Yesterday you turned one year old. The day went by without much fanfare. We took a trip to visit my homeopath where you played with a wonderful abacus-type toy (which you loved) and we dined at Boston Market for lunch where you enjoyed watching all the other people in the restaurant more than eating yogurt and we played played played at home and we opened a birthday card from Great-Aunt Maxine and loved on the birthday card until it shred in two and turned on the window fan and turned it off again and on and then off and then on and then we shrieked into the window fan which was terribly delighting so we did it some more and took puppy Zoe for a nice walk in the warm sunshine and ate sweet potatoes with cinnamon for dinner and enjoyed a splish-splashy bath and put on your cute panda pajamas and read a book about puppies and a book about farm animals and then you went to sleep so easy so peaceful.
A year ago, I could not even imagine this day. I could not even conceive that you'd be crawling with ferocious speed and then turning backwards to see whether or not we're chasing you, squealing with glee if we are hot on your heels. Or that you'd be babbling little snippets of mamamama and didididi or waving hello or bye-bye (granted, it's a floppy wave). Yesterday you spent part of your day pulling tupperware lids out of the tupperware drawer and then distributing the lids all over the apartment - so clever, so industrious. A year ago, I could not have fathomed that the little bitty peanut of a baby that was born to us would begin to grow up and develop into such delight. I remain astounded.
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| From August and Sept 2008 |
While your birthday itself went by with little fanfare, it did not go unnoticed. I spent the entire day, hour by hour, recalling where and what your dad and I were doing leading up to your birth. Mostly it was a lot of sitting in a hospital bed, watching some Olympics, taking a catnap here and there, eating crackers and juice (supplied by our dear friend BJ), and figuring out how to get to the bathroom with all of the various cords attached (not to mention wrangling the big billowy open-in-the-back (and strategically-in-the-front) maternity hospital gown). Oh, and saying the contractions were really not too bad. Until they were.
So many things about that day still seem so vivid to me - I can remember what I wore to the hospital, the smell of your room as I tried to figure out what to pack in the diaper bag for the first time, where BJ sat in the hospital room, the look in your dad's eyes when I told him I didn't think I could make it - and then your arrival, in what felt to me like such a moment of peace and safety.
Haven Elizabeth. Your arrival into our lives has felt both ordinary and extraordinary - ordinary in that we can't imagine our days without you toddling along, singing to the window fan, kissing the dog, or pounding blocks with such enthusiasm on the coffee table, and extraordinary in that you came from me and from your dad and arrived here like a miracle, with your own little set of features and your own little personality and emotions and already your own little experiences, that we were given you and your life to enjoy and delight in. That just seems amazing to me - and normal all at the same time.
What will tomorrow bring, Miss Haven? Some stair-climbing perhaps? More adventures in finger foods? A nice long afternoon nap? Hugs and sloppy open-mouthed kisses for Mom and for Dad? This has been an incredible year and I look forward to tomorrow. And the day after that and the years to come.
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| From May 2009 |
love,
Mom
