Sep
2
Riley is suddenly interested in dinosaurs, specifically the Tyrannosaurs rex. Or as he’s known more colloquially in our household, T-Rex. We went to the library and picked out some books on dinosaurs and I’ve been doing my level best to indulge Riley when he repeatedly requests a drawing of a T-Rex, which unfortunately tends to turn out looking like this:
(JB: “What the . . . what IS that? My god.”)
(Riley: “Hmm. I think you forgot the spines. Or I think maybe that is an angry mouse.”)
Anyway, it’s been kind of nice to chat about prehistoric reptiles instead of pirates or Buzz Lightyears but I should have been better prepared for the inevitable moment when Riley would ask me what happened to all the dinosaurs, because when he did so I found myself just sort of sitting there with my mouth hanging open while my brain scrambled around frantically in search of a better answer than WELL SON THEY ALL UP AND FUCKING DIED, CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT SHIT?
I mean, mass extinction, there’s a happy topic for you. How do you even start with this? “You see, honey, there’s this idea of a catastrophic event, maybe a really really big rock that hit the earth and noooo of course that would never happen now ha ha ha ha OH GOD.”
Oh, and seriously one whole day later we were looking at his baby book and there was a picture of me all elephantine-third-trimester and we talked a bit about how he was a tiny baby in my belly before he was born and then he wanted to know how he got OUT of my belly. And for the very first time, I was incredibly glad for that C-section, because at least I didn’t have to tackle anything more complicated than, “Well, the nice doctors made a cut in my belly and pulled you out!” (which sounds like total bullshit but dude, I was there, that’s exactly what happened). Although I suppose if I had to I could always fall back on my brilliant artistic renderings in order to more thoroughly explain the process of a vaginal birth as I understand it:
The vast majority of my parenting experience to date has to do with diapers and tantrums and nutrition and Curious George, not so much the deeper issues in life. Man oh man, and I thought I was clueless before.
Aug
31
Today Riley is four years old, and although we had his official birthday celebration a couple weeks ago, I wanted to do something today. He was running a fever this morning but rallied by afternoon, and once JB got home from work we all had a very fancy formal birthday dinner together:
(Sigh. Photobombed AGAIN.)
Mini-cupcakes were adorned:
Wishes were made:
Presents were opened:
And road-tested:
There was tomfoolery:
And ridiculous toddler ass-toots:
And somehow this guy:
Has turned into this:
Four! Oh, he’s all elbows and imagination and opinions and endless questions and barely contained enthusiasm these days, and sometimes I think how terrifying parenthood really is, because this love just grows and grows and grows, along with the baby who is now a boy who will someday be a man and like they all say, it goes so fast.
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