The big one...

The oldest child is an unfortunate one.

He must survive all the fuckups I make along my journey through the Mother-Hood. He's the first to hit each milestone and each new challenge. They are foreign to me, they're new, something to master. By the time the baby of the family gets to the same point, we'll have it figured out.

Not so for the oldest. He's the prototype.

It sucks to be him.

When he was born I was psycho. I was anal and scared...and didn't know what to do with a kid that you didn't have to "plug in".

He cried all the time.

I did, too.

I breastfed him for only three months because he cried so much. I needed a break. I needed Jake to be able to feed the kid a bottle so that I could try to find my sanity.

I remember putting my screaming four month old in his crib, shutting his door, and retreating to the shower. I would blare my music, hoping it would drown out the cries of that little boy.

I did it more than once.

He never slept. He cried all through the night.

I would stress out thinking that I was doing something wrong...that I wasn't meeting his needs. He was the only one...all I did was tend to his needs.

Any time we put him in the car, he would scream. Not just any scream...a scream that pierced deep into your nerves. A scream that hurt.

We didn't go many places with that boy.

He cried ALL.THE.FUCKING.TIME.

He cried when he ate, when he slept, and when he played. When he learned to crawl, he cried with every movement of his legs and arms.

Then, when he was ten months old, he crawled and cried to the coffee table, pulled his chubby little self up to a stand...and he walked.

He didn't cry when he walked. In fact, from that day forward, he didn't cry much at all.


Now that I know the kid, and know his personality, I think he was in a hurry. I honestly think that that little fucker didn't like being a baby. I think he wanted to grow up. I think he wanted more. I think he might have been a man trapped inside the body of a helpless little thing.


He's still like that. Always rushing through today to get to tomorrow. The poor kid...he's EXACTLY like me. He wants nothing more than to be just like his dad. He'll have to settle for being a better version of his mom.

Avery tries me, and challenges me, and fights me, and gets on my fucking nerves. But, he amazes me, and he impresses me, and though I will never tell him that he does so, he teaches me.

If we can make it through his childhood and adolescence...he will become one helluva man.


ONE HELL OF A FUCKING MAN!!