February 27, 2006

You Showed Me The Light

I'm sure glad we installed all of those outlet covers yesterday, so now (as you just demonstrated) you have something to pry off the wall and suck on while you're trying to poke your fingers in the outlets.




Posted by at No comments:

February 17, 2006

Daily Dose of Vitamin See

I love watching you sleep. Today while you napped, I gazed down lovingly and thought, Your whole face would fit on the side of a grapefruit!




Posted by at 2 comments:

February 12, 2006

Loosen up!

There must be a special place in Hell for crib sheet designers. I spent the last 25 minutes trying to change a sheet... I sprained my thumb, pulled a hamstring, taught Baby some not nice words... and she'll be napping without a sheet until Daddy gets home.




Posted by at No comments:

February 06, 2006

Jus rockin'

Don't want no knock,
don't want no phone.
Wanna rock my baby
'fore my baby is grown.

Don't bring the news,
I just wanna muse
on Baby's amazing, gazing blues.

Say, Old Mister Clock,
can you float me a loan?
I need more time--
all I had is flown.

Don't knock my door,
don't ring my phone.
I'm rockin' my baby
'fore my baby is grown.




Posted by at No comments:

January 17, 2006

Self-actualization

You are vibrant, joyous, and gloriously uncompromising.
You laugh or cry, accept or reject, do or don't, without apology or explanation.
Grown men compete for your favor, falling to their knees and offering treats to win your smile.
You eat only when you're hungry. You sleep when you're tired.
You sometimes spend an entire morning clutching your toes and rolling back and forth just because it's fun.
You'll try anything at least once, and you never pass up the opportunity to play in water.
You are wiser at six-and-a-half months than I am at... my age.




Posted by at No comments:

January 15, 2006

Nirvana

Every bottle is clean and ready.
All of the laundry is folded and put away.
Every primary-colored piece of furniture in the house is freshly swabbed and dry.
All things chewy, squeaky, crinkly, rattly, squishy, squashy, clacky and boing-y are resting quietly.
The baby has been fed, burped, bathed and changed.
There are no dishes in the sink, no newspapers on the table, no crumbs or beds or empty ice trays needing attention.

There is only this moment. This shining, perfect moment.

Nobody move!




Posted by at No comments:

January 10, 2006

The Path to Enlightenment

There is a Buddhist saying,
"When the student is ready the teacher will appear."

And you did.




Posted by at No comments:

December 15, 2005

The First Six Months - An Adoptive Parent Primer

What you really need to know:

The same baby who sleeps peacefully slumped over a rock in 96-degree sunshine during a Blue Angels Air Show will awaken from a deep slumber in the middle of the night if you drop the cap to your toothpaste.

Begin now to live every day as if you will be snowed-in for a month starting tomorrow.

You can not imagine the things you will extract, touch, sniff, sample, examine and discuss. You will do so without hesitation, and you will even save some of them. (I didn't believe it either.)

Pray for the generosity of friends who cook.

Ultimately, everything is washable. (I just took a shower with an exersaucer.)

Babies produce an astounding amount of earwax. Most of it Cheeto-colored.

Take time now to locate as many drive-through establishments as you can. I mean way beyond just a bank and fast food. Pharmacy, drycleaner, grocery store, gas station, car wash, post office, bakery, photo lab, oil change, coffee shop, church, AAA, video rental, library, cell phone repair... you will need every opportunity to conduct your life without getting out of the car. If you can find a drive-through pediatrician I suggest you get on the waiting list now. I’m sure he or she has a full patient load.

Some days it's a marathon,
some days it's a sprint,
most days it's a marathon sprint.

Trust your instincts.

Keep a journal. Those first special moments, the ones you’re sure you’ll remember for the rest of your life, will be crowded out by the next special moments, which will eventually give way to others, and so on... write it on a napkin, a diaper box, the mirror, a changing pad, anywhere. Just write it. Please.

If you grow impatient waiting for a child to adopt, remember that God is finding exactly the right baby for you. When you bring your child home, you will be grateful that He took His time.

No matter what you do, time will pass too quickly.

You will be your baby’s first true love.




Posted by at No comments:

December 09, 2005

Things I've Learned From Your Daddy

If you want French fries, order French fries.

Stubble may be sexy on a man, but it’s never sexy on a woman.

Holding the door is an expression of affection, not politics.

It’s impossible to argue with someone who is smiling.

Make time.

Men don’t like to carry anything. Except money.

A hotdog at the ballpark can be a romantic dinner.

Don’t read Dave Barry with food in your mouth.

Cold feet on a warm back is only funny if the feet are yours and the back isn’t.

An hour in the electronics store isn't too much to ask.

Let it go.




Posted by at No comments:

December 05, 2005

I feel most like a mother...

I feel most like a mother when you don't know that I'm taking care of you. When I gently change course to avoid a loose shopping cart. When I shift you on my lap to keep you from a draft or an edge or a light in your eyes. When I deliberately linger a few steps behind because I smell smoke on the people walking ahead of us. When I smile at you and make casual conversation so you don't realize that my heart just stopped and restarted because you almost slipped in the tub or almost hit your head or almost swallowed a penny.

I've been surprised to realize that your birth didn't end my anticipation. It just changed it.




Posted by at No comments:

November 28, 2005

My Pompei

I know exactly what I was doing when you were born, because it’s still unfinished, just as I left it. My private Pompei.

I was cleaning my office. Not cleaning it, actually. On my way to organizing Important Things I stumbled on the assorted This and That of the last several years, and meaning to spend only a few minutes visiting, looked up just in time to see the last light tiptoe from the room, having whittled the whole day away right from that spot.

Everywhere are piles of ideas. Some that I abandoned, others that abandoned me. Outlines and rough drafts, clever titles, opening lines, unresolved poems, manuscript middles without beginnings or ends. A writer’s unborn children.

An old address book. People and places I can neither remember nor forget.

A sympathy card I never sent. Simon & Garfunkle sheet music. A note from your Daddy.

My weights are in the corner with my step bench, half on either side, next to a box of things I keep for Reasons I Can't Explain. A set of bamboo wind chimes, an old sketch pad, a cone of vanilla incense and a mini stapler. A single garden stake. Brown shoelaces, still in the wrapper, caught with a pin shaped like a Treble clef.

Now you’re here, and you are my Important Thing. You are my This and That. You are my ideas and my address and my Reasons. And since I don't see any prospect of cleaning my office for at least the next eighteen years, I can show you exactly what I was doing while I waited for you.




Posted by at 1 comment:

November 27, 2005

Three Strikes and You're In

I generally have a three-strike rule for people who spit up while I'm kissing them, but you have a way of making me break my own rules.




Posted by at No comments:

November 20, 2005

Over/Under

Conventional wisdom is to dress a baby one layer warmer than you dress yourself. It's a typical mid-November in New York and I'm wearing two pairs of socks, flannel pants, an undershirt, a turtleneck and a flannel top. My husband (in the same house) is barefoot, wearing only shorts and a t-shirt. So...




Posted by at No comments:

November 16, 2005

Diaper Wrassle

Changing a four-month old is like wrestling an alligator that laughs and pees in your face.




Posted by at 1 comment:

November 07, 2005

Poem: baby love

I lean close and let my hair fall soft, like sunlight on your sill.
Two handfuls...tiny, waving fists, tug my face down to yours.
Cheek on cheek I whisper, “Mama loves her baby. Mama loves her baby”, and I feel you smile.
Always too soon I move to stand,
but you hold fast and chuckle, as if to say, “I’m not done with you yet.”
So I whisper again... and again... and again.
And it’s the best day ever.




Posted by at No comments:

October 27, 2005

True Love

People say that when you're in love, you just know. Like when you pee on my pajamas or drool on my face, and I just know.




Posted by at No comments:

October 08, 2005

Heart's Capacity 2

I guess it won't.




Posted by at No comments:

October 07, 2005

Heart's Capacity

My little girl… my sweet, sweet bundle. I think that if I love you any more than I do today, my heart will burst.




Posted by at No comments:

September 15, 2005

Mommy Math

Each serving of Nacho Baked Doritos provides 4% of my daily calcium requirement and 2 grams of fiber. Each bag contains 13 servings. So, by eating 2 bags a day I get 104% of my calcium and 52 grams of fiber. Not a bad deal.




Posted by at No comments:

August 25, 2005

First Separation

This morning Daddy and I moved your bassinette from our room into the nursery. It's midnight, and just now, walking in the dark from the bathroom into the bedroom I swerved my hips so I wouldn’t bump into your little bed. Then I remembered. I miss my little buddy. I want to run in there and drag your bassinette back into our room, but I won't. My first letting go.




Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)