Dear Aida,
As I write this, the sun is shining, a cool wind blows and you are in your crib on your way into naptime. At least, I hope. I hear you babbling.
Today is your birthday. You are one year old. I tried not to throw you a party. I called it "very, very small" and named it "a picnic." It turned out to be a party anyway.
We went to the park and hung a dozen balloons. A 6-year-old helped me string a homemade pennant banner that flapped loudly in the wind. We made turkey and ham sub sandwiches (on French bread) and PB&Js. We served lemonade and handed out juice boxes. People brought beautiful gifts, though I told them not to. And children much bigger than you vied for your attention, taking turns pushing you in the baby swing.
When it seemed you were hungry, we sat you in your red travel high chair before a tiny cake made of carrots and honey and wheat flour. Though I tried to keep the ingredients Baby Aida-friendly, I compromised a bit on the frosting: cream cheese, butter and honey. Three things you've never had. You delightfully destroyed it, sitting contentedly in that chair for a good half-hour or more, smooshing the frosting with sticky fingers, sucking on a plastic spoon and smiling at some of your onlookers. I'm not sure you actually ate any, however.
I'm so proud of you, honey.
On this day last year, I was sleep-deprived but unable to sleep for the sight of you. You were a tiny bundle of blanket and wide eyes. Perfect skin. Buddah belly with a yellow, plastic clamp over your umbilical cord. Little fists that flew and elbows that unfolded then folded back. A mouth that yawned and puckered reflexively. You were our baby and we still had no idea exactly what that meant.
You've transformed us.
You've transformed.
***
Nov. 30, 2011
Your hair, once a thin coat, hangs in your eyes. You reach to the top of your head and feel around anytime you realize I've stick a barrett up there. Then, you yank it out and your bangs come tumbling into your eyes.
You uncurl your index finger to point at things you want or like, your thumb sticking out like a hitchhiker's. You want Happy Baby crunchies. You like dogs, the fan and "outsuhd."
You took your first unassisted steps on the morning of Oct. 24, almost three weeks before your birthday. I was on the floor with you when you let go of the wicker chair and wobbled over to the front screen door by yourself. I ran to rouse Daddy from his sleep and together we watched you walk between the coffee table and the couch, the couch and coffee table.
So unsteady it felt almost accidental. We cheered you and kissed you and I wondered where we go next.
That afternoon, you awoke from a nap stuffy. Four days later Dr. Eisenfeld told us you had an ear infection and for some reason it took you two weeks to toddle out again. But even then, when you wanted to walk, you'd grab onto our index fingers and pull. You did that a lot.
Are you cautious, baby?
Last Monday, Nov. 24, the week of Thanksgiving, something in you changed. I got home from work and your color seemed off. Your face looked bluish. The creases below your eyes seemed drawn. Mamere worried you were unusually lethargic. She gave you baby Tylenol. We talked, we hugged and she left.
I watched you, didn't leave you. You held me tight, clinging with tense arms and steel legs. You fiddled with a broken pocket book Mamere gave you. Quiet.
In the next moment, you were holding that thing by it's long, knotted brown strap, toddling from living room to kitchen and back, making sloppy, rocking circles with your footsteps. Over and over again, walking that purse around the house, stopping only to touch a cabinet or squat down to finger the floor, hug your cheering Mommy.
You haven't stopped since.
Tonight, Daddy reported, you walked out the backyard (with him beside you, of course), through the driveway, along the alley to the front sidewalk, to the end of the block. He said you wanted to cross the street and swatted away his hand when he went to grabs yours. You would have kept going if he didn't insist on picking you up and walking back to the house.
How did you get this big?
***
Dec. 1, 2011
Since your birthday, we've been feeding you all kinds of new foods. Strawberries. Yogurt. Grown-up oatmeal with banana sneaked in (because apparently I have the only baby in the universe who doesn't like banana). The homemade purees I've made you are less pureed now. You can feel the broccoli florets and the potato lumps. You've tried (and like) PB&J. You yelled and shook your head tonight whenever I slipped in spoon fulls of avocado.
Your favorite food is still those little Happy Baby crunchy veggie things. Your dad rolls his eyes at them because they are something like 75 pieces to a serving. But when you don't want to eat, they kind of distract you. I feed you a few of those and then follow it up with green beans and you're good to go. When we travel by air, I let you eat them like popcorn because it keeps you happy and airplane-friendly.
Tonight, I gave you mozzarella cheese sticks, which you nibbled on, then tossed to the floor. Same thing with the half-cooked carrot sticks Mamere left for you. You waved them over your highchair like an orchestra conductor. Then, dramatically, you stretched your arms out to either side and PLOP. You released both to the floor at once.
You call me "Mah!" and "Mamma" more intentionally now. You say and find "Dadda" without prompting. He stayed home sick from work this week but still ended up doing work at his desk in the back office. Even though Mamere was watching you all day long, you'd regularly wander back there and check on him, smiling, bobbing your head like you do and grabbing the arm of his wooden chair to look up at him.
"Hi, sweetie," he'd say and tussle your hair.
You've taken to gathering up multiple blankies and holding them all to your face when you're sleepy. Sometimes you even pull them from your dresser drawer where I try to keep them, clean and folded. They have become your comfort, but they are the same white cotton cloth diapers we've used as burp cloths since you were born. Back then, I'd drape one over my left shoulder when it was time to rock you and you seemed to know that was where you should lay your head. It still works. Even when you see a blankie on the ground, you often lower your body to the floor and lay down, one cheek pressed against the soft white cotton.
Often now, after we put you to bed for nap or the night, you decide to entertain yourself with the blankie by tossing it from the crib. "Aaaaahhhh!" you yell afterword. "Aaaaahhhh!" until one of us appears to rescue your blankie from the ground again. So far, this hasn't gotten out of hand. It's still rare enough that we think it's pretty cute. We hope it stays that way.
When your gums hurt, your thumb finds the ache, and you cry a similar plaintive yell. Your gums hurt a lot these days. You have eight teeth and a couple molars that have been working their way out for weeks. I'm pretty sure I felt one in the upper right side of your mouth this week. I can't see for sure. You won't let me.
The sounds of sirens stop you in your tracks. You stare out windows as they cycle in and out. The retirement home across the street from us means we hear more sirens than most.
You still love your brown and pink Stride Rite shoes, choosing them over any other toy when you see them. You gnaw on them less these days and simply walk with them in your outstretched arms, like they are tiny purses, one for each hand. "Choo" to go with your "sah."
Your vocabulary is slowly growing. But, more importantly, it seems your understanding of words is clear. Tonight, after you waddled around the living room adorably naked for a while, I reminded you why you were in such a state.
"Alright," I said, "Let's go take a bath."
With that, you headed back to the bathroom and straight to the tub, leaning over the edge to stare down at the sudsy water and the toys that awaited.
The tub. Ugh. Still your nemesis. While you may like looking at the tub from the outside, you cannot stand being on the inside. Or, more specifically: you still refuse to sit. The night after Thanksgiving when we were at Aunt Laurie's house, your stubborn desire to walk and stand in the tub scared the heck out of us when you slipped before our eyes and cut your cheek on the shower pull. You were a shaking, screaming, wet mess. I draped you in a towel and held you while Laurie and Daddy tried to examine the gash. We deliberated for a while over whether the cut was deep enough to require stitches, even toting you to the neighbor's house across the street so that you could be assessed by the ER nurse who lives there.
No stitches, thank goodness. And it seems to be healing.
I got in the bath with you again tonight to try to show you how enjoyable tub-sitting can be. You only bought it, however, as long as you were sitting on me. I told Daddy maybe I should do that every night until you start to loosen up. I'll do anything.
Would crunchies help?
As you can see, it's taken me some time to write all this. I intended to start and finish this on your birthday. I also intended to get your 1-year-old handprints and footprints cast in plaster of paris. And to do a better job of explaining to you exactly why you are our little miracle, exactly why I decided to write like this every now and then. But then you didn't nap and then we played together on the floor and then I forgot and then I remembered and then I worried and then we went for a walk and then I had to cook dinner, fold the laundry, go to sleep, wake up, go to sleep, wake up, go to work, come home, play with you, feed you, give you a bath, cook dinner. You get the drift.
I haven't really mastered this mommyhood thing yet, I don't think. It just seems like it's one of those evolving processes that takes shape over a lifetime -- a day, a week and a developmental stage at a time.
But, in just this year, I do feel there is one thing I have gotten really good at: loving you. You've made my heart bigger. You've rearranged my life from the inside out, helping me suddenly see the entire human race as somebody's baby, worthy of love, of cuddling, feeding, rocking, swinging and hand-holding. Worthy of naps and good sleep, of reassurances and I love yous. Of kisses smooshed into cheeks and necks and backs and feet.
The petty annoyances of life have little room to thrive.
Happy birthday, my beautiful one-year-old girl. Thank you for making me your mother. I'm so happy I get to do this the rest of my life.
Love,
Mommy
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