Watch out, Harvard, here he comes

“Our baby is a genius,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” my husband replied. “Did he figure out the DVR, because I could really use some pointers.”

“No,” I said. “He knows how to talk.”

“Um. ... He’s only 9 months old.”

“I know that,” I said. “But that’s what makes him a genius. He knows that I’m ‘mumma.’”

“I hate to break it to you, but he says that all the time over and over.”

“That just means he’s thinking of me,” I said.

“I’m pretty sure he’s not thinking of you when he’s gnawing on a table leg.”

“Well, what about when he said ‘uh-oh’ the other day?” I shot back. “You can’t deny that that was awesome.”

“He was just mimicking us when we said it to him after he dropped his sippy cup,” my husband said. “He’s just copying what he hears and sees us doing.”

“If that were true, he would be a pro at washing dishes and yelling at the TV during baseball playoffs,” I said. “So my theory still stands at GENIUS.”

“Even if you were right,” he mused. “Do you really think it rises to the level of genius? I mean, saying ‘mumma’ and ‘uh-oh’ isn’t really THAT impressive, is it?”

“How dare you insult our son’s intellect!” I said. “He can hear us right now and you are damaging his self-confidence.”

“He pees in the bathtub for all to see. I’m pretty sure he has all the self-confidence in the world,” he said.

“Well, you could be hurting his feelings,” I said.

“He isn’t crying. He seems fine to me,” my husband said.

“He is internalizing your lowered expectations of him and it will not manifest itself fully until he reaches his teens, but by then it will be too late,” I said.

“He doesn’t understand what we’re saying, honey. Even if he’s a genius, I doubt he has the vocabulary of a 30-year-old.”

I looked deeply into my infant’s big, blue eyes and he smiled at me, showing one crooked tooth.

“Mum-mum-mum-mum ...”

“You’re wrong,” I told my husband. “He just told me with ESP that he’s a genius.”

— Sarah Leach is assistant managing editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.

Adding a third wheel makes for a bit of a bumpy ride

I walked into the garage and the interior light had been left on.

Now, this might be a random act of forgetfulness on my husband’s part, but to me it was an act of war.

The Battle Royale that has been raging within my household is subtle and nuanced. But it’s there. Oh, it’s there.

After a summer of impatiently waiting for my single motherhood to end, I never expected the aggravation of having to re-acclimate to living with my husband.

“What are we doing for dinner tonight?” my husband asked after two nights back home.

“I dunno,” I answered. “I was just going to polish off that bag of cheese popcorn in the cabinet. But I guess we could get all fancy with real food.”

The next day, he had the nerve to say the sheets needed to be washed.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think they’re fine.”

“There’s enough cat hair on the bedspread to knit a sweater,” he replied.

“I could use a new piece for my fall collection,” I said.

Highlighting my shortcomings is not a good strategy for him, as I take pride in the fact that I did not have a complete nervous breakdown while he was gone. Perhaps while he was away, he forgot the cardinal rule of “Never Criticize Thy Bedraggled Spouse.”

But it’s the habits we each have that have proven to be the real rub.

My husband, with all of his wonderful qualities, is set in his ways. He has a natural walk that I can only describe as a stomp, and manages to do the loudest things he can think of right when the baby drifts off to sleep. He leaves all the lights on in the house, no matter the time of day or the level of natural illumination. He has “a system” to do everything from dishes to laundry to vacuuming, which of course differs from my way.

It’s been a long week of stepping all over each other, especially when getting him adjusted to the baby’s schedule — the most important schedule in the house.

So when I saw that light left on in the garage, I did what any normal, rational person would do. I unscrewed the light bulb.

First hayride!

We went on our first hayride as a family on Sunday. Ben loved the pieces of hay and kept trying to chew on them. After the 15-minute trip around the farmer's fields, we picked out three pumpkins and put them on the porch step. Later that evening, we ordered Ben's first Halloween costume, which will remain under wraps for now.....

The Rule of Three seems to rule my life

“It’s just that this cough he has isn’t going away,” I told the doctor. “He’s still awfully congested and it’s been almost two weeks.”

“Hmmm,” the doctor said. “Well, is he eating well?”

“Yes.”

“Sleeping well?”

“Yes.”

“His temperament is really good, so it’s probably just lingering mucus from an infection.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as the doctor peered into my little one’s ears.

“... Although there is the matter of this ear infection,” she said.

“Huh?” I replied. “Aren’t babies really irritable when they get those? I was told to look for trouble eating and tugging on ears.”

“Well, some babies have a higher pain tolerance than others,” she replied. “Oh dear, there’s an infection in the other one, too. They’re both quite advanced.”

Although the news she was giving me was bad, I had a sliver of pride in the fact that my baby was so good-natured as to not trouble me with his pain and suffering — how thoughtful.

After picking up the antibiotic and getting him comfortable, I resumed with normal daily activity. In my mind, this was the third in a series of bad news events (you know, the scientifically recognized Rule of Three of Doom). My dog had died just the day before, my husband had shipped out West on a last-minute surprise trip for another week, and my baby’s ears were on fire.

Surely this meant the Bad Luck gods would not visit again for a while.

That night I got home, and my German Shepherd was in the driveway to greet me. Apparently, in his newfound solitude in the backyard kennel, he felt the need to pry the metal fastenings away from the frame and squeeze through an opening the size of a walnut.

There also was a note on the door: “Found your dog running around in the street. He almost got hit by a car. I put him back in your kennel.”

“How thoughtful,” I thought. “Only you escaped again, you goon,” I growled at him as he hung his head in shame.

When we got back to the house, I found that my cat had been sick in the living room.

“Argh!” I cried. “Not another round of three!”

The next morning, Peanut turned nine months old. As I got ready, I was mentally preparing for the next bad thing to happen.

I walked into his room and he gave me a big smile, only there was something there that hadn’t been there the night before: two teeth coming through.

What a good baby.

— Sarah Leach is assistant managing editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.

Saying goodbye to sweet Sasha

“Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning to you,” my husband replied.

“Happy anniversary.”

It is my third wedding anniversary and my hubby, just in the nick of time, arrived from out West to mark the milestone with me.

It will be a difficult day, however.

In the past few weeks, we have learned that our elderly beagle, Sasha, more than likely has a brain tumor and by the time this column publishes, her suffering will be over.

It’s ironic that she will die on our anniversary. She was the first pet we adopted together — on Valentine’s Day, no less.

My husband was insistent on getting a purebred German Shepherd, but I wanted to adopt from the local shelter. We compromised by making the commitment to volunteer at the local animal shelter.

We completed our training and the one day we found the time to volunteer, we came home with a dog.

Sasha was part Labrador Retriever, part beagle. She was black with a barrel-shaped torso, soft, floppy ears and a little Santa beard around her snout. She clearly had been abused at some point in her life and all she wanted was to be petted and loved.

When we brought home a German Shepherd puppy a month later, she took on the role of mama. She nuzzled him while he slept, and even tried to nurse him — although anatomically speaking, that ship had long since sailed.

My husband and I celebrated her quirks, even when they drove us crazy — her incessant digging in the yard and wandering off. We worked through food aggression and the fear of being touched and hugged.

We dressed her up for Halloween and bought her cute bandanas. I even baked her and the Shepherd cupcakes for their birthdays — dog-friendly, of course.

Although she was with us only for three years, she touched our hearts and brought my husband and I closer together.

We worked as a team and problem-solved. We considered another life outside of our own. We gave of ourselves to better a life.

In my sorrow, I take with me this comfort that Sasha helped forge the very marriage I celebrate today as she slips from this life to the next.

Sasha, I wish I could go back and get you as a puppy and prevent all the pain you had. But I thank you from the bottom of my heart for bettering my life and helping me discover love.

Rest in peace, Baby Girl.

— Sarah Leach is assistant managing editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.

First E.R. trip strengthens motherly resolve

It struck with a vengeance.

“Yes, this is daycare calling,” the sweet woman on the phone said. “It seems your little guy has a bit of a fever.”

“OK,” I replied. “I’m on my way to come get him.”

As I drove, I did the due diligence of calling the pediatrician to see if he needed to be checked out and what measure I could take to make him more comfortable.

I promised myself years ago that I would fight the natural instinct to panic when faced with this very situation.

I walked into the daycare room and saw him — and nearly started crying.

He was in the arms of a caregiver, eyes open dazedly, looking miserable.

“Come on, Peanut,” I said in my best comforting voice. “Let’s get you home.”

But hours later, his temperature spiked to 103 degrees. He was limp in my arms and could barely whimper. And he would not stand for me to put him down for a second.

I made the call to go into urgent care to get him checked.

Sitting in the ER, alone with a silent baby and my thoughts, I couldn’t help but think of my own mother dutifully taking me in every time I had a severe fever or injury.

I did all the things with my son that made me feel better as a child: soothing back rub, soft singing, little kisses.

It made me feel like more of a mother than ever before. Maybe that’s because women tend to be the traditional caregivers of the family.

But I was proud of myself that I staid calm and collected, even at the height of his misery.

Every few hours, he awoke and needed some medicine to manage the fever, a little bit of milk in his tummy and snuggles from his mom.

And after this exhausting weekend, I yearn for being able to have that again for myself.

In the morning, he was smiling and babbling, and his appetite returning to normal. My back aches from holding him, I feel like I haven’t slept for days, and a hot shower was nothing more than a pipe dream for me.

But as I looked into those big, blue eyes and that toothless grin staring up at me, only one thought came to mind: Totally worth it.

— Sarah Leach is assistant managing editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.