Saturday is my birthday but since I’m not in the office Fridays, the lovely ladies I work with surprised me today with a little celebration, complete with cookies from The Famous 4th Street Cookie here in Philly.
Big, chewy and chock full of goodies, the chocolate chip with walnuts was definitely a winner, but my personal fave has to be the oatmeal raisin. I’m still kidding myself that it’s also the healthier option (Shut up, it’s my birthday, remember.) All I’m sayin’ is thank goodness they don’t list the nutritional info on their website.
This spring I remember pulling up to my niece’s second birthday party and having her run out the door, yelling: “I have pigtails!”
And she did, but that’s not what grabbed my attention. I was what she said – and they way she said it, like a child much older than herself. Her language skills have always been good for her age, and that day, looking at an 18-month-old pointing and grunting Mish, I couldn’t imagine her having the ability to speak in a full sentence in a few short months.
And yet here we are, about 6 weeks before her second birthday, listening to her say things like “I’ll go get it,” “No, you do it!” and being able to sing almost every word of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. In the last week or so she’s made leaps and bounds in the language department. In every department, actually.
Her grandparents were just here from the U.K. for a two-week visit, and among the many gifts they spoiled her with was a tricycle. She can’t exactly pedal herself yet – it’s one of those convertible trikes that has a parent-push handle in the back, but she still looks so big in it, motoring around the block, waiving to the neighbors and ordering their dogs to stop barking. (She’s bossy, but she’s right – that little Yorkie is annoying.)
Of course, the increased language skills aren’t always a bonus. When she begs for one more drink before bed or orders me to sing her Wheels on the Bus for the 80th time in a row. But for the most part I love it. She isn’t just parroting back what I’m saying – we’re having actual conversations.
I look at my niece now and wonder what Mish will look like in another six months. Will she also be ready to put together floor puzzles, recite books verbatim and start preschool? It was only yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital, and now she’s going to be two.
Ok, so I haven’t blogged in ages. I have lots of excuses, but frankly, they even bore me, so I’m not going to torture you with them. Bottom line – I’m getting back on the horse. Or, at least I’m going to try.
Lately I feel like I’ve been getting lost in the day to day. The big picture looms somewhere out of sight (though not entirely out of mind) but somehow I can’t seem to focus on it at all – my tunnel-vision of the mundane is all I can see. Trip to Target. Check. Return library books. Check. Work. Home. Dinner. Bedtime stories. Tidying up. Watching the entire Parks and Recreation on Netflix, one episode an evening. Bed. Check. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I recently started reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, a book where the author documents a year where she tries to improve her quality of life by focusing on 12 different aspects of happiness, tackling one each month. I’m only on month 3, but I’ve had to stop reading because, quite frankly, I feel like I’m going to break out in hives. The last chapter focused on finding fun in your life. Rubin found that she could bring fun into focus by examining things she is drawn to in her hobbies, free time and life. I asked myself what I enjoy in my free time and realized two things. #1. My free time consists of about an hour an evening, when I am too tired to do much except watch reality television. #2. Even if I had more free time, I don’t know what I would do with it.
I used to have things I enjoyed – travel, cooking, reading, shopping. But since having a child, these things aren’t as enticing anymore–even when I can find time for them. Travel with a toddler is a nightmare (Case in point: the 8-hour trip home from London when she slept 45 -minutes.) Cooking for someone who only wants to eat cheese and pasta? Boring. Reading, yes, but it’s mostly while commuting now. And shopping? Well, that one is still fun, I admit it. But I find myself more and more shopping for Mish and less for myself. Not only are kids clothes generally cheaper and way cuter, I’m still struggling to find my mommy-style.
I turn 35 this week. And I need to do something to realign myself, with well, myself.
Recently I came across this video:
He’s right. Time is going to go by whether or not we do anything with it. One of my favorite quotes has always been this one from Brian Andreas:
“Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.”
I know what the important things are in my life: my daughter, my husband, my friends, my work. And trying to fit them all in is going to be damn hard. But I need to find a way to do it. Otherwise, what’s the point?
There’s lots of 30 Day Projects I’d like to do: Stop eating sweets for 30 days. Exercize everyday for 30 days. Cook dinner from scratch. Floss my teeth. Wash my face before bed. Pitch a new story every day. But I’m going to start with the one I think I need to do the most – write. I’m going to blog every day, for 30 days. Short, long, just words, a photo – something.
Maybe I can make time to write by cutting out some of the unimportant things in life. Things like reading gossip blogs (sorry Perez), zoning out in front of the TV and trying to keep up with the Twittersphere.
Ok, so this is a little late – more than a little late, but here goes:
Dear Mish,
You are fifteen months, going on fifteen years. Such an independent little lady. Tonight at dinner you were wielding a fork like a pro, stabbing bits of sausage and proudly popping them in your mouth. You paused only to raise your cup, say “Cheers!” and clink it against mine. It would have been very elegant, if not for the fact that your cup is plastic, covered in Sesame Street characters, and you had a wodge of mashed potato blocking your left nostril.
You also love playing Itsy Bitsy Spider, making a little finger spider that sometimes lands in your hair. Even when you’re eating. Eating whipped cream. That ends up in your hair:
Isla playng Itsy Bitsy spider while eating
It’s been about a month since we took you out of daycare and started with your new sitter, Lee. You adore it there and Lee always tells me how happy you were during the day. Still, my heart nearly bursts when you see me walk in the door to pick you up at the end of the day and you get the biggest smile on your face as you run towards me and wrap your arms around me.
This month we have been waging the Battle of the Milk Container. Until this month, we’ve left you have a bottle of milk every day, since you aren’t fond of milk from a cup (or a straw, or a funnel or any other device we’ve tried. Repeatedly. Since you were about 8 months old.) You drink water from your sippy like a pro, but will only take small sips of milk from it. It’s not that you don’t like milk – you’ll put away a full bottle of the same stuff – but it seems that in your mind, cup is for water, milk is not. End of.
But your pediatrician insisted it was time, and so we took away your bottle. You didn’t protest, you just didn’t take to it great. And so I worry.
Being a parent, I’ve found, means that sometimes you grasp on to things that probably don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, and keep yourself up half the night worrying about them, because there are a million people, books and websites that tell you how things should be, and that even though you know that only a Stepford robotic child would progress according to an exact schedule, you can’t help feel that there’s something you’re missing. I look back and in the short fifteen months you’ve graced this earth, there are plenty of things that fall under this heading. Worry that you refused to take a bottle. Fear that you’d never sleep through the bloody night. A stubbornness not to let one morsel of baby food pass your lips. In each case, my worry was in vain, and I’m sure this time is no different. Either you’ll eventually decide you like milk enough to drink it, or you won’t. You drink water for hydration and eat plenty of dairy. I’m trying to let you win this battle, or rather, not to make a battle out of it. I’ll let you know next month how that’s going.
Speaking of drinking milk, we’re still nursing. Believe me when I say I never thought I would be nursing a toddler – a small person who can come over and ASK to nurse. I thought you would give it up by now. You were never much of a comfort nurser, but suddenly, you want to snuggle close and chow down. There is a part of me who sees how big you are getting (though you’re still a mere 18 pound peanut!) and thinks that it’s time to stop. But most of the time, when you’re looking up at me from under my breast, a smile playing on your lips, I am amazed that for more than two years my body has nourished you physically and emotionally and I can’t imagine this bond ever ending (though I promise, it definitely will!)
Just pulled an 18-hour day. My daughter will wake me by 6am, latest. Suddenly understand red bull's appeal, even though it tastes like ass.04:05:59 AM October 13, 2011from Twitter for Android
