October 2014
Gabriel Thomas Bisland, Born on 8-30-13 at Mercy Medical Center in the city. As you know your Mama carried you. That was a little different for me because as you will soon learn, I like to be in control…just ask your Mama. So taking a passenger seat for those 9-10 months and in the delivery room was a good lesson in relinquishing control. Your mama was in labor for 18 hours maybe? She started getting contractions around 5pm on a Thursday night. We took a walk with McKay, got spicy wings from O’Loughlins (in Arnold, Maryland where we lived at the time), and put McKay down to bed. Gi-Gi came over around 10pm and we drove to the hospital in Baltimore. As we were walking into the hospital from the parking garage I snapped her picture. You will see it one day and laugh because of the look she is giving the camera…It was a ”If I wasn’t so pregnant I would come over there and punch my wife in the face” look. Haha. Mercy was great because they would let her get up and move around a little bit which GBMC, where your brother was born, wouldn’t allow us to do. Mama made it through some tough contractions. She moved around from the chair to the bed, she walked a bit, even got in the shower. Then she started vomiting from the pain…those O’Loughlins wings came up and, in hindsight…that was a bad idea for the pre-labor meal.
When there wasn’t anything else to puke up and she was still dry heaving she decided to do the epidural. It was the middle of the night, maybe 2am. After the epidural kicked in she was finally able to lay down and rest for a bit. I laid on the sofa next to the window and freaked out. I was so worried about the two of you. My best friend Kellie had just died after child birth a year before you were born. I know Kellie was watching over us the day you were born so I just prayed and tried to be calm.
Around 7am, our favorite doctor was about to get off of her shift and came in and told us that she wanted to deliver our baby and that your Mama was going to get ready to push. She was an awesome coach and she had bare feet in the delivery room. We are pretty certain she had a crush on your Mama which I pretended to get all annoyed about, in reality, it made me smile. Lots of people had crushes on her and she picked me J. I helped count while your Mama pushed and towards the end when I saw you coming out I couldn’t get the next number out of my throat. It was around 9am when you came out I couldn’t even announce if you were a boy or girl at first because I was so emotional.
That little change in perspective for me, not being the one to carry you, turned out to be the best thing ever. You mama and I were able to completely understand each other and what the other had gone through. And of course, we had you. You had these amazingly big (huge) eyes when you came out and for the next 9 months after birth. I stood by the doctors as they took your measurements (you were also 7lbs 7oz – same as your big bro) in awe of you and in even more love with your Mama. And all of the sudden we were a family of 4!
Gabe: 1st word “du-du” for doggie; mama, all done
1st steps: a few weeks before your 1st bday (10 or 11 months old)
Gabe, I love the way you first started to ‘dance’. You would nod your head slowly up and down while maintaining eye contact with us. You took music very seriously and it always helped you stay in your highchair longer to eat.
You have always been so sweet with the dogs. You lay on them and hug them. Bondi is your best bud and I love to see you guys together. She and Samos were our first babies before we had you and McKay so it’s a special thing for you to be so close to them.
I also love the way you walk. You put both hands behind your back at your waist line and walk with your chest forward. Its adorable.
You are one of the world’s messiest eaters. To start, you are super independent and need to feed yourself everything. That made the prospect of feeding you mushy baby food very difficult. You wanted to use a fork and spoon from a very early age. Now that you are basically eating everything on your own (13 months old) you like to eat a bite, throw a bite on the floor, put a bite in your hair, and repeat. You are a little bugger J
You always loved to play with hair when you were little. You were pretty bald when you were born but you had 2 moms with long hair so that worked out well for you. You loved to grab our hair when you were drinking your bottle. Once you grew some hair of your own you always rubbed the top of your head where it was the thickest. It was pretty cute.
October 21, 2015
Gabe, you turned two years old this past August. You and your brother are growing up so fast. I look back at pictures of you from last year where you barely had any hair. Now you have this big curly mop on your head. Everywhere we go people comment on how beautiful your curly hair is. Recently your mama has been telling me that we need to ‘trim it’ because its long and out of control. I have strict rules against this. I’m scared that if we cut your hair those glorious curls will go away.
Favorite things to say: ‘my do’ ‘me turn’ and anything you can say to make your mama and me laugh. Mostly comments like, “I drink your water mommy”, “I take your phone”. And then you laugh your naughty laugh. You have definitely moved into the 2 year old phase of independence. You want to do everything yourself and you have started to do what McKay did when he was your age….if we do something you wanted to do, you promptly undo our task so that you can re-do it by yourself. So important for your independence and confidence but so frustrating when we are trying to get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time. You and your brother give your mama and I a run for our money when it comes to patience. We learn just as many lessons a day as you guys do.
You are obsessed with babies and you are also surprisingly gentle with them. You are a gentle soul so we should have guessed that but most 2 year olds are not gentle with anything, much less other humans. You tend to cup your hand and place it under a baby’s chin or on their cheek. This is typically followed by an ‘awww’ on your part.
Your new nickname in our house is little ninja. You are on a very similar sleep regression path as your brother was but true to form, you go about it differently. Where McKay would literally catapult himself across his room from outside of his crib, you very stealthily lift a foot up, prop yourself up, and lower yourself to the floor, then you open your door so quietly not even your mama (lightest sleeper in the universe) can hear it. In the next 15 seconds flat you are next to our bed scaring the shit out of us. Haha…we pull you into bed, you ask for dinner (which is the name of every meal in your book) and then for water. If we don’t get you water you ask for aqua, as if to say, maybe you didn’t understand the request mommies. I’ll be blunt, you are a pretty terrible sleeper. But when most kids wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning they are ready to be awake or play. You want to snuggle and play with hair (ours or yours). You actually seem content to lay in bed awake. Similar to your brother, I try to tell myself that one day you will sleep again and you won’t want to lay in bed with us, it won’t be cool, or you will be too big to lay with us like you do now…a little ball of snuggle. So when we are up in the middle of the night for your sleep regression I try to tell myself all these things and then I beg you to go back to sleep.
One of my favorite things you do right now is multiple kisses. You will take both your hands and grab our face and then pull it towards you and kiss us, and then repeat rapidly 5-10 times. It so stinking cute. And when you want to do it you say, kiss mommy, and make a kissing motion with your hand and lips and that’s my cue. I hope you stay this sweet, kind, funny, and gentle always little boy. You light up our lives.
June 7, 2018
Gabe, tomorrow you will graduate from pre-school and move on to Kindergarten in the Fall. Although I am far from ready to let go of a boy who has stolen my heart 1,000 times over and woken me up before the sun just as many times, I know you are beyond ready. I can’t wait for your recalling of science experiments, art projects you have poured your heart into, and your extremely detailed reports of animals. You have a voracious and amazing mind and I’ll be right here to watch you soar sweet boy.
