Lydia's Wedding

James has a new thing. I found out when I walked into his room to get him up a few days ago. He groaned, rubbed his eyes, looked up and said: "Daddy, I wanna holdja."

"What do you want?"
"I wanna holdja."

And he held out his arms.

"Oh, you want me to hold you?"

He nodded, and I picked him up. To my great surprise, he didn't immediately wriggle down. In fact, he put his head on my shoulder, held on to me, and snuggled.

I brought him into Julie.

"Sweetie, did you see that James wanted to give me a hug?"
"I wanna hold Mommy."
"Oh...okay."
"Mommy, I need t'holdja."

We've since figured out that he's cutting some molars. He's been a little fevery, and pretty irritable. And he needs to "holdja" pretty much all the time. That might getting ready for a wedding difficult.

J was excited to wear a dress and look nice for the first time since Owen born, and possibly even earlier, since it's hard to feel like you look nice in maternity clothes sometimes. I was excited to dance with J and to show off my cute sons to our friends. We were all as happy as could be for the bride and groom, and all of their family. On Saturday morning I took the first shower and got into my suit. I came back out to find a tie and gave my shirt over for J to fix a button.

"Daddy, I need t'holdja."
"Okay, let's sit on the bed together."

We read some books while J stitched my button and pulled out her dress. She took her shower and came back in.

"Wut-oh, Mommy! What is wrong wiv your HAIR?"
"There's nothing wrong with my hair sweetie, it's just wet because I washed it."
"You need to go dry it off, Mommy."

Then it was time to put James' clothes on. I remember attending some weddings as a child, and I always remembered the clothes being traumatic. Apparently this is universal. He screamed absolute bloody murder while I buttoned up his shirt, clipped his tie on, forced his arms into a jacket, pulled up his dress pants, and squeezed on dress shoes.

"DADDY, I NEED T'HOOOOLDJAAA!!!"
"I don' wanna wear mah black shoes, they are not my fravorite!!!"
"I don' wanna look like Daddy, I wanna wear my pjs!!!"

I brought him in to show J. She said that he'd outgrown everything. Try the backup outfit.

"James?"
"I wanna holdja."
"You aren't going to like this."

"I don' wanna wear a sweater!!!!"

I took off his suit, buttoned up a white shirt, put on a vest, put on his khakis, and put on brown shoes.

I brought him in to show J.
"Does it look like his pants are to big?"
"Mommy, I wanna holdja."
He took a step towards her and his pants fell down.
"James?"
"I wanna holdja"
"You aren't going to like this."

We did all eventually get out the door to the ceremony, although someone had to be holding James at all times. We only needed to make one emergency trip back before the ceremony started, and the service was beautiful. Neither of the boys misbehaved, and then we went home on purpose to nurse Owen. James was not thrilled about leaving again.

We had a lovely time at the reception, but it's hard to dance together when you're each holding a little boy. Next time a friend gets married I think we're just going to get a sitter and let James stay in his pajamas.