Every year my mom's side of the family gets together for a golf & giggle weekend. This year's retreat was just outside of Hundred Mile House, BC. For those unfamiliar with the BC interior, picture rolling hectares of land, grazing cattle, miles and miles of highway.... and very little else. (Sorry to anyone that lives here, I am a city girl through and through... or at least a modest suburbanite.) The middle of nowhere is kind of a nice place to get in touch with your roots.
It was the first time a lot of my extended family had seen Little Man since his baby shower over a year ago. He'd gone from a docile and drooly seven month old to a delightfully feral 20 month old. He even has an out of control baby Afro to match his wild spirit. From the time we arrived on Thursday evening until we hit the highway again on Sunday morning, he was RUNNING.
Thursday, 4pm: Pile my son and his overgrown Britax car seat, my 15 year old sister and her forty pound makeup bag, my six foot tall 19 year old brother, my six foot three 19 year old cousin and BOTH of their golf clubs, a few bags of clothes, oodles of baby items, a stroller, six thousand disposable diapers, and about four ipods into a terrified Honda civic. (Can cars be terrified? I would be!!)
We put the car in drive and hit the highway. The distance was supposed to take about six hours. I foolishly fell asleep and let my brother drive most of the way up. Maniac. Excluding stops, we arrived in five.
Thursday evening, 10:30pm: arrive at the ranch. Pull up to our cabin. Little Man looks ready to crash. He spots Grammy and Opa. Then the candy dish. While he stuffed three pieces of licorice into his mouth I considered that perhaps it was a good thing I'd gotten some serious sleep in during the drive up.... I was right. Little Man was still jumping on the bed (in the dark) at midnight, after consecutively escaping from the loaner playpen, cot, and single bed. He wiggled his way into my bed and exclaimed "SNUGGLE MUMMA!" before headbutting me and sticking his finger up my nose.
Friday morning, 7 am: Pass the coffee if you want to live.
Friday afternoon: I had the chance to catch up with my cousin and her linebacker baby. Seriously, I though Little Man had a bit of a baby beer belly. At 20 months and 34 inches tall, he weighs a healthy 27 pounds. Well, little cousin is barely 6 months old (Yes, half a year!) and already he weighs the same as my son. Wow. God Bless breastfed babies!!
It made me feel a little jealous that my attempt at breastfeeding failed miserably. My son is still chugging away on soy milk at almost two years old. (Milk allergy.) Before he came home, and against my husband's horrified opinion, I'd taken prescription domperidone and consulted La Leche League to try and establish a milk supply. Baby was supposed to come home at five months, but delays pushed his move-home date to the seven month mark. Nothing wrong with nursing a tiny babe, right? Well, in theory, no....
Long story short, Little Man was NOT a boob man. He thought I was trying to assassinate him every time I tried to get him to latch on. You know the expression "lead a horse to water...?" that was him. After months of herbal and prescription drug treatments, battles with my husband, wars with the breast pump, and finally success in the milk department, my son had the final say. And it was a definite no.
So there I was, one year later, feeling stupidly inadequate that my 20 month old was nearly outweighed by his beautiful breast-fed sumo-cousin. Give up the guilt, momma. I'm still surprised how often I need to tell myself this! ;)
Back to the reunion....
the rest of the weekend seemed to fly by. Little Man played with his cousins (well, my cousin's children as he has no first cousins, at least for a few more months!). We petted the horses and hugged the donkeys, swam in the pool and stomped around the ranch.
I thought I might feel a bit left out as all the aunts and uncles -- mom's generation -- oohed and aahed at how cute and how much so-and-so's baby looked like their mom/dad, etc. I was wrong. Instead of comparing differences, the family didn't have to look too hard to find similarities between my son and his new extended family.
"He's wild just like his cousin Dan!" (Sorry, Dan, your reputation will always follow you!)
"Look at his hair! He has the same curls as Bridget did.... does everyone think he's a little girl?" (Yes. And NO, we won't be cutting them anytime soon!)
After two days, my cousin's wife Niamh had him speaking with a Derry accent. He now asks to go "dow-un" instead of down, which endeared him to her irrevocably.
Inevitably the question of "next baby" came up. Little Man is losing his baby look, and getting into everything, and other than at 3am when he's supposed to be sleeping soundly in his toddler bed, rarely asks for snuggles or any other baby-ish thing. My husband didn't join us this weekend, so of course I brought it up when we returned.
The Next Baby. To me, it sounds wonderful. I firmly believe that every child deserves to grow up with siblings. To my better half, the idea sounds like the title of a horror movie. Every time I mention adopting again, he threatens to jump off the deck.
"Honey, what about bringing another baby home?"
"I'd jump off the deck!"
"What if we happened to get pregnant?"
"I'd jump off the deck!"
"What if a child showed up on our doorstep?"
"I'd jump off the deck."
"Well, do you want to talk about it later?"
"I'll be on the deck."
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