Sunday, December 26, 2010

Today was an outstanding day. It was one of those days when everything was just in sync, life made complete sense, and, dare I say it, being a mom was actually...easy.

Today was the type of day that I had imagined before I was a mom. A day of relaxation, play time, eating leftovers from Christmas, snuggling, napping...just the pure simplicity of mama and daughter.

There were no tantrums, and as a matter of fact, there weren't even tears. A moment or two of whining, yes, but that's manageable. Perhaps this was just a result of holiday exhaustion but Lily and I were content just... being.

Today, Lily was my buddy, my sidekick, and every single bit of my happiness.

These days erase the bad days. These days make me sad when the clock approaches bedtime. These days make me wonder who the child was that I was speaking about in my Thanksgiving post. These days are amazing.
Dear Lily,
Your second Christmas has come and gone. I find it hard to believe. I know it gets so repetitive to hear how "time flies" but it really just doesn't slow down for me to soak this motherhood thing all in.

This year, I think I actually did a decent job of being in the moment. Yes, the few weeks leading up to the holiday were crazy, as always, but Christmas Eve and Christmas day, I...was present. I did not stress, I did not allow my thoughts to wander and wonder if everyone else was enjoying themselves. I was 100% committed to you and what you your every facial expression was telling me. I honestly wish I could memorize everything about you in every moment.
Christmas was amazing. You were spoiled, but not too much. You received an appropriate amount of gifts from friends and family. Your favorite so far is the Stand and Play Car Ramp that Santa brought to you. You squeal and giggle as you watch the cars slide down the ramps. Something so simple is so enthralling to you at 19 months. I love it. My most amazing gift was just watching you enjoy these moments with your toys.
You understood the concept of presents, and every time someone brought a wrapped box to you, you would exclaim, "present!!!", proceed to open it, get to the box and say "Oooohhh boy!!!", and didn't even care to actually open the box. It was so sweet.
Unlike Thanksgiving, you were so well behaved and happy. You are beginning to understand performing in front of people. You know when people are paying attention and you certainly know how to entertain...but all the same, you are so independent. You are completely content going in your room by yourself and playing for a few minutes with a house full of guests. You might even say that you have an easy going side to you. :::mommy's fingers are crossed:::
I could relive every moment in writing, like I always want to do, but I will summarize by simply stating that Christmas was so wonderful that I would happily relive the stress of planning, gift buying, cooking, cleaning, etc., just to see your smile on Christmas morning.
Thank you for being my angel.

Love, Mommy

Thursday, December 16, 2010

So, it's been awhile.

We were struck by a huge sick bug a couple weeks ago and we're still recovering.  Lily had croup, an ear infection and a touch of pneumonia and I got a nasty cold. It was brutal for a week, physically and emotionally. I'm adding to the list (the very, very long list) of things I didn't know about motherhood: having a sick child, no matter how sick, is very, very challenging. Maybe I thought it would be challenging but you honestly don't really know until you're in it.

I can't believe how these days are just flying by and here we are 9 days before Christmas. I can't seem to decide if I'm in the spirit or not this year. Having a child forces my emotions into being excited about any approaching holiday but because she still doesn't truly know what these holidays are all about, it all just makes me....kind of tired, actually. And broke.

Regardless, its still fun to buy Lily gifts for her developmental stage. She is showing so much intelligence at this point, it blows my mind. And no, I'm not saying my child is a prodigy, but even the emergence of (slightly above) average developmental skills is so exciting to see.

She is quite the conversationalist now. She says so many words, I've lost count. She's to the point now where she's see something on TV, like Barney (goodlordkillmenow), hear it's name and know it the next time she sees it. It's amazing to me that this development surfaced in about a week's time.

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On another not, the hilarity in the midst of all of this sickness was Lily launching herself out of her crib. Yes, I said hilarity.

Story time. Gather around.

On Tuesday, I put Lily down for her afternoon nap around 1pm.

After about 5 minutes of silence from her room, she started "talking". She does this often and I usually just leave her in there to see if she will tire out or if she's truly not tired (she's actually "talking" in her crib right now, as I type, after just putting her to bed). So, ten minutes went by, still talking....and then silence. I assumed that she had fallen asleep.

No.
More talking.
Then silence.
Then, "THUD".
But somehow I didn't place the noise in her room.
Then...

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH". Wailing.

I run in her room. Not expecting to see her on the floor, and in the dark, I glance down at the floor where I notice a heap of something..."OMFG, THAT'S LILY AND SHE'S SCREAMING ON THE FLOOR!!  HOW THE HELL DID SHE GET THERE???".

I kid you not, she looked like a Charlie Brown:


Only face down. Spread eagle. And pretend Lucy is me without a football. (So, maybe nothing like this but I needed a visual.)

And she didn't even move her face to the side to cry. She was flat out.

I scooped her up and held her, checking her limbs, etc. Thank God we have carpet in the bedrooms in this house. She was fine, just scared.

But I'm telling you, it was comical.

I know this does not make her unique in the world of children. This is some sort of rite of passage of toddlerhood, but when it happens to YOUR child, it's like it's the only time it's ever happened to any child, anywhere (that goes along with almost everything with babies/toddlers, I suppose, but that's a whole other post in itself).

There you have it. My hilarity of the past couple of weeks, at my child's expense.

The end.