This week marked my fifth anniversary in parenting. My rookie baby is five years old.
This means that it was exactly five years ago that the story that Heather and I like to tell about our concurrent pregnancies occurred. I was in labor at the hospital, and when the nurse notified the doctor, who was across the street seeing patients at her office, to head over to my L&D room to check on the baby’s heart rate, it was Heather who was left sitting on the exam table.
It was five years ago that Ryan and I met our son.
And now he is a vampire.
If you’ve just had a baby for the first time, like my freshman roommate (Hi Sarah!), I’m sure five-years old seems a long way off. And it is. Just as you may be in awe that you made a whole person who now lives in your house with you, I am equally in awe that the person I created now says, “I’m totally into my ukelele,” or “I am thinking about getting married… but I’m not sure if it will be to Adeline or Lila.”
When Julian said he wanted to be a vampire for Halloween, I felt like he was getting so old. I told him about the hair gel for kids (and babies?!) I had been offered as a sample to review, and that nailed the coffin, so to speak. He could not wait to have me slick his hair back, put white make-up on his face, and darken his eyebrows. There is no doubt this kid will be in the drama club.
*If you have a bald baby, you are surely confused by this product. Remember that some of us produce babies with hair. Some with LOTS of hair.
For the past few weeks, when any visitor to our house asked what he planned to be for Halloween, he ran upstairs to retrieve that hair gel and show it to them. It became the symbol of the evening we looked forward to all month. Having a Halloween-adjacent birthday suits him perfectly.
So thank you, Le Baby, for the hair gel.
Thank you, Heather, for chopping the bottom off of a pewter bridesmaid’s dress and giving me the extra fabric with which I made a shiny collar for Julian’s cape.
Thank you, Sesame Street, for teaching preschoolers about The Count as a gateway drug to vampires.
And thank you Julian, for being the most inspiring and creative little boy I could have ever imagined was moving in with us five years ago. I love you so very much.
