18 months yesterday

18 months and I cannot quite get my head around this miniature moody teenager living in our midst....this dazzling beauty, so smart and funny, so sure of what she wants, the way she wants it, so unable to adjust to our slow rate of understanding, or, worse, getting it wrong.  She is ferocious, wonderful, busy, with the biggest best smile, and wonderful snorty laugh (that's my girl).  Dimples, a love of Shrek (wree) and Elmo (ELMO!), curly hair that is 8" long when stretched out that she sometimes plays with and that I play with often...
last night we lay in bed and I looked at her amazing face, right there, Right There next to mine... Sometimes I am truly breathless with wonder.

She loves to look at the moo and tars
She loves to swee (swing) and go down the slide
She loves being in the backpack on daddy Doug (back)
She loves toast (TOAST! + happy wriggly dance)
She loves finding patterns that she knows, apples, frogs, dogs, cats, cows, stars...
She loves cake, she calls it, excitedly, dirt! (dellaspeak for dessert).

She hates baths, truly...
and is not fond of diaper changes
does not like being rushed into dressing if she is not ready
will not try new foods except the rare sometimes or when daddy sneaks it in 

She is not fond of the car, gets impatient with drives quickly, and sometimes fights a great big sad fight when we get in...

She runs and dances and climbs and seems fearless (oy!)
She loves being held until she doesn't.
She is tender and fierce.
She says a good firm unapologetic No, and a very happy Yes (yeah yeah yeah)

She asks about Dada when he is not home yet, or in the other room, or sleeping... and just about jumps out of her skin in happiness when he appears.
She runs toward me when I pick her up at daycare, and shows me everything. Gardens, sandbox, slide, big rock, big stumps, dirt...

Firmly into 2T clothes, size 6 shoes getting tight, and on the cusp of size 5 diapers...

Della. Wow. 18 months already. DELIGHT.

(crazy great photos by Susan Mullen www.susanmullenphotography.com/blog)

new laws of relativity

bad news? poop in the bed this morning
good news? not my poop

whatis

Friday I picked Della up from daycare, her last day in the baby room (although she had, truly, spent much of the week and all of friday in the toddler room), and I was all lumpthroated and verklemp... it is just happening so fast, this baby growing into a non-baby...
She was tired and moody (not surprising to us after the major uptick in ACTION and sensory input)--
then we changed her diaper.  Residual poop everywhere from a clearly insufficient clean-up, including poop lodged in her very pissed off tenderbits, and a Very Unhappy Della (and momma, and Doug)-- damn. It sucked.  SUCKED SUCKED SUCKED> She kept crying, and saying No No No, clamping her legs together and pushing me away while I cleaned, anointed, cuddled, soothed as best I could in every way possible...

Wrote a strong (but focused) note to daycare about the issue and spent the night shaking, angry, upset, and trying to get a grip. (Today we got a great response about the poop and the rash and all attendant ickiness, the kind of professional, thorough, appropriate response everyone would want... investigation, action, apology, plan, follow-up, request for ongoing feedback.. seriously, everything anyone would want.)
But friday and the weekend, while there was plenty there to work with given what happened, I admit, I was not really getting the all of what was getting me. Until today.

As a sexual abuse survivor (hate that term,  I don't know...someone who has walked that shitty road), I have to say, none of Della's significant unhappiness, her totally appropriate expression of her unhappiness (no, no, no) and my need to do things to her anyway was ok for me.  To say it resonated with my history is an understatement, although in fact, I did not even realize until today (consciously) that my jittery feeling of overwhelming shittiness is, at least in part, due to my sexual abuse history.

My own resonance, the one that got twanged, is not one I deal with well.  Much therapy, and much life since then.  I have grown out and around and away from it. I even forget about it (DENIAL is a very long river) for long stretches of time.  I have so much more life than that.  But. But. It is a fucked up thing that sits in there, quietly (yes, thankfully quietly) until rung like a bell.

Wish I knew a different language to use for this
resonance is something I am cultivating in positive ways these days, so I hate to use that word, but really, it is what the truth is.
then, an aftershock mood fug.

So today, chocolate cake for breakfast, and a strong desire to let this go as gently as I can without re-ringing it. Della is healing well thanks to the miracle of A&D ointment. Besides having this not happen, it is the best I can hope for.

image thanks to wikipedia

BIGNESS, mercy, unicorns and babies

I'm sitting in the dark office with only the light of the computer. I need to be in bed now, but am having a hard time wrapping up the day.
It was a good day, really. A busy day. A mad rush intensity day at a client site. But it was good. So why am I off kilter wanting to procrastinate letting it go, letting tomorrow come?

Della is in transition from the baby room to the toddler room at daycare. Tuesday we had our formal transition meeting,  and next monday is her first official day in the toddler room. I did not truly realize that parenting would be so much about change and letting go whether or not I'm ready.
I'm feeling nostalgic? yes, nostalgic.  Loving where we are, but shocked at how quickly time is flying by. It has no mercy at all, time. Sort of like gravity. Merciless.

I hold my now big girl and sort of feel astonished, really. I have not even truly believed that she is here, and here she is, BIG and almost a year and a half old already.  I remember holding my hands over my belly while she somersaulted and wondering who this person would be, and here she is, wildly smiling joyful full of life ALIVE and growing in every moment.

We have moments where she looks me deeply in the eyes, or holds my face for a moment (stillness is so very fleeting in this one), and says momma, and I can barely breathe from it. I feel nearly crushed with the bigness of this, the BIG NESS of this.

I hold her and say, holy crap, look at me, holding a baby. Holding a real, whole person. Holding DELLA. It is just as surprising as holding a wild animal, or being in space. Astonishing.


I hear other parents talk about their kids, and they seem to be so at ease with the truth of it, of the fact that they are parents, that they have a kid or kids, that this just is what is. I confess to envy for those who seem so sure of the truth of their lives, effortless belief.

I know (with some sort of semi-sheepish self-compassion) that I am still in the infertility PTSD mode of worrying I will lose her. Of holding my hand on her back while she sleeps. I can't help it yet. I don't quite believe she is here, and feel, somehow, it is up to me, up to my quiet constant vigilance to stay in this dream.  As if I might wake up,  find myself without her.

This sounds SERIOUS and BIG but it isn't. It is more like a haze, a wash; not debilitating, but it is my truth. I wish I could say otherwise, I wish I could say I've relaxed into poopy diapers and baby-sized food and crumbs down my shirt and the wonder of folding pairs of tiny socks... but really, no. There are poopy diapers, and baby food, and crumbs and wonder, but there is also this ever-present tinge of disbelief, this veil of something that feels like a kind of distance, like in the old days when I held myself separate to keep myself safe.  It is a little like that but with a big big difference.  I am also much closer to my own heart than I've ever been. So to call it distance is not quite fair.  I've never been this rawboned, this opened up, this filled with an inexpressible love.

I'll go to bed now. Holding the dichotomy of such huge cracked-open openness and this persistent disbelief or whateveritis that feels somewhat unreal. 

how about you? Those of you who have made it into the land of unicorns and babies, does this feel real to you? if not, how do you feel about that?

Ikea, balance and faith

Della, trying out her new bed (!) from Ikea. Bless Doug and his infinite patience and Yoda-ability to read/interpret Ikea instructions and make them come true--
and
someday, Della might actually sleep in the bed.  It is adorable, by the way, the Kritter bed .. two little wide eyed sheep on the headboard. Simple, low, short, small, cheap, but not cheaply made.  VERY comfortable (my new napping place?) and looks great.  The cat likes it too.

We've had a busy week with sickness then a week of no daycare (it is school break here in NH) and after a whirlwind week of adventures and bonding, tomorrow begins a semi-normal return to semi-predictable scheduling.


But/and/so
I am feeling off, people. Off, a little off kilter, a little off balance, a little unmoored.  I should really plot these on a calendar. Even though I am not back to periods yet, I bet I have some sort of cyclic hormonal something-or-other that is making me periodically blueish.  I joked with my sister that if I breast feed long enough, I can just segue into menopause.  But really, I swear it is a joke.

This week is a little weird schedule wise, with tomorrow being a mostly work at home day (usually I am at a client's office), so the week begins with a little space I hope to fill with workwork and with some katework too-- I am aching to reconnect with my creative sides.

I have an afternoon phone call scheduled with a new friend and coach, for a mutual session which is really exciting. Last time we talked it was click click click energizing loveliness and I hope tomorrow will bring more of the same. I love resonance that is positive like that. It makes me feel things are possible.

So I am looking forward to ending my day with her, then will pick up Della right afterwards. No time to ruin my resonance buzz with workwork.   Sometimes I do well with these things almost by accident and then feel a little amazed at my luck. Our last talk was at the same time of day and it felt GREAT>> so it was easy to do it *again*.  Brillant/Luck/Whathaveyou, happy all the same.

I've been thinking about clarity and how much I love it, when I realized that maybe my feelings of conflictedness come (at least sometimes) from a clarity I wish were different, not a complete lack of clarity. Maybe sometimes it is because I don't like the answer. And that realization was uncomfortable. And worthy of consideration.

I've been reading a bit about folks who make changes with FAITH. Faith is something I envy. I am more of a certainty girl (I know it is not that it is easy to see this with the life I am actually leading or have actually led). I want to say for the record that I would like a little more faith please. 

Fevery but fine

www.susanmullenphotography.com

Hey everyone,
I was sick
Della was sick
The computer was sick
and time passed, feverishly, uncomfortably, with the kind of disrupted sleep that is almost funny.
Nights are long this way, so while time was passing, it felt longer than it often does, and that felt like some sort of weird backhanded snotty nosed gift.

Today, computer back from the techs,
Della out with Doug to make room for me to work,
and me? I want to do almost anything else.

Back soon with a post about Ikea.

crazy good

Just back from a weekend in Maine to celebrate our almost two year anniversary! I can't quite believe that, but to celebrate, we asked our amazingly gifted and talented friend and life photographer Susan Mullen to do some family photos up at the location of the wedding.

It was a day almost completely unlike our wedding, it was so warm! No rain/snow!  But so very beautiful. We played around and she took photos in the windy wild grasses, and, well, the results are amazing.

CRAZY GOOD.

Please stop by her blog to see more and and say hello.