Parenting
Over the years
Friday, October 17, 2008
As far as having sex for the actual purpose of procreating this is a first. I’m not quite 28 yet, and I’m having a virgin moment. Having sex while thinking “OMG OMG we’re trying to make a baby, a real wee bebeh, OH OH & OMFG!“ is strangely exciting while at the same time a little off putting. But whatever. I love that my phone is telling me I’m fertile. As if doing the nasty is something that we need a reminder about. By my phone no less!
As if my uterus need more encouragement than it is currently receiving. Which is a lot. GO UTERUS!
There are days where I seriously doubt I can do it. You know, having two of them. Sometimes, when Carlita stretches my patience to the point of ripping my world apart with her little fists, I think about what life would be like without her, and BAM! I know that life without her would be like living the life of real people’s shadows, mimicking their movements. Dancing on the wall, possibly, but shadows nonetheless.
I can’t imagine how her face will change as she ages, just as I couldn’t see in my mind’s eye back then the little girl I see before me today.
Most of all I am just so incredibly excited. Worried, but excited too. And the sex rocks!
So big. I mourn for all the tiny ways she changes every day, and long with every fiber of my being to see what is next. I never knew child. I never knew.
My cup, it runneth over
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Today, at lunch in a restaurant, she held out her arms at me (possibly with sausages still in a fist or two) and said “Dou“, obviously meaning down. She was done, she wanted “dou“.
Both Jelly Man and I were so proud of how well behaved she was. The gap between what she wants to do and what she is able to do is wide enough to cause much frustration, which is made worse by her inability to express herself verbally. The fits she can throw are equally beautiful and horrific in their whirlwind of raw emotion. But we managed to keep her entertained and pretty content throughout, ate quickly and left with no hassle whatsoever.
It is not hard at all to love her then. It might actually be impossible not to. But what baffles me is that I feel the same love for her then as when she is kicking me repeatedly in the chest because she wants to make some kind of point, and she wants to make it while I’m changing her diaper, or when she breaks out in hysterics because I won’t let her load the dvd player, or on the days where I have to present five different foods and not even be certain that she will have any of it.
Doing the deed, planting that seed
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The economy is in the shitter, we just had our bought-used-less-than-half-a-year-ago car fixed to the tune of all that we had in our pocket + lint, and now it has come to light that the boiler in the basement, the one that makes sure we don’t turn into icicles in the winter, is leaking badly and may have been leaking badly for years - that, at least, would explain a whole lot about the porch which crumbled this summer and certain walls with cracks that looks like they have blood poisoned veins running through them.
And we are currently waiting for one of my eggs to ripen so we can fertilize it.
As difficult a situation it was to have to choose between keeping the pregnancy with Carlita or terminating it (and dude, it was fucking hard) it was also a little easier than the situation I find myself in currently (although if you were to go back in time and tell me that when I was still holding that positive test in my hand I would probably have laughed hard and then punched you in the face.) She was there, already growing in my belly and when we did decide to keep her it was easier to see what we needed to do to accommodate our new “situation”.
Now, planning - it’s not as easy as it looks. I feel slightly crazy for wanting another baby/child/sibling for Carlita in times like these, and yet I have that ever burning desire. I’m also starting to see just how much of ME has been eaten up by the day to day upkeep of the household* and caring for Carlita, and how little parts of ME are being found again every time Carlita gains pieces of her own independence. I’ve been so wrapped up in being the mother to a baby for the past two years that I forgot that I am a person too, and just as I’m starting to remember things that I enjoy doing for my own sake we decide to have another child.
*Which, yes, I only started doing regularly recently - but trust me, it has always, ALWAYS been a subject of great agony to me, whether I actually did it or not. Probably more when I didn’t keep it up than now when I pick up everyone’s mess.
I am crazy, aren’t I?
But this time it IS a decision from start to finish. I really DO want another baby, and Jelly Man says that his general feelings on babies and family is “let them grow like weeds” which sounds vulgar but is Jelly Man’s way of saying; “Dude! I’ll have as many babies with you as it takes!“ So as far as hard decisions go, this is one of the easier ones.
So yes, maybe “planning” means “looking at the facts and deciding to have a baby anyway”, which in my opinion makes planning totally overrated.
No wax to blame
Monday, September 29, 2008
It’s hard to know what is “normal” when you have your first child. It’s especially hard for us because we don’t meet other families and experience their “normal” and so we have nothing to compare with - not that I want to compare Carlita to any other child by any means, but it’s hard to get a good picture of how she is doing developmentally when we have nothing but gut instinct to go on.
I’ve been worried about her reluctance to speak. If it is indeed reluctance, and not something that is hindering her. I’ve been wondering if maybe she inherited her father’s dry earwax and maybe can’t hear us too well and that is why the words she try to say are so shortened and, well, kind of distorted. But her 2 year well baby checkup that Jelly Man took her to didn’t show any problems, with wax or hearing, and so it is perhaps just reluctance to speak that is keeping her back.
Carlita will ask for juice, water, or a pie. She’ll ask about the kitty (she calls all three of them “kitten” because the youngest, which is now at least 3 or 4 years old and named Olivia, is still called Kitten by us and so by association they are all “Kittens”). She has taken to say “Bye!“ while waving, she will exclaim “Papa!“ when grandpa comes home and she will ask for “daddy”. She still does not ask for me, she has yet to say Mama, and yes, it hurts a little - but I console myself with the fact that we are in each others faces all day long and she never gets a chance to miss me - but still, it does hurt a little.
Now that we know that her speech is still in the normal range for a bi-lingual household I’m worried that I’ve been wishing for her to speak for so long now, that I’ve been focusing on it so much that I’ve been missing out on how awesome a person she is in spite of her non-verbal-ness. The longing I have for having an actual conversation with her that involves me asking her questions and her telling me what is on her little mind, or all the “WHY?“ questions she must have but is unable to articulate, has taken the place of what actually IS. A clever and funny little girl that is growing and thriving, following her own schedule.
And I worry, still, that she will never, EVER understand just how much I love her.
