Flight

THIS



fills me with joy. Bella learning to jump has brought me back to the days when I did it regularly, and seeing her in the moment my heart takes flight.

Read more...

Some days

Some days just end up like this and I pretend it wasn't me who made the mess, even though it most certainly was.

Read more...

Possibilities

So we probably won't do much for Halloween since Lillia won't care and Bella will panic on every doorstep. But if we did, Bella could go as creepy Hoodie Jedi, or Stealth Ballerina. All in a day's work.

Read more...

Dolls

Dolls in the morning light. You can tell this was last week because we haven't had any sun since then.

Read more...

togetherness

Togetherness is happiness. Actually, Bella is just doing her best to pretend to be Lillia here. She reverts to babyhood on a regular basis.

Read more...

Watching

Now that she sits, watching is her new favorite pastime. Bella does her best to pretend she's not there, but sometimes the giggles get the best of them.

Read more...

9000 someodd days and counting

Dear Bella,

Once upon a time you were very little and you fit in the nook of my armpit. Actually, that used to be your favorite way to sleep. Once you got over your colic and we could lie down at night, you always ended up there, no matter how far away you started out. As you got taller, we grew into one another so that you were always the perfect fit.



In the months before Lillia was born I was panicking because you had become attached to me like never before. In the middle of the night you would wake up screaming and even if I was ten inches away, you cried as if the world were ending right then and there.

Now Lia spends many hours a day in my arms and you are in a Daddy phase. He does bedtime, and when you wake up at night no one can calm you but him. If he's not in bed, you wander out into the dark of the house, plodding along behind your sleepy feet, calling out for him. You always have been a Daddy's girl.

Last week you woke up from a nightmare and wanted to sleep on my front like you used to. I cherish the quiet cuddle times you give me now, as they are few and far between. But instead of resting on my breast, your head came up so high over my shoulder that you couldn't get comfortable. How did that happen?

I don't know where we stand right now, you and me. We are at such a crossroad. Oh how I love you; oh how you make me work for it. You fell so hard this month and all you wanted to feel better were nursies, forget that it's been almost three months since you even asked last. I knew you still wouldn't remember how to nurse, but something with that familiar position, lying sideways, looking up from that familiar angle set you at ease.

At the beginning I used to compare Lia's nursing to yours. Now even looking at a photo of you nursing I can just barely remember. I sat there holding you, completely lost; I might as well have had a giant teenager stretched across my lap. I had no idea how much you had grown and I didn't know how to make you fit.

We're both working on that. Where do we fit? Whatever Lia is doing, you want to do the second she stops. Sometimes you're her big sister, and sometimes you just want to be the baby. You've even invented your own gibberish language just like a baby. (Thanks to nightly recitations of Fox in Sox.) The rest of the time it's amazing to hear what you have to tell me. You say So, um, incessantly and are perfecting my exasperated sigh. You call the tassels on your hat fingers, and your free flowing speech gives us amazing an insight into a world where nothing is boxed in. Just the other day you recognized when we rounded the corner to the cousins' house, and you know when you are in our neighborhood, too. If you are walking, you're dancing, and if you're dancing you're jumping. Your world is outstanding.

When I picked you up for nursies that day, I guess I hadn't realized how long it had been since you let me really hold you. I don't ever want you to feel so foreign to me. From now on, we'll grow up together.

Love, mama

PS. Don't blame daddy for the focus on this shot. He got the focus just right in all the ones where you are rolling your eyes at me and stuffing crackers in my face. Maybe he just loves my snazzy ponytail.

Read more...

A quarter turn

Dear Lillia,

Did you know that you wring your hands when you nurse? I mention this only in case, in twenty years, you wonder where you got the bad habit of wringing your hands while you study. You also stick your tongue out and hunch your shoulders when you toss your head back and laugh. And you're coy. When you are just so happy and excited that you can't contain it anymore, you dive into whoever has you and hide your face, peering out just a little. Or you throw your hands up in your face, which usually ends in a look of shock that someone would hit you when you were so happy a second ago.

This has been such a fun month for us. You're starting to chuckle at people (even to me, finally!) and you can sit and watch your big sister dance around the room for an hour. You grabgrabgrab everything and stuff it straight into your mouth and all I can say is that we're going to have to watch you like a hawk.

It helps that you can sit up now, you have since three months. And you roll over, but strangely enough you prefer being on your belly. In fact, you are so keen on moving around, that when you fall over sideways from sitting, I just let you be and you find your way up to your belly again. If you want to move around so badly, I figure you'll find a way.

You haven't slept well this month, I think from all the learning. And of course when you aren't sleeping, you yammer away at full volume to make sure no one is sleeping. There is nothing you do quietly. When you aren't getting your way, or you're in a lousy mood, you always need to get in the last word. You'll break off from comfort nursing several times just to remind me that you weren't happy a moment ago.

I'm working on a way to give you the space you need, as much as I want to be close. You so rarely fall asleep on my chest that when you do, I stay up longer just to enjoy the feeling. Despite all your little idiosyncrasies, there is no doubt that you hold a special place just for me and that is a wonderful feeling. Your smile is pure joy. I cannot express to you just how much I love it. I hope that as you grow and change, that look will never disappear.

Love,
mama

Read more...

a little something

Just a little something to tide you over until I get the girls' letters finished.

Bella calls this singing, which is fairly accurate since she can't do anything without singing along, especially play the piano.

Lia of course is content to do whatever Bella does.

(Until Bella decided that she ought to use the mallet to see if Lia knew how to sing, too.)

Read more...

breaking free

Some days I feel freer than others. Did I mention this was a very stressful week? It takes its toll on Bella, who rarely sleeps when the house is in turmoil.

So we run around in the rain. In mama's flip flops.

And spit on the ground where mama won't care. (And I try to turn my head when I see her licking it up after....)

And scream inside bowls just to hear the echo.

And get dough in our hair, because why not.

It's good to be free to be two.

(and good to be free to be scatterbrained because i just realized i didn't edit any of these photos. oh well.)

Read more...

and then

I wrote that, and then went to bed. And then I cried my heart out. Not for my own baby; we're on good terms.

It's been a long week and I've been rotten to my girls. So as we mamas do when the dam breaks, I hugged my girls extra tight, gave them an extra kiss, and let my eyes linger over them in wonder.

I cried for all the mamas who went to bed tonight with one less baby to kiss. No snuggles, no fuzzy hair in the nose, no precious lips, toes, or knuckle dimples. For them, looking into the stars will never be enough.

But sometimes it helps.

Read more...

Wave

**On October 15th, a wave of light will cross the world as we light candles for the pregnancies we have lost. Today (and always), please take the time to let the families in your life know that their lost babies are not forgotten.**

Yesterday was exhausting and I felt stretched in every direction. I tried to go out in the evening for fun, but in the end, the baby who had whined and fussed all day long was now crying inconsolably in the car seat. I hopped out of my car into the dark, clear night and looked up, relieved to find the stars.

There is something so comforting in a clear night sky - looking up, overcome by vertigo and infinity, feeling the presence of every spirit that has ever existed. To the stars, our lifetime is a mere breath. There is peace in that feeling of unity - that we are all infinitesimally small and the two feet or two thousand miles that separate us mean nothing. The ones who are so far away, the ones who have left us are right there whenever we pause to look up.

In that brief moment, something stirred in me and the sounds of Lillia's wailing faded. It has been so long since I last needed that calming spirit around me, so long since I felt it. Here I am, over three years since I felt my world falling in, and the baby I lost is just a passing memory, a spirit I barely have time to recognize. And yet, he is still there ready to breathe encouragement into my heart when I need it the most. The ones we love are never gone, but stay by our sides to remind us to cherish every moment.

For you, baby, I will light a candle tonight and carry the wave of light across the world.

Read more...

Baby wearer

Stuffed down the front of her shirt, Dolly is never left out. We're baby wearing twins.

Read more...

Escape artist

Not even four months yet and I can't leave her anywhere for even a moment. She wiggles all over the floor, rolls all over the place, and as you can see, tries to escape the swing (which has a seatbelt, I am fully aware). She's a twisty little thing.

Read more...

Secret Hideaway

Lillia's playmat, turned on its side with a towel over top. The best secret tent ever. And chair, apparently, though that is up for debate since it took part in her gashing her mouth open this week. She still seems to like it.

Read more...

reading

She likes to have us read to her while she reads an entirely different book to herself. Sometimes she listens and sometimes she chats through the whole thing which frustrates me to no end. Of course, then I have to pretend not to be insulted when she interrupts to tell me about her book.

Read more...

two of a kind

For all that they are completely different, Lillia gives me moments of complete deja-vu.

When Lia arrived one of the first things that spat out of my mouth (after What? a girl? are you sure?) was, You don't look anything like Bella!

Well, as you can see, she has her moments. The chubby cheeks help. So yummy, I call her Peach Pudding.

The girls are the same age in this photo almost to the day, and it was totally by coincidence.

Read more...

A moment

Life is full of them. I've been lousy at writing them down since August, and I'm going to try again. Moments like this are too magical to forget.

Read more...

no, really.

Dear Bella,

I used to be cool. No, really. I mean, there was this brief span of time between high school (when I was really uncool) until now; those were my cool years. And still, I have my moments. I'm not so horrible right now. Okay, so my fashion sucks. Sure, I forget to brush my hair some days and I go out with puke stains on my shirt and spaghetti on my pants. But I'm fun to be with. Or so I assume. I mean, I enjoy me and you seem to as well.

All this is just to say that I wish you could remember me as I am today.



When I think of my own mother, I remember her the way she was when we lived in Massachusetts and when I was a teenager. It makes me realize that you will remember me in my thirties and forties. You'll think of your twenty seven year old mother and giggle. No, I could never be that young. And yet you will remember a me that I have yet to even meet. How very strange. It is almost heartbreaking to think that these wonderful days you will remember only in photos.

So, I keep track. Not just for you, but for me. Every mile stone you hit wipes out the memory of its predecessors. Will I remember that this month you decided that everything is plural? We eat plum-ez and put on shoo-ez. (You put on your velcro shoo-ez all by yourself!) You problem solve like no other and I get to see those gears grinding away. All out of milk? Mama pump some! Your temper is still tempestuous, though when it's gone, you assess yourself and with genuine cheer and relief announce, I'm happy now! In the heat of a tantrum you will choose a spot to flop onto the ground and declare, Wa be sad.

You relive moments over and over out loud, like when you fell into the ditch of blackberry brambles. And you put on your serious voice and chime in with very serious topics (such as how your balloon popped one day) when you hear adults discussing Very Important Matters. Your slide strike is over and you now climb everything at the park. You clap for Lia when she rolls over, and you help Daddy shoo the flies out of the kitchen by shouting, Go away, BEEZ! And baking. We've been doing tons of baking.

I can't believe how fast this month has gone, how well you are doing with my divided time, and how grown up you suddenly are. I used to look at you and still see my baby, but I blinked this month and suddenly you are all little girl. It's exciting and scary all at once. I'll let it slide for now, since you still let me call you baby. You might only remember me when I'm old and grown up, but to me you will always be my baby.

Love,
mama

ps. yesterday you saw an empty pillow case on the bed and pointed to it with excitement and said, mama! the pillow popped! i could listen to your thoughts forever.

pps. i do realize the irony of not having a single photo of myself in here, sorry. so here's one daddy took yesterday:

Read more...