In her Easter bonnet

I really wanted to find Elle a pretty Easter dress for her first Easter. I'm a pretty practical mom; I don't put her in a ton of fancy clothes or giant headbands or anything.

But Easter is different. Easter is when you doll up for church. It's also my fave religious holiday of the year, so when I say "rejoice," I want to rejoice.

Surprisingly, though, it was tough to find an Easter dress. Oh, there are tons of dresses out there-- but they look more like pretty dresses, not Easter dresses. At least in my mind.

Apparently, I had a specific mental image of what a child's Easter dress should look like. Who knew? It needs to be pastel, of course. Eyelet is good but not required. A crinoline is nice. It should not look like the child is about to head off to prom, a christening where they are the featured guest, a quinceañera, or their own wedding.

These requirements were surprisingly hard to meet.

I ended up finding a dress at the last place I looked. It's a sunny yellow that will look darling with Elle's dark hair and eyes. It has a little crinoline. It has a ribbon around the waist with a bow in front. She's going to look like a little Peep, and I couldn't be happier.

What am I wearing? Who knows.

We all know who rates in this house. :)

Jewelry and reflections

I ordered a mother's necklace from a seller on Etsy. I've been looking at them for a while, but they all seemed so very similar and processed. I finally found a designer that made them small, simple, and affordable, and am looking forward to having it around my neck.

Among other things, it will have a little disk stamped with a sun, because Elle is my sunshine.

(I love that I already have a "jewelry" tag. At least I'm consistent.)

***

Tooth number two is on its merry way, so let's just say last night was less than restful. And when I wake up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night because of a baby that's screaming as if she's being tortured with hot pokers, let's just say I didn't have the presence of mind to remember that Tyl.enol would probably have helped.

Tonight, should I need to remember, I will remember.

***

Being a parent is this vast amazing thing, and at the same time it's so very tiny. It's small things like how your daughter's cheek feels against your lips, how she'll rest her face against yours and you can feel her smiling, how her neck smells. And it's big enormous things like wondering who she'll be someday, who she's becoming. Realizing that so much of who she is is already there, coded into her genes, like the little wispy curls her hair is turning into.

I talked to a friend tonight and though we originally talked about some sad news, we ended up chatting about many other topics-- far more pleasant ones. When we hung up, I realized how nice it had been to talk to someone on the phone that didn't have to do with work.

I don't know about you, but most of my friends now communicate via e-mail and text. I see people live and in person all the time, but phone calls have become rarer and rarer. And by the time I get home, get Elle fed and bathed and put to bed, wash bottles, and have something to eat, I'm usually too tired to do anything but check e-mail, maybe watch something on the DVR and collapse into bed.

It was good to just talk to a friend.

***

Elle was very tired tonight. I have to remember that the week takes a lot out of her, just as it takes a lot out of me, and we need to make sure we do some recharging over the weekend. The coming weekend is very booked, and... I need to not do that.

Our little family needs to not be on the go every moment of every day.

Kisses and dancing, oh my

We have so much going on at Chez Plus One these days. While crawling is still apparently of absolutely no interest whatsoever, it's never boring around here.

- Baby kisses! This week saw the arrival of the first baby kisses from Elle. Big, open-mouthed, wet, slobbery kisses.

The first time it happened I thought she was trying to eat my nose, but then she did the same thing again, aimed at my cheek-- very deliberately, and with a very serious face, her eyes enormous. I realized, then, that it was her version of a kiss.

I can't help laughing when she does it, because my face ends up covered in slobber, but it is so sweet and gentle.

- Baby dancing! She has figured out how to get several of her toys to make noise, including one that plays the ABC song. When the ABC song starts, she starts wiggling her tush and moving her arms around, and sometimes her little head starts bobbing as well. It's ridiculously adorable. I do need to catch it on video.

She can't crawl, has little interest in rolling over (she can, but why bother?), and could care less about putting weight on her legs-- but she's got rhythm.

That's my girl.

I am blessed with a baby that, in general, is a happy, inquisitive, funny little bundle of babyness. She wants your undivided attention ALL the time, and if she doesn't get what she wants she's pretty loud about it (common for babies, I think), but overall she's a happy, good baby. I clearly got a great pick in the baby lottery, and I give thanks for that every day.

My parents were in last weekend, and it continues to be an interesting experience. They adore Elle, but she tires them out quickly (I'm an older mother, thus they are older grandparents). I sometimes think they like the idea of her as much, or more, than they actually like her-- they like having a granddaughter, showing off pictures of her, and talking about the cute things she does. The actual work involved in her, they don't like so much.

I think that's probably fairly typical of grandparents.

But it highlights, again, the fact that when you're a single parent, there's no real respite-- not even with family. I'm OK with that. I just have to remember that and not have other expectations. I am the only person driving this bus, and that's how it is.

They also stay with me when they visit, in my very small house. A friend came over for dinner with them one evening, and commented later that it seems like I spend all my time waiting on them when they visit. Now, my parents would laugh at that, but to some degree my friend is right. We've even had conversations that they don't understand why I'm not cooking dinner for them.

"You just don't think about dinners when we're here, do you?" my mother said.

I looked at her. "I don't think about dinners," I responded. "In general."

When she starts eating a regular dinner, I'll start thinking about cooking. At this age, though, it doesn't make any sense. I'll pop in a frozen dinner or reheat leftovers, and often eat them while she has her evening meal of veggies and cereal, but anything more complicated than that doesn't make sense right now. And if you come visit me and there's a dinner involved, we'll be going out, ordering in, or making something extremely simple (something frozen, or something involving pasta).

They can't afford to stay at a hotel (and that's another post entirely: your lifestyle should reflect your income. If it doesn't, there's a problem), so they stay with me. I want Elle to know them for as long as possible, and to be close to them. But they stay with me and then complain about my house.

If my house is not comfortable, stay elsewhere. If you're staying here, shut up.

I need to find a nicer way to say that.

Eight months

Elle is over eight months old now (eight months! wha?) and part of me wishes I could just freeze her right at this age, and keep her just as she is.

But by the time I'd finish wishing I could freeze her, she'd have moved onto something else. Seriously, it's that fast.

***

Did you know the Sou.th Park dudes wrote a musical about the Morm.ons? They did.

I can't make this stuff up.

***

Work has been intense. I've accepted a new role with the same company, and this month I'm doing my new job and my old job. I'm doing this in a situation where I have almost no flexibility, schedule-wise-- I'm already leaving Elle with the sitter for as long as the sitter's schedule allows, and by the time I get her to bed I have about an hour and a half to clean up, have something for dinner, think about what to wear the next day to work, and collapse. So at the moment, it's not like I have any time outside the eight-to-five to get these massive amounts of work accomplished.

Yeah, I'm whining. Sorry. I should probably suck it up and work until 10 or 11 at night and collapse into bed after that, but if I lose sleep, I get sick. I can't afford that.

Of course, I also can't afford to risk my job. It's never a good thing to lose a job, of course. But now I have this little apple-cheeked ball of curiosity dependent upon me, and-- I hate to say it-- there's a low level of terror that if I'm unemployed, she suffers.

That's possibly one of the hardest things about being a single parent, honestly. Unless I win the lottery (and I'd have to play to win, heh), there's always going to be that drumbeat in the back of my mind, that fear about What If.

I'm so behind I'm almost caught up with myself

I really do think about updating this all the time. But as we all know, thinking is not doing.

A lot has gone on since Valentine's Day, when I last posted. Elle is sitting up by herself-- well, mostly. If she spots something she wants she lurches over to grab it and usually ends up on her face, which I find hilarious (I'm a terrible mother!) and she finds soooooo traumatic. (She's also becoming a Drama Mama, which is hysterical.) She's still babbling a lot, but with few consonants; I wouldn't be me if I wasn't worried and projecting out into the future assuming that there's something horribly wrong and I need to get an evaluation and and and.

(I know perfectly well she'll do everything in her own time. But I worry. I can't help it!)

She's been fighting a horrible cold-- bad enough that I took her to the ped on Friday to make sure her lungs/ears were clear. They were, thank goodness. This was complicated by the fact that she's been teething on and off for ages, and right in the middle of her bad cold, the teething switch went back to "on." Saturday was full of excellent naps, thanks to Tyle.nol and the trusty vaporizer. She seems better today.

I marvel, often, at how lucky I am. She's a happy, inquisitive, good natured little baby. She's already able to entertain herself for short stretches (though she likes me nearby), and she finds other people and their activities endlessly entertaining. I mean, I'm actually able to get to church most weeks, because she loves the lights and music and people. Also, my church has a little area on the side for kids with a rug and toys, so we go over there and we hang out, sometimes playing, sometimes watching other kids play (big fun), and sometimes having her bottle.

I feel like I'm getting my feet under me, mostly. And while I know the entire definition of parenthood is that the ground shifts constantly (usually when you least expect it), I think our little family is pretty wonderful. I can't wait to see what's ahead.

Happy Valentine's Day

Dear Elle:

Happy first Valentine's Day! They can call this a Hall.mark holiday all they want, but if you look at it as a celebration of love and connection, you've made it my best Valentine's Day ever.

February is my least favorite month of the year, in general. It's cold and dark. There are no holidays from work. Winter is usually beating the crap out of us, and while the month is the shortest of the year, it always feels like the longest.

This time last year, I was pregnant. I was just starting to believe that yes, this pregnancy was 1) real and 2) was going to stick. When you're over 40 (by a couple of years ::ahem::) and pregnant the statistics are terrible. TERRIBLE. You're basically just waiting for something to inevitably go wrong, and it was hard for me to believe that I (and you) was a statistical improbability.

(I still don't believe it sometimes, to be honest.)

Some women-- and many single moms, I've noticed-- are much more excited during their pregnancy than I was. Please never take that as an indication that I wanted you any less, or that I wasn't impatient to meet you. It was the simple fact that I just couldn't believe it, couldn't believe you-- right up until I saw your face for the first time, all red and bright-eyed and taking everything in.

So you're here for your first Valentine's Day, and while I've had some nice Valentine's Days in the past, this one wins. Hands down.

Our Valentine's breakfast ended with you spitting cereal into your hands and mushing them together with great joy. You were so proud of yourself-- after all, a few minutes earlier you didn't even know you could do that. Our Valentine's dinner ended with you flinging your spare spoons on the floor (as always) and looking incredibly pleased with the noise.

And later, I sang to you as you struggled against sleep, rubbing your head under my chin.

I didn't even know you a year ago, but I'm so glad you're here. Happy Valentine's Day to my wonderful, tiny valentine. I love you.

Love,
Your Mom