Front Loader's #1

33 weeks along (which means there’s 7 left) and we haven’t picked out a name yet. Front Loader is getting closer and closer to the front runner. We have plenty of suggestions. And plenty names we don’t hate. But Henry Oscar came so easily to us. Within a month of finding out I was pregnant last time. I’m struggling with the maybe impossible balance of recognizable name (aka, people can spell it) without the overwhelming popularity. I’m also looking for a name that, when I share it with my brother, he doesn’t text back “Seriously?” and then “That makes me think of a large, slow man. Like Lenny from Of Mice and Men.” Eh, it will come to us.

Meanwhile, Henry went to pre-school summer camp last week. Every day I dropped him off, he ran off with a “Bye, Mommy. See you later.” and picked up the trains before I could answer. The first day was waaaaaay harder on me than him. On Monday, he did gymnastics. Tuesday, he made a monkey paper bag puppet. Wednesday, he complimented the teacher on using her words. Thursday, he was cuddling with two little girls when I picked him up. Friday, he brought home a picture of himself wearing gianormous red glasses, in a frame made of popsicle sticks and tissue paper flowers, where his resemblance to Elton John prompts us to sing Henry and the Jets. This week we’re hanging out at home, but next week he’ll return for Pirate Camp.

It’s strange to have a baby kicking inside and an almost three-year-old on the outside (sometimes, also kicking). As Front Loader (henceforth known as FL) gets ready to escape, newly independent Henry also wants to conjoin. He’ll climb into bed with me in the mornings and get so close it’s like he’s trying to crawl back inside, his knees pressed against my belly and head sweating on my shoulder. “I missed you, Mama,” he says when I return from a quick trip to the store (or the other room). And today at the beach, after playing with other kids in the water, he’d run over to me just to touch my shirt before heading back out to splash. FL rolls and turns like a big cat pacing. Two boys already with different energy.

As we’ve gotten baby clothes, I can’t imagine a child fitting in these tiny pieces of soft cloth. “Was Henry ever that small?” I keep asking people around me. As my boy-child loses his baby pudge, his body leaning and stretching, his stomach no longer round, FL will spend the next seven-ish weeks gaining fat. Here is Henry, the child I could never conjure, but also the inevitable boy, so himself from before he was pulled out. My mind is separated into before Henry and after, a benchmark for events. And FL will emerge with his own personality and dark hair, alike but completely different like when I scramble my letters in Scrabble; the same components spelling a distinctive face and hands and sense of humor. And what name will fit him…