Two

Geekyboy, my littlest one, turned two on Thursday. When I started this blog he was still Geekybaby, just six months old, and I was struggling with sleep. Now he is a little boy, my independent but yet adoring, sturdy but yet sensitive child.

Geekyboy was born on president's day. He was ten long days late, due on the 8th and born on the 18th. Having had such a great experience giving birth to Geekygirl almost exactly two years earlier, I really didn't want my labour to be induced the second time around. But his due date passed by, and though he mercifully did not arrive on Geekygirl's birthday, the days continued to tick by, contractions starting and stopping but labor never kicking off. I started to panic. I was huge and uncomfortable and at one point I thought I would be pregnant forever. Desperate to do something other than wait, I tried accupunture. The accupuncturist lived at the top of a huge flight of concrete stairs, the kind that replace sidewalks on some of our steeper streets. After the needle treatment she had me walk up and down them several times. Either the rebalance of my Chi, or the stair walking did the trick. Two days later Geekyboy finally decided that he was ready to face the world.

It is a good job that it was a holiday, and Geekydaddy was home, because he may not have got back from work in time to meet his son otherwise. Labor started around 1.30pm, after a nice spicy enchilada lunch, my water broke at 3.30, at which point we headed for the hospital. Deeply in labor when I arrived they didn't bother to triage me or even examine me. One of the best rooms was open, the one with the panoramic view, and they lead me straight there. UCSF is very progressive when it comes to hospital policy, They respected my decline of an IV, they welcomed our doula, and even though my water had broken they were happy for me to use the jacuzzi tub.  It is a shame that watching the sun paint the sky over the San Francisco bay can't be prescribed as a pain management technique during labor, because that is what worked for me that day. I rocked in the chair looking out over the bay and by the time the sky had deepened to the velvety purple blue that preceeds sundown, and the Alcatraz lighthouse beacon had started to sweep the bay, I moved from the rocker to the birthing stool, and ten minutes later at 6.20pm our baby boy was here, born into my arms. Like most San Franciscans, almost every day while running one errand or another I catch a glimpse of "the view" while driving or walking down one hill or another. For me it is a daily reminder of that exhilarating, empowering day, a day so very worth waiting for, the day our little boy arrived.

It hardly seems possible that two years have past since then. Now instead of that little baby I have a boy, a boy who loves to laugh and thinks that his mother fashioning herself a playdough nose is just about the funniest thing in the world. A boy who nurtures his stuffed animals and adores his big sister, his cats and his dog. He moved classrooms at daycare to "toddlers", the two to three year old class, and is so proud of his new responsibilities. When I pick him up he shows me where he washes his hands, where he stores his lunchbox and how he cleans up after his art projects.

Our center transitions the kids gently from the unstructured, high staff ratio infant suite to the more preschool like toddler room, gradually building up the time they spend there. This gentle transition wasn't gentle enough for Geekygirl, she found it very hard to move, but Geekyboy was frustrated by the pace. Whenever they would take him back to the baby classroom he would cry, "No, No, other classroom", and now finally ensconsed in his new environment full time he is very happy. He has always been ready for the next stage of growing up before I have. He quit nursing at a year, though I was hoping he would want to keep it up, rejected sippy cups for the regular kind before I was ready to see him looking so competent, and astonishes me with his language and grasp of abstract concepts; "Mummy i drop spoon behind me" he said last week.

Maybe that is the destiny of the youngest child, always struggling to grow up while mum tries to hold on to each childhood stage for longer than is possible.

Two is such a lovely age, but there are so many changes that happen so fast, espcially with language and emotional development. He has just figured out that "Love" is better than "like" and when asked for example "Geekyboy do you like pasta?" he will reply "No, I LOOOVE pasta!" So shamelessly I ask him daily "Geekyboy do you like mummy?" just so I can hear "No, I LOOOVE mummy!" He also loves penguins, Dora and Diego, his stuffed bunny and his friend Kesiah, but that's OK, I'll take the love where I can get it!

Happy birthday to my little boy, who completes our family so perfectly. My treasure.

Here he is, young man in the city.