Portraits of Teddy

 

Teddy's at such an interesting age right now. I look at pictures from even six months ago and he looks so young! He's changing and growing up every second. He got glasses recently, he has braces now (not in these pictures), and he's getting so smart and so inquisitive. Somewhere in the past year he stopped being a little kid and became…I don't know what. Whatever he is now. A schoolboy, I guess. A smart, funny schoolboy. He reminds me of Abe…a little. His seriousness, his love of reading, his constant questions. But he's snugglier and more sensitive and just…more Teddyish. I'm glad I got some pictures before he suddenly turns into a man!

Eager

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Blankie Scraps

Theodore loves his blankie so much. It's always so funny to see what the babies decide to get attached to. Abe had White Bear. Seb had his monkey(s) Brownie. Malachi had his Birdie, Daisy has her blankie (versions I and II), Junie…has had several animals and blankets she likes, but I guess Oinker is her favorite. Goldie has Taggie. And Teddy has this soft little blankie.

It's not the sort of blankie I would have ever bought myself! It's a soft, expensive blue velvet-and-satin blanket that someone gave me at a shower when Abraham was just a baby. I used it for his baby blessing, and then put it away in my cedar chest because it was too nice for everyday use! Then I got it out on Seb and Ky's blessing days too, but when I went to put it away after using it for Teddy's blessing I thought, "What am I saving this for? I've used it four times in twelve years. What a waste!"…so I went ahead and put it in with Teddy in his crib.

And it became His Blankie. He carries it everywhere, and every night at bedtime a mad cry of "Has anyone seen Blankie? Where's Teddy's blankie?" can be heard throughout the house. Accompanied, when the blankie isn't quickly located, by sighs of frustration—because, of course, we know it could be literally ANYWHERE.

And of course, as any mother of a Blankie-lover can tell you, eventually he loved it literally to pieces. The velvet side ripped right down the middle, and then suddenly—I really don't know how this happened, but something about the velvet seemed to encourage it—there were Blankie Scraps. Everywhere!

This was the point at which my mom threw MY blankie out (I'm still not over it), but I just couldn't bear to do that! And each blankie scrap seemed just as precious to him as the whole blankie. I have thrown a few out. But only the very, very tiny ones.

I tried to get him a replacement blankie for Christmas (a smaller one—hoping it wouldn't be dragged around so much), but of course I couldn't find the same exact kind, and of course he KNEW it wasn't the same. Every time I try to give him the other blankie, he just says brusquely, "No, don't yike that one."

On the plus side, it does seem that any part of the blankie can substitute for the whole (yes, I know what you're thinking: just like the literary device of synecdoche!). If we can't find the main blankie, a blankie scrap will do. I keep them stashed around in strategic places like my purse and the car, just in case. Teddy calls them "bwankie-caps" and seems to have accepted their existence philosophically and without dismay. And it's really cute to hear him saying to Goldie in their room at night, "Mar-gold, can you find my bwankie-cap?"

Ideally, he likes to hold a blankie scrap tucked tightly in one hand, feeling the velvet with his fingers; with his thumb out for sucking. Then the main body of the blankie in his other hand, up near his face and under his nose. If no blankie scrap is available, he likes to feel the poor deteriorating ragged velvet edge of his blankie, but that's rapidly fraying all the way off, I'm afraid. And if the blankie proper isn't available, as I've said, a blankie scrap (even a tiny one!) will suffice.

He's such a funny little monkey! We love him! And his bwankie-caps!

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Pictures, mostly of Teddy, because he's two

You know how it is with two-year-olds. Everyone wants to be around them and tickle them and hear what funny things they are going to say next! The older children positively compete over Teddy. They carry him around (which he often resists) and argue over who gets to read him a story and whose turn it is to sit by him in the car. But I also have to remind them several times a day, "It's useless to argue with a two-year-old!" Teddy could beat anyone at the "Yes-it-is""No-it-isn't" game. Although he doesn't quite grasp the semantics, so he just tacks on "I DON'T" or "YOU DON'T" to everything that displeases him. 

"Teddy, it's time for bed." "I DON'T go to bed!" 

"Okay, now I have to go downstairs and make breakfast." "You have to DON'T go downstairs and make breakfast, Mommy!"

"Oh dear, we don't hit Goldie!" "No, I DON'T not hit Goldie!"

But who can resist him, anyway? After sitting in time-out for about 15 seconds, he's all smiles, and  squeaks out, "Ready-to-be-nice-and-not-cweem-and-not-yell-and-not-get-fings?" in a hopeful voice, no matter what his offense was. (I don't know why it's always part of his remorse to "not get things." Does he really get reprimanded for "getting things" so much? Maybe he does…there always do tend to be little finger holes in any cake or muffins that are sitting out on the counter.)

Making noodles with Daddy

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Santa and the hat

That title sounds like it's going to precede a very exciting story, and it does. We got this Santa suit at a baby shower way back when Abe was a baby. It's not really the right size for Theodore anymore, but since all the boys have worn it, by golly I was going to try to put Theo in it too!

He didn't like it. Especially the hat.

So we spent a very entertaining fifteen minutes tormenting him with it.

Poor baby.

Note thumb going in, for comfort at such a difficult time.

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Theobear

In spite of everything, this little Teddy-bear keeps getting bigger. I feel like it's been a lifetime since he was born. I feel like that tiny, sweet, goo-ing and coo-ing baby was a whole different person than this…well, this whatever-he-is. Because I'm sorry to say I don't understand him, not one bit. He jabbers SO much, in a very pontificating and know-it-all-ish sort of way, setting forth opinions and interrupting conversations with a slight touch of condescension in his voice. It's a bit alarming since he ISN'T SAYING REAL WORDS. But he's so sure of himself you start to question your own sanity, especially when you let yourself relax and be carried along on the wave of his discourse, because suddenly you start hearing phrases like "It isn't your job to be so loud right now, Ky," and "Daisy's putting a tennis racket back there in the carseat" and "One, two, three, away we go! Whee!" Things he couldn't POSSIBLY be truly saying…could he??

Oh, but he was the very sweetest of babies—did I mention that? And then about nine months ago imagine our confusion when he became a straining, screaming, slavering gremlin—"Surely our baby has been replaced by a little changeling imp!" we thought. "Maybe when he learns to walk and talk he will feel more himself again."

Well, now he is walking, at last. And…I suppose one might label some of his imperious pronouncements "talking." But he's still a mystery, as most babies end up being, after all. Desperately hopeful, whenever Sam's around, that he might be afforded a prime seat in Sam's arms to be carried about the house in. Shy and boisterous and serious and silly. Mad and demanding and sensitive and sweet. Bossy and offended and monkeyish and adoring. I don't know how we ever got along without him!

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A Year of Theodore

Oh, Theodore, or "Fee-doe-doe," as Goldie would say. We love him so much. Here he is every month during this first year of his life. Obviously, in the last picture, he doesn't WANT to lie down by that bunny, and doesn't know why I would ask him to do so. Poor lamb.

He had a good birthday. He and I shared the birthday cake Sam made. Yum!

He's the baby who has everything, so we didn't get him any presents—just wrapped up his blankie in a box for him to open. Abe was so scandalized that I would do such a thing! I thought it was a great idea. Teddy liked finding his blankie in that box.

And here he is helping Sam put a chair together and trying to bite a vertical(ish) bar—an important milestone which every baby should achieve!

 For Junie's first year see here; for Marigold's first year see here.

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Theodore (A Backwards Birth Story)

If this were a fairy tale, there would be something special about the seventh child; some great destiny he was marked for; some lucky or portentous star that danced in the sky at his birth. Of course we Nielsons are far too rational to believe in such things! But I will let you judge for yourself. :)

I've never felt like one of those intuitive souls who knows her baby before it's born—I don't even know beforehand if they're boys or girls, for goodness sake! And I quite like it, the surprise and excitement of it all, speculating and wondering which little glimpses of personality will turn out to mean something, and which ones won't. But, from the very beginning, this seventh baby seemed extra mysterious, even by my usual standards. He or she was a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, inside a mystery—or whatever it was Churchill said about Russia. I felt a bit guilty about the lack of time I'd spent really thinking about the baby or trying to communicate with him or her. After having felt the baby's flutters and kicks earlier and earlier each time with my previous pregnancies, suddenly this time I found myself at 20 weeks and still not really sure I'd ever noticed the baby moving. To make matters worse, when my midwife Cathy came over to do a prenatal checkup, she couldn't find the baby's heartbeat, which had never happened before. Sam and I went into the ultrasound a week later with a sense of slight worry, telling ourselves everything would be fine, but not completely sure that was true. Everything was fine, as it turned out, but the baby remained unusually elusive. It often took several tries to get the heartbeat at checkups, and while I did end up feeling lots of movement as time went on, I never had any sense of what the baby was like. There just didn't seem to be anything to grasp onto—baby wasn't unusually active inside me like Malachi had been, or unusually calm like Daisy had been; he or she didn't jump at loud noises like Junie had, or get the hiccups every night like Sebastian used to.

And then I wondered if the baby was already showing a personality but maybe I was just too busy and preoccupied to notice? Or if the baby could TELL that I was too busy to spend hours daydreaming about him or her, and he or she was offended and put out about such neglect and therefore refusing to give me a glimpse of who he or she was?

But the days just kept tumbling forward and I kept saying to myself: after this week I will have time to think about the baby—after Christmas things will slow down—once Sam's work deadlines are past I will definitely sit and commune with this baby. And when the new year came, I did make an effort to find some time to read my favorite birth book and ponder some of the symbolism of birth and think about baby names. There were quiet moments here and there, and I felt a bit more tuned in to the baby's presence. But I still couldn't believe the time was getting so close and I was feeling so unprepared. I didn't know what to expect about the timing, having had babies come everywhere between two weeks "early" and a week "late," but I did plan to start our school break the week before the due date, to give us a few days to slow down and clean the house and get settled into "ready for baby" mode.

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