Taking Stock

It's been two months since Xavier came into our lives and I've been thinking about how it's all going. I'll do me first, so we can build up to the big story that everybody really wants to hear about (the baby, obviously).

I'm 28 years old and I'm a mother and I'm responsible for another person. That person is my son, who is not a girl, although I always thought I'd follow my mother and grandmother's path and have only daughters. We can even go back a whole three years (to Oct. 21) and marvel that I'm married to Bill Pavlou (like, who's that guy anyway, he's short and Greek and I don't even like him).

And those two little men have made my life perfect.

Well, I should clarify. I've just had a baby, so I still have this lovely, stereotypical flub around my waist. I'm trying to tell myself I want to eat right and exercise and get rid of it, but wouldn't it just be easier to get pregnant again? I looked so cute pregnant, and didn't at all feel self-conscious about not fitting into my clothes.

Speaking of which, I have gone shopping three times for jeans and now have ONE PAIR of jeans that fit me, and they are "ultra low-rise" Levi's from the junior's section of Kohl's. Levi's. I never thought I'd go there, but after trying on a few pairs of mom jeans (note: "comfort waist" means "elastic"), I settled for what worked. They're two sizes larger than the stack of jeans sitting in my armoire, but again, I found one pair of jeans that fit me. I'm trying to be happy with that.

And I'll find one pair of dress pants that fit me, and I'll be happy. (And then, God willing, I'll get pregnant again, and get to go back to my stretchy panel pants.)

While we're on the subject of my stomach, I also managed to defy Mother Nature and get the stretch marks that my mother avoided, despite the fact that the all-knowing "they" say "if your mother got them, you'll get them, so don't worry about what you can't help." They don't tell you how to feel if you are the one to start the familial trend; here's a big S-O-R-R-Y to my future potential daughters. But I'll try to use some lotions that are sworn to work and take solace in the fact that I never wear a bathing suit anyway, and do I really care what Bill thinks of my stomach? (And I'll pretend that the answer to that question is no.)

But enough about me. (Although how can you look at this face and not see me?)






























Xavier is just perfect. He's got these adorable little fingers and toes, and he's such a handsome little guy, and he coos at you just when you don't think he's paying attention.

Perfect. And it scares me sometimes. Nothing is ever that perfect. What if something is wrong with him that we find out about later, or what if something happens to him? I can't even stand those thoughts.

But then I think that he's not perfect. He's my son, after all, so he'll probably have trouble finding a date for the junior prom, or friends to hang out with on the weekends, and we'll have to tell him that the kids are just jealous because he's so smart, and the girls are mean to him because they like him. And he's Bill's son, so when he does find that wonderful woman who marries him and joins our family, she'll probably call him a jackass. And I'll probably agree with her, because he'll probably have said something stupid, and I'll say, "You're just like your father," and Bill will smile and say, "That's my boy."

He's our boy. And he's perfect. And he's made me perfect -- regardless of any of the extra flub in my middle that he caused me on his way into this world -- because I get to be his mother.