Internet Grapes

how to live like this

I don't know how to live like this. 

I love that 4.5 year old girl in the bathroom, talking to herself while she plays with toys, telling me she wants five more minutes, but already I do not understand her.  Already, I feel like I have failed her in at least one important way. (She will not poop in the toilet.  This sounds simple.  This sounds easy.  If I told you that other than that, she is smart, creative, hilarious, affectionate, and compassionate (and of course also stubborn, often whiny, and weird), you would think, maybe, that the failure to poop in the toilet was minor.  Maybe it is.  And yet most days it is a huge thing, overshadowing all else, bringing an excellent day to a crashing disappointment, making a bad day worse.  I go from calm patience to angry ranting and disgust in a heartbeat.  She is failing us.  We are failing her.  I am failing.) 

I love that almost 5 month old baby in the crib, sleeping quietly at the moment, rolled over onto her stomach in her baby straitjacketed swaddle.  And yet I am already dreading bedtime.  I can not possibly go to bed early enough to get enough sleep, not with the number of times Annabel will wake me up in the night.  Not since I need to go into the office tomorrow.  Already, these days, I tend to only take showers every other day, hoarding the extra 15 minutes that a shower (and waiting for hair to dry) would take, using it for sleep, or for 15 minutes of time all by myself.  I took a shower today.  If tonight is like the other nights, she will wake up at 10 or so, when I go to bed.  She will nurse, and I will, at least that time, enjoy the weight of her little warm chubby body, the feel of her hands, opening and closing on whatever part of me she can reach (doing some weird but not altogether unpleasant massage of my chest), if she can get her hand out of the confines of the swaddling blanket.  Then I will put her back to bed, and lie down (the feeling I have each time I put her back in her crib, the feeling of impending blessed much-needed sleep, is (are!) the best part(s!) of each night), and go almost immediately to sleep.  But she will wake up again around 2 hours (or, if I'm very lucky, 3 hours) after I have gone to sleep, and I will pick her up and bring her to bed with me, lying back against the pillow, eyes closed, dozing, wishing for the time to pass quickly.  Twenty minutes or so after she's woken, she will be done.  I will burp her, kiss her soft fuzzy head, put her back in the crib, and return - ahhhh - to bed, pulling the covers up high over my shoulder, tucking them under my chin.  I will look at the clock, see that it is 12:54 or 1:36, and mentally calculate when she might wake up, and how much sleep that will be.  Most likely, she will wake me up again, 2 (or if I'm lucky 3) hours later.  And again.  And again.  Last night she woke me up at midnight, 2, 4, and 6. 

On Monday of this week I had what I would call a minor breakdown.  In front of two co-workers (luckily, my two closest friends at work), I started to cry.  They closed the door, told me it would be ok, gave me names of therapists to talk to, asked if there was anything they could do.  Mostly, they listened, and they let me cry, and when I apologized, they refused to accept my apology.  Afterward, not only later on that day, but stretching all the way to today, Wednesday, I felt (I feel) better, as if a dam had broken.  The pressure has been relieved.

I started writing this on Sunday, and I have not gotten a chance to continue until today (Wednesday), which I think is probably symptomatic of part of my problem: I have very little time that is not spent trying to sleep, taking care of the children, commuting to and from work, working at a job which pays me less and less (in addition to the pay cut from the beginning of this month, I'll pay more than $100 more a month for insurance in the new year; and of course there was no raise at the beginning of 2008) and which simultaneously requires more and more (not only more time, but more rules, more compliance, more bureaucratic hoops to jump through).  I am worried about my job.  I am worried about money.  I am worried, a little bit, about what we'll do for Christmas this year - it will be fine, I know it will be fine, and yet I want it to also be good; I want to find a way to make sure that I enjoy this first Christmas with Annabel and fifth one with Katie.

Even now, right now, I have had to stop at least five times (since about 3 paragraphs up) to go comfort the baby, nurse the baby, replace the baby's pacifier, wipe up the baby's spit up. 

In phone calls at work, I forget what I'm saying in the mdidle of saying it.  I transpose digits in people's phone numbers.  I am easily distracted from what I'm working on, flitting from one thing to another, rarely finishing anything.  It's hard to follow my own train of thought for more than a few minutes at a time. 

I am in tears at least once a day.  And the real, underlying problem is that I feel like I am trying to do so many things, and that I am succeeding at none of them.  I feel like I'm failing.

And yet right now, on Wednesday, a few days after I started this, on a day when I got to "sleep in" until 8 (after having been woken up 4 times), I feel optimistic.  I feel better than I have felt in days, maybe weeks.  I feel like I can actually make it through another day, and another day after that.  (This lovely poem helped, I am pretty sure.)   

I actually daydream about posting here often. I have an idea that I will start posting regularly again, and that what I write will be work I'm proud of.  I don't know when that will be, or even, I'll admit, whether that will be at all. 

I do plug along taking pictures, at least, posting them to Flickr and captioning them when I can. 

I do stop and smell Annabel's head and rub my cheek against her brand new downy fuzzy hair and put my finger out so that she will grab it in her hand and squeeze tightly.  I accept it as her embrace. 

I do stop to look at Katie's gorgeous perfect face, her bright eyes, her mischievous smile.  I watch her body grow leaner and longer, seemingly on a daily basis.  (Since April she has gained 2 pounds and grown over 2 inches.)  I am amazed at the way she is so much her own person, not my baby, not dependent on me or Geoff for ideas or for her sense of humor or for her likes and dislikes.  

I know that no matter how difficult each day is right now, I will miss this time when it is gone.  I will miss the people that my children are today: the way Annabel lights up when she sees either mine or Geoff's face, and the way she is learning to blow raspberries; the way Katie asks me every night to sing her a new song that she doesn't already know, and also some other songs that she already does (right now our regulars are: Edelweiss, Over the Rainbow, Til There Was You, Goodnight My Someone, Where Is Love?, Some Enchanted Evening, How to Handle a Woman, and the Beatles' "I Will" - I am running out of songs that I have memorized - I actually had to research the verses for "Some Enchanted Evening"), and wants me to tickle her while we sing. 

Today was ok.  Tomorrow might be better.  The only way to do this is day by day by day, I guess.  I think.  That is the only way to live like this.  I'm trying. 

prayers, answered and un

One day, several months ago, as we sat in church listening to the sermon, I found myself looking out at some people in the congregation - a father with his son and daughter.  The father was wearing glasses, and the son was wearing his glasses (although I've also seen him without them), and the daughter didn't have glasses on. I tried to think whether I'd ever seen her in glasses or heard her mention contacts.  The mother of the two kids was not sitting with them - she was sitting with us in the choir - and I know she wears contacts.  We occasionally see her in glasses.  I only thought about this for a second (not nearly as long as it has taken me to type this). 

These thoughts led me to start thinking about genetics, and about how things like poor eyesight make their way from one generation to the next, and I wondered about the baby growing inside me, and whether she would need glasses.  Geoff wears glasses.  I have had glasses during two different periods of my life, but for eyestrain, not for vision.  I guess it remains to be seen whether Katie will need glasses. 

And then I started thinking about other members of mine and Geoff's families, and which of them have glasses, when suddenly, as clear as a photograph held right in front of me - no, as clear as a person sitting right in front of me - I had a vision of Stephanie, wearing her glasses, leaning toward me, beaming at me happily and maybe a little conspiratorially, the way she did so many times.  And as I saw her, I felt an urgent PLEASE rise up inside me, a plea for Stephanie to be alive, for her death to have been a dream (a nightmare), and for me to have a chance to see her smile at me like that again.  And even though I knew, of course, that my plea would not be answered, there was a part of me that kept hoping that somehow I had misunderstood, that even though all these months had passed, that she was really ok, and that her death had never happened.

On a different day, around the end of April, in the last month or so before Annabel was born, I was driving home from work on Lake Shore Drive when I realized that I couldn't remember feeling any major movements from the baby that day.  Usually there was a flurry of activity at some point every morning, and again every afternoon, that was so forceful that I couldn't help but stop whatever I was doing to focus completely on the baby in there, to wonder what she was doing, and to be grateful for her existence (but often also to wish that she wouldn't push quite so hard).  I couldn't remember any such flurry from that day.  There was no such movement right then, either.

I reached down to my belly to feel for her hard shape under my skin.  Just there, to the right of my belly button, I felt an expanse of babyness - maybe a back, or a butt, or a head.  I pushed on it gently.  It didn't push back. 

This was normal.  She slept, often, so the fact that she wasn't pushing back at me didn't mean anything was wrong.  I knew that she was probably just fine.  But still.  I had a nagging sense that maybe, just maybe, something was wrong. 

I pushed again.  Nothing.  "No."  I said.  I was alone in the car.  I said it out loud anyway.  "No.  No, no, no, no, no."  After a few minutes, I started to cry.  "No."

I kept driving, and I kept waiting for movement, and every so often I would push on my belly, and there would be no response (even though each time I could feel some part of her little body in there, under my skin).  Even though there was no real reason for it, I felt panic rising inside me.  I thought of the day, almost a year before, when we'd gone to the doctor and discovered that I was having a miscarriage; I thought of how the day had been sunny and clear and warm.  I thought of how up until that afternoon, there had been nothing to distinguish that day from any other day, no way to know about the grief that I was going to experience before the end of the day.  Nothing to warn me that I was going to spend the afternoon sobbing and the next few days despairing.  No clues. 

"Please," I said.  "Please," again, out loud.  "Please.  Please.  Please."   

I thought how easily this day could be another day like that day last May, how suddenly, with no warning, this day could turn from ordinary to unforgettable. I thought about how bad things so often do happen that way, coming out of nowhere, slamming you to the ground and knocking the wind out of you. I thought about how so many bad things happen not because we deserve them, but in spite of the fact that probably nobody deserves them.  I imagined getting home, telling Geoff, driving to the hospital, discovering that the baby had died, deciding where to go from there (I was eight months pregnant; there would have to be labor and delivery; there would be no miscarriage in the privacy of my own bathtub), and wondering whether I would ever find the strength to try again. 

And then, as I drove along, crying and praying and pleading, as I was preparing myself for disaster and despair (it couldn't really have been very long - maybe it was fifteen minutes, or maybe it was only five), she moved, gently, inside me.  And then she moved again.  And then again, more deliberately, and stronger. 

I gasped a huge sigh of relief.  "Oh, thank you," I said, still crying (maybe crying harder).  "Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you." 

A little over a week ago, at the end of July, we were in Halifax, Nova Scotia, visiting Geoff's family while I was on maternity leave.  While we were there, we all drove out to Lawrencetown Beach, to scatter Stephanie's ashes in the ocean, from a beach she loved to visit.  There was fog everywhere, and the air was much colder than I'd realized it would be, so before we could walk over to the water, we had to spend a few minutes dressing Annabel more warmly, and putting a jacket on Katie.  Geoff strapped on the Baby Bjorn, and we put Annabel into it, and we all walked over to the rocky beach together.  As we stood there in the fog and wind, watching what was left of Stephanie's body fall into the water and blow through the air, I did not say "please."  I tried, really hard, to think about how glad I was to have known her, to be grateful to have had her as my sister in law and friend, and to feel lucky to have known her.  I tried, really hard, to pray "thank you," even though there will always be a part of me, I think, that can't help but say "no." 

In the car, driving back into Halifax after we left the beach, Katie (who had sobbed nearly hysterically at the beach) kept asking us to tell her about Stephanie and about how she had died.  We did the best we could to explain, again, what had happened, and why, and made sure to let her know that we didn't completely understand it ourselves.  Katie started to cry again.  "I don't remember her," she said, and cried as if she understood just how much of a loss that was. 

Annabel is two months old now, and except for a mild rash on her cheeks, she is completely healthy.  For the most part, she is a happy, alert, easily soothed baby, who makes me smile every day.  There is a woman at the church who wants to hold Annabel every time we see her. "A healthy baby," she says, "is like winning the lottery."  She smiles at us, and tells us how lucky we are.  We smile back, and nod, and say that she's right.

Hope

I don't know where to start.  I didn't mean for so much time to pass before I posted again, but from the last time I posted until just recently, it has been a whirlwind of busyness, celebration, grief, recovery, exhaustion. 

On September 18th, the same day as my last post, I took a home pregnancy test that had a second line so faint I thought I might be imagining it.  On September 19th, I got a darker line.  A couple of days later, one that was even darker.  Since then, I've had bloodwork and an ultrasound and exam at the doctor's office.  I'm pregnant again.  About 10.5 weeks right now, with an estimated due date of May 29, 2008. 

On September 26th, we celebrated Geoff's 31st birthday.  The weekend before his birthday Katie and I visited my Mom.  The weekend after his birthday, Katie and I visited my dad & stepmom, and also my brother and his girlfriend and my niece. 

On October 4th, Geoff's parents arrived to visit, and to be here for his doctoral recital on the 7th.  His sister Kimberley arrived on the 5th.  My dad & stepmom and Josh & Frankie arrived on the 6th.  The recital was a big success, with lots of our friends attending, and with everyone impressed by and/or proud of Geoff and his talent and skill.  On October 9th, his father and girlfriend and Kimberley went home.  On October 10th, his mom went home. 

On October 10th, Geoff's brother Matthew, who was worried about his sister Stephanie, went to her condo and found her.  Stephanie had died that day of an accidental overdose (I hope it is not a violation of her family's trust to say that; I know much of her story is not mine to tell, and I won't try).  She was 28 years old.  It makes me cry to sit here and type that.

I went to work on the 11th and prepared to be gone the next week.  On Friday the 12th we spent most of the day downtown at the passport agency, getting Katie an emergency passport so that we could fly up to Halifax the next day.  After waiting in many lines, we got the passport.  On the 13th, we flew to Halifax, to be with the family, to grieve, to attend the visitation and the service.  The outpouring of love for Stephanie was overwhelming and wonderful and heartbreaking.

On the 18th, we flew back home very early in the morning and visited my obstetrician in the afternoon.  Everything looked good, she said.  There was a heartbeat, just like last time.  So far, so good.

On the 19th, Katie and I flew to Boston for a trip we'd had planned for months, to visit with a huge group of women and their families; we have been an amazing support group for each other since I joined the PSV online forum in January (and many of them have been an amazing support group for each other for years now).  We had a wonderful time.  On the 22nd, we flew home.

On the 23rd, I went back to work.  The rest of the week, I tried to catch up. 

Geoff found and bought Katie a Snow White costume at the church rummage sale for $2.  On Halloween, we went trick or treating. 

And now it's November.  Saturday was my mom's birthday, and she came up to visit.  We had a good visit with her.

I will write more about the most important events here, but right now this is what I can manage. 

I miss Stephanie.  Already.  She was not just my sister-in-law, she was also my friend, and I thought we'd have until we were old women to get closer to each other, to be part of each other's lives, to watch our children (when she had them) grow up.  She was going to be Katie's special aunt, she said, the one who took her travelling and took her out for a drink when she turned 21 (or maybe even before).  When she saw me or talked to me, she would shout out, "Sister!" as if that was the best thing in the world to be.  I am mad at her for letting this happen, for leaving us.  But most importantly, I loved her.  I love her still.

I have not really allowed myself to be thrilled about being pregnant.  I am happy.  I am cautiously optimistic.  There is no real reason to think that things won't be ok, except that sometimes, things aren't ok.  I am nauseous a lot, eating pretty healthily, sleeping a lot.  I have had at least three separate nightmares of having a miscarriage with this pregnancy.  I am scheduled to have an ultrasound on 11/15, at 12 weeks, and in my mind that is a benchmark, a time past which I can relax and not worry quite so much. 

I am sorry that I never got to tell Stephanie that I was pregnant.  And I am sorry that Katie will not have any real, solid memories of her Aunt Stephanie.

We are ok.  Or we will be.  It's been a pretty hard year, in a lot of ways, but I am hoping that the near future holds some wonderful things, and that we are able to let go of some parts of the past.  I hope that wherever Stephanie is, that she is at peace.  I don't know what else I can hope.

Grateful (November 21st)

mischief maker
Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

Linda posted an entry today and asked us to tell her what we were grateful for.  I posted this:

I’m grateful for my daughter, and so many of her attributes, especially the way she gives hugs & kisses (like this: hug, kiss, grab the hair on top of your head to pull you in for an Eskimo kiss, “noggin” (which is bumping the tops of your heads together), another hug, another kiss - and sometimes if you’re really lucky, she sort of forgets what she’s doing and she grabs your hair again and starts over), and also the way she puts words together. I’m grateful for my husband, who is my very favorite person, tied with Katie. I’m grateful for having enough money this year that we can buy some Christmas gifts without freaking about it. I’m grateful you mentioned Aimee Mann’s holiday album, because I will have to check it out, and also that you linked to the pumpkin cheesecake recipe, because I am SO going to make it! I’m grateful, still, on a near daily basis, that we didn’t die in our car crash in July. I’m grateful for my parents, and Geoff’s parents, and our siblings. I’m grateful for my camera and my computer and for all of the internets, and for all of my beloved friends, and for Cosi’s signature salad with grapes and apples and pistachio nuts, because it is delicious. 

And then I thought, you know, those are some gratefuls worth remembering. So I posted them here, too.

And hey, I'd love to hear what you're grateful for, too, if you're willing to share.  Tell me.

4 years (November 16th)

4 years (November 16th)
Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

We got married 4 years ago today. I remain as happy about that as ever. (The baby diamond earrings, barely seen, are an anniversary present.)

There wasn't much fanfare today.  I am preparing for an audit at work, and haven't even had time to go out and buy a card.  Geoff has choir practice tonight.  We saw each other for about a half an hour this morning, and for about 15 minutes this evening.  He'll be home in about an hour, and about an hour after that, I'll go to bed.  Tomorrow, though, Katie has a sleepover at Rebecca & Chris' house, and Geoff and I are going to dinner, and a movie, and afterwards back to the home we share. 

The other day Geoff was telling me something, I don't remember what.  I guess I must not have been paying enough attention, or I must not have responded with enough enthusiasm, because he started teasing me.  "Oh, excuse me," he said.  "I just thought you might like to know.  I was just trying to share with you.  You know, like we said we would do, almost four years ago, when we agreed to share our lives together.  I was just sharing with you."

I smiled at him and laughed.  "Thank you," I said.  "There is no one I would rather share my life with." 

We were in the car.  He smiled back at me.  "Right back atcha," he said.  "Me, neither."   And I kissed him.

There is something to be said for being extra thankful, at least once a year, for having made this choice, for recognizing that I would make this same choice again and again.  He is my very favorite person, and I am his, and we have been married for four years.  I see no end in sight. 

And every day I am thankful for this small (or maybe not so small) miracle, for the continued sharing of our lives, for sharing love and hopes, for being each other's family. 

Happy anniversary to us.

Then it does.

Maybe the best decision I ever made was deciding to marry this guy.

Happy 3rd anniversary, sweetheart.  I feel about us the same way I feel about that amazing daughter of ours.  As time passes, I keep thinking, "This is wonderful.  This is so great.  It's hard to believe this could get better."   

And then it does.

(I don't write) Poetry

Dear Katie

The other day I watched you
eating peas with great intensity and immense concentration.

You sat at the dining room table,
scanning the surface for the next pea target.
You chose one, grabbed one, popped it in your mouth.
One and one and one and one.

When you saw me watching you, your eyes locked on mine.
You smiled.
Then your eyes returned to the surface of the table:
Bull's-eye.

This is new to me.
I have never loved someone for the way she eats her peas.

Happy Anniversary Baby

Father-Daughter
Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

This is not for Katie.

Today makes seven years since Geoff and I first met in person.

I have been thinking about writing something here to mark the occasion, and I've been trying to think about what would be the right thing to say. Everything I think of seems either too sappy or too superficial.

So I'll try to keep it simple.

Thank you, Geoff, for loving me. Thank you for parenting with me, and doing it with such love and patience. Thank you for making me laugh. Thank you for forging ahead through the occasional tough spots without ever once telling me that you would even consider quitting. Thank you for taking pictures of me and Katie whenever I whine that there aren't very many of her and me together. Thank you for adding music to my life (literally). Thank you for the crazy "T for Toes" early birthday present you gave me yesterday. Thank you in advance for whatever other birthday present you've ordered me that is a surprise, but which you tell me might even make me jump for joy! Thank you for always believing that I can do whatever it is that I want to do, even when (especially when) I'm not so sure of myself. I love you, Geoffrey Bee.

So, seven years. Wow. I have no idea where we'll be in seven more years, but (you knew this was coming) I know that I want to spend them with you. Don't ever go.

15 Months

Dear Katie,

On June 7th you turned fifteen months old.  I started writing this on June 8th, the very next day, but that was a day and a half after we moved from our apartment to our new home (which we own!), and things have been crazy since then, and please forgive me for not finishing this within a week, even, of starting it.  Please also forgive me for occasionally zoning out over the past week and a half while you ran around the apartment doing unbearably cute things, as usual (the cute things are usual, not the zoning out) instead of paying as much attention to you as you deserve and as I would like.

While we're at it, I'd like to ask your forgiveness for the times when I lose my patience with you (when I'm telling you NO, keep your hands out of the dog's water bowl, or YES, you must come here now to get your diaper changed, or NO, you do not throw your bottle or the phone or the remote control onto the floor in such a forceful manner) when you wilfully ignore me.  I know you are just testing out what you can do, figuring out which parts of the world you have some control over, deciding how you have to move your body parts to make certain things happen, seeing how water splashes or how gravity pulls things crashing to the floor or what's the heaviest thing you can carry from one place to another.  I know you are not doing it to make me upset - even though you look straight at me with that mischievous glint in your eye while you are doing it - and usually, honestly, usually your enthusiastic love of all things chaos-inducing only makes me love you more.  Lately I've been a little stressed. 

I think you've noticed, because you've been a little extra sensitive, too.  Usually when I say "no!" to you, the only change in your behavior is that you look straight at me while you do it again, but yesterday I said, "no!" and you looked at me and did it again while your bottom lip started to quiver and your eyes started to tear up.  So I picked you up and held you on my lap and rubbed your back and told you that I was not mad at you (and I wasn't), but that you could not throw the phone because you might break it or injure someone or something else with it.  But that it was all right, I loved you very much, I was not angry, just please don't do it again.  You laid your head down on my chest and looked very sad.  I held you until you looked a little happier, and I kissed your neck, which made you laugh and arch your head back in extreme ticklishness. 

The big news right now is that we have moved.  Heather and Arek used to be our neighbors, and they were wonderful neighbors, but we found a home that we could buy, and so we decided to move.  We have moved into a 2-unit building.  We're on the second floor, and right now (a week and a half after we moved, still) the whole place is filled with boxes. 

On the Friday before we moved, Daddy put you to bed and I went over to the new place.  I had decided to go over to the new place to do some painting and to have some alone time, because frankly, you'd been wearing me out the previous evenings.  You cried and cried until I let you get out of your crib, and wouldn't go to sleep until 9:30 or 10, which is MY bedtime, young lady, so it is therefore too late!  So I decided, "hey! I am more than just a mother, I am an independent woman!  And I can go over to the new place and spend a night all by myself.  I can eat my frozen pizza and my pint of chocolate ice cream, and drink my diet coke and water, and I can blow up the huge Aerobed and stay up as late as I want, and sleep in as late as I want, and do some painting (which I actually really love to do - there's something about the bare clean expanse of a freshly painted wall that makes me feel like I've really accomplished something) in peace!  It will be an adventure!"

What actually happened is that I stayed at home with you and your dad until about 7:45, and when it was time to go, I waved to you and your dad in the doorway, and as I drove away I cried a little bit.  You are fifteen months old, but that was the first time I was going to miss both your bedtime and wake-up.  I had missed your bedtime a few times, but I had always been there the  next morning when you woke up.  I wondered what I was doing, leaving you and your dad there on a night when you would probably want to play until 9:30, when I could enjoy spending time with you after having been gone to work all day. 

I forged ahead, though! I went over to the new place anyway, and you know what I did when I got there?  I had a pretty good time.  I heated my frozen pizza and then I ate it.  I drank some diet Coke.  I ate a little bit of my ice cream.  Nobody cried for me, and nobody needed me to take care of them.  And then I painted your bedroom a lovely pink color, so that it would be nice for you when we moved, and so that it hopefully wouldn't smell like paint anymore by the time you slept in it for the first time.  I painted for hours while I listened to the radio, and I wore myself out, but I had a good time.  I  called your dad at about 9:00 to see what was going on, and he said that you had been asleep since 8:30, and that you hadn't made a peep since then.  I stayed up painting until almost midnight, and then I went to bed on the Aerobed.  In the morning, I kept waking up, checking the time, and then going back to sleep.  I finally decided to get up at 7:42.  Later I asked your dad what time you had woken up, and he said you had gotten up at 7:30.  So there you go, I had 12 extra minutes of sleep!

Just so you know, I'm aware that it's a little bit pathetic that my first big night away from you was spent painting your room after eating frozen pizza and ice cream in an empty condo.  But there it is - a first step along our road to your someday independence and separation from me.  Our first night apart, and we were both very brave.  One of us didn't even cry. 

Last Monday, while the movers were packing up our boxes and furniture, I kept wondering what you were thinking.  Were you confused?  Were you worried?  You never seemed upset - you played and ran around and ate raisins and Cheerios and drank milk and water pretty much the way you always do.  Molly, our dog, was way more upset than you were.  Molly seemed frantic, and kept barking her head off.  I think she was worried that we were going to leave her behind.  I like to think that the fact that you were so unconcerned is an indication of the immensity of your sense of security.  I hope you feel so safe that it would never even occur to you that it would be possible for Mom & Dad to leave you behind. 

On the 7th we went to the doctor for your well-baby checkup, and you got two more shots (the last ones for "a long time," according to the doctor!).  You also got weighed and measured, and as the doctor says, he's running out of options to talk about just how big you are compared to all of the other babies your age.  "I've already said she's 'bigger than 95th percentile," he said.  "I guess now I can put 'even bigger'!"  You weigh 31 pounds 5 ounces, and you are 33 1/2 inches tall.  THEY say (some of them do, anyway), that a person's adult height will be twice their height at two years of age.  You aren't two yet, of course, but if you double your current height, you will end up at 5'7", an inch taller than I am.  We think you will be a tall girl.  Almost everyone who sees you thinks that you are older than you really are.  You have 11 teeth now, at various levels of protrusion from your gums, including four pointy molars.  Your hair is getting longer and curlier all the time. 

You walk like a pro now.  For a long time, you only wanted to walk on flat surfaces like our floor, a sidewalk, or a parking lot.  You wanted nothing to do with any crazy uneven grassy surfaces, with their bumps and valleys, all covered by a layer of fuzzy green stuff that prevented you from seeing the bumps and valleys.  Lately you have decided that maybe the grassy stuff is ok, too, maybe because when you fall down, the earth beneath you is softer than a sidewalk.  In any case, now when I walk across the grass and call for you to follow me, you will.  Last weekend you played in the sprinkler in the back yard with our friend Arek while Heather and your Dad watched and I took pictures.  Over and over, you approached the sprinkler with great trepidation, winced, ran through the water like you were stepping on hot coals, then ran straight to me, laughing hysterically, and clung to my leg.  Arek thought you were so funny that he laughed so hard he cried. 

You seem to learn more words all the time.  A couple of weeks ago, I realized that when you walk to the door and pat it and say "asigh? asigh?" that you were trying to say "outside."  "Outside?" I asked you, and you nodded vigorously.  You also say: door, ice (you LOVE ice, which is good, because now when you get restless at a restaurant, we ask for a glass of ice, and we feed it to you piece by piece, and you are mostly content), dog, cat, hi.  You and I took a trip to Seattle a couple of weeks ago, and by the end of the trip you were calling your Uncle Josh "Joss."  You call your Dad "Da! Da!" Often when he is in the bathroom with the door shut, you like to stand on the other side of the door, rocking from side to side and yelling Da! Da! 

And sometimes, now, occasionally, you say "Ama," and I think that you mean me.  One night a couple of weeks ago you woke up after 10, after having been asleep for hours, and you were crying and crying.  Your Dad went in to try to calm you down so that I could go to bed, but you kept crying.  Sometimes you have a very strong preference for either your Dad or me - who knows why you have the particular preference on any particular day, but you do.  That night I went back to your bedroom door and poked my head in, "Does she want me?" I asked.  And I heard you say, "Ama?!" through your tears, and my heart melted and I didn't care anymore if I got to sleep right that minute or not. 

A couple of days ago I bought a new CD by a group called the innocence mission, and I brought it home and played some of it for you while we were eating dinner.  I played "Over the Rainbow," and you recognized the song and rocked back and forth and smiled your huge toothy smile.  You also recognized the next song, "What a Wonderful World," and after that I skipped ahead to "Edelweiss," which is the song that we have sung to you every night for months and months now, since you were 3 or 4 months old.  You didn't recognize it at first, so your dad and I started singing along with it, and your eyes got wide as you realized what the song was, and then you smiled.  If I haven't told you before, my sweet girl, you have an infectious and heartbreakingly beautiful smile. 

There is another song on that CD called "Bye-Lo," which apparently is an old traditional lullaby.  The second verse is "Mama will love you, Mama will love you, Mama will love you, All my life."  And while I listened, I got a lump in my throat, not just for me and you, but for this universal experience, for the way parents hold and rock and love their babies and sing them simple songs, for the way everything seems so simple then (now), and for the way parents keep loving those (former) babies no matter what happens later, no matter how complicated the relationships become.

So right now, that song is for you.  I want you to know that no matter how complicated things get between us, no matter how many fights we have, no matter how many things I say that make you roll your eyes, no matter how many times I get upset with you for refusing to do what I ask you to do, and no matter how many times I don't understand what you want or need or are trying to tell me, I hope you remember: mama will love you, mama will love you, mama will love you, all my life.  (Daddy will, too.)

Love,

Mama

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu!

  Give it back! 
  Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

The movers come tomorrow.  Today is our last day in our apartment. We moved in as a single couple with a dog and two cats, having been together for almost five years, but only having been married for about four months.  We leave as a family, parents and a child and pets.  As I look back, I realize that this has been The Apartment of Katie.   

About two months after we moved into this apartment, we started "trying," and within another two months, I was pregnant.  We were in this bathroom when I saw the positive line on the first pregnancy test, and the second, and the third, and the fourth.  This is the apartment where I ate Filet O'Fishes for days because they were the only thing that sounded good.   I painted the living room walls yellow when I was in my first trimester, and I remember one moment, while I was painting, that I realized that these will be the walls where my baby first lives, and I started to cry.  This is the place where I had to go throw up in the back yard when Geoff's Dad and his girlfriend were visiting during the beginning of my second trimester, because somebody else was in the bathroom.  It was in the small bedroom at this apartment where I was sleeping when I woke up at 2:30 in the morning and felt a sensation like bubbles popping in my belly, and I realized I was feeling the baby move for the first time.  It was here where we used to go out into the backyard and sit in the warm twilight evenings.  Geoff would cook dinner on the grill and we'd eat dinner with our friends and neighbors, Heather and Arek (who we'll miss probably more than we can anticipate) and then end up talking until well past dark, padding inside for sweaters or more drinks or to go to the bathroom.  It was here that my water broke (all over the couch, which partially coincidentally we are leaving behind as junk), and from this apartment that we drove to the hospital.  It was here where we returned a couple of days after Katie was born, and this is where my Dad, then my Mom, then Laurie came to help take care of us during the first few weeks of her life.  This is where Candace and Erin used to stop by on their way home from work when Katie was just tiny - we would hold her, and she would stare at our black Lack Ikea shelves on the living room wall.  I used to lie on the couch in this living room to nurse her, sometimes for what felt like forever, while I was on maternity leave.  This home is the place where Katie learned to smile and babble and sit up and roll over and crawl and stand up and walk and run.  This is where she said her first word.  This is where she learned to climb up onto the couch and chair (by stepping on Geoff's guitar case, usually). 

A few days after we came home from the hospital, Geoff and I were reading a baby care book that mentioned that newborns were neither loving nor lovable.  (You might remember - I wrote about it in my journal.)  The other day, as Katie was laughing and goofing around and climbing all over us and hugging us, Geoff said, "Oh, Katie.  You are loving and lovable."

This apartment didn't create a brand new person, of course.  But it has been here that a brand new person, one who I happen to love more than anything in the world, was created.  We may have another child somewhere else, maybe even in the first home that we own, that we are about to move into.  But this is where we lived when we had our very first child.  When we remember how it was when we started to learn about how to be parents, and where we started to get to know Katie, our memories will always be here.  And because of that, my memories of this place will always sparkle with a little bit of magic.