“He’ll be two in January,” I reply.

“His verbal skills are incredible. He blows the other kids out of the water.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say, and scuff the floor with my shoe. I love hearing this kind of remark, obviously, but there’s something sort of awkward about it, too. I don’t want to be that parent who puffs up and yammers on about how incredibly bright I think my child is because, really, who hasn’t heard all THAT before? And I don’t want to minimize, either, as though he’s not worthy of praise. Often, I find myself awkwardly downplaying — “oh, yeah, heh, well, we’re very lucky!”

Today I wonder what it was about Drew’s speech that so impressed this teacher. Was it the fact that he, for some unknown reason, proudly told her six times in repeated succession that ‘Dada make chee-bubbas (cheeseburgers) on deck’? Or was it when he loudly started exclaiming, “SESSY KNOW IT!” at the top of his lungs, an approximation of the chorus from LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It” that has become–rather embarrassingly, to me–very clear to even the untrained toddler translator.

“Well!” the teacher had said in her ever-chirpy tone, “I think that’ll be the phrase of the day!” Nearly eight hours spent with toddlers today, and Drew’s refrain had topped her list of ‘kids-say-the-darndest’ phrases. I…I was proud?

Not only had Drew loudly exclaimed that he was sexy and he knew it, he had followed each proclamation with a mischievous grin and a certain twinkling around the eyes. I had sheepishly looked around the room for parental judgey face, fearing the other mothers had quickly concluded that I should be banished from parenthood for letting my child listen (and clearly, listen often) to such music.

Fifteen minutes later, Drew decides to narrate his bowel happenings for me as we drive through darkened streets on our way home. “Mama, I do pee pee,” he says.

“Oh? Oh yeah?” I respond, unsure what to do. He’s in a Pull-Up, and won’t use a potty that’s not positioned precisely in the middle of our living room floor where he can get a good view of a PBS Kids show. There’s no point in encouraging him to hold it until we get home; he doesn’t yet seem to have that ability.

“Yeah!” he says. “I have a poop.”

“You have to poop?” I ask.

“I make poop.  I make big poop.” My head begins a slow fall to the dashboard. “I! I have gas!” he goes on. “I have big gas.”

“You have A LOT of gas?” I correct (teachable moments, they’re everywhere).

“Yes,” he responds emphatically. “Yes.”

So many words, and yet, I’m speechless.

One day, if our next child deigns to read anything I’ve written, I want him to know he was anticipated with just as much love as his older brother. Oh, did I forget to mention it’s another boy? See? There I go again.  I may not have monitored my pregnancy week by week as I did the first time around, but I do still go to bed each night fondly running a hand over my expanding belly and wondering just who this little person will turn out to be.

So, little man, this time around I’m less worried about how to shush and rock and care for a human and for that, be grateful. I won’t make us late for your doctor’s appointment because I can’t figure out how to buckle your car seat. And I won’t leave you crying in another room while I desperately dial the stroller manufacturer’s customer service line, begging for help because how in God’s name do you fold down this awful contraption?! You’ll get my parenting confidence from day one, something I did not possess when your big brother was born.

And, just as with your brother, you’ll get my commitment to handle this job of being your mom with all the awe and determination and ceaseless love it demands. I can’t wait to meet you.

“And you want your son to go to Penn State?” Mike asked me the other night as we talked about the news that had just broke.

“Of course I do,” I said (that is, if he wants to, one day). “Scandals and terrible things can happen anywhere. You never know where it’ll come from.”

And that’s the scary thing, isn’t it? No one and no place is immune from terrible things. You can put your trust in a person or place you believe is most trust-worthy, and you’re still taking a leap of faith. We do what we can to minimize the chances of horrible things happening and we fill the spaces in between with the faith that good people, who far outnumber the bad, will rise to the occasion when needed.

In the Penn State story, it seems many good people had the chance to rise to the occasion. The reasons why they didn’t are surely varied and complex and ultimately not important. We all share in our outrage on behalf of the young men whose innocence was stolen from them by one man. And maybe, selfishly, what’s really rattling us is that our own faith was stolen from us by so many men.

“STOP IT!” I wail. “Just stop it!” in a pathetic, ugly voice I’ve never used with anyone else. Not in ‘its-not-fair’ arguments as a teen. Not in unrequited-love-angst moments as a young adult. Not in just-moved-in-together-eye opener moments as a newlywed.

Some days it’s a wave of emotions that, if depicted on paper, would look like a seismograph. Such tear-inducing, joyful, bottle this up and make it stay this way forever moments. Such piteous, I can’t deal anymore flashes of panic. Sometimes it’s these swings alone I can’t take. They’re so sudden and sometimes so frequent that their head-spinning fury is nausea-inducing.

Today was a good–no, a great day. Yesterday was too. Today was hugs and high fives and raucous, throat-baring laughter. Who knows what tomorrow will be, what parts of me this love will unearth?

We coached him through all of his lines: saying ‘trick or treat!’, taking just one piece of candy, saying thank you, and turning around to head off to the next house. In most cases, he was rendered too shy to utter the phrases we were so proud he had mastered. The fact that he was wearing an over-the-top adorable costume helped make up for this lapse.

As we approached one house I saw the man standing outside call in to his wife, “Hon, you gotta come see this.” I looked around — we were the only ones approaching. “Hurry!” He urged his wife.” He had called her out just to see the little dalmation marching up his front steps, dragging his pumpkin-themed gift bag along the ground beside him.

With each house, Drew grew more confident and more excited. After hearing us say, “ok, let’s go to the next one” enough times he started loudly shouting “NEXT ONE” before we were even down the front walk of the previous candy-givers. And there he’d go, trotting off in his tiny Pumas, furry white tail wagging behind his just-under 3-foot frame.

By the last house, neighbors of ours who he knows very well, he was running down the sidewalk, waving his arms and yelling all sorts of gibberish. Back at our house, he took just as much delight in passing out candy to the trick-or-treaters who came to call on us. When there were lapses in door-ringers, he tried to will them to us. He’d assume a lunge position, point dramatically at the door and yell, “COME! COME!”

Halloween is a silly holiday, really. There is no meaningful significance to it, but oh, something about seeing Drew experience it for the first time was so gratifying. I was proud of him for learning something new so quickly and taking such a shine to it (although, really, who wouldn’t take a shine to getting handed free candy?!) and excited to see him experience and become a part of a cultural tradition, one that–refreshingly– celebrates little more than the simple joy of being a kid.

This year it was time to come to grips with my age. While I have not yet reached the point where I qualify for certain medical checkups, and certainly have not become AARP eligible, I am now 30. I am someone my college self and friends used to point out at bars. “Look at that dude over there!” we’d snicker. “He’s like, 30!” And we’d laugh and throw back another mind eraser, all dewy and youthful and naïve. What would I say now to that girl? Well, I’d say a lot of things.

I’d start by telling her thirty comes faster than she thinks. Thirty arrives at the tail end of a decade that whirls you around in a blender as you find a first job, a first real place to live, (one that you furnish yourself, and not with hand-me-down armchairs from the 1970’s), find out what you really care about, who you really are, and how you really want to spend your time. Thirty is the place you land after you’ve tried on all sorts of versions of yourself and finally settle into the one that feels most true. Thirty is where you set aside your pretenses, less concerned with appearing a certain way for the benefit of others, and more concerned with doing what feels right to you. Thirty has your ego firmly in check. Hopefully by thirty you’re confident, but not overly so. You’ve left behind most of your insecurities, but kept small traces of a few, if for nothing else than to keep you human and humble.

Next I’d tell her that while so many other ages certainly were gateways to future adventures, thirty is most definitely one too. At thirty, you do still have your whole life ahead of you. Now you’re ready to take it on with confidence and grace and a good head on your shoulders.

Last, I’d tell her to look forward to thirty. Don’t fear it. Come at it head on, tired and spent from all the good fun and wild adventures that defined the 20’s. Land at thirty full of vivid memories and compelling stories. Use this to fuel the next decade, and the one after that and the one after that. There is so much to learn, see and do in this world. There are so many people to meet, impact and be impacted by. Thirty is just one pit stop on a long road of a full life. Drink it in and chase it down with even more curiosity and passion. After all, you’re only thirty once.

What all this activity says about me I’m not sure. I have a secret love for small business? Oh, a closet patriot! That I’m a glutton for punishment? Surely, yes. Ambitious? Frugal? One of those types who yearns to make a buck any way any how? I have been known to haul bags full of our empty, sticky soda and beer cans to the local supermarket so I can redeem my measly .05 cents per can. Surely the lot of these endeavors says a lot about me. Precisely what, I’m still mulling over.

I used to wonder what I would do post-child, and I guess there’s no way to be certain until you’re in the situation. When Drew was just a few months old, a new friend I’d made asked what my plans were, work-wise.

“Well,” I told her, “I’m staying home with him.”

“But do you think you’ll ever go back to work?” she pressed.

“I don’t know,” I said, “Right now, I’m content. I’ll see what happens. I can’t imagine doing anything other than taking care of him.” And oh, how that was true.

They say that for the first several months of life, a baby doesn’t understand that he or she is separate from its mother. I believe the same is true in reverse—that a mother has a hard time believing that the baby is separate from her. Logically, we understand that this little person exists outside of our body, but his needs are so great, and so frequent, that all the world around is a blur. There is you, and there is this tiny person, this tiny version of you who needs to eat, to be burped, to be changed, to be swaddled, to be rocked, to be held, to be soothed, and on and on until the cycle repeats again. Your life is lived in hours. What else is there?

And now. And now my son knows that he is separate from me. Now he runs away, and looks back at me with a little glimmer in his eye. Look at me, mom! You’re there and I’m here! Watch me go!

I’m watching him go, a little more each day. There’s a glimmer and a tear in my eye. He’s figuring out where he wants to go, who he’s becoming, and so am I. I don’t know how many different jobs I’ll pick up or leave behind in the coming years. Happily, I’ve found there’s a lot of ‘else’ out there. For now, though, the one that pays the least is my favorite.

The bag did show up later that afternoon, and was set to be delivered to us that night. Only it was delivered to the wrong building, and so the following morning, Mike could be seen dragging a very large red suitcase around the hot and windy main road of our very large resort complex. The resort shuttle, much like the bag the day before, never showed up.

While Mike was schlepping and sweating with our belongings, I was inside our villa taking long, close, concerned looks at Drew’s face. He had awoken that morning with a rash on his face. At first I thought maybe there had been mosquitos in his room, or perhaps a couple bugs had decided to nestle in with him in his crib—the rash was more pronounced on one side of his face. And there were other spots too—his knees were developing a slight rash, and wait, a diaper change revealed a lacy rash invading his backside. Come to think of it, the previous day he had seemed to have a fever while we were on the plane. His body had been hot right down to the soles of his feet.

Later that day the three of us piled into a taxi and drove 40 minutes to a local doctor. I held Drew on my lap and he fell asleep nestled into my lap. I looked down at his face, red from a continued fever and a rash that seemed to be spreading by the minute, and cried. What was going on with him? Who was this doctor? Where was my mud slide?

We ended up at a clinic that was part of a medical office building situated along a busy highway. Our taxi driver (who, it should be noted, went ABOVE and BEYOND for the duration of that day) waited inside the clinic for us while Mike and I paced the tiled atrium outside with Drew. The wait may have only been 30 minutes, but with a baby who was alternately crying in our arms and curiously stomping up and down the place, running head-first for the stairs, it was interminable.

The doctor told us he had never seen a rash like the one Drew presented with. Need I say these are not the words you want to hear from a doctor? He ordered us to a lab within the building for bloodwork. If we thought Drew’s crying was bad before, it was a joyous laugh compared to what came out of him when I was charged with pinning him down while a lab technician pricked his finger and methodically squeezed 20 purple drops of his blood into a small vial. We three emerged from the lab shaking, and returned to waiting and pacing.

The bloodwork came back normal. After a check of Drew’s ears and throat, the doctor declared a case of strep and prescribed a course of antibiotics, Benadryl and pain relievers. The rest of the day was spent consoling a very cranky toddler and trying to hide our looks of horror at the blisters that were steadily forming across his face, hands, feet and knees. I had heard of strep, and even scarlet fever, but this? This didn’t add up.

Thanks to the wonders of Dr. Google and BabyCenter ( I KNOW.), we re-diagnosed our son with a case of Coxsackie virus, also known as hand-foot-mouth disease (but NOT hoof-mouth disease, LET’S BE CLEAR). It’s a nasty, vile illness, and we soon learned to what degree. Out of six people on our little vacation from hell (four adults, two babies), five people got coxsackied. And so, as each day dawned a brilliant sunrise over the Caribbean, another member of our fated group came down with a fever, then sore throat, then blisters.

On our last day, Mother’s Day, Mike came down to the pool where I was resting–for the first time in the entirety of our trip–and said, “If you think Drew’s face is bad, you should see Charlie’s.” Oh no, I thought, were both babies now blister-faced? As it turned out, no. Charlie, 8-month daredevil that he is, had taken a headfirst dive out of his stroller and onto a concrete floor. He now had Coxsackie AND a nasty road rash.

That afternoon, us four adults did the only thing we could think of. We poured a bottle of rum into a pitcher of Bahama Mama mix and had at it. This may have been the vacation we would never forget, but we sure as hell were going to try.

I know we live in an era of thumbing our noses at gender roles but it’s so fascinating to me to watch this boy become such a BOY. And yes, I mean boy in all the typical gender stereotype ways. He his happiest digging around in dirt, watching his pink palms turn brown, holding them up, turning them over and over and then, eventually, smearing the whole mess in his little mouth. A shuddering city bus, roaring garbage truck or descending airplane overhead are siren songs to him. All activities must pause for a brief moment of acknowledgement. ‘OOOOOHHHHHHHH!’ he says, mouth curved into an awed oval, one fat, tiny index finger pointing towards the sound. ‘Yes,’ I answer, ‘a truck!’ He giggles and kicks his legs, so pleased with a world that is full of loud, large machines.

Every item is an object just waiting to be thrown. Balls, remotes, phones, blocks, cups, it’s all fair game. The other day he picked up a toy and looked pointedly at our flat screen TV, pausing for the windup. I imagined telling Mike that his beloved 50” TV had a gaping hole in it and visions of divorce papers danced in my head.

Dogs delight him. “Arf!” he says each time one crosses his path. ‘Arf! Arf!’ Sometimes, after the dogs have wandered away, he gazes at the horizon as if lost in thought, tiny ‘arf’ sounds fading into a hush.

The bathtub has become my own personal water hazard. He scoops the water into a little orange cup and flings it. The cup is lifted overhead with both arms before a dramatic pause and then, SPLASH! I’ve tried everything to minimize the fallout: I lessened the amount of water in the tub; I’ve closed the shower doors so that barely my head can peek through. And still, I come out soaked. I’ve pinned my hair back, taken my sweaters off, and now, my shirt. Today, I gave him a bath wearing only a bra and jeans.

He wants to be held. He wants to be put down. He looks up at me with both hands reaching – pick me up, mommy. I heave him onto my hip and immediately he’s writhing in my arms, diving headfirst towards the floor. Up, down, up down, all the livelong day.

He’s growing more exhausting by the day. Sometimes it feels like living an action movie in fast-forward. Everything is wrangling, corralling, and redirecting. When the toys are put away, the bath is done, the dirt wiped clean, he settles into my lap and leans his head back against my shoulder. We read a book about planes and I ‘whoosh’ the sound effect into his clean, damp hair. “Whoosh,” he repeats, nearly a whisper now. These days are exhausting. And so, so worth it.

Lately, I’m having a lot of the ‘nothing to talk about’ days. Of course I know this isn’t true. There is a little person I’m in charge of shaping 24 hours a day. And he seems to grow in knowledge, skills and personality on an hourly basis. But I’m humble enough to realize that his developments aren’t entirely unique. I’ve read enough stories about parenting to know that my experiences, while so new and fresh to me, are so common to millions of others who have, or are still, walking down this path. I know what a good writer would say: it’s not the story, it’s the telling. I just need to find a unique perspective. After all, aren’t there only seven stories in the universe anyway? I seem to remember that random trivia from some English class or another.

How can I tell my stories in a way that shows a different perspective but still allows you, the reader, to see our common ground? To nod your head up and down, knowingly, and say, “I totally get it!” while also shaking that head, side to side, and saying, “How does she do it?” How does she put words together like that, in that way? That way that leaves you turning them over and over again hours after you’ve clicked away.

That’s what I want to do.