone asked me recently if Buddy would now be Noah’s and even though I want to give him everything I can, I said no. Buddy is full of my memories, not his, and a ratty old bear wouldn’t mean the same thing to him. Besides, I wasn’t done with Buddy yet.

But Buddy had a twin named Teddy, who was under the care of my little sister all these years. Although she played with and talked to Teddy all the time, she never slept with stuffed animals and so Teddy has weathered the intervening years in better shape physically than poor Buddy. This past Christmas was the first time in over ten years that the two bears were re-united. You see, my sister, knowing what Buddy meant to me, wanted Noah to start from scratch and have the chance to have a bear that would be to him what Buddy was to me. Tia nobly handed over the care of Buddy’s long lost brother Teddy into my son’s tiny hands. If anyone is trying to find a Christmas gift that will make your sister cry, this is it.

Putting Buddy and Teddy side by side shows the toll that 24 years tucked under an arm can make on a poor bear. I hope this year marks the start of Teddy’s new journey and that in another 24 years the stories he will be able to tell will be just as good as Buddy’s are.

What? I still have 20 minutes before Wednesday is over, so I’m not late.

Oh crap. I just ruined the “wordless” part, didn’t I? Ah well, I never was good at being wordless.

“Try Me” on what?

With no side of ham in the near vicinity, perhaps we are supposed to try it on ourselves?

I miss camp. I wrote this story in 2001, the last year I worked full-time for the Boys and Girls Club. I’m not a very sophisticated writer, but it tells the story I was going for.

I had died. Well, I wasn’t exactly sure of that, but I was unable to open my eyes and my body was no longer obeying my commands to move. This, I figured, was a sure sign that I was no longer among the living. I couldn’t recall why I had died though. I remembered being at camp leading a group of children in a game with my co-counselor Mike, and then – nothing. I was a bit perplexed at this point about what I was to do next as I had never died before and I was a little unsure how to proceed. There was certainly not a sign saying “heaven this way.” Was I supposed to wait here for someone? Was I supposed to find my way on my own? Or was this it, this black void was all there was after life?

It was while I was contemplating my options that I became aware of a small sound, barely noticeable even though the silence in this strange place was overwhelming. It was odd to hear, the only sensory stimulation present in the void. But it was getting louder, that much was certain. After a few seconds it was resolved enough for me to determine that the sound was that of a child crying. Now, any parent, teacher or camp counselor will tell you that there are not many things that will bring you back to earth faster than the sound of a crying child, so I focused and decided that the sound was coming from somewhere near my left ear. I tried to tilt my head to discern the source and to my surprise my muscles complied. Next, I tried opening my eyes and after a few false tries and some feverent blinking I could see the fuzzy, blurry face of Mike looming over me with a look of concern. “Ah!” he said, he face relaxing with obvious relief, “You’re back! See I told you she would be fine, Dylan,” but it was obvious from the look I had caught on his face as I was opening my eyes that he had been more worried about my condition than he let on to the ten year old crouching beside me.

“I-I-I-I-I’mm sooooo ssssorry!” sobbed Dylan, curling himself into a ball at my side. “I didn’t mean to!” I could see he was upset and despite his claim that he was the one responsible for my untimely demise, I hugged him and we calmed him down, ensuring him he wasn’t in trouble and it was all okay. However, as Dylan could barely talk from crying, I couldn’t get him explain just what HAD happened, how I came to be decked out on the ground, and why he was so upset about it.

“What happened?” I asked Mike quietly once we had Dylan feeling better. I could feel a large bump forming on the top of my head that had started throbbing and as Mike started to answer it all came back; the game, the bump, the mini wooden bat thrown hastily at Dylan’s feet, and the reason for my almost-death. As I struggled in a futile attempt to stand up Mike’s face split into a huge smile and he turned to look at Dylan. With a note of discernible pride in his voice Mike answered, “Dylan just hit his first home run.”

We received a lot of gifts when Noah was born. Beautiful blankets, adorable sleepers, lots of books. We treasured each one.

Brian and June (and Zoey) DeWagner gave us a gift that I will never forget. Brian, a gifted writer, wrote a post about Noah. He took the things I like about myself, the things I treasure about Adam and distilled them into a picture of Noah when he grows up.

If he turns out half this cool, I will be one happy Mom. Thanks, guys.

I love searching babies faces for traces of their parents and my baby is no exception. It’s obvious to anyone that he looks a lot like his father, but he does have my grandfather’s smile, something that I don’t think I have myself, though my mother does. And I have proof.

Here’s Noah, freshly hatched (and looking quite pleased with himself) beside a picture of my Mom’s brother Harvey, who also has Dedo’s smile:

And here’s the little hero beside an old pic of my Mom:

See? The same smiles! Like they know something you don’t. And, of course, here is Adam and Noah, both taken at two months old:

He has so much of Adam in his face that it is nice to see some glimpses of my influence.

There isn’t really anything left unsaid; our relationship was uncomplicated. Every year I made you your own container of Skunkie Joes and you rescued a few of Aunty Linda’s deviled eggs from my Dad’s greedy grasp in return. You heckled every boyfriend I ever had and I heckled every joke you ever made. You were protective, but I know that for all my complaining, I would never have ended up with someone who didn’t pass your tests.

I don’t know anything about where you are right now and I don’t know what I believe in about all that anyway. I don’t even know where you were before you died, but I know it was someplace dark and lonely and I wish we could have pulled you back. Or just sat with you. It might still have been dark, but at least then you would not have been alone.

This for you, JP. Remember to go light on the cocoa and heavy on the vanilla and you’ll be fine.

Christmas Skunkie Joes

• 4 cups sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 3 level tbsp cocoa
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 6 cups rolled oats
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups coconut

1. Bring sugar, butter, cocoa, milk & vanilla to a boil and boil for 1 minute.
2. Remove from heat and stir in oats, coconut and salt.
3. Drop by spoonfuls on wax paper. If the mix is too watery, let it stand in the pot until it cools a bit and is firm enough to stick together when dropped on wax paper. Let stand at room temp until firm.
4. Store in an airtight container or freeze to preserve longer.

Noah’s previous shots – mouse over for his age in each picture