Because words matter

Tonight Mark was putting Zachary to bed, and I was trying to convince Miriam that intestinal function was not actually something worth being really angry about (funny, because I went back to the very beginning of this blog and found Z had exactly the same dramatic reaction to intestines.. and the same angry WHY IS MY DIAPER WET AND WHY AM I HUNGRY?!? face.. two peas in a pod they are..)... Anyway, I made some offhand comment to Mark to go help his eldest settle down (since bedtime is always so relaxing around here).. And Mark just froze and looked at me like I had spoken some language so exotic that it wasn't even identifiable... "My... eldest?"

It turns out words matter. It turns out it is a bit strange, with new vocabulary like "two" and "eldest" and "daughter". It isn't quite the same as getting married, but in some ways it is bigger... Marriage felt like a moment. This feels like a tunnel. It takes time to transition and we're sort of getting our sea legs but everything changes so fast at the beginning. We're trying to keep things sort of sensible for the "eldest".. but what is sensible when you've got a new person who has been alive for less than three weeks and makes 75 noises but they all mean either "Poop!" or "BOOB!" or "WET!" or "Tired." We're trying all the ways to be four people all pulling in different directions together, especially when two of us are getting roughly enough sleep combined to still not be allowed to operate heavy machinery.

And, as an exercise in optimism that only human beings can achieve.. somehow we totally believe it is possible. Not only possible, but inevitable, and probably it'll all be ok, and we don't have too much heavy machinery anyway. And one of them made it to 6, which is a card we're playing heavily around here.

(a tiny diversion - this one coos. She actually coos. I didn't even know that was a noise babies actually made. This baby does make it. Sometimes it is just an exploratory coo. Sometimes it escalates into "WHY ARE YOU NOT FEEDING ME YET? I am losing patience." But regardless, she coos. It is amazing and fantastic.)