MoreCheese

One

Dear Stella,

I knew it would come, but was still surprised when it arrived: your first birthday.  My sweet girl, you stole our hearts the moment you arrived in this world.  You have expanded our lives and our hearts more than I could ever have imagined.  You've taught me that love is infinite and constantly unfolding and growing.  You've shown me what a natural caretaker your brother is.  You make your daddy weak in the knees.  My Stella, my shining star.

And look how you have grown!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am so proud of this girl.  Twelve months ago, you and I were in a hospital room together, having survived our very first night.  You were very hungry, and we were both trying to learn the best way to get you full. 

And now.  Now -- you are walking and talking your baby talk that is clear and authoritative despite its unique verbiage.  You dined on grilled salmon and sipped (....or guzzled) ice water through a straw for your birthday dinner.  You play the most adorable game of peekaboo, where you "hide" by covering your eyes.  You love to pass things back and forth with Nico, especially when you fake him out and snatch the thing back at the last minute.   You love to play with water, and I can hardly wait to bring you to the pool this summer.  You are going to have SO much fun!!!!!!!!!!!

Life with you just keeps getting better and more fun.  But to tell you the truth, I'm not looking forward too much because I'm so content just being here, in this moment, with you.  I love the feeling of your little legs wrapped around my body when I pick you up.  I love how you rest your head on my shoulder.  I love the way you charge at me at full speed and literally throw yourself into a hug.  I love listening to you experiment with your voice -- your soft coos, ear-piercing shreaks, and throaty shouts.  Your soft, baby smell.  Your dimpled knuckles and creased thighs.

My sweet girl.  I love you so much.  Happy first birthday, dear daughter.  May your life always be full of happiness and love.

Always and always,

Mama

My new favorite holiday

Mother's Day is my  new favorite holiday.  Better than Christmas or my birthday, or the two combined.  Of course, Mother's Day is also about MY mother.  My mother, who is congenitally cheerful, a natural optimist, a tough fighter, full of laughter, beautiful and stylish and the strongest woman I know.  I am so lucky to have her as my life-long role model.

And there are my babies -- and they will ALWAYS be my babies, no matter how tall or wise they get -- who light up every day and have given me my most favorite job I've ever had in my life.  In addition, they've shown me what a great DAD I'm married to.  I am forever grateful that my life includes all this -- so much love.  So much wonder.  So much happinness and fun.   (And yes, lots of poopy diapers and sleepless nights and frustrating moments, too, but they really are worth the pay-off.)

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and babies out there.

 

My little loves

What a horrible week it was last week.  Everyone I know that lives in the area or attended the marathon in Boston is well and accounted for, and for that I am ever grateful.  But between that and the gun control bill going down and West Texas and some local crime.... man oh man.  I felt like locking the children at home and never going anywhere, ever.  I was crawling out of my skin with anxiety all week -- nightmares, obsessive checking of CNN, debating whether to pull the children out of daycare.  I think it was all exacerbated by crazy hormones as I started weaning Stella last week, too.  I am so glad last week is over.  So.  Freakin.  Glad.

But my little loves.  They are such balm for the soul!!!!  Yesterday, while driving to work, Nico and I had a long conversation about his Astronaut Dinosaur and the trip he is going to take.  He's going to the moon to look for treasure, then to Mars to pick up a motorcyle.  On to Saturn for a ship and Uranus for a boat, then Neptune for a spyglass and then a sandwich and a glass of water on Pluto.  (Yes, he's 3 and he has memorized all the planets in the solar system.  He is slightly obsessed.)  And then Astronaut Dinosaur is coming back to Earth for a nap and a snack.  It was so magical watching Nico's face light up as he dreamed up each part of the adventure.  When we'd concluded Dino's mission, Nico excitedly added that we would have to tell Daddy, and build a rocket together with our blocks.

This morning, in the middle of polishing off a bowl of oatmeal, Nico plunked down his spoon and said, "Mommy?  I feel like giving you a hug."  Then he hopped off his chair and climbed up into my lap for a good 5 minutes of pure snuggling.  Then he reached across the table, slid his bowl over, and continued eating while the scent of his shampoo wafted up from under my chin and I tried to avoid knocking his skinny knees into the table ledge. 

It turned into a beautiful day today -- bright sun, blue skies, a vigorous breeze.  This is the height of spring in Washington -- trees and flowers and bushes are all bursting forth, and the grass is almost neon.  So at lunchtime, I ate quickly and then I grabbed Stella from daycare for a quick walk in the sunshine.  She waved at joggers, pulled a leaf off a weeping cherry tree, and giggled crazily each time the breeze whipped up around us. 

The work of raising them and caring for these little loves is often harrying -- feeding them and cleaning them and setting limits and keeping an eye on them and they have SO MUCH energy.... so much more than I do!  But then, there are these magical little pockets of time with each of them that are more nourishing and precious than anything, ever.

I am so intensely grateful.

Quiet Spaces

I've been having trouble blogging for several months now.  In the hubbub that is our daily life, it was getting harder and harder to find time to write.  And then, I found, it was getting harder and harder to think of anything to say.

Part of it is that my reasons for writing this blog have changed.  At first I thought of it as a fun hobby, and actively sought out readers and people to link and share with.  Then it became a sort of family album, and the few regular readers I'd made friends with became a part of an extended little online family.  And that sort of morphed into a record of this tender, early part of motherhood that I envisioned preserving for the children so that later, when they are older and have no memory of these days, they will know the love and joy they brought into our lives.

But then it seemed there was little else to say or report, other than what the kids were doing.  It wasn't just with blogging that I felt this way.  It was also happening at work and at home.  I felt like I just didn't have the mental energy to contribute anything meaningful to any of the conversations going on around me.  I felt like I was being consumed by the job of getting me and two small children to and from home and work five days a week, and fitting in everything else over the weekends.

Can fulfilling the basic obligations of running a family really be so all-consuming?  Or did I just hit a bump of some sort?  I don't know.  Perhaps everyone feels this way at some point.

I'm grateful that the feeling has passed.  I don't know why it did, exactly.  R* noticed my quietness and asked about it, and it helped a lot to voice the vague things that were jumbled at the back of my brain.  The baby went through a rough patch of sleep but has been steadily improving, so perhaps that was part of it, too.  And there are finally signs of spring peeping up through the muddy ground and dotting the trees here and there, and I feel that lifting my spirits as surely as the sun rises higher in the sky.

I'm emerging from that quiet space.  It feels good to have words on my lips again.

Three

Three years ago this evening, they put you in our arms for the very first time.  We kissed you and held you so so close and felt more love than we ever knew possible.

Three years later, and the best part of my day is still hugging you and kissing you and holding you so so close.  Happy birthday, my sweet boy.  I love you more than ever.