Wisconsin - come for the wedding, stay for the beer. And family.

We just returned from a week long Blum trip to the great state of Wisconsin to celebrate Z receiving a new aunt, aka, the marriage of Joe's brother Zac to the ever charming, hilarious and delightful Karlee. Z got to spend an entire week meeting all of his great aunts and uncles, regular old uncles, cousins, great grandma, etc etc. Good thing the child can't understand all of the praise lavished upon him or he would be spoiled rotten. Now it's only Joe and I that are spoiled and mildly haughty with pride over our adorable little son. It doesn't hurt that he looks great in a bow tie.

Cute in a bow tie. Bow ties are cool.

 Z was a gem on the "harrowing" (Joe Blum) train rides to and from Chicago. Maybe spent a total of 5-10 minutes crying out of oh.... about 30 train hours. He was the best part of the exhausting trips and we couldn't possibly have hoped for him to do any better than he did. He handled all the people, confusion, chaos and excitement of the entire week beautifully, especially considering that he discovered his hands in a whole new way over the last week. He now spends a good portion of time in very focused, serious contemplation of holding his fists to his mouth and sucking them. Every now and then he gets ambitious and attempts to figure out how to release his thumb from his tightly balled fist and get it in his mouth. This usually results in an increase in intensity and grunts as he. just. can't. get. that. thumb. He has succeeded a couple times, which seems to result in confusion and uncertainty about why he wanted this thumb thing in his mouth in the first place. It's just not all he thought it would be. Unfortunately for him, his memory of this event doesn't seem to stick because a few hours later he's at it again. I admire your tenacity my little son.

Capturing the wild thumb

Z's also gotten great at smiling at me and Joe. When we smile at him he will light up and smile back. Pretty heart melting. It makes this whole parenting thing seem more real when I realize that Z knows us and wants us in particular. It's crazy to realize that I'm that person now in someone's life, the one who you want when something bad happens to you or you are sick or sad. I'm not sure if boys are like this as much as girls, but when I last had a bad stomach bug and was sitting weakly on the bathroom floor after hours of vomiting, it was my mommy that I called as soon as it was not an ungodly hour of the morning, even though I knew she was miles away and could do nothing for me. I just needed her to know that I didn't feel good and tell me to try to drink something when my stomach settled and get some rest. Oh sure, I knew those things already but for some reason it made me feel better to have my mom tell me what to do. I hope that someday when Z is grown, he will still want me sometimes to cook for him or send him a package or whatever people do in the future. I want him to be standing around with his friends someday telling goofy stories about me being crazy with the undertone that says, "My mom is nuts, but I love her."

This is what happens when I boop his nose. It's serious.

Bad Parenting

Our friends Tim and Amanda were visiting with their two kids, ages 3 years and 5 months, when Amanda mentioned something I thought was brilliant: confessions of bad parenting. Not like, serious stuff, but those times when you do something you never thought you would do and think, "Wowsers, I hope no one ever finds out about that!" Like oh... I don't know... seeing that pee spot on your son's onesie is only a little bigger than a half dollar, it'll dry. He's fine. Or eschewing all "back is best" because dang it, your kid is sleeping so well on his tummy right now. Or, GASP, putting a loose blanket over your son because you just don't want to wake him up to put the safe wearable blanket on him.

My mom has said the phrase, "Wow, how did you guys ever survive" about 50 times since Z was born as she has heard me spouting out the millions of DO and DO NOT DO rules that are heaped upon new parents. (Not to mention the pressures some of us put on ourselves with our lifestyle desires and choices, Natural fibers! glass bottles! cloth diapers! organic food! GAH! IS THAT ORGANIC!?) My parents call it "information saturation" and they are probably right. We know WAY too much for our own good and it makes us crazy. The worst part of it is that our "wired" lives make it so easy to feel like everyone else is doing things perfectly and we are the only ones experiencing parenting fails or deciding to cheat and break rules or leave their kid in that pee outfit because he hates having his clothes changed. Just ain't so my friends. We all have parenting fails. Now and forever.

One thing I have loved about becoming a mom is the way it has changed the dynamic of my relationship with our parents. My mom and mother in law have started telling me more stories about their experiences as new moms and the things they learned along the way. It's fantastic and it shows me that I'm doing okay. I've always thought of both of them as the epitome of being a mom. My mom was always teaching us and even though she's not a feisty lady, boy, when she raised that finger to us or told us it was time to clean up or whatever, we did it. (Well, I did. Aaron was naughty child) Joe's mom has always amazed me with her ability to juggle all of her responsibilities and still keep smiling and laughing. Somehow she can always figure out how to fit one (or five!) more people at her table when her sons show up with friends. But even these towers of motherhood did ridiculous things. They are full of stories of putting on clothes wrong, breaking "rules" and basically just riding the waves of life and going with the flow. It makes me aspire to be like them even more.

All this to say, yep, I forgot to bring Z's diaper bag to his first appointment. (We packed it so carefully and then forgot the whole dang bag! Of course Z soiled himself and I was so embarassed when I didn't have a new diaper for him. The nurse kindly fetched one for us.) Maybe it was the first time I hung my head and thought, "Ug, mom fail" but I'm sure it won't be the last. And, you know what, that's okay.