How did this happen? Niko is two!

We have somehow managed to keep Niko alive for two years which, given our track record with house plants and hermit crabs, is amazing. Of course, babies/toddlers are a bit more vocal about needing food/water/sleep so a great deal of the credit goes to Niko himself.

Two years ago today I was doped up in a hospital bed sweating like crazy wondering (in a drug induced haze) why there was a hooting monkey in the room with me. Eventually I woke up and realized that the “hooting monkey” was an itty bitty baby, one that I could hold cradled in one arm while typing relatively normally.

Now that itty bitty baby is a 30 pound 2 year old who runs through the apartment while hollering RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN and GOOOOOOOOOOOOO GO GO GO GO GO GOOOOOOOOOOOOO. We got him a wooden train set for his birthday, and he’s been having an incredible time moving the trains around on it, disassembling it, putting all the pieces away, dumping the pieces back onto the floor, and then connecting the tracks and repeating the cycle.

Niko plays with his newest wooden train on the dining room table, after breakfast.

He has somehow managed not to learn any cusses (how? HOW?) and calls all letters EEEEEEEEEEEE or OHHHHH! He has a vibrant, cheerful personality and is always on the move. He has recently discovered toddlerface, so photos may never be the same.

Niko pulls a toddler face for the camera.

He has a sense of humor, most recently evidenced by pretending to eat food by shoving it into his nose, ear, eye, or hair (I know I’m not supposed to encourage that, but it’s effing HILARIOUS, especially when he cracks himself up); he likes word play; he loves books (and falls asleep cuddled up with them sometimes); he loves music and applauds when people sing to him.

Niko was surprised and delighted by the camera's flash last night.

He dances, a lot. He dances to the radio, he dances to people singing, he dances to his own singing. He makes up songs and sings them to himself while playing. He requests certain CDs. He throws his own dance party when Bach is played. He likes dancing with others, too, and likes being tossed around and tickled and turned upside down. He loves riding the train, and conquering the very tall slides at the park.

Niko on a slide taller than I am, watching trains come into the station a block away.

He was such a cautious toddler a year ago. I’m pretty certain he could have walked a month earlier than he actually did, but he was worried about tumbling down. That fear is gone now, and he throws himself at everything, running and jumping and climbing. He’s not entirely fearless, but he’s much more daring than I often feel comfortable with. He’s so bold. He’s so amazing.

Related Posts

• How did this happen? Niko is two!
• BEHOLD: the POWER of M&Ms!
• Wordless Wednesday: Prime Dining
• Greatest aid in parenting?
• 24 Month Checkup

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Parenting Carnival of Love 3 of 7: Amalah

Amy “Amalah” Corbett Storch isn’t quite the household name that Heather “Dooce” Armstrong is, nor is she able to light her gold plated cigars with thousand dollar bills like Ms Armstrong does (every parent blogger’s dream, right?). But she’s been blogging a really dang long time, and is all over the place not just on her personal blog but also on Mamapop, The Advice Smack Down, Zero to Forty, and Moxiebird. This person has something to say, and she says it well, with humor and style and empathy.

Amalah has dealt with disordered eating, depression and anxiety (kind of ongoing, actually), infertility, the birth of a kid who as it turns out is non-neuro-typical, the birth of a second kid, and currently a third pregnancy. Three kids! How do people do that? I’ve been reading her blog since just before she had her oldest (brought in, like a lot of people, by The Company Cookbook) and her blog is one of the ones I skip ahead to on my reading list.

Amalah is very helpful if you are dealing with a stressful parenting issue, especially if you’re trying to sort out the situation surrounding a child with special needs– getting tested and diagnosed, dealing with insurance companies, getting an IEP and acceptable care, that sort of thing. Her stories of her difficulty getting her kid what he needs are shocking. Amy and her husband are college educated, she communicates for a living, they are white and relatively affluent (to the point where they could drop tens of thousands of dollars unexpectedly on tuition for him), and their kid still isn’t always getting the help and intervention he needs. What do parents without their resources do? It’s awful, an awful situation and should be a wake up call to politicians who keep slashing funding for kids (and adults) with special needs. That digression aside, Amy is also helpful with non-special needs issues. Like, what if your baby won’t stop crying and you’re about to lose it?

I had serious anger issues when I was younger, like, unmitigated rage issues. Dangerous times. And that lingered, and left me worried about being able to care for a kid. Then, long before I was a parent or even pregnant, Amy wrote about a time when she came very close to losing it when her infant wouldn’t stop crying and she was at the end of her rope and tired and worn out physically and emotionally and afraid she was going to pick up her baby and shake him and just… you know. She was about to go there, that place parents live in dread of going.

She put her kid in the crib, closed the door, walked away, and called her husband.

Granted, she HAD someone to call, a situation not all parents are in. But she wrote with such honesty about such a raw and painful experience, such a dark time, and I read that and thought “Oh yeah, it’s possible to almost go there and still handle yourself and come through on the other side.” And when I did get pregnant, I remembered that, and it’s helped. It was very close to life changing for me, the recognition that other people sometimes lose it; this terrible honesty helped me feel less alone as a person and it feels like I have a bit of armor now as a parent. Kids aren’t easy. They’ll push you to the end of your limits sometimes. But it’s possible to survive that.

Amalah’s been through some tough shit (as most… all?… parents have), and she’s come through, and her kids are awesome. You can taste the pain in her writing sometimes, but you can also taste the joy. And I love that about her, her writing. It’s fantastic. Even when there’s darkness, there’s still, ultimately, hope.

Suzanne left a brief comment on twitter the other day about how the parenting blogosphere isn’t always as supportive as the crafting internetazone is, which I could totally see, for a number of reasons. In the interest of Being The Change I Want To See, I thought I’d dedicate this week to pointing people toward other parenting blogs and resources, and encouraging people to comment and form a greater sense of community. Consider this week a chance to recommend parenting bloggers and sites you find helpful, and an excuse to come out of lurkdom and leave comments (which are like the life blood of bloggers) at sites you don’t normally comment on, or don’t comment OFTEN on. If you do write up a recommendation of another blog or site, hop on over here and leave a link to your blog’s entry down below.

Let’s spread the LOVE people! We’re all in this TOGETHER.

Related Posts

• Parenting Carnival of Love 3 of 7: Amalah
• Parenting Carnival of Love 2 of 7: Tiffany Ard
• Parenting Carnival of Love 1 of 7: Bebehblog

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