Tales of Woe followed by Waiting Game Series: Part II

After a night of contractions, vomit, and uncertainty we got a five-minutes-apart pattern and headed into the svelte birthing center mid-morning. Do you remember those trash bag commercials..? ."wimpy, wimpy, wimpy" (bag breaks) "HEFTY, HEFTY, HEFTY" (bag bulges under insane pressure but still holds) Well it is a universal truth that wimpy, wimpy, wimpy contractions will not evict a Hefty, Hefty, Heavy baby. So me and my wimpy contractions got sent home. The injustice of it all is that I still get to put up with contractions, they just don't hurt enough to make any progress...blessing and a curse I guess. *sigh* As my wise OB once told me, "In the end, the baby always comes out." (He gets paid for that kind of sage advice.)

So, on with our Waiting Game Series of catch-up posts. Next in line is Finley Gracie.

In my experience the 31/2 to 41/2 year beats out the terrible twos in difficulty points. I know what I cannot expect a two-year-old to endure. So there are some things I don't even try, some battles I don't even wage. But at 3 or 4 they are capable of comprehending, controlling emotion, complying....some of the time. So I try it...and some of the time I glow with pride and congratulate myself on raising such a wonderful human being...who can go to the grocery store and handle being denied candy with grace and submission...who can stay up later than usual and still climb into bed and wait patiently for stories and stay in bed without so much as a sniffle.

And then there are the times I try it...and we drag our tantrum out of the grocery store before we even hit the check-out, or we come home from an overly fun day to find that a "funned out" child will hold on until 1am crying for the sheer joy of hearing their own screams.

Our Finley delights in pleasing her Mama, saying sweet things to me, cries when I walk across the street to get the mail, or -heaven forbid- go somewhere without her. She may be my biggest fan.

She also cannot be trusted with a writing implement of any kind, nor left in any reasonable radius of a a pair of scissors. Finley and fingernail polish should not share a residence, so one or the other must be thrown out.

These are the constants.

Everything else is a mine field...I don't know what to expect. But I try it... with my best attempt at a "bring it on" attitude.

I'm amazed by her capability for compassion and reason...

sometimes.

I'm in awe of her memory for the laundry list of do's and don'ts....

sometimes.

I bask in her sweet, patient, affectionate nature...

sometimes.

But I love being her Mama...

all the time.

Because without fail she is a daily delight and will make up for cutting her own hair, body-checking her brother, melting down when things go wrong--just with that look of adoration she sends my way.

(oh, and fluffy cheeks)

(and licking ice cream off of a comb)

She avoids putting the last straw on the camel's back by tickling the camel pink before the camel can spit in her eye.

And, yes, in this analogy I am the one humped camel.