Dear Henry,
I can’t believe you are two. I feel like we were just planning your first birthday party, and the world was going to end if I did not get that baby book finished in time, goddammit. How we held it together just to make it through that first year of sleepless nights when, oh wait, what’s this? You mean the sleepless nights continue? More no nap days? And you have strong opinions usually differing from mine? Holy cow, we are screwed.
So yes, this second year started with a bang and my nervous breakdown, but I did get my mind back after a few months. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me and thank goodness it did not happen in your first year. Now I can even laugh when instead of napping you decide to take off all your clothes, pee circles in the crib, and then strip the sheets into a pile on the floor. You’re singing or reciting the lines from your favorite books the whole time to hide the fact that what you are actually doing in there is help me sort laundry. Do sheets ever get changed around here unless there is pee on them?!
I would like to talk to you for a minute about what it is like to ride in a car with you. Since we live in buttbomb suburbia due to a temporary lapse in judgment—I mean, please, we moved here from Manhattan; isn’t everything west of the Hudson suburbia?!—we spend a good chunk of time in the car. You won’t allow NPR. Anytime you hear a voice not busted out in crazy melody, you scream and try to drown it all out. I suppose this is payback for all those times I whined to your grandpa about listening to the market reports and sports talk. Anyway, throughout your life you have been able to listen to one song and one song only every 2-3 months. If we try to slip in something else, we hear “Song, song, song, I don’t like it, I don’t like it, song, song, SONG!” I thought you might like it if I compiled all of your favorite songs on one CD but I was wrong. Out of all those you now only like “Crocodile Rock.” You say Elton John over and over and so fast that you are eventually saying Uncle John. This is funny only because your Uncle John is just about the last person I can imagine in a glitter-covered pink leotard.
I know when your father met me he had to carefully evaluate the chances of the Pitcher OCD gene being perpetuated in our Bucher offspring. And it looks like we got it on the first shot. Thank you, Henry. Now I finally have someone with whom I can share my neuroticisms. While wrinkled sheets make me break out in hives, you cannot stand an opened door. If your closet is the slightest bit open at bedtime, you say, “Close it! Close it!” Kitchen cabinets are a major trigger for you. And you cannot understand for the life of you why we removed the closet door in our bedroom. Every morning you stand in the doorway and say, “Why there no door here?!!”
About a month before your birthday we decided our lives were not chaotic enough and we got another dog. It was our test to see if we were ready to give you a sister or brother, and let me tell you, puppies are good birth control. You can’t understand why on earth you are supposed to be gentle to this little stuffed animal who has teeth like razors. This causes a lot of conflict, especially around dinnertime. Yesterday I turned to see you holding Nacho up by a fistful of fur. Later you threw a 10-pound monster truck at her. This is sibling rivalry at its best. You are always so sweet to the other animals though—you tried to climb into a box with baby ducks at a petting zoo a few weeks ago, and when you saw the bunnies you laid flat on the ground and let them rest all over your belly. My favorite part is the territorial marking—Nacho pees on the carpet and then about 10 minutes later it gets really quiet (again, usually when I am making dinner) and I come into the living room to find you naked and peeing on top of her pee. Now if only you were as handy with the cleaner as you are with your clothes. But, Henry, I will always bring bail money when they catch you for streaking.
Love,
Mama