Michael Scott

Maybe it's because I keep hearing about other people having babies or maybe it's because my baby doesn't seem like a baby anymore, but either way I sooooort of want to have a baby again. Don't worry Mom, I don't want to have a second baby, I just really want to have this baby over again. I still want him to be my first so I can lavish all of my affections on just him and not have to worry about getting up 4 times per night times 2 children.

I know technically B is still a baby, but I sometimes wish he was a baby baby. I think what's got me missing the suckfest of the early days is that we seem to be entering a new and uncharted kind of suckfest and I again feel unprepared.

No one told me it started this soon but I am already faced with a blossoming toddler who wants independence and to test boundaries.  B has realized he is able to have control over his environment and, like any megalomaniac CEO normal almost-1-year-old, he wants total control. It's as if he has been living under an oppressive regime up until this point and has suddenly been inspired by the Arab Spring to stand up for his rights. No longer are diaper changes just a bland part of life that must be tolerated, they are an affront against his freedom to chase toy cars and they must be fought. No longer is it enough that Mommy and B eat dinner together, it is now a terrible injustice that B can not eat every single thing that Mommy is eating and with her fancy sharp utensils. And to add injury to injury, just when I think my back issues may finally be easing, B's favorite activity is constantly asking to be picked up. Usually it's not because he needs his mommy but because the totalitarian regime under which he is living has not yet chosen to outlaw standing for the adults, and B feels that it is unfair that we can see and touch things on the counter that he can't from his lowly position on the floor.

In his twisted baby mind, we are the haves and he is the have-not. Funny because I only know one person in this house who has a full-time servant and that is the supposed have-not.

Anyways, B is still a lot of work and I would be insane to want another baby this soon, yes? When I try to rise above the hormones and use my slowly atrophying brain I realize that it isn't the babyness I miss, but the simplicity of it all. Parenting decisions are so easy with a baby! There are a handful of issues that everyone gets all uppity about but once you pick a side you can just stick to it and march along. Graco or Chicco? Breastfeed or bottle feed? Cloth diaper or disposable? Co-sleep or cry-it-out? You're like an infantryman. Once you have your battle plan you can just turn off your brain and follow through (which is lucky because your brain probably has slept as much as the rest of you).

Now it feels like the parenting decisions are becoming more nuanced and strategies must be refined and adjusted on a daily basis. Rather than an infantryman, I find myself feeling like an under qualified middle manager. I've been given a mission statement: convince B that he is an important, loved, and respected member of the family with the same rights as everyone else but he is also still a baby who needs guidance, limits, and bedtimes set by his parents. (And he doesn't have molars so sometimes he just can't eat what Mommy is eating.) With this goal in mind and a staff of zero I have to constantly make things up as I go along but try to fool B into thinking I know what I'm doing while simultaneously keeping him from killing himself.