curator of dreams

Remember when I used to write here?

It has been over a year since I clicked these keys with this kind of purpose, and it feels pretty good. William is now two years old, and we have welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Ginny, to our family. I spoke in my last post about the brevity of life, and I feel that now more keenly than ever!

Sigh. So William is two. It's crazy. He is a fabulous, creative, sweet, inquisitive, hilarious two year old. I have started to realize in these past few months that his first memories are lurking around us, bound to be etched somewhere in these colorful days. They are forming as we speak. I am so curious about which experiences his little mind will cling to. Will he remember the days when it felt like he and I were the only ones in the world, dancing in the living room and loving the simplest things? 

I remember odds & ends about my childhood, but many of my early memories have to do with make-believe, magic, and bedtime stories. In the stories my dad used to tell us, we were always the heroes. We met fantastic friends and daring creatures and we always, always won the day. How wonderful it was to have my imagination shaped, tended to, and nourished by my parents. I am beginning to realize what a mighty gift that is.

It is so incredibly exciting to have the honor of introducing the things that will someday produce nostalgia in the hearts of our children. I am a curator of dreams. It's a wondrous thought. At this beautiful age, everything that William sees, reads, tastes, and enjoys is more or less organized by us. We parent the archive of whimsy. We pass along things we loved as children, and find renewed joy in them through the eyes of our little ones. Things like the rooster minstrel from Disney's Robin Hood, and Renaissance Festival pizza. We then discover new loves together, like the Little Blue Truck books and Cadbury milk chocolate mini eggs. It is a fabulous journey. 

It won't always be this way, of course. As he continues to grow, he will find his own way more and more. He will develop preferences apart from ours, and he may even decide he doesn't like certain meals I make (gasp), or songs I listen to. All of these day-to-day toddlerhood things will eventually just be a tiny part of who he is. They will fade away, one by one, just as his habit of saying "I do!" to every question has now matured into a hearty "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah". He will develop around and past them, and I will count myself blessed a hundred times over to know his future self the way I know him as a little boy. 

But right now? We dance to the Greatest Showman soundtrack, belting a million dreams, and he feeds off of my excitement, finding joy in the things we can share. His mind is a fascinating thing, reaching its many tendrils outward and constantly grasping at the things it loves best. Words, sounds, faces, meaning. I will use this time to imbue as much dreaminess to his memories as I can, so that one day we might be able to look back together and say, remember when all was magical? When you and I danced, and were the only ones in the world. 

william boyer

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Facebook Friends Day - have I missed anything else?

After months of not blogging, I find myself revisiting this little space to say I have a baby! My little boy is already 1 month old (as of yesterday), and it has been the most wonderful month of my entire life. I imagine it has been pretty grand for him as well - he has so much more room to wiggle and sing and squirm!

William Boyer came into the world at 8:08pm on January 6th, 2016. He was 9 lb, 5 oz and 21 inches long. He is also absolutely perfect, but that's basically the New Mom National Anthem so I'd like to go into a little more detail... partly for you, but mostly for me. This month has gone by in a blur of midnight conversations, earnest baby tears, bleary parent eyes, late morning naps, Friends marathons, couch cuddles, hummed lullabies, fresh baby clothes, and worn-out pajamas. I already feel like so many of the details have slipped out of my tired mind, and it's a true fear of mine that I won't be able to fully document and recall these priceless days of our newly baked parenthood. So here are a few things that I want to remember...

We call him bubba gump, gruntosaurus, sweet boy, will boy, and terry (short for pterodactyl) when he's particularly shrill. I love how strong he is. As soon as they laid him on my chest in the hospital, he lifted his head and looked around. No one has informed him that he's a newborn and is supposed to be fragile.

I adore the way he breathes. It's often stuttered and loud and deep (with his mouth hanging open), and it's always warm and sweet and friendly. I listen for it in the dark of night, and treasure the warmth of it against my neck. Remember when you were young, and you used to wonder what clouds taste like? (Was that just me?) That's what his breath smells like. It's cloud fluff a la mode. One of my more awkward hobbies now is resting my face against his and smelling his breath until he gets mad at me. I now understand why parents are so embarrassing.

I love the way he shakily head butts me when he tries to look me in the eyes. I love how his eyes then go cross as he works so hard to focus on mine, and the endless expressions he manages to create. They never, ever get old. He pushes his tongue against his bottom lip, he purses his lips, he scrunches his face and raises his eyebrows and stretches his arms and poses like superman and tries his best to look like the grumpiest old man in the land.

He is so active, so playful, so alive. He wiggles and kicks and grunts like a pro grunter, which isn't a thing. Until now. He grunts when he's happy, when he's angry, when he's (supposed to be) sleeping. Whenever I wake up in a pure and quite irrational panic, which is more often than I'd like to admit, there's no greater sound than his little drowsy grunts.

I love his lips and how he moves his mouth. I love his little spit bubbles and the way his clean, fluffy blonde hair smells after a bath. I love how he'll go perfectly still and just stare silently in one direction as if he's just discovered something that requires a lot of focused thought. The best thing in the world is the thoughtful way he clutches at my shoulder or my arm or my clothes when he's sleepy or nursing. His little fingers opening and closing in a gentle repetition, just to remind me he's still there. His fingers and toes are constantly in motion. The little dimples on his hands make me want to cry.

His eyes are so deep and beautiful, that stunning blue-grey slate. (Will they darken to brown like mine, or lighten to blue like his dad's?). Sometimes I almost feel like he is listening to me. He seems to think such deep thoughts... and then he'll squirm and fart and squeal and I'll realize he's only 4 weeks old, and his world is such a mystery to me. I constantly wonder what his view must be like. Is everything blurry? Does he see me when I hold him close and kiss his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, his lips? When he smiles those sneaky smirks in the middle of nothing in particular, does he know he's smiling at me?

I find myself being washed from head to toe in those surprising moments of OH HEAVENS I love him so much, I may drown in the great sticky mess of it. I can hardly stand it. I cry when I think too much about his tiny footprints or the smell of his first shampoo. I never want to graduate from this land of new motherhood, with its many graces and firsts and cuddles and homemade lattes. I cry when I think about this time of life going too quickly and ending before I'm ready for it to. He won't remember these days, but I... well, I will long for them and dream of them and never, ever forget them. I will carry them with me for the rest of my days in the happiest pocket of my heart.