Overdue

Dear Clayton,


I had intended to use the momentous occasion of your first birthday to re-launch my blog, outlining in great, witty and heartfelt lengths my love for you and our adventures over this first year of your wonderful life.

But, you know, LIFE interfered (like it always does). I think it was right about the time you were playing in the toilet while your sister was still sitting on it that I realized I wasn’t going to get anything posted for your day. Or, okay, for your month. My next plan was to post this one day late and call it “1 year and 1 day—TODAY!”, but I missed that too. Then I thought “1 year and 1 week”. Still catchy, right? Still clever. But I missed that too. And I missed the “One year and one month” deadline by 3 days. So here we are. I’m beyond late. I’m generally late. You’ll get used to it.

I just realized as I typed this that today is the one year and one month anniversary of the day I was due with you. So there we are. It’s momentous, in its own roundabout way, right? You know what, buddy? We need to celebrate when we get to it. We’re just two little pieces of a big family puzzle and if there is any resounding message for members of big families, it’s this “It ain’t always about you.” In fact, it ain’t often about you, and that’s okay. You were born into a whole houseful of people who adore you. That’s better than an on time, online tribute any day.

This last year has been perhaps the most overwhelming, exhausting, chaotic, and exhilarating year of motherhood I’ve ever experienced since your first sister’s birth nearly a decade ago. And I’ve had some overwhelming years. You were a surprise (that’s the nice way of putting it. The more accurate way of putting it is that you burst into my life with a thunderous, life altering shock that took my entire pregnancy and several months of your life to adjust to). Not that I’m sorry you came. I can’t imagine my world without you. If there had never been a Clayton Robert, my life would have had a gaping hole I would have had no name for. Because how could I, or our family, have ever been complete without YOU? Just ask your big brother, who prayed every single night that “the baby is a boy!” and wrote on his first communion plaque that the thing he is most thankful for in the whole world is his baby brother.

You were the answer to so many prayers. Some of them we didn’t know we were praying, but, as He generally does, God laughed at my plans for our family and my future and knew from the beginning of time what I needed. You. You were that sweet, bubbly, Godly laugh. What a blessing!

But I spent about the first 6 months of your life in the dazed, 24 hour sweatpants and no make up, sleep deprived haze of early motherhood. This isn’t so unusual, I guess, except that this wasn’t even close to the early days of motherhood for me. I mean, YOU, were new—but I could hardly be called a “new” mother after 9 years and 4 kids worth of mothering under my belt.

I hate to make the story of your life so far all about eating, but truly, it is what it was about for awhile. My maternity leave revolved around watching the clock to ensure I was nursing you at least every 3 hours and that you were staying latched for at least 10 minutes per side. I recorded pages and pages of information on your feeding sessions, how long, how strong, how much I was eating to ensure quality and quantity of milk, how much water I was drinking, how much you were sleeping. I knew from the start that you weren’t nursing right. The pain was excruciating and that’s not how it should be. You were like a voracious crocodile and I cried and moaned and prayed and danced to try and endure your feeding sessions. Those latch issues (my fault—entirely mine) led us into a terrible spiral of mastitis, poor weight gain, more desperate feeding attempts for you, more pain for me, more mastitis. It was sad. And ugly. Everyone (including me) thought I knew what I was doing and when we finally got help from an angel of a lactation consultant, it was almost too late. For a few months I had to supplement you with formula—a first for this seasoned and desperately committed nursing mom—and pump and give you bottles as you steadfastly refused the breast.

But I was persistent and you were patient. Gradually I coaxed you back onto the breast and my exhileration at getting you to eat the way God intended babies to eat was astronomical. I called my mom and my sister (the only 2 people on the planet who still had any patience for my stories and struggles about nursing you) practically in tears of joy.
Cut to your first birthday (okay, okay, your first birthday plus one month and three days) and you are an enormous bear of a boy. It’s a running joke in our family how epically hungry you always are. You take such great, enthusiastic joy in eating and will devour just about anything we put in front of you. Your favorites are pizza (and it is not an exaggeration to say you can finish 3 whole slices on your own), blueberries, applesauce, and steak. And chicken. Oh and cereal. And grapes. And milk. On your first Christmas (at the age of 8 months) you gobbled up prime rib.  That's a true story.  You just love to eat, little boy, and there is something very deeply satisfying to see my “failure to thrive” gaunt infant boy gobbling everything in sight and growing by leaps and bounds. My favorite part of your perfect body is your pot belly. Every day I watch closely to be sure that it doesn’t start to shrink with all your running around. So far it has remained intact. I make sure to smother it with kisses every night after your bath just in case it doesn’t last forever. For your sake, I hope you lose it by, say kindergarten. But for my sake, I hope you get to keep it for a little while longer yet (maybe high school?).
For your birthday, I told everyone to buy you size 18 month clothes. 1 month later, I am digging out receipts to exchange what I can and planning to save the rest for your cousin Oliver because you clearly need a bigger size already. (How you hate having those not so tiny t-shirts pulled over your big head and my constantly trying to pull them down over your big belly.)
You kicked me for the first time during a football game at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium. I prayed then for you to be a rowdy little boy—the kind of boy I know your daddy must have been. A little guy who loves trucks and dirt and balls and being outside. Boy, did I get what I prayed for. (You also have a great passion for toothbrushes and remote controls.  I just don't know how to weave that into a clever metaphor).  I guess I should have been a little more specific with those prayers—because as my 5th and final baby, it would have been nice for you to be a bit of a snuggler. But you are my very big boy already, thank you very much. You have no interest in being my baby and infinitely prefer your dad’s rough-housing to my cuddles. In fact, you prefer your dad for just about everything—even kissing your boo boos and putting you to sleep. In spite of our trials with breastfeeding (at the height of which I assured you I would nurse you for as many years as you desired), you have weaned me completely already. It’s a little sad for me, but I love seeing your big, healthy body lurching around my house and tearing everything out of my drawers and cupboards (ok—THAT I don’t love so much). Sometimes at night you will tolerate some snuggling in the rocker with your blankie, but more often than not you prefer to nestle into your bed alone, your hair nearly white against the blue blankets, your smiling eyes tucked closed and your arms and legs flung all akimbo. You already look so big in your baby bed. You sleep hard, you play hard, you eat heartily and often. You are taking this world by storm.
Thanks for letting me tag along.

Love,

Mommy