So, today was Darwin’s last day at the daycare where he’s been since he was 15 months old. Almost three whole years at the same place, and now he’s moving on. On January 18th he’s goin gto be starting at the public Montessori school in Cambridge. I just can’t believe what an amazingly big guy he is now.

So today we had to say goodbye to everybody at the school. I couldn’t figure out how to say thank you in the right way. Because really, how do you say thank you? How do you say thank you for helping me raise my child? For being the ones who entirely dealt with potty-training? Who taught him his alphabet? How do I say thank you for providing me with a place where I felt comfortable leaving the most precious and beautiful and wonderful thing in my life, for not only keeping him safe but for giving me the peace of mind that I needed to *trust* that you were keeping him safe?

I guess all I can do is to say thank you, First Steps. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for the love and the trustworthiness and the joy that you’ve brought into our life. You have meant the entire world to us. Thank you.

I literally don’t know what to do about how much I love this kid.

Yeah.  I totally want one.

Today, of all days, I wish my memory was better, because I wish I could remember every second of this day two years ago.  I never wrote out my birth story for you, so here, two years later, I will do my best.

I woke up at 1am with pains that I couldn’t understand.  In all my readings and discussions, nobody had ever explained to me how much labor would feel like menstrual cramps!  I thought I had gas, so I decided not to wake Dada up.  We had an appointment at noon that day anyway, so I could ask them then what was going on.  At about 2am I took a Tylenol PM (something I would never do normally) and tried to get more sleep.  The next several hours are a big haze of watching a cool program about the Comanches on TV, attempting to sleep, trying to time the cramps to figure out if they were contractions, and being in pretty strong denial about the fact that I was in labor.  At 8am I called your Tika and said, “I don’t know what’s happening, but you might want to think about getting in your car and heading up here.”  Unfortunately she was at work, but she managed to remain calm and told me that she’d head out as soon as she could.  With the 3.5 hour drive from Boston to Vermont in front of her, she needed as much advanced notice as possible.

At 10:30 I gave up and went in to wake up your Dada.  I said the same thing to him that I had to Tika, that I didn’t know what was going on, but that something was definitely happening and that I needed him to wake up.  He grumbled and rolled around for a while, then got up and took a shower.  By the time he got out of the shower the contractions were strong enough that I needed to hold onto something in order to keep standing while they washed over me.  We packed up the car with the pre-packed “we’re having a baby” bag and headed to the hospital.

Our appointment was at noon on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the last appointment that they were offering that day.  When we arrived, Dada pushing me in a wheelchair, the waiting room of the OB/GYN/Midwives office was entirely empty.  The incredibly nice receptionist, who we were on a first-name basis with by that point, took one look at me and sent us up to labor and delivery.  She could tell that it wasn’t just gas … I was well on my way to having this baby.

And how true that was:  I was 5 centimeters dilated the first time they checked me!  After a short while of dealing with which room we were going to be in and Dada getting some food, they filled up the birthing tub and I settled in.

Nothing has ever felt that good or relaxing to me.  Dada stripped down to his skivvies and sat in the tub behind me, holding me up, supporting me, helping me to relax.  We turned off all the lights and put on a mix I had made for our wedding of soul/r&b/motown.  The next several hours passed by without my being capable of paying too much attention to them.  I was so exhausted that I was falling asleep between contractions.  And I was in labor, so I was having a very personal and intense experience.  For probably the first and last time in our relationship, your Dada did exactly what I told him to.  Whenever he made a stupid joke I’d tell him to shut up and he would.  It was marvelous.  Our midwife, Krista, would occasionally check my cervix’s progress or ask me to drink water, but mostly I was left alone.  The light faded from the sky without my noticing as the contractions got closer and more intense.  And then, at some point, Tika showed up and Krista told me it was time to push.

This is the part of the experience that Dada and Tika remember most fondly.  When your head crowned I was so exhausted that I couldn’t imagine continuing to push.  Krista said to me, “Margaret, every time you push the head comes out a little more and then goes right back in,” to which I responded, “I don’t want it to go back in.”  In retrospect this was obviously hilarious, but at the time it was pure exhaustion speaking.

And then they stood me up, Dada pushing from behind and Tika grabbing from my armpit, because your shoulders were stuck.  Krista asked for one last push and then you slid out into the world.  The relief, the endorphins, were so powerful that I honestly believe I could have run a marathon in that moment.  I was so high on hormones that Krista had to say, “Margaret, reach down and take your baby.”

And then there you were!  I was expecting you to be purple and covered in goo, but you weren’t … you were tiny and pink and slippery and absolutely perfect.  Tika and Dada held onto each other and cried, but I didn’t even have any tears.  I just wanted to look at you and touch your tiny fingernails and admire your perfect little nose … because that was the first moment when I actually realized that you were a human being.  And, at least for the moment, you were mine.

And now here we are, two years later.

I wanted all my life to be a mother, Darwin, because I knew it would be the best thing that I’d ever do.  But baby boy, I had no idea.  It’s been a struggle, don’t get me wrong.  We’ve been working on figuring out this parent/child relationship together and that’s a seriously intense thing.

But oh, the joys of watching you interact with and discover the world!  You cackle with glee when you learn new words or get to help with something.  You want to get into everything and do it all your way.  You have more energy than a herd of rhinos.  And you are whip-smart.  Boy are you ever.  You have a wider knowledge base and more astounding sense of humor than any 2 year-old should rightly have.  You’ve been putting together full sentences for over 6 months and have now moved your way on to entire paragraphs filled with possessives, conjunctions, emotions, multiple people, and even swear words.  You correct your own grammar and read to yourself from your books.  You run naked through the house screaming, “I’m going to pee in the potty!”

You are amazing.

Darwin, I never knew that being a mother was going to be like this.  I never knew that I could possibly love anything as much as I love you.  You are what I’ve spent my whole life preparing and waiting for.

Happy birthday, baby boy.  May the last 2 years be merely a prelude to the amazing life that you have in front of you.  I’ve loved you every single one of the last 731 days and I will love you every single one for the next billion.

We did some painting recently, above you see the end result of Darwin and below what we made … a beautiful set of painted wooden letters which will soon be turned into magnets!

One afternoon Darwin started walking around the house wearing my rainjacket on his head and holding onto the handle to his toy broom.  He was exclaiming, “It’s raining” but to all the adults in the room he looked just like a Jedi knight.

He spends a lot of time these days confused and pissed off that he isn’t automatically getting his way.  It’s an inevitable part of childhood.

Halloween costume:

I’m so, so, so sorry about how long it’s been since I put up any pictures.  Life is busy and exhausting and filled with lots of activities and I’ve been taking very few pictures.  It’s hard to deal with an almost 2-year old and a camera at the same time!

But here are a few from our semi-recent life …

We flew to Seattle to visit Grandma and Papa.

And while we were there we went to the zoo (which was the absolute highlight of the trip for everybody).

This is Mr. Chiyoki.  He spent about 5 minutes just staring at us while we stared back at him, until he sneered at something my mom said to him.  It was awesome.

Check out his super cool dinosaur boots!  Or, as they’re called in our household, Darwisaur boots (his pronunciation, not mine).

Darwin also got to ride the bus with Grandma and Papa on the way down to a ferry ride …

… where his favorite part was a racing game.  He’s got an entire giant boat to play with and all he wants is a driving game.  Nice.

He came to my work and did some painting.  His painting is a masterpiece of subtlety and negative space, as you can see below.

He looks so old!

And these, unfortunately, are a bit out of date.  The mohawk is gone.  But check it out … his first school pictures!

Some friends of ours saw this sign and obviously had to photograph it for us.  Cool, huh?

My beautiful boys.

This is now pretty much my favorite photo of all time.

Cracking himself up.

Fascinated by airplanes. He points at the sky and yells “jet!”

And we went strawberry picking! There were baby goats on the farm, which he was a little freaked out about.

But, on the up side, he did get to ride in his awesome new wagon!

And he ate more strawberries than seems humanly possible, covering himself and everyone around him in strawberry juice.

Oh, they grow up so fast!

(And this one is just because there are so few like it. Mama and Darwin.)

Darwin loves the playground … and I mean really LOVES it, what with all the climbing and swinging and sliding and stuff.

Darwin’s Tika and I have starting going for little hikes in the nearby Fells. It’s slow going with the little one (you know, having to stop and dig up dirt and pick up sticks every five feet) but we all really enjoy ourselves.

We’re trying to teach him that throwing things isn’t actually ok, but so far that lesson isn’t sticking at all.

He’s reading a lot these days. Somehow he’s turned into a complete boy and all he wants to read about is trucks and dinosaurs. Oh well, at least those are two super cool things to know about!

Darwin recently became gainfully employed. Well, no, but it sure looks good on him, huh?

Now that the weather is nicer we’re starting to hang out on our beautiful back porch more often …

… where the wind wreaks havoc on the poor boy’s hair.

Just recently he also had his first date, with Miss Athena. He proved himself to be quite the ladies man, by getting his foot caught in a balloon’s string and completely ignoring her while he tried to untangle himself. Ah well, he is definitely his father’s child.

And no worries, he does still love his beans.

But here’s all the news that’s fit to print …

We recently had Darwin’s 15-month checkup, and he has made his way into 50th percentile for height and 25th percentile for weight. This is a huge difference from his last checkup where he was in the 10th percentile for weight. Yay! He’s growing! About time!

His word list is coming along quite well. Here’s what he says on a regular basis:

- Dada
- fish
- ball
- bye-bye
- up
- down
- more
- book (which he pronounces as bopf)
- Mama
- this
- that
- shoe
- out
- veggie booty (no, I’m not kidding)
- cheese
- nummy
- and many more that just aren’t coming to mind right now

He’s in daycare two days a week now and is learning SOOOO much there. Having a daycare you really like and trust is incredibly important. The daycare, which really goes by the policy of trying to be more of a school, is awesome. They do yoga and dancing and a million art projects and they sing songs and go for walks and when Darwin falls down and hurts himself they pick him up and give him love until he feels better. Oh, it’s wonderful.

While we were all sick for weeks and weeks, Darwin lost some weight, which was actually pretty scary. But when he came out of that he all of a sudden came out with an appetite like you wouldn’t believe. He will eat anything he can get his hands on right now. Some of his favorite things are veggie booty (obviously, from his list of words above), tofu, hummus, broccoli rabe, blueberry waffles, applesauce, pizza, and beans of any kind. Watching him eat with such enthusiasm is an amazing thing for me … it’s wonderful knowing that your child is thriving.

I apologize wholeheartedly for the recent lack of pictures. I promise I’ll try to make more time for them. But for now, just take these few with our love.

No, people, that isn’t chocolate frosting. It’s black beans. No joke.

Oh, he loves to swing! Total speed demon (that’s my boy).

He just discovered his nipples!

In this picture he looks so much like J, and yet still totally himself. Beautiful, beautiful boy.