Five Buckys

Dearest, It was morning when you became a father. I will never forget your face. You had tears in your eyes. You had the perfect new dad scruff beard. And you had this proud smile painted across your face. You kissed me. You called me amazing. And you let me hold him first. Thank you for that.  You called him by his name. August Abram Buchanan, you said. And I remember it sounding like it was the first time I’d ever heard it. Even though we had been saying it over and over for about 6 months. It wasn’t long til the doctors and nurses left, and it was just the three of us. For a little while, no one else in the world existed.  Motherhood hit me hard and fast and all at once. I wasn’t quite expecting how new and different life would be. I was becoming this whole new person. And I felt a little out of control at times. But watching you and listening to you kept me calm and kept me reminded that I was made to be a mother. You sailed into fatherhood. A calm to my crazy. A ...

Friday is here! We are spending our weekend moving into our little dream house. Moving with an 11 month old helper is tricky. He wants to be held. Then he wants to help you unpack the box you are packing. Then he wants to throw loose Cheerios in the box because we better not forget those.  Yesterday, we parented up and learned if we took turns: one of us holding the boy and the other running boxes down three flights of stairs; we’d make a lot more progress. So that’s what we did. And my calves have been saying curse words at me ever since.  But oh boy, our new place is worth all the work! It has lots of windows that already have baby hand prints all over them. And  stairs that my tiny little baby mastered by the end of the first day.   Baby gates, we are coming for you.  And lots of neighbor kids that shout, “HEY GUS!” when they see us. Popular baby. And it has a neighborhood cat that roams around outside. Gus likes to roar at him and the cat will meow back and ...

My boys bought me flowers from the City Market on Saturday.  Summer is ours. We were made husband and wife in the summertime. We were made father and mother in the summertime. And this baby here, he has always been my sweet, sweet summertime, even in the dead of winter. Jared plays in the church band once a month. Which means August and I arrive early to listen to them practice. August dances to the music and stares at Jared in complete admiration. #cooldad August also enjoys having an empty church to crawl. crawl. crawl. It was cute this one time so I took a picture. What was even cuter? After all the paper spun off the roll, he looked at me confused and tried to put it back. I explained to him it would not go back, he cried and pressed his head in my neck. Message received?  He stands for seconds at a time and he thinks it is the coolest. So do I. After weeks of terrible teething, he has two halves of teeth. They just kind of popped in and gave up. I like those two tiny teeth. Especi...

I had the thought to do a photo every hour yesterday. I started at 8am. I quit at 8am. Don’t ya know, if I did do a photo every hour, it would just be 10 of the same blurry photos of a drooling baby face. Plus my lens would need a good cleaning. So here, here is our 8am. And that’s that. Oh! Except here’s a picture I did manage to snap. And snap, it’s good! So good that Jared spent a good five minutes last night eyes-watering up, eyebrows all furrowed, smile painted across his face, holding his hand over his heart: “Jenna! The tippy toes! Jenna! Oh my word! The tippy toes! Jenna! When did he find out about tippy toes? Oh my word!”  

A little update on the accounts of my man, my boy, and myself. My talents as a mother have expanded. I can grocery shop using coupons and doing math, all while singing the Daniel Tiger theme song to keep my baby entertained. I can change a diaper on a super fast crawling baby. I can steam peas and chop the tiniest carrots like you wouldn’t believe.  I can tumble out of bed, walk across the apartment, nurse my sad awake baby, lay him back down to sleep, and stumble back into my own bed without even opening my eyes.   Bragging rights? I’ve got ‘em.  August is a lovely combination of baby and boy. He’d rather be crawling most of the time, but being held is too hard to give up.  See above picture for proof. August is really becoming who he is and I like getting to know him. He is very determined and focused with his toys. He puts different sized cars on his track and then turns them upside down and spins their wheels and laughs because wheels are hilarious. He stands...

Picnic lunch with Jared at the Downtown Pavilion.   My very own house band and, when I’m real lucky, my very own circus act! Good grief, the cute! Sometimes this baby looks a heck of a lot like me. Well gosh! Swing, swing, swing e’rday all day.

You are my little puppy dog: panting loud and heavy as you navigate fast on all fours, tongue hanging out way past your lips, little tail wagging behind you. You even love belly rubs. You sit in the buggy at the grocery store and kick your feet and sing through the aisles. You make sweet eyes at all the ladies and talk to all the other babies. You have a way with getting a smile out of even the grumpiest cashier. I hope you can do this for your whole life. It’s important and it makes me proud. You love dinnertime. In just a diaper, you sit in your highchair as if you are king. I spoon feed you a medley of vegetables. Sometimes I sing you silly songs in which I make up on the spot and you laugh like I am the funniest lady, sometimes you have no time for such foolishness and say give me the goods, lady! I hear a faint “dadadada” over your sound machine. (You stopped saying ‘mama’ sometime last week. I miss it, but we had a good run. I don’t blame you, d...