You can't cure baby sick with bacon.

It all started when Bubba got blasted by a big bad blockup.  Top end.  Stuffiest of all stuffy noses, the poor boy was snuffling and squidging around so long a couple nights ago we went up to right things and found ourselves with a very warm headed unhappy little man.  We, the old folks downstairs, charging up to fix our baby.  Our boy's not well.  We behaved like parents in an urgent situation and that, to me, was a very strange experience.

Of course we've been behaving like parents for eight months now but it's a bit like getting that first car / credit card / apartment / house / bottle of Jack Daniels.  You think to yourself 'hey I'm an adult now, this is not kid stuff.'  But when the stuff that is not kid stuff IS kid stuff, well, that is when you have truly arrived, baby.

So bubbo snuffaluffagus was unwell and we did our best to fix him.  We seem to have done a pretty miserable job of it, which I discovered today, as two minutes post-breakfast, half the contents of said breakfast were soaking into the carpeting like a Rorschach blot and snuffly boy was screaming blue Jesus.

The mommy antenna went up full height and I admit the urge to clean up the puddle first was a bit strong.  But no, baby first.  He's not only unwell, he's a bit freaked out at that new sensation and I have to find a way to fix it.  How's about a wiped face, a kiss on the too-hot-for-my-liking forehead, fresh nappy and a new top.  Check.  Now let's get him resting a bit on the sofa.  Carefully drape a blanket under him in case the rest of breakfast comes to the party.  Cover him up with another blanket.  Finally open up that Calpol that's been staring me down for eight months and spoon a bit in him.  Good, good.  I'm mommy-ing.  I'm fixing the ick.

He conks out.  I feel triumphant.  Until he wakes up after a brief nap and I go to cuddle him by putting him on my shoulder.  A gurking sound pierces my eardrum like a chisel and as I whizz him around, there we now officially have an empty stomach and more Rorschach on the other side of the floor.  I'm not sure if it looked like an octopus, a racecar or three blooming coins in a fountain but it plain as day looked like a fresh puddle of puke I was going to need to mop up.  He goes back to the sofa and I refill that bowl of water.

Scrub scrub.  I'm mommying again.  He is quietly watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and sucking on a muslin cloth.  I am wondering how in the hell I'll get some fluids in him if it keeps coming back up.  How do I comfort him if he's not comfy cuddling in the newborn hold and the shoulder plank empties his guts?

I check him again and he's slowly becoming not so grey faced, forehead a bit cooler.  Thank you Calpol.  Having consulted Doctor Google again I see he could very well be quite perky even though he's got an obvious tummy bug and it's only if he's seriously out of sorts that it's time to panic.  And lo and behold he's seeming to bore and crabbing to get on the floor again.  Five minutes after I dump the bowl in the sink, I look down and he's rolled to that same tummy that just returned breakfast and I'm thinking first: 'dear lord, please don't puke on your playmat', and second: 'you sure do bounce back quick.  Tough as old boots'.  He's clearly on the fritz and there he is going roly poly.  Pride.

Yet they say WOMEN are confusing.

He is now full of a half bottle of milk and a couple crumbs of rice cake and napping again, the sleepiness the only indication at the moment that he's off piste.  I think he's ok for now but I may just fill that bowl again to be on the safe side.

The real shame of it all?  Unlike a hangover, you can't cure baby sick with bacon.

_____


In other news, this is officially the last day of my maternity leave.  Nine months gone and it's time to enter a new phase of life and get back to work - only part time til year's end, thank god.  I would sink like a boulder if I dived straight in.  Baby steps.  The adult kind.

Our childminder has been selected.  We are getting close to the first full day with her and I'm growing new greys by the minute just thinking about it.  I am feeling melancholy but more than relieved that compressed working hours are on the horizon and Rukai and I will have one weekday together to keep his development on track.  We are on such a roll and seeing that slow - worse, cease - would break me like Uncle Pecos' old guitar string.  Crambone.

To be at this point after an eight months which started in the wilderness, smothered with such worry and concern, now feels a bit like a quiet miracle.

Rukai is coming on still with no issues, firmly at the tail end of normal where milestones are concerned.  Surrounded by about a dozen other kids the other day at baby singsong I saw that he isn't doing anything any differently than they are.  He may be a bit on the late end but by god he's doing it.

He's now rolling over regularly and with ease both ways.  He's grabbing and trying to shake the very color off his toys.  He babbled an accidental mama yesterday which set me alight and raised a flock of butterflies in my own belly.  He is so strong and rambunctious, so tenacious and stubborn.  So much a perfect combination of me and his Daddy it is just untrue.

So today I have stuffed my worry in a cab to Heathrow, checked it in on a flight to Don'tLetTheDoorHitYa and sent it packing.  It may find its way back but in the meantime we three are going somewhere much sunnier.  I'll send a postcard.

Baby planking.

Well, I've done it.  I've gone and booked a meeting with a childminder because oh-my-god-i-cannot-believe-it, nine months have come and gone and I have to go back to work in a few weeks.  The days of living in my jammies and rolling around on the floor with Rukai are going, and I will need to make conversation about other things than bodily functions, milestones and sleep patterns.  I will need to park my silly faces until I get home.  I will have to use Outlook again.  Go to meetings.  Dig out my work notebook and try desperately to read through what I was working on, if I can see past the many doodles I made in the later days of pregnancy when my mind was adrift in anticipation and worry.  I think my new doodles will consist of little more than to-do lists.  I cannot live these days without lists.  I truly cannot remember anything aside from squidge requirements.  That is all.

Oh dear.  I think re-entry is going to sting.

But back to the childminder selection.  I can honestly say this is a bigger decision than the one I took to move to England in the first place, largely because adult me can handle bad decision making (not that the move was a bad idea, but HAD it been...) 7-1/2 month old Rukai cannot.  Like everything else we have done with and for him, we have to get this right.  I think this is where that maternal instinct and the old 'gut feeling' will kick into overdrive.  It's been a remarkable discovery, since before I had a child the only gut instinct I had regularly was the massive belly ache after an overly spicy curry or football sized burrito.  This maternal thing is just a bit supernatural.  Now that I think about it, if I ever grow those magical eyes in the back of my head I'll have to sell myself to MI6 or the CIA and save the world while I'm keeping Rukai from bashing his head on table corners and such.

I wonder when the time will come that this decision-making-about-the-bubba will stop feeling like brain surgery?  Stop feeling like 'if I don't get this right, they will take away my mommy credentials and send me off to summer camp to climb trees and learn underwater basketweaving.'  I suspect it's easier when you have more than one kid - instead of worrying so much about what you are doing with kid number 1, you have sudden expertise with kid number 2 because you've done it already.  The stuff that is so worrying right now would go in the background for kid number 1 because the littler the person is, the more fragile.  The more fragile, the more attention you have to give and the more attention you have to give...the more wine.

Yes, that is also an essential part of the big picture.  Like many other things I did not really understand before I became a mother, I 'get it' now.  And although wine is a four letter word, it is a socially acceptable four letter word that prevents overfrayed nerves and utterance of other less acceptable and dangerously repeatable four letter words.  So essentially, a nice glass of wine will keep Rukai's first word from being 'shit'.  That's not to say he doesn't find it at around word number ten or eleven but if we don't dare to dream, where will we be?

In other news, our little man is coming along like gangbusters since we started him on solids.  The floppiness is fading, and he is now - for lack of a better description - 'baby planking' when I pick him up and raise him over my head.  That little neck is strengthening day by day and to our delight he is well and truly doing everything he should be doing, only just the littlest bit later than his NCT pals.  To have this group of friends has been a godsend to both of us - to him for familiarity and to me for great friendship and to be able to gauge where his development is against ordinary children.

When describing his latest acquired skills on a recent visit with the health visitor, I detected the slightest hint of surprise as if to say 'I can't believe he's doing that already.  He shouldn't be able to.  Most babies with Down's syndrome can't do that at this age.'

Yes, yes, yes.  But we have determined already that he is not MOST, my good woman.  And I truly think she knows that.  This is why it is only a hint of surprise followed by a slight grin and more note writing.  Ok, good good.  She gets me.  More progress.

As each day goes by I see more of a grit, a determination, a stubborn streak, a warrior.  Although sometimes I fret, these days I am not afraid of my son's ability to soar.

The only thing I fear is getting back on that cursed Central Line again.  So I guess at the end of return-to-work-day-1 it will be for bubba: bath, bottle, bed.  For mommy: cuddles, watch him dream.  Then dinner.  Then wine.  Yes.

Look mommy, I made a rhombus.

Summer is officially over and Rukai has now been on and returned from his first vacation.  Both were a bit of a washout for us oldies but since hes a newbie he didn't really notice.  Then too, I guess there's no need to see anything past your big toe if your feet are amongst the most interesting things on the planet.  We could've taken him to the Premier Inn down the road and he wouldn't have known any different.  I also guess it was a nice change of scenery to see all the rain pissing down from a different living room than the one he's used to.

During the trip we really kicked in the new food sampling into overdrive.  I started out at home with the best of intentions, making fresh purees from fresh vegetables.  This quickly turned into frozen vegetables, largely because I couldn't be arsed to peel another carrot.  But then I hit the baby food aisle at Asda and have never looked back.  It just seemed to take up far too much bonding time to be mashing up all that shit that he gobbles up with equal zeal regardless of how it's prepared.  As long as there isn't any stuff I can't identify in the jar, bring it on.  It didn't help all that time spent boiling and mashing things brought back memories of all that pumping I did when I could've been down on the floor playing roly poly with him.  I can't get those days back and wasn't about to lose any more.  So home made is just not worth the time, but of course I feel a bit of guilt losing another part of the Master Plan.

To be fair, said Master Plan includes a huge check from the National Lottery but until that happens we'll have to make do and resort to plan - what is it now - say, Q or R.  If it makes any difference to soften the guilt, I buy the organic stuff.  In all honesty I don't buy it because it's organic.  Oh, no.  It's because it's called Hipp Organic, which all you bright sparks will quickly identify spells Hipp O.  Hippo.  Divine!  And that is all Dirty Water Pool.  Which makes it required shopping.

Now, with all this talk about eating, alas I must return again to that old gem, poop.  We have entered an entirely new phase of understanding human physiology.  And chemistry.  And geometry.  It's like going back to high school with a drooling farty thing as your teacher.  Then again, I think I had a few teachers like that in high school.

But I digress again.  (Surprise!)  Let's move on.

While we were sampling all these new Hippo foods, young son got a bit blocked up.  Like for about three days.  So I consulted Doctor Google and it seemed perfectly common and nothing to worry about so we waited for the blowout.  It was more of a damp squib but opened up entirely new horizons.

T's changing him one day and the conversation goes about like this:

Me:  Please tell me he pooped.
T:  Heeeeeey, he pooped a triangle.
Me:  A triangle?  (Step closer to have a look)  I think it looks more like a pyramid.  How tidy.  But P.U.

Few hours later, I'm changing him this time and it goes about like this:

Me:  Heeeeeey we got an oval this time.  Kinda looks like a trilobite.  Ew. 
(T looks over my shoulder)
Me:  Kid's a genius.  He's pooping geometry.  Next it'll be a pooallelogram.  Or a crapezoid.  Or maybe even a rhombus.

And so we're back on track.  He's eating like a horse, and will eat just about anything, although a recent sample of sweet potato and beef has caused an unidentifiable tantrum even though he eats it.  Can't decide whether he thinks it tastes like crap or if the texture is too gloopy after his breakfast porridge.  Then too, maybe he's moved beyond the flavor and will next be handing me the menu from the local Chinese while pointing at the shrimp toast.  I wonder if you could puree that?

___

On another note, because it's just too ridiculous to omit...

This afternoon I finally got the report in the mail from our mid June meeting with the Amazing Patronizing Genetic Counselor.  Not only has she taken three months to merely quote scripture in a typical and all-too-familiar NHS ass covering exercise, but she also completely dodged my request to learn whether there is a more detailed test result for Rukai in the records somewhere.  The prize winning best of the nonsense she's written:

"You explained that you and your husband are very happy to get to know your son as an individual."

Are you fucking kidding me?  Do ya think?  Oh my lord.  Please remove 'counselor' from your title because if you ever 'counseled' me on anything I think I'd lose the will to live.

Never mind.  Rant over for now.  I 'm gonna go look for a sphere.

Veni vidi peachy.

The sun is too low on the horizon for 2 pm.  I've only put out my green garden waste twice since summer began.  Time is flying and my legs are tired from chasing it.

Rukai is up in his bed, fighting the nap again, keeping company with the warm yellow orb on the base of the monitor which tells me all is well and right with him even though he is not beside me.  He is snoring.  I am head over heels in love with that sound.

We are here on the other half of his first year.  He has filled his belly up these past few weeks on baby rice and carrots and yogurt and peas and avocado and decorated his bibs with color like he once decorated his sleepsuits from the other end.  He has tried juice and puckered appropriately.  He does not have any trouble eating.  For a child with Down's syndrome, this is a triumph.  For us, this is one more worry off the list.  Strong mouth = hope for clear speech.  We live on hope these days.  I have tried hope with chocolate syrup, dunked in a cup of tea and grilled with mushrooms.  Hope tastes good.  Just like carrots.

I have now added to the dishwashing three spoons and a monkey bowl, plus one green sippy cup that we'll be replacing with a free flow because I'm so paranoid about that little tongue of his getting too used to being out instead of in.  This is the reality.  As I revel in the first bit, I am bound by the second.  I have never felt so emotionally divided.

To think I was worried about whether he'd somehow end up with red hair a year ago makes me feel like an ass.  I didn't want his life to be hard because of bullying like mine was.  How trivial that seems now.  How hard his life is going to be anyway.  How much extra work will he need just to try and keep up.  How serious we have all become.  How hard I am working on maintaining the lightness inside when life sometimes feels so damn heavy these days.

Ah but how much is he the source of that light.  How much is modern medicine the heavy.  The fat.  The big black bear in the forest of 'what if' trying every day to take a chunk out of my heart.  This life is hard.  I did not ask for this life.  But I did ask for my son.  So part of this life was indeed on the request list.

I love him so much it hurts.

I compare the Rukai who came to us vs the Rukai we were expecting with a music playlist I made for him before he was born.  The list I replayed for months on my iPod, an iPod which I lost just before that amazing day we finally met him.  The playlist, too, was called Rukai.  I was more upset about losing the playlist than losing the iPod because the playlist was the music that defined my thoughts for him throughout my pregnancy.  My worries for him.  My hopes for him.  It was optimistic and dead certain he would be 100% healthy which we now know is only true to us.  The doctors would have us believe differently.  Society will support the doctors. 

This is the reality.

I was going to make a copy of the music on that playlist and give it to him on an appropriate electronic device on an appropriate birthday.  Tell him how I was feeling when I made it.  Watch him make faces at those old songs mom used to listen to.

When I finally figured out how to replace the playlist, I re-created it on a new iPod so I could have it in the hospital when he was born.  I picked the same songs from the same music folder on the same PC.  And wouldn't you know, it somehow turned out different than it was the first time.  Different versions of the same songs somehow found their way into the list.  It wasn't the same as I expected.

And in all honesty - because what is the point of sharing if not with honesty - lo and behold, neither was he.  And instead of the playlist rolling while I was in labor, we had an endless loop of Adele's Rolling in the Deep as I recovered from a cesarean, watching him asleep in that hot box, agonizing in wait for the result of that blood test.  It just fit.  '...Finally I can see you crystal clear.'  Oh yes.

I will still give him the playlist.  He is still our Rukai.

But still, these six months we have ridden a rollercoaster.  We buckled up on the ride called Optimism and somehow have found ourselves careening up and down hills called Reality.  If 'rollercoaster' is not one of the states of grieving, it damn well should be.  And it is true grief that I feel on the dark days.  But why am I racked with sobs some days?  What exactly am I grieving over?  It feels foolish sometimes.  But that alone does not make it hurt any less, as desperately as I wish it did.

I read something yesterday about how parents of children with disabilities must let go of the child they expected and come to grips with the child they have been given.  (Dare I say as something of an agnostic, blessed with.)  But not only do I not currently consider him disabled, but I find the idea of 'letting go' of any version of our Rukai just downright cold.  Because diagnosis aside, Rukai really IS exactly the child we expected.

I think we are fortunate to have Rukai as our first and quite probably only child, because everything he does is 'normal' to us.  We look at him and see Rukai.  We don't look at him and see any different from any other six month old on the planet.  I am by no means cheerleading or saying 'look at how great we are dealing with his diagnosis' because I still very much rail against it right now.  And if that is denial, call me Cleopatra.  Buy me some snakes and a ton of gold baubles and build my ass a pyramid.

But I am saying once again, 'what is normal?'  Some days asking that question is the only thing that keeps me going, aside from the 24 carat grin of my precious squidge.  I live for that grin.  And I live with that question.  I burn with it.

Heavy heavy days and this rollercoaster seems endless.

Yet today after what seemed an eternal wait, he rolled over and I was bowled over.  I cried through my ear to ear grin.  I grabbed his hands and hooray-ed and scooped him up and gave him a million dollar cuddle.  Rollercoaster or not, so we will ride.

We came.  We saw.  We conquered.  Maybe not DS, but we sure as hell can destroy a monkey bowl full of pureed peaches.  And today that will have to be enough.

White stripes and pretty weeds.

White stripes...

That sneaky white hair showed up on my head again this morning.  How it managed to stay hidden long enough to grow six inches is beyond me, but once spotted it didn't have a chance.  I ripped it out unceremoniously along with two perfectly good red ones.  Chalk one up for collateral damage and move on.  Nothing to see here.  I must remember to stay vigilant.  Thank goodness they don't grow in larger quantities or I'd surely go bald with this prevention method.

The odd white hair isn't the only thing reminding me of my age these days.  Trying to get up off the floor is hard enough with both hands let alone with a fourteen pound dribble fountain squirming around in my arms.  I almost got stuck yesterday and ended up making my mother's noise when I managed to right myself.  It still beggars belief how fast I can walk crouched over, one hand balancing Rukai over my shoulder and the other trying to concurrently straighten out the stiffness in my back and counterbalance.  I may not be as fit as I used to be but damn, I'm good at multitasking.

Doing four thousand things at once is now a way of life, an unknown reflex as much as is breathing.  I sometimes stop and try to inventory everything I've got going, then forget what I was doing before said inventory-ing.  I can't recall finishing anything in the past six months other than dinner, a roll of toilet paper and the cup of tea I at long last get to making somewhere around 3:00 when Rukai is having his fourteen second nap.  This child is so good at sleep avoidance I should probably get my request for a Supernanny consultation in asap.  I guess I could always just turn on Fox News and let all the droning American political bickering knock him out.  That is, in the absence of the Proms.

...and pretty weeds.

Thanks to all the negativity and low expectations the scaremongerers - er, I mean 'doctors' - put in us from day dot, we remain annoyingly surprised at Rukai's interest in and interaction with his environment.  Each day we both look and say 'there's NOTHING wrong with this child' yet wait for the proverbial shoe to drop.  The clock tick tocks to that magic end of the first year when we are supposed to see him begin to fall behind his peers.  Although we think it's all a load of old bollocks and that we'd have seen some indication of delay by now despite what they know from those fabulously reliable studies done on two people, I hate that fucking clock.  So in my mind I have dug a hole in the garden and buried it like old Fortunato behind that wall of bricks.  For the love of God.  For the love of Belief.  I truly believe one day that clock will go quiet.  I don't know if anyone else does but if that is the best I can do for our boy - to keep believing, to keep loving, to keep nurturing - then I can do little else.

Joyfully, six months on, Rukai is showing no indication of any problems aside from a very lingering upper body muscle weakness which is more likely due to limited tummy time than to anything else.  They can label it low muscle tone all they want but this to me would mean he'd require intensive therapy to get that upper body in shape.  And here all he's getting is 'roly poly therapy' a la Mama and lo and behold those muscles are doing just what they're supposed to.  He has full use of both arms, and has been able to bring them to his center for the past couple months now, which is supposed to be of huge magnitude when low muscle tone comes into play.  So that isn't a problem.  He grips tightly with his hands and can use his arms to push, pull, and hold himself up, just like any other six month old.  That bit of neck lag is going the more tummy time he gets, and with tummy time being the solution for ordinary kids, they can officially take that 'low muscle tone' label and stick it in one of those places people don't talk about at parties.  Well, child-friendly parties anyway.

A lengthy, bobble-head-free supported sit on the floor yesterday blew my mind.  Where did this come from?  Like magic, the bobble has boogied.  Have those magic angels come back and whispered 'your Mama is getting a bit worried, so chop chop, get your sit on.'  Thank you angels, one and all.  All within the ordinary range of development.  So the tick tock clock can go join the 'low muscle tone' label and all those doctors on a muddy, sinking island somewhere and have a negativity festival the HELL away from me.

We'll have to now re-locate that sit to the garden the next time the clouds blow over so he can inspect the borders from a vertical vantage point.  He's fascinated with the weeds I have had no time to pull, since they seem to be of the pretty variety, with little purple and yellow flowers among them.  Last night he was a virtual giggle machine, letting out those awesome baby laugh bursts 'uh-HAH!!' while scoping out the silhouette of the plum tree against the faded blue horizon.  I think it's a nice view.  He thinks it is the most amazing thing ever.

I cannot wait to take him on holiday, to the zoo, the aquarium, the beach.  I only hope he's awake enough to enjoy them - the stroller and sling are like baby Nytol, and he's usually out cold within my first ten steps.  Perhaps the nap during the drive will take the top off that need-to-nap-now-am-feeling-so-sleepy baby thang.

Everything in his eyes is new and beautiful and fun.  His innocence does not notice milestones and fear and worry (and white hairs), only love and comfort and security.

Oh to see through the eyes of a six month old again.  Even the weeds are pretty.

I believe.

Just ran into the midwife I saw about a dozen times and could not for the life of me remember her name as we were speaking.  And this is the one I liked.  We had an innocuous conversation about baby rice vs vegetables.  And I was sort of annoyed to have bumped into her.  The one I liked.

I knew that regardless of what she said I would do what I was planning and no longer needed to take her advice.  The surprisingly nameless 'somebody that I used to know'.  What a catharsis.

Methinks my mind is already washing the bad shit away and moving forward.  This realization filled me with joy for the everyday beyond what I've felt in many many months.

As I thought this, I also realized that I do not pray.  I believe.  This is a pretty significant difference that some friends will understand and some will try to challenge.  I'm glad I have both types of friends.  But I am more glad that I am of the kind who believe.

More imporantly, our squidge has successfully completed the 'grab the toes' challenge.  On the right foot.

Off on the right foot.  Perfect.

I had the Athletics on TV at the time, and this to me was of far greater excitement.

I have a new hero and his name is Rukai.

Life in the baby tornado.

I have discovered the secret to a serene morning - it's called 'waking up before bubba'.  This enables me to do all those essential things before the daily baby tornado kicks in, which include sitting up, wiping sand from my eyes and having a cup of tea.  It's been so long since I've been able to have a morning cuppa I can barely remember what it tastes like.  You can forget about coffee unless it's prepared the night before.  That must take at least thirty seconds to sort out when I only have the five.

Admittedly in the past few weeks I have been using up the entire allotment of 'mommy time' watching the Olympics.  This is where the baby sling has really repaid its cost when I can pop him in it and pace while watching the gymnastics.  He has that elusive nap and I get more mommy time.  It's a total win-win.  Shame I don't win any medals for it though, I'd swap them for some chiropractor appointments.

I still cannot believe the Olympics are being held in our own city, and even more so that we've been blessed to attend four magnificent events baby free thanks to T's family looking after Rukai.  I think we could've stayed in the Olympic Park for a week and they'd still be glad to be with him.  The joy is truly reciprocal and I love to see him grin at his relatives not only because it's just so cool, but also because they need to know how constant that grin is.  The constancy of that grin and the innate curiosity behind it shows us that he is firing full whack on all cylinders.  It takes my worry and shreds it.  One of those doctor-numptys wrote in his report 'he is a sociable baby'.  Don't need your notes to know that, dude.  So we continue to be doing something right, which in this kind of situation beats the hell out of doing something wrong.

Back to the Olympics, which we are so much enjoying we realized it would be a major act of wrong-ness to not bring Rukai to the Games at some point.  So the three of us are going to Paralympic Judo and I'm going to take Rukai alone to some Paralympic Athletics.  This latter bit has put the fear of God in me, mostly because although my seat is up pretty close to said God, and on the opposite side of the stadium to the sprint start line, Rukai will surely out-scream the starting gun at one point or another.  I can only hope that the folks around us are forgiving and celebratory and fall in love with how cute he is in his Team GB kit.  Barring that, we'll have to hang out in the walkway and do a lot of up and down the stairs.  To hell with Pee Wee, this is Mommy's Big Adventure.  It makes taking the tube across town look like a game of checkers.

It does get better.  They have finally installed the elevator in our train station.  So I no longer have to try and get up and down all those stairs with baby sling plus whichever-buggy-required-for-destination.  Although whenever I do get going across town, I got a hot tip from a friend yesterday on managing escalators which I will only try outside of rush hour.  The last thing I need is some uptight doofus in pinstripes 'ahem-ing' behind me for delaying him ten seconds by blocking the side of the thing.

But I really do love taking Rukai out there in the world.  The world that seems so big to me must seem galactic to him.  Every time we go out, his eyes are like moons, mouth always in that perfect 'O', soaking up as much as he can before the movement knocks him out again.  Then he wakes up in a station, a bus, a park, a living room, an office, a shopping mall, wondering 'where?' and 'how?' and 'mommy, are you still there?'  I peek around the stroller, or squeeze his hand in the sling, or find our reflection together.  That grin, that amazing grin, blooms like a perfect rose.

These are somewhat random thoughts but these too are somewhat random days.  Which is unsettling when you are used to routine as are we but then we realize he likes routine so let's make some.  He's getting used to it.  Barely a complaint at bed time and he giggles at the nightlight on the monitor as it soothes him to dreamland.

So simple are his joys, and so complex are his needs, and so vast is our love.  I look forward to each and every tomorrow.  Even in the funnel of that baby tornado.