My Baby Boy's a Charmer!

The saying does go, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage”. So, to keep up with tradition and a little while after being married, my husband and I decided to attempt for a baby. And after enough time we were granted our wish to add to our family. Over the next nine months we endured growing bellies, heartburn, ravenous hunger, swollen feet and back pain. On the positive side, Life was good when all I wanted to do is sleep the first trimester and the fun of ‘nesting’ and rearranging a room for the new baby was so exciting. After nine months and several days of ‘overdue’ later, the twenty four hour labor arrived. There we were in the delivery room peering into those newborn babies’ eyes. I was so happy to be done with giving birth and my husband stood over that baby in that room silently, watching as the group of specialty nurses worked on him to get him all prepared. Our bouncing baby boy was able to go home with us two days later; we were all so ready to leave the hospital and get to our own beds and pajamas. Upon arriving home our new baby was sleeping on the couch when the doorbell began to ring and our close friends streamed in to peer at him. As a new parent we soaked in all the compliments about our handsome, healthy son. The sun settled and so did the three of us; we all cuddled in the master bedroom to watch some t.v., the new daddy got up for a drink and returned with his hand behind his back. He turned around and dropped a cloth gift bag beside me. The new baby was sleeping on my chest when I opened the present containing a baby bib with the words, “I love mommy”, and pinned to the front was a Pandora Bead Baby Bootie 14K Blue Cubic Zirconia. Well, I cried. I cried a lot for the next couple months as the post-partum gene was now awakened as I was a new mommy and the hormones were now out of my control.

A short twelve weeks after giving birth to our first son the time to return to work arrived. This is the same day I had to turn my new baby over to a daycare provider; a stranger in my life and my child’s. We had chosen our daycare because of its security as it was on an actual United States Air Force base and the facility was very clean with friendly personnel to care for our new child. These facts really did not matter at the point when I actually went there with the intention of dropping him off for the whole day. That new, fully throttled, mommy gene kicked in at an instants notice and there in my throat was a huge lump that condensed into tears that rolled down my cheeks. For the rest of the day I experienced overwhelming emotions of crying and laughing to counter balance this apparent new psychosis I was being exposed to. I eventually had to tell co-workers to please not ask me about the baby as I will cry again, and I did several different times. Through tears came laughter as my head screamed, “he is fine, he is safe”, and then my other mommy personality would reply, “I know but I just cannot stop crying”. This whole day and scenario was so weird and unexpected and thankfully ended when I got to retrieve my shiny newborn back to the safety of my arms. I attempted to explain all these emotions to my husband that night and he certainly did not comprehend this behavior and irrational emotions. Several weeks later as we settled into life as new parents and endured sleep deprivation, we decided to go out for breakfast at the local Denny’s. The baby was sleeping in his carrier, we were eating pancakes soaked in syrup and my husband started to replay my first day away from our son. I was not feeling amused as I figured he was going to do a psychological analysis on my breakdown that day. He must have sensed this by my eye stare when he broke out of the story and told me he asked some women at work and they confirmed this is a normal stage. They must have recommended that new moms need love and support. Well, good job to those women he worked with because I got the pleasure of adding the Pandora Sterling Silver Bead Cross with Blue Cubic Zirconia to my Pandora bracelet. I felt so humbled that he would at least try to understand what I was explaining that day. It is no new discovery that men and women are completely different but it is nice to know that we both are trying to understand versus blame one another as we learn this new thing called ‘parenthood’. I did get his message that it takes faith in yourself, and in your partner, and in God to find the best way to raise yourself as you attempt to raise a child. There really should be better instructional books.

Over the next year of our son’s life he grew and developed into a small toddler. He learned to walk, popped out teeth, developed various facial expressions and learned his first word. Ohh, that first word that we could absolutely identify without a doubt was not what we were expecting. We of course, wanted ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’ to be his first word but it was not what he choose to say. His first word was actually, ‘ball’. This was no mistake, it was as clear as a bell on an early Sunday morning from the highest church steeple on a clear blue day. Our son chose the word ‘ball’, and he continued to choose any ball over mommy or daddy. For my husbands’ birthday which is right before our sons birthday, I wanted to surprise him with something fun and unexpected. So, in addition to his regular ‘guy’ type of gifts, I bought the Sterling Silver Bead Football for him and put it on a fishing line that I tied into a long necklace for him to wear. I had pretty much figured that he would not choose to wear this and that I would get the privilege of adorning it for him on my own wrist. Well, I was partially wrong; he did wear it for his birthday and then handed it over for me to wear for him. The football bead has a lot of meaning because my husband did play football for a semi-pro team in Europe for a season, and then played for the United States Air Force base team for several seasons; he loves that game! He was so elated to have a son to teach and play this game with in due time. I however, am still attempting to learn the very basics of that game. Nevertheless, my husband was very happy that I bought a ‘non-girly’ bead to resemble him and his boy.

A month later was our son’s first birthday; the time seemed to go quick but yet we could recall every day of our new lives with this little person. We had a birthday party in my husband’s home state with his entire family. It was fun to have a baby in the family as the youngest niece was now seven and the oldest one was nineteen. Our little boy received many fun, colorful, and loud gifts from his family. My husband and I figured that taking him on a twenty hour road trip and supplying the party supplies was gift enough in addition to some small toys to entertain him on that twenty hour road trip to arrive in the party state. Upon arriving there, my in-laws had not sent their birthday gift to my husband for his previous birthday because they wanted to see his reaction when he opened his present from them. In addition to this, my birthday is also very close to my husbands and my sons so my in-laws also had a present for me from them, and again wanted to see my expression at the opening of my present. After our little boy was done tearing and ripping wrapping paper, opening his various presents and having the time of his life, my in-laws presented their gift to the three of us for our close birthdays. I let my husband do the honor of un-wrapping this very long thin box for us all. There in that box were three little charms: Sterling silver Boy Bead, Girl Bead, and the Baby Carriage Bead; my in-laws then explained that the boy bead was to represent my husband, the girl bead was me, and the Baby Carriage bead, was to represent our son. They were so proud of their crafty gift they also had to add that when we decide to have more children then they will continue to add the baby carriage beads to our little family collection. I have to admit that I was very impressed with this gift and the thought that went into it. My husband was so tickled that instead of adding these to my Pandora bracelet we put them onto a chain and hung them from a glass mirror in our bathroom over a little plaque with a poem about family on it. It’s sweet to see our little sterling silver family every morning and night.

The next bead that has a funny story to it is the Sterling Silver Sneaker charm, because our baby boy was a fun to hold baby given his large layer of fat and multiple jelly rolls that went down his arms and legs. He also had fat feet. They were so fat that I once put on little sneakers and sent him to daycare but when I picked him up his daycare provider told me that he was sitting on the floor crying. The provider eventually removed his little sneakers and then he proceeded to walk around and be happy. That next day after work I went to buy some soft little shoes and he wore these little leather moccasin-type shoes until he was fourteen months old! So, one day my husband brought home a little memory of this tale and he even admits that this little charm was too tempting and cute to not purchase! I was already home, our son was in his baby bouncer playing, the stove was hot with several pots and pans in an attempt to construct dinner; my husband walked up behind me and dangled the Pandora Sneaker Charm in front of my nose. He kept dangling it asking me what it meant. I kept replying, “me torturing our son”. He thought it was a cute little memory of this event and the day that his boy got ‘big boy shoes’, and could run fast to eventually catch a ball, which he did.

- Ann S.