Number 2

When you become a parent, you talk a lot about Number 2. As in, "Did you go poo poo?" "I smell poo poo" and "Don't put your hands in the poo poo!"

This time, however, I'm not talking about poop. This time I'm talking about a child. Yes, for those of you who didn't see my big announcement on Facebook (where have you been?), we're going for No. 2. I'm about 13 weeks along, due on June 6th. And...it's a girl.

As my friend, Nancy, said when I told her, "Congratulations! You're officially insane." And as other people have said when I told them, "One of each! How perfect!"

It is both. Perfect and insane.

Insane because we can barely keep track of the one we already have and parenting is a relentless amount of work, something no one can really prepare you for unless you were the eldest of 12 who was forced to help raise your siblings since you were ten years old. Insane because as my Dad so kindly reminded me, "One plus one doesn't equal two" and recounted just how much money he had spent on my brother and me from when my parents split when I was 10, through college, according to his Quicken file called "Laurie and Eric."

Insane because Owen has been sleeping through the night for more than a year now, going down at about 7 p.m. and yelling for us at 6:30 a.m. He walks (runs, really), feeds himself (when he isn't throwing it on the floor) and points to what he wants (to be lifted up to push elevator buttons and flip light switches). After the first year, it has gotten easier in many ways (minus the tantrums), so why ruin a good thing?

Me and Eric

Perfect because both Dave and I have siblings and like having siblings. You have someone to commiserate with about your embarrassing, perplexing parents. You have someone to help you take care of them when they become old and feeble (or at least someone to push the responsibility on to). You have someone to play with, when you're not beating the crap out of each other. You have someone to blame things on and a constant reminder that the center of the universe is not you.

Perfect because Dave and I would like the life experience of raising a boy and a girl. As my friend, Julie, observed during a play date while Owen hurled wooden trains across the room and her 2-year-old daughter, Sylvie, sat quietly on her lap watching him, "Boys and girls really are different." And I think there is something to the mama's boy, daddy's girl phenomenon that in many ways, it's easier to bond with a child of the opposite gender. Now that I've got my mama's boy, it's only fair that Dave get his daddy's girl.

I realize that personalities also come into play and as far as siblings are concerned, just because you share a fair amount of DNA doesn't guarantee you'll be best friends forever. I don't think I liked Eric, three years my junior, until I was in college. Only then did I realize that he was actually a smart, funny, talented human being with underarm hair and a world perspective. He was more than a peon of a roommate who hogged the TV watching episodes of "He-Man" and "Scooby Doo" with his Legos strewn all over the family room floor. He was no longer the little brother I feared would embarrass me because he listened to Christian rock, didn't surf and couldn't find the down beat to save his life. I was sure he was destined to be a geek.

Now the joke's on me. He's the hip, LA architect who wears Liverpool soccer jerseys and newsboy caps (if you don't know what they are, you're just not cool enough), drives a silver Mini Cooper and has such a large, diverse music library that I had him make the play list for my wedding. I'm the more conventional, Jetta-driving writer living in the Midwest with my Nordstrom credit card and (now) Gap maternity clothes. He beat me to getting married and having kids by about 10 years as I appeared destined to a life filled with weekly coffee dates with suitors who overused emoticons and exclamation marks in their Match.com profiles. Who was the geek now?

So yeah, I'm a little nervous about playing referee to sibling rivalry while trying to meet the needs of two little people. Eric and I used to fight in the car so often that my Mom resorted to playing John Denver at top volume until we begged for mercy and promised to settle down. Who knew that "Rocky Mountain High" had such power? At home, Eric hit me in the shin with a wooden 2 X 4 because I changed the channel he was watching, stabbed me in the palm with a pencil for reasons I don't remember and slammed closed the books I was trying to read with my legs curled under me on the family room couch. In return, I split his lip, pinned him down and spit in his face and taunted him about his dyslexia: "At least I don't read backwards."

Lovely. No wonder my mom looked haggard and frustrated so much of the time. What does a woman have to do for a little peace and quiet?

Not have two children, for starters.

Who knows, maybe Owen and his little sister will be more playmates and confidantes than wrestling opponents and tattlers. Maybe like me and Eric, it will be a stage they eventually, thankfully grow out of only to appreciate each other's existence. Or maybe like Liz and Mary Cheney, one will publicly humiliate the other and Thanksgiving together will be off the table for the indefinite future.

In the end, you just roll the dice, hope for the best and get ready to face the somewhat messy, often heartwarming, in-the-end-it-was-worth-it procreation reality. Isn't that the definition of family?

Anne Lamott and ten silver dollars

Lately I've been on an Anne Lamott kick. It started a week or so ago after we moved into our new two-bedroom apartment and I was struck by the idea that I could grab a book, any book, and read it in bed. That's because Owen has his own bedroom now and I no longer have to tiptoe into our bedroom in the dark and tangle myself up in headphones while listening to a podcast before bed. Now, I can do the real thing. Every night.

So Anne Lamott. As I said, we've just moved so I reached into one of the many boxes stacked in the dining room and grabbed a book from the top. It happened to be "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year." I couldn't have asked for a better selection. Owen is 17 months old now, months beyond the one-year mark, but so much of what Anne wrote about in her first year as a new mom, both the good and the ugly, struck a cord. She writes with so much heart and humor that I would find myself laughing every couple of pages. Not just laughing, laughing, but laughing in recognition. Like this passage:

I wish he could take longer naps in the afternoon. He falls asleep and I feel I could die of love when I watch him, and I think to myself that he is what angels look like. Then I doze off, too, and it's like heaven, but sometimes only twenty minutes later he wakes up and begins to make gritchy rodent noises, scanning the room wildly. I look blearily over at him in the bassinet, and think, with great hostility, Oh, God, he's raising his loathsome reptilian head again.

Loathsome reptilian head? I laughed aloud at that one. I know that feeling so well as Owen would stir in his crib beside us in the middle of the night, sometimes multiple times, making scratching, whimpering noises as I braced myself, holding my breath, as I waited to see whether he would settle back down or escalate his cries into a wail that would require me getting my weary ass up out of bed.

I also loved how she would describe her son, Sam's attempts at talking as "babbling in Urdu" or "speaking Serbo-Croatian," which is exactly what it sounds like. Owen does that all of the time now. He points at something and looks at me so earnestly as he goes on and on in a flood of incomprehensible sentences. Lately, he's had a lot to say about ceiling fans. He points to them, looks me in the eye and launches into an impassioned diatribe.

I can only imagine what he's saying to me: "Look Mom, see the fan go round and round? That's fascinating to me because it's moving and it's so high. How does it do that? It makes me want to get on my tippy toes and touch it. Did you know that there are buttons on the wall that make it go faster and slower? I love those. Will you lift me up again to play with them? I know it's the 47th time today and it makes your arms ache because I weigh 27 pounds now but nothing brings me such joy. I don't know what it is about making something twirl faster, then slower, but it's just so thrilling. It really fills me with a sincere appreciation for life and all the amazing things that surround us."

After finishing "Operating Instructions," I felt inspired to re-read my copy of "Bird by Bird," Anne's famous book about the writing life. She tells this great anecdote about her brother at age 10 sitting at their kitchen table surrounded with piles and piles of books about birds that he's supposed to have read for a big report he had due for school the next day, looking completely overwhelmed, like he is about to cry. Anne's father, also a writer, sits down next to him, puts his arm around his shoulder, and says: "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

I always appreciate her chapter, "Shitty First Drafts," as it reminds me how important it is to write without censoring myself or listening to the voices in my head that make comments as I type like, "This is so boring," and "Who cares?" and "This is taking forever." You just get on with it, she says, knowing you'll go back and edit and revise until it says what you really mean to communicate to a general audience. But first you have to get it down, without second guessing, because that is where inspiration and creativity come from: messiness.

In her chapter, "Getting Starting," she gives some advice about what to write about. One of the things she suggests is a Christmas gift you remember or a special birthday party when you were a child, which got me thinking about my tenth birthday party. I don't know why we have years and years of birthday parties and years and years of receiving gifts and some we remember and some pass by like they never happened, but I remember turning 10.

My birthday is in June, just after school gets out and I typically had a pool or beach party. But that year I wanted a soccer party. I had been big into soccer ever since my mom signed me up for AYSO when I was seven. I still remember the name of my first team: The Grasshoppers. Our jerseys were green with white numbers and I was in heaven running up and down the field in shin guards and green socks pulled up to my knees, my hair in French braids to keep it off my face.

I loved sucking on oranges at half time and gulping down lemon-lime Gatorade, something Eric and I were never allowed to drink in our sugar-free home. I loved that my coaches called me, "Cunningham" and yelled instructions to me from the sidelines as I ran side to side, back and forth with so much energy, focus and enthusiasm that I wish I still had one-tenth of today. I remember one coach, Coach Norton, was known as a screamer. "Get over there, Johnson, what are you, waiting for a bus?" "Keep your eye on the ball, Hartling, not the boys on the sideline!"

Coach Norton sometimes reduced my teammates to tears with his rants and parents complained he was too hard on us. But I liked Coach Norton. There was something about him I respected, and I ran harder and kicked farther for him as he yelled to critique, motivate and validate us (he was an equal-opportunity screamer.) "Great pass, Cunningham!" he'd bellow through cupped hands.

So at my tenth birthday party, we picked teams and scrimmaged at the soccer field two blocks from my house, then went back to have cake and ice cream in my backyard. I was popular at the time, the second most popular girl in the fourth grade because I was best friends with Jody Budge, the most popular girl in the fourth grade (fifth grade was a completely different story after Jody dumped me one day for unexplained reasons.)

Jody lived in Emerald Bay, an exclusive, gated community in Laguna Beach, Calif., with a private beach. My mom used to drop me off at Jody's house and we would body surf for hours, waiting for just the right wave, then turning towards shore and swimming as fast as we could until the force of the wave overtook us, pulling us up and then under in a swirl of white foam. We'd emerge sputtering with wild, salty hair and readjust the straps on our one-pieces, which always seems to collect wads of sand in the crotch. We called this whole endeavor, "getting munched."

Then we'd lie in the sand on our bellies to get warm, the wet sand coating the outline of our swimsuits. We'd eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which always tasted sweet and delicious and just a little gritty. At bedtime, lying in the dark in the pop-up twin of Jody's trundle bed, I distinctly remember feeling waves wash over me, like I was still in the ocean, the residual effect of our hours and hours of bobbing around like porpoises.

At my tenth birthday party, I was still queen bee and my classmates treated me accordingly. I don't remember much about the party besides playing soccer and sitting in my backyard except for a very special gift that my grandma gave me. As I sat opening gifts on the lawn surrounded by my friends, someone handed me a small square box that was flat, like the kind you'd open to find a bracelet or earrings. But this square box was heavy and made lots of noise when I shook it. I opened the box, removing the cotton padding to reveal ten silver dollars, so shiny I swear I could see my reflection.

I was rich, I just knew it.

Later when I asked my mom how much they were worth, I was crestfallen when she told me, "Ten dollars." I couldn't believe something so beautiful and heavy could be worth the same as a green, wrinkly old 10-dollar bill with Alexander Hamilton's mug on it.

I kept that box of silver dollars in my closet for months, not wanting to spend them on anything mundane like candy bars or colored string to make friendship bracelets. I don't remember what I ended up doing with them, but there was something about them that seemed to mark the one-decade milestone I had reached so appropriately. I hadn't thought about them in a long time, not until reading "Bird by Bird" this morning while Owen was napping.

Thank you, Grandma. And thank you, Anne, for helping me remember.

Moving on

In two weeks, we'll be moving to a new two-bedroom apartment about one mile from where we live now. As I've written about before, buying our place was one of the first times in my life I truly felt like an adult. So moving our small family from our one-bedroom condo, although necessary, will be somewhat bittersweet.

I've lived in this condo for nearly seven years -- the longest I've lived anywhere since the house I grew up in at 1847 Port Margate in Newport Beach (I still remember that phone number, the only phone number I still know by heart.) I've been a single, hard-charging career woman, a fiancee planning her wedding, a newlywed and new mom in this place. Since everything has pros and cons, I can't help but run through them in my head.

Here is what we're gaining by moving: Central air, washer/dryer in unit, two parking spots, a large back deck, our own bedroom and an extra bathroom.

Here is what we're losing: View of Lake Michigan, hearing the ducks from North Pond from our window, walking two blocks to the nature museum, Lincoln Park Zoo and the lake, my 12-minute door-to-door commute to work.

We're renting our new place (not buying yet) and renting out this one to a US diplomat. For the first time in my life, I will become a landlord. And from what I can decipher from her rental application, our new tenant is much like me when I moved in here: mid-30s, single, worldly, career-minded. She was recently assigned to the Chicago office (to do what, I don't know) after four years in Budapest.

Our current living room (let there be light!)

When we were apartment hunting, I felt like Goldilocks. This one is too cold, this one is too hot. It's funny how with so many apartments in the world, it's hard to find one that feels just right. It's also a process that reveals what's truly important to you and what you're willing to do without. For me, one of the most important things is light. Our current place has big Southern-facing windows, which means we get tons of sunlight in our living room, dining area and kitchen. So many places have dark living rooms because they're facing away from the sun or are on a heavily tree-lined street. I don't know how people living in those units don't get claustrophobic and depressed. I feel that way just thinking about it.

Our new place is the second floor of a charming, three-story gray stone. The front door opens right into the kitchen with stainless steel appliances, a huge granite island with bar stools, a built-in wooden hutch and windows that face south (light!) The living room has arts-and-crafts style bay windows that look out at big trees. Behind the living room is a large area perfect for a dining room table or home office, something I've been wanting for years. The bathrooms are cramped, although at least there are two and the bedrooms are average size. Not nearly the palatial proportions of our bedroom now, but we'll do just fine.

The neighborhood has a 20ish professional vibe, not the family-friendly feel of a few other places we looked at, where it seemed couples totting Starbucks lattes, pushing strollers and walking Golden Retrievers passed by every 2 minutes. Our new place is on Belmont and Clifton, about three blocks west of the Vic Theater, a beer-soaked concert venue I haven't been to since I took my Aunt Cathy to see the singing comedian Stephen Lynch five years ago and saw Big Head Todd and the Monsters with some college friends 10 years before that.

The problem with the more family friendly places we liked was that they were too far from public transportation and I would have had to walk almost a mile to the nearest L stop to get to work, which Dave determined was a deal breaker, particularly in the winter.

"I'm worried about your commute," he said.

"You're not worried about my commute," I said. "You're worried about me complaining about my commute."

He didn't say anything, an indication that I was right.

A long commute is a deal breaker for me, too. I'm not one for long car rides, plane rides or even long lines. Waiting is not my strength. I remember my dad used to tell me growing up, "It's the journey, not the destination" and I used to feel annoyed. Every winter we used to do these epic 15-hour drives from Southern California to Utah, Colorado or Idaho to go skiing. I remember sitting in the back of our Suburban with my Sony Walkman and books, a cooler or soft drinks at my feet, feeling supremely bored as the endless winter landscape passed by outside the window.

"Are we there yet?" I'd ask over and over. "Why can't we just fly?"

The only benefit of these trips was it was one of the few times we got to eat at McDonald's. But even a Big Mac and large order of fries couldn't take away the empty feeling I had when staring out at the dark sky from the backseat, my faint reflection in the window staring back at me, knowing we had at least 10 more hours to go.

I understand now the exorbitant amount of money it would have cost my dad to fly a family of four to these ski resorts and then rent a car for the week. But at the time, it felt like cruel and unusual punishment. To this day, I'm not a big fan of road trips (although audiobooks makes them 1,000 times more bearable) and I never do layovers if I can help it.

My commute from work to our new place will be 35 minutes. Not ideal, but doable. Some of my colleagues commute more than an hour from the suburbs, which sounds soul-crushing to me. We spend so much of our lives in transit, which is probably a good reason to make peace with it. I remember a conversation with Dave early on when we were dating when he told me he loved long plane rides. He loved being suspended in space with free, uninterrupted time to journal, listen to music and watch all the movies he wanted.

Not me. If I were ever given the chance to pick a super power, I've want to be Sabrina from "Bewitched." She could just wiggle her nose and be anywhere in the world in two seconds. That's way more my speed.

So anyway, we're moving. We're moving up, on and beyond to the next stage of our life. One of the biggest things I'm looking forward to is being able to read again before bed. For the 16 months that Owen has been in our bedroom, we've had to tiptoe into the dark room, quietly undress and slip into bed without making too many floor boards creak. Letting light flood our bedroom past 7 p.m. will be heavenly. So will knowing we're taking the next right step for our family. You'll have to come and visit.

How to walk like a toddler

Owen and I took such a delicious walk around the pond near our house the other day that I thought I would give you instructions in case you want to replicate it for yourself. Here we go:

1. Walk really fast. But remember that your legs are only a foot long so you'll actually be moving quite slowly by world standards.
2. As you walk, swing your arms back and forth and clap your hands in front. 
3. Pick up every stick you find along the way. Put it in your mouth. Suck on it. 
4. Fidget when someone gets worried about you sucking on the stick and tries to fish the pieces of bark out of your mouth. Clench your teeth. Don't let them get it.
5. Take a perverse interest in the goose poop that litters the path. Stop and reach down to touch it, like it would be the most delicious paté you've ever tasted, until someone moves your hand away. 
6. Walk over to the homeless man sleeping on the park bench. Stare at him. Keep staring at him. 
7. Smile whenever your see a doggie approaching. Stop and pet the doggie. Let him (or her) lick your nose. Scrunch up your nose and giggle when they do. Pat their back. Nice doggie.
8. Babble as you keep walking. Tug at your diaper. Make up riddles and songs that nobody understands but you. 
9. Stop whenever a bus goes by. Watch the people get off the bus wearing their work clothes. Watch them look both ways for traffic, then walk across the cross walk and head for home.
10. Stare at every jogger that approaches. Study their stride. Slowly rotate 180 degrees as they pass by. Watch them go until they're just a tiny speck on the horizon.
11. Walk up to a bush of flowers. Pull off a leaf. Stick it in your mouth. Suck on it. Clench your teeth when someone tries to fish it out. Don't let them get it. 
12. Run when you see a fountain in the distance. Put your hand in the water. Lean over so far that you're about to fall in. Sit on the side and put your feet in the water. Kick hard until you and everyone around you are soaking wet. 
13. Get excited about another doggie and misjudge an incline on the path. Trip over your feet and fall flat on your face. Cry really hard. Feel yourself get picked up. Listen to the person crooning in your ear that you're okay. 
14. When you are done crying, wiggle until you are set down on the ground and run ahead. Ignore that annoying person who keeps calling your name. Stop whenever you come upon a group of people. Stare blankly when they tell you how cute you are. Don't smile, no matter how much they try to cajole you to. 
15. When you get tired, stop and put your arms up. Someone bigger than you will scoop you up and carry you the rest of the way home.
    
    

Something has to change

Everything hurts. My lower back hurts. My middle back hurts. My neck hurts. My shoulders hurt. As I type this, my wrists ache from the 40-plus hours of typing I do each week. I feel like saying to someone, "My body feels like someone beat me up with a baseball bat." But that would be too dramatic. And I don't owe money to anybody in the mob so it would be inaccurate, too.

The reason my body hurts is that I'm working too much and traveling too much and mothering too much. I have spent the last three weekends in a row traveling to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boulder with a 1 year old. Twice by myself, which has given me new appreciation for single mothers, and this most recent weekend with Dave, who I lovingly refer to as my sherpa when we fly because he is the one tasked with lugging the car seat, baby bed and other MBC (miscellaneous baby crap) through O'Hare International Airport while I carry our 25 pounds of precious cargo.

Owen is at the worst possible age to fly. He is walking everywhere and wants nothing to do with sitting in a seat for 4 hours. He is too old to be the blob of babyhood that sleeps on my chest the entire flight and too young to plop in front of a DVD. So we spend a lot of time in the airplane bathroom, where he plays with the water in the sink and pulls paper towel after paper towel out of the dispenser.

On our flight to San Francisco two weeks ago, Owen yanked at the liquid soap dispenser until he succeeded at pulling it out of the holder. He put the pump into his mouth and sucked on it, like he does with everything, and looked surprised when he pushed down on the pump and ended up with a mouthful of soap. He started sputtering and spitting it out and looked at me like, "Why didn't you tell me, Mom?" I watched it happen, it's true. Partly because I knew it wouldn't hurt him and partly because I was trying to teach him the rule of "cause and effect" (something apparently lost on children until they leave for college). And yes, partly because I was just too tired to stop him. 

Gone are the days of doing the in-flight magazine crossword puzzle, reading a book or listening to the "Once" soundtrack on my iPod. Gone are the days of enjoying my own complimentary beverage because these days, Owen wants to drink whatever mommy is drinking, even if he's got the same thing in his sippy cup. On our flight to L.A. three weeks ago, I was stupid enough to get a Diet Coke from the nice beverage cart lady and spent the first half of drinking it dodging Owen's attempts to stick his hand into my plastic cup to fish out pieces of ice and the second half cleaning it off of both of us after he knocked the can off the tray table.

My latest exercise routine

It's after one of these four hour flights that I realize why I feel so exhausted most of the time, even after 8 hours of sleep. At work I'm slammed with emails, conference calls and reports that need to be written. At home I'm slammed with sticky hands, food-stained carpets, poop explosions and the endless search for wayward sippy cups.

I'm not saying this to complain, really. I say this because amid these two very important jobs, mothering and earning a living, I notice that a very important thing gets neglected: my health.

The truth is that I'm 41 years old and my body doesn't stay fit and limber all by itself. In fact, it gets stiffer and flabbier by the day. Some days I feel like a car whose owner doesn't take it in for routine maintenance. One of those Honda Accords that you assume will last forever or that you'll just drive and drive until it breaks down on the side of the road. You figure you'll just leave it there and go buy a new one.

Lately I've been realizing that I'm treating my health like an old friend who will always be there for me, no matter how little I write, call or visit. Lately I've been getting more and more used to the aches and pains, more acclimated to getting through the day jump started by coffee, then mellowed out with two or three glasses of wine after work. Lately I've been lamenting the fact that this 15 pounds of baby weight doesn't seem to be going anywhere unless I change something when my plate already feels too full -- a fitting cliche for this conversation. 

I say all of this in the most self loving way possible. I say this as someone who has spent way too much time hating my body, hating myself because I'm not 5, 10 and now 15 pounds thinner. I say this as someone who has tried to impose exercise routines on myself, starting with high school when I would sit in my room and map out how many minutes I would spend on the treadmill, exercise bike and rowing machine each day on a calendar and calculate how much weight I could lose by a certain vacation. Then do none of it and feel like a failure.

I say this as someone who knows that exercising and doing yoga are more about how I feel than how I look. I say this as a woman who recently watched a male server at Pret A Manger, one of my favorite sandwich shops, neglect finishing my order after a 20-something in a short skirt walked in and ordered four iced coffees. I say this as someone who watched him make those four iced coffees before remembering to wrap up my grilled ham and cheese sandwich still waiting on the counter.

Last night, as I complained to Dave for 100th time how tired I am, how none of my clothes fit, he made an offer I think I'm going to take, an offer that made me realize how lucky I am to have a spouse who charges my iPhone for me when he knows I'll forget and says things like, "It's all part of the partnership." He said that we should make my health a priority as a family, that we should start working our schedule around my need to bike to work, go to yoga and meditate.

So today I'm going to take Owen for a long walk when he wakes up from his nap. And tonight Dave is going to come home in time for me to go to candlelight yoga at 7:30 p.m. I know that reordering my priorities, or balancing them better, will be an uphill battle. But stay tuned, because at least it's a start.   

Dear Owen,

The first time I wrote to you more than a year ago, I didn't know your name. I didn't know if you were a boy or a girl (Dada and I decided to keep your sex a surprise) and I didn't know much about you besides the fact that you often got the hiccups and liked to kick the right side of my rib cage. I didn't know that we would labor together for three days to get you here. I didn't know that by the time I finally demanded to go to the hospital, I'd be 10 centimeters dilated and "ready to push," as the midwife told me with surprise on her face.

Shortly after I started pushing, I looked at the nurses and asked, "How long am I going to have to do this?" As you'll find out about me, I like to work to deadline. One of the nurses said, "Go ahead and find out." I was shocked at her suggestion that I put my fingers up in the birth canal, given all that was going on down there, but I did and quickly made contact with your moist, squishy head. Even though we had been together for more than 9 months, it was surreal to feel you there. Holy shit, there's a baby in there!

When you emerged, screaming and slimy, I looked over and saw tears streaming down Dada's face, the first time I had ever seen him cry. He was the one who caught you (spotted by Rachel, the midwife, and two nurses), and he cut your umbilical cord, separating you and me for the first time. Because I was so far along by the time we got to the hospital, there was no time for an epidural. I had 100% natural childbirth, one of the few women to do so these days. I had hoped to birth you drug-free, but I was open to that fact that I may end up demanding something for the pain. Dada sure thought I would.  

During our natural child birthing classes, Dada doubted that I could give birth without drugs because I whine and complain if I get so much as a headache. "You don't have the highest pain threshold, babe," he said. But come to find out, when shit gets real, when the rubber meets the road, I am surprisingly sturdy. "I've never been so proud of you," Dada told me after watching you be born. I think that quality will bode well for us in the future when you turn to me for strength (as I hope you will) when life hits you upside the head as it does to all of us through the years.

Once you were here, I couldn't believe how much black hair you had. Who is that? I couldn't help thinking the first time I saw you. If I hadn't been there myself, I would have thought they mixed up and gave me the baby from the Hispanic couple next door. 

The first time I saw you, I thought I would cry and feel flooded with joy like I had every time we watched a birth video during our child birthing classes. I thought I'd feel a spasm of sobs move up my chest and tears spring to my eyes with uncontrollable force and Dada would look over at me, touch my arm and we'd share a soulful, heartfelt smile. But that's not what happened. 

"I don't feel anything," I whispered to our doula, Juli, after they took you away to give you a bath. I was scared that you felt like an alien to me, that I felt as stunned as a deer you come upon in the clearing of a forest.

"That's normal," Juli assured me. "You've been though a lot, and you haven't slept in three days."

I hoped she was right. And boy, was she ever. Today you feel like mine, all mine (and Dada's too). Tears spring to my eyes when I think about how much I like you, how easy it is to hang out with you, pushing you around town in your stroller, watching you splash in the bath and look over at me and grin, lying next to you on the living room floor as you try to tear apart your play mat. (I'll always love you as your Mama, but liking your child is a whole other story).

Birthday boy

When you were born, you were 8 pounds, 15 ounces, a big boy as they say, and 21 inches long. You have always been a great eater and every time we see the pediatrician, you hold steady in the 90th percentile for weight. "Should we start feeding him less?" we asked Dr. Vijay at your six month appointment, thinking maybe you were getting a little too chubby. "No," she said. "He is healthy and doing great." So we decided not to worry.

You're a good sleeper, too. By six months, you were sleeping through the night for the most part, except when you were teething. Then you'd wake up screaming bloody murder until we gave you a syringeful of baby Tylenol, which seemed to do the trick. You typically take epic morning naps (2-3 hours) and sleep another hour or two in the afternoon.

Since you first smiled at two months old, you've been pretty relentlessly happy. That's the No. 1 thing people say about you, besides how cute you are. "He just seems so happy!" And you are. You love eating bananas and oranges, sucking on my iPhone, feeding plastic balls into your octopus toy, reading your books, unspooling rolls of toilet paper and opening your dresser drawer and throwing all of your clothes on the floor. The dishwasher is a particular fascination for you and you love playing with the clean silverware, which doesn't stay clean for long because at this stage, everything goes in your mouth. Everything.

When you were six months old, we enrolled you in Wiggleworms, a music class for parents and their kids. At first, Dada took you most of the time and then I started taking you when he had to work. The first thing I noticed was how cautious you are in a group. You would sit with me, sometimes reaching for my neck so I'd pull you in closer, as you stared at the other babies shaking maracas and banging on the big drum the teacher put in the middle of the floor. You would survey the mayhem with an expression that seemed to say, What fresh hell is this?

You didn't want to crawl into the middle like some of the other babies and all you wanted to do with your maraca was suck on it. You'd just sit and suck and stare.  And I must admit, I respect that about you. You like to check out a scene before you jump in. You like to stare at a stranger for a good two minutes before you reward him or her with a smile. I think that's a good thing. I don't ever want to be the mom pushing you into the middle like the other kids or ordering you to smile at people you don't know. Take your time, baby, take your time.

Throughout these past 12 months, you've hit every developmental milestone you're supposed to. You started rolling over at 2 or 3 months, sitting up at 4 months, rearing up on your hind legs and rocking back and forth when you were six months old, like you were warning us, "Okay, folks, any day now I'm going to crawl." Then you did, propelling yourself through the condo with your left leg out to the side to give you more leverage on our wooden floors.

I don't like reading parenting books because much like, "What to Expect When You're Expecting," they can just make you crazy with worry. God forbid if your child's not doing something they're supposed to at a certain stage. Reading those books can also make you competitive. That's one thing I've noticed about other parents and something I hope I don't do too much with you -- compare you to other children. "How much did he weigh at his last appointment?" one mom will ask me. "Is he using a sippy cup yet?" another will say. "How long has he been sitting up?" Oy vey. Take your time, baby, take your time.

One of the coolest things about you is your sense of humor. If I make a funny face at you, you'll smile and often laugh. And Owen, there's nothing better than the sound of your laugh. If I could bottle those giggles and sell them, no one in this world would need Prozac. I'll never forget the day when we were playing on the bed and I blew a raspberry on your Buddha belly and you leaned over and blew a raspberry on my leg. I think you were only about six or seven months old and I had no idea how much fun we could have together so early, before you could even walk or talk. Silly me for underestimating you.

So now, dear baby, here we are. We just celebrated your 1st birthday with a family day at the beach and I'm just so grateful that you're here. You're the one who makes us a family. I knew this parenting thing was going to be fun and joyful and touching and all that other Hallmark stuff. Yet somehow you exceeded my biggest hopes, my greatest expectations. I don't know how you did it. And really, you didn't do anything. You are just you. Take your time, baby, take your time.

Love,
Mama

When are you a grown up?

A few days ago Dave and I got the news that some friends of ours are expecting their first baby. Then I found out some other friends are under contract to buy their first condo. And that made me think, "Wow, we're all growed up!"

Many of my friends have had babies and bought homes in recent years, but these are the caboose people, that last of the bunch taking the plunge into the oh-so-adult world of parenthood and homeownership. The American dream, if you will. And that got me thinking even more. When do you know you're a grown up?

I'm not talking about when the U.S. government tells you that you're a legal adult, or when you're finally allowed to drink without a fake ID, but when do you feel like a grown up? Is it when you graduate from college? Get your first real job? Get married? Buy a house? Have a baby? Treat your parents to dinner? Buy your own plane ticket home?

There are so many milestones to choose from and I think it's wholly a personal experience. Getting married may have been your moment of "Oh my God, I will never sleep with another person again and now I'm an adult." Getting your first real job may have been caused you to think, "Geez, they're paying me more than minimum wage so I better not screw this up." My friend, Amber, says it was when she finally owned a car that didn't require her to crank down the windows by hand.

As I said, it's all relative. For me, I've had glimpses of adulthood along the way. I think it is a big deal when you go out to dinner with your parents and throw down your credit card rather than expecting them to. I remember my Dad and his father fighting over who was going to pay the bill when we went out to eat as a family, both of them trying to assert their sense of adulthood (not to mention manhood).

For years when I was living in San Diego after college waiting tables and figuring out what the heck to do with my liberal arts degree (and no, I didn't feel like a grown up yet), my mom would pay to fly me to Boulder, Colo. to visit her. It took a few more years before I bought my own plane ticket without even thinking about it.

So no, I didn't feel like a grown up when I went away to college, or graduated college, or got my first job after college, or moved across the country, or went to graduate school in New York City, or got my first reporting job in New Jersey, or moved to Miami for my second reporting job, or moved to Chicago to be an editor. I was acting like an adult, sure. But I didn't feel like one.

You know when I felt like a grown up? One word: mortgage.

For some reason, the second I decided to buy my own place, I felt like an adult. The fact that I was going to put down roots after a decade of figuring out what to do with my life, who I was, and where I was meant to be, was a big deal for me. A bigger deal than I expected, actually. The fact that I was going to owe a bank more than $200,000 made an impression. Sure, I had graduate school debt, but it was nothing compared to what I was going to owe Bank of America for a 30-year fixed loan on a one-bedroom condo in Lincoln Park. Plus, I was single. So it was all on me.

The view from my condo the day we got married

I remember a sleepless night I had shortly after submitting an offer for my condo. It wasn't the mortgage payment I was so worried about. That I knew I could cover. But in addition to the mortgage, I was going to have to pay a pretty high monthly condo fee. The unit is in a vintage building built nearly 100 years ago. And you know what that means: The walls and foundation may be solid, but everything else needs a lot of upkeep, including pricy items like plumbing and electrical wiring.

(Every time the condo association raises the assessment, they can't help themselves from reminding everyone that we, "live in an older building." Yes, me and my checkbook know that, thank you.)

So I called my friend, Heather, who lives in New York City. She was the right one to call because a "high" condo fee in Chicago sounds miniscule to someone living in Manhattan. "That's nothing!" she said. Suddenly I felt okay about paying a little more than I thought I should. I felt my feet under me again.

After I had signed my initials on 70 pages of mortgage goobledygook and closed, my friend, Nancy, came over with a bunch of sage to purify the space. She lit the sage, the earthy smell filling the apartment, and walked the perimeter of each room holding out the smoldering herb to let the smoke ward off bad spirits. Yes, it was a little hippy dippy but I was touched that a friend would go to so much trouble to help me make my home a safe, special place. My own personal sanctuary (and yes, okay, Bank of America's, too).

As I was moving in, I realized that all of the furniture I had accumulated since college — the coffee table from Target, the bookshelf and desk I had assembled from Ikea, the chest of drawers from God knows where — suddenly looked sad and juvenile in my big girl condo. So I did another grown up thing: I went to Marshall Field's and bought a bedroom set made out of real wood. A platform bed, dresser drawers and matching mirror. It even had an armoire.

I went to Room and Board and ordered a walnut plank kitchen table with solid, steel legs and began my search for the perfect kitchen chairs. I called another friend, Aixa, to make sure I wasn't crazy to buy a white leather couch I had fallen in love with. She assured me that the fact I had no pets or children meant it was, indeed, the perfect time to make such a purchase. So I did.

Since then, I have had all kinds of opportunities to feel like an adult. I've gotten married, had a baby, and purchased many more plane tickets to go home for Christmas and other family visits. None of those have felt quite as adult-like as that initial mortgage. And yet the milestones just keep coming.

In less than two weeks Owen will be 1 year old. And when I think about that fact, I don't feel so much older, more mature or adult-like. I just feel incredibly, wonderfully grateful.