Frogs and Snails and Puppydog Tails

Little boys and little girls are different. They simply are.

I find that little boys have inherent qualities that seem to want to come out no matter what you do to try and delay their emergence. My angel (I use that term loosely) is only 10 months old and he has the clear personality markings of a boy. Let me make you a list.

To begin, my son has decided that it is his job to put every item he can hold between his  fingers into his mouth and attempt eat it. This includes (but is not limited to) lint, fuzz, string, scraps of paper, dog hair, pieces of cloth, and dirt. Most recently, he added an eye booger directly off of the dog's face and a Boxelder bug to his repertoire. I am not proud of this. Both were instances in which I saw the horror occur and dashed over to attempt to dig the item from his mouth only to discover, with great disgust, that both items had been ingested. Simply? Yuck. But, I have to tell you that Spencer was elated with himself. I think he maybe even enjoyed the bug.

Another issue I seem to have with my son is that I constantly have to pry him away from making out with the dog. Again, yuck. It started innocently enough with the dog licking him in the face when he was perhaps 5 months old. He giggled, we giggled. It was all in good fun... until he started letting the dog lick IN his mouth... and started actively licking her back. Ugh. I am raising a germ-obsessed ragamuffin. Clearly.

My son has chronic stinky feet. I give him a bath, and 10 minutes later his feet smell like he has been wearing an athlete's week-old gym socks all day. Worse, when I sniff them and tell him how terrible they smell, he has the nerve to laugh. And I am talking LAUGH, not a giggle or a snort. A full-out belly laugh that lights up his whole (usually sticky or snot-covered) face.

He likes being dirty, he plays in his own vomit, and he thinks farts are hilarious. He knocks things over, kicks things on purpose, and enjoys spitting with a remarkable enthusiasm.

Plain and simple: My son is a boy. Through and through. A mama's boy (for now), but a boy nonetheless. And I love him. Right down to his putrid-smelling toes.

Accidental Heartbreak

This is not my first go-around in the blogsphere. Not even my second or third. It would appear, however, that this is my only surviving blog these days.

My old blogs (one a personal blog and one the tale of my family's journey through the NICU) were both inadvertently deleted. And, I have to confess, I am quite heartbroken. The Bug Chronicles (the blog about our NICU journey) was unspeakably important to me. At the time, it was an outlet for all of my fears and worries for my only son. After, it became a place for reflection and a place to share with others in similar situations.

I guess the only thing to do now is look forward and move on. So, I hope to be able to use this blog as a way to document our lives in a stark and honest fashion, to express the difficulty of juggling motherhood and nursing school and working and marriage, and to share the joy of all of these things at the same time.

I am sad, but I am hopeful. We'll have to see where things go from here.