Noisy. That would be a important word in describing Makili this week. Righ now, he is sitting on Raph’s lap making all kinds of noises, which of course prompts Raph to ask him all sorts of questions. I like this noise-making. It is wicked cute. At night, his noisiness isn’t quite as cute. While sleeping, he grunts, squeaks, snores, pants, puffs, squaks, occasionally screams (yes while sleeping). All of this would be fine if he wasn’t in our bed. I regularly sit up and prepare to nurse him, certain that he is awake. And I wait and wait and he continues noisily sleeping until I finally give up and go back to sleep. (Then sure enough half and hour later he is awake screaming.) During the day he oscillates between being a complete angel one day (thankfully often on days when we have lots to do) and a gassy terror who screams his head off on other days. I don’t think I really knew that newborns cried a lot. I don’t know how I missed this piece of information, but I’m hoping my friends without kids are taking note of this information. Anyway, it has gotten so much better than the first few days after we came home and we had no idea how to console him. Now we can at least communicate a bit. We’re getting to know him I guess. He does not like a dirty diaper for example. Really doesn’t like a dirty diaper. And he dirties a lot of diapers, so on some days the crying is pretty much a race between gas in his belly bothering him and pants full of crap making him uncomfortable.
Spastic. Having arms is a challenge for Makili sometimes. He has started throwing his arms above him head in little fists, giant stretches. Painfully cute. But then sometimes he misses and punches himself in the face, which really makes him mad. At times it is as though he watches his hands thrash around and it just pisses him off. Of course when he is really mad and screaming he grabs at his face, in an apparent attempt to rip him eyeballs out. We think it’s a bit overdramatic. So much so it actually makes us laugh a lot (and trim those tiny fingernails a lot.) His hands look so much bigger than they did just a few short weeks ago.
A car-lover already. While he doesn’t have a yard-full of priceless cars like his grandpa yet, the kid definitely likes the car. I can pretty much count on him being asleep between our house and our gate which is ½ mile away. Raph is starting to be willing to waste gas occasionally (never before!) just to keep him from screaming. (It usually doesn’t come to that). I’m pretty thankful since we have to drive the 45 minutes to Hilo often.
Ready for adventure. For those of you who don’t know, we are headed permanently (in whatever sense permanence and our lives fit together) to the mainland this Thursday. We don’t know exactly where we will reside this year, though the goal is to be closer to family and friends. We’re hoping Makili will live up to recent travel performances and handle it well, but I think he will. After all, he already misses his grandmas and grandpa. The last grandma left on Thursday and Raph and I have been on own since then. Aside from the fact that I’ve eaten a die primarily consisting of pie and pretzels since then, we’re doing pretty well. I’ll say it again: I can’t imagine doing this alone. I totally picked the right husband. Our stuff is almost packed and the house is getting clean day by day. I’ve greeted the sun almost every day since the moms left (thanks to Makili). Mentally I’m ready to say goodbye to Hawaii for now. I’m ready for family and friends and fall and the Eastern time zone and weddings and good vegetarian food and fireplaces and navigable woods and lakes and art.
Big. He already seems so much bigger than he used to.
