27 Months Old

Friday, October 31, 2008

Dear Carlita,

I knew early on that there was a whole lot more going on inside that noggin of yours than you let on. That little Buddha smile might have fooled us for a little while, but it didn’t take us long to realize that whatever was going on around you, you never missed a beat, your eyes always scanning the room looking for the source of whatever caught your attention. You were a calm baby, yet firm. You put up with a lot and in return you had a few demands that had to be carried out.

I knew early on that this old-soul behavior was just the calm before the storm. My dear, you have not disappointed me. I never knew so much frustration could fit into such little space as your two year old body. Oh the things you want to do, and always now, now, NOW. This month you have learned, because you demanded to, how to push the button on the dvd player so the dvd magically disappears into the machine. You demand to be lifted so you can put the dvd cover on top of the stack we keep at the tv. You are afraid of the dark, and you have an obsession with “cider” (which, as it turns out, means “spider”, because we happen to have quite a few of those.)

All of a sudden there are so many things happening to you, with you, about you. You’ve had the longest fuse ever and now you’ve finally run out, the result is nothing less than spectacular. As much as I loved you as a baby this explosion of your personality makes me fall in love with you all over again.

And you are stubborn. Oh so very stubborn. You don’t just want to play with a toy, you want to know how it works first. I can’t sit down and draw with you because you will attempt to take over, just like your mum. I doubt your teenage years will be easy on us, but I can also see how this stubbornness that I so lovingly passed on to you will keep us together, because there is no denying it, you are your parents’ daughter, and I can only describe our love for you as fierce.

Your dad turned to me today, all shocked, just to say just how big you’ve gotten, how there is no baby left in you. Something I say in a small, confused voice to him on a near daily basis, because dude, where did my baby go? But now your dad has finally caught on too and it really is true. You are growing up. So fast. We bought you your first pair of boots when you were still a chubby little thing, and you are just now growing out of them, a year and some months later. Much like Pinocchio you have turned into a real child.

I hope you will read these letters one day and look at all the pictures and know that not a single one of them has been able to capture the beauty I see when I look at you, or my writing able to do you justice, and yet I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy the time I get to spend with you.

Entering “Phantom” territory

Thursday, October 30, 2008

I need some disgustingly cute filler for as long as it takes me to find out if I have a food poisoning or if I am having phantom morning sickness.

Is skeptical about Icelanders being terrorists

Happy Halloween and all that!

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.