busy times

I have had so many ideas for blog entries and no time to write! There have been precious moments like the other day when Julien and I took our rainy day walk together under the rainbow umbrella. He was in the carrier and cuddled on me. I was singing songs about spring and flowers and the smell of the rain. It was a sweet and cozy moment. Or the other day when I was studying his small and narrow feet...his tiny precious little toes and I was thinking about the licence I feel with his body....how his body, in some ways, feels like an extention of my own. Lukas is still that way for me but he can reject me if he isn't in the mood to be cuddled and caressed. Julien is still a helpless victim to my random displays of affection! Someday those feet will be off limit to me...and most likley once they are I won't really want to touch them anyway. A friend of my mothers who has two boys said to me "Enjoy it now...it won't be long before they are sweaty, hairy men." I can't imagine that. That idea makes me so very sad. We watched all the old movies of Lukas' early days and Jorg and I could not believe just how much he has changed in a year. The movies from last spring feel like they happened ages ago. I was telling my father how sad I was that these times were over with Lukas and that Jorg and I might consider another child. My father replied in the most beautiful way. He said "Don't be sad that the toddler time will end. It's all fun. It's fun when they are kids and when they are teenagers. It's fun when they grow up and are young adults and find partners and get married and it's fun when they have kids of their own and you get to be a grandparent." It was a sweet thing to hear....especially from your own parent.
However, today has not been fun. Julien has been SO fussy. I only had Julien this afternoon and I thought I would lose it. I realized that I need coping methods for dealing with those "lose it" moments. I mean methods other than eating loads of very dark chocolate. He would not let me put him down and nothing made him happy...not even nursing! Although he kept asking for it by pecking at my continually. I was going nuts! I changed his diaper and clothes. I massaged him. I sang to him. I bounced him on the ball and rocked him in the rocker and swung him in the swing but nothing worked! So, I put him in the ergo and went for a very long walk....despite doctors orders. He needed it and I needed it. He cried for the first 10 minutes and then passed out. I walked to the coffee shop and then to the river. I just stared at the river. I told myself all the things that I can be grateful for. I was tired of the negative story about my body and the changes and my hyper active three year old son and not sleeping and blah blah...so I told myself all the great things that I do have. It felt good.
Only moments before at home I was crying because I felt so frusterated and tired. I had tried to nap with him and it just didn't work. I got sleepy and he didn't. I know that all this will pass but I just feel like I don't know him yet. I don't know what to expect each day...it is exhausting. I guess he doesn't know what to expect either. He must be quite exhausted himself. Yesterday he just slept all day....today he made up for it. Now he is napping. I bounced him on the ball and sung to him and cried....I cried because for a moment I remembered who I was before kids and that felt so far away. I cried because I know that these boys will leave me one day and become their own people and I will have to rediscover who I was before kids....or reinvent. These are such crazy....exciting...exhausting....busy times. This is not so poetic....I don't have time for poetry or indulgant reflections....but I do want to capture these fleeting times...these rushed and jumbled thoughts....