Raising Ro

When your baby is just a cluster of cells in your uterus, you imagine a lot of things about what motherhood will be like. Your mind's eye glosses over the burdens of the first few weeks and underestimates much of everything that follows.

Ro is two and a half years old now. Presumably in the middle of his terrible twos. People who see him running around like a banshee nod their heads in understanding when I say "two and a half". The last person to ask his age said "I thought he might be two-something".

One of the thoughts that has occurred many times is this - nobody told me it would be this hard. Actually, our friend Matt did tell us that it would be much better and much worse than anything we expected (Matt - I hope you remember that you did tell me you would be happy to be on my blog some day). And boy, is it hard.

Some days I fall asleep at 8:30pm because I am so worn from the last two hours with Ro. Really - just feeding and playing with the baby can be that exhausting sometimes. When MrM walks in through the door after his work day, I can't wait to hand parenting duties off and take a breather. I'm usually in the middle of feeding Ro dinner, after having entertained him, cooked for him, and talking him into eating. And MrM can't wait to have his own breather after having had his workday and commute.

We can't go on long walks together as a family, we can't plan on all-day activities that don't involve nap facilities, and we can't travel freely.

While I fret about these things, the rewards creep up on me. Any time I look sad, Ro observes it and asks me "Mommy not sad?", willing me to be happy. He asks to play, he cuddles, and he gently kisses my back if I say it is hurting. When he's been driving me up the wall and I start looking tired, he takes my face in his hands and asks "Mommy not tired?".

He always wants to help, specially with the frequent chore of opening doors to let dogs in or out. He loves taking care of his "brothers", feeding them, petting them, and comforting them when they whine. He also plays with them, spanks them and admonishes them when they trample on his feet. It melts my heart to see him interact with Kuttu & Pix.

When I curl up with him at night to tuck him in, the relief of finally having a sleepy baby is barely as strong as the love for that baby, giving him one more kiss, one more hug and saying goodnight.

So yeah, parenting is hard. But in the end, the size of the carrot is proportional to the size of the stick.