dear 11 months – take 1

Dear 11 months,

I love you.  You are so fun.  Sure, you followed the tail-end of 6 months that included four new teeth, so it’s not hard to look fun after that.  But seriously.  You are SO.  FUN.  You like to play games – especially chase and peek-a-boo.  You not only like to play games, but you initiate them.  11 months, you are like a real person who understands things.

You nod “yes” and shake your head “no” when you hear those words.  You still love to clap for yourself or anything/anyone that other people are clapping for.  You can do pat-a-cake on your own.  Your 11 months old sneezes are sooo hilarious to you.  You even fake sneeze sometime just because it’s so funny.  Speaking of faking – you like to fake cough too, 11 months.

You say “Mama” and “Dada” and usually it feels like you know what those two mean.  You’ve taken steps.  11 months, YOU’VE TAKEN STEPS.  What is up with that?  It wasn’t so long ago that you didn’t even sit up and now you are taking steps on your own.  Slow down, 11 months, your Mama is trying to cherish the baby days and fears they are almost over.  It’s gone too fast, 11 months.

Your Daddy is still your favorite person in the whole wide world.  You get so excited when you see him and he’s a pretty big fan of you, 11 months.  When he comes home from work, he must make haste in getting to you, or you get upset.  Then once you’ve got him, he has to take you upstairs with him while he changes clothes, because you just need your daddy-fix.

11 months, you give the best hugs that I never knew existed.  You like to just stop whatever you’re playing with crawl over to your Mama in that funny way that you scoot around.  Then you raise your arms to be held and wrap them around my neck and squeeze while you put your head on my shoulder.  Sometimes you pat my back and sometimes you just squeeze.  I would hug you all day because your hugs are the best.  Ever.

You think you’re a big girl, drinking out of a cup, eating big food and wearing separates instead of all of those baby clothes.  You are big, but you’re a baby too.  You still need your Mama and you aren’t afraid to admit it.  Don’t lose that just yet, 11 months because your Mama needs to be needed for a little bit longer.  You can spread your wings, but don’t go too far from the nest.

Oh, 11 months.  I’m afraid I’m about to lose you.  Lost in the ends of babyhood and the beginnings of little girlness.  I know I will love what lies ahead, but it is bittersweet as I love this too and all of this growing up and change is hard on your Mama.  Don’t go away too fast, 11 months.  Let’s have a sweet November together and perhaps you can even show me some glimpses of yourself as we move into December and beyond.

I will love you forever, 11 months – 31 days times infinity,

Mama

six

My new driver’s license came in the mail today.  In case you didn’t know, I had to renew my license last week.  It had been 6 years since I became a licensed driver in the state that I live in.  Six years ago, I was a 22 year old, fresh out of college.  I was working my first professional job – wearing suits and everything.  Six years ago, I was blond and my the weight listed on my driver’s license was closer to correct.  I lived alone in a new place with no friends.

Six years later, I’ve had several jobs, several suits.  I’ve made great friends, had great friends move away.  I met my husband, got married.  In the last six years, I’ve seen my sister through a divorce and I’ve seen several friends through weddings.  In the last six years I’ve had a blogger blog, a xanga, a myspace account, a facebook account and a wordpress blog.  I’ve worked with teenagers and I’ve worked with toddlers.  I’ve dealt with infertility and I’ve acquired (what is the right word?) a great daughter.  I’ve had three different vehicles, three different homes and lots of McDonald’s coke.

So, I look at my new driver’s license (with a pretty decent picture – if I do say so myself).  I look at the expiration date – 10.24.2015.  And I wonder – what will the next six years bring?

In six more years, Mr. Mouse and I will be gearing up to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  Baby Swiss will be in 1st grade and will hopefully be a big sister.  My mini-van will be much less shiny and much less new.  Our church will hopefully be in a brand new buildling and the kids I’m teaching in the nursery now will be practicing for the children’s Christmas program.

I’ll be 35 in six years.  Will I finally feel like a grown-up or will I still feel like a poser?  Will Baby Swiss hate it when I go on field trips with her class, or will mom still be cool in the eyes of an almost 7 year-old?  Will I have learned to master the art of a clean and pulled together house?  Will Mr. Mouse’s favorite still be chocolate chip cookies?

Six years doesn’t feel like that long, but a lot has happened to me in the last six years.  Maybe six years is more than it seems and I’ve just let it all go too quickly.

life by the letter

Dear Baby Swiss,

I’m glad you love your binkies and I’m glad we only let you have your binkies in your bed.  Please don’t decide you like your binkies more than your toys.  Your mama will miss you.

Peace, Love & Comfort Items,

Mama

Dear Mama,

I like Cheerios.  I love Cheerios.  I only want to eat Cheerios.  No bananas, please and definitely no carrots.  I will put them on the floor for you so they don’t accidentally get into my mouth.

Peace, Love & Low Cholesterol

Baby Swiss

P.S. You are a good cook, Mama.  When you cook Cheerios.

Dear Baby Swiss,

You are going to be the cutest ladybug on Saturday.  But when are you big enough to get candy?  Mama likes candy.

Peace, Love & Pest Repellent,

Mama

Dear Mama,

I like to give you hugs.  Sometimes when I’m playing with my toys, I just need to stop and crawl over to you, reach my arms out for you and then put my head on your shoulder and squeeze your neck and pat your back.  You are very squeezable, Mama.  Is that why your jeans are too tight?

Peace, Love & Sucking It In,

Baby Swiss

Dear Baby Swiss,

Is there something wrong with your sense of smell?  You have stinky wet diapers in the morning and you don’t seem to mind one bit while your mama can’t hardly stand to come in your room.  Should I be worried, or should I start grooming you for a job that pays really well because they can’t find anyone who can stand to smell the work environment all day long?

Peace, Love & Febreeze,

Mama

Dear Mama,

You are not a good singer.  I don’t know why you think that singing silly songs or Sunday school songs will make me happy when I am not.  You are NOT a good singer.  I still like you though.  You give me Cheerios.

Peace, Love and B-I-B-L-E-s,

Baby Swiss

and they didn’t even grade my test

Today I went to renew my driver’s license.  I’ve only known it was going to expire this week for, uh, the 6 years that I’ve been licensed to drive by this state.  They only sent me the booklet and open-booklet-test two months ago.  I only left said materials laying (lying?) out on my kitchen counter for all of those two months.  I mean, clearly this renewal thing snuck right up on me.

Since we moved, we live closer to a dmv other than the one I had been to previously, so I spent some leisure time on various government webpages the other day finding the correct address and plugged said address into Google Maps on my phone, so that I’d be all ready to go.

The rumors on facebook were that the wait time was sometimes hours, so I had mentally prepared myself for a long wait with a squirmy baby, but hey – this is probably the one and only time that I’ll need to go to the dmv with an infant, right?

I decided in my head (a great place to decide things, by the way) that going first thing in the morning would yield the highest probability of the shortest wait time because people don’t like to get up early, right?

Baby Swiss and I headed out the door – fully dressed and coiffed from head to toe and not wearing ten year old slippers like someone almost did the other day when she left to run errands.  (Let’s keep in mind that only one of us was around ten years ago to acquire said slippers and that person’s name is not Baby Swiss.)

With Google Maps at the ready, we were off in our trusty minivan.  We ran into school traffic and slow downs at several schools along the way, but we were not deterred.

Well, not deterred until we couldn’t find the dmv.

After driving in circles, stopping to ask a friendly crossing guard for directions and checking the address on the south end of the street and the north end of the street, Baby Swiss had finished her breakfast of champions (formula) and I wanted to throw in the towel and head home.

Unfortunately, home didn’t have any grumpy government employees who wanted a check for $26, so instead I opted to head north to the dmv I have frequented too many times before (three times in six years is kind of a lot, no?).

We headed for the highway to find ourselves to be the newest participants in rush hour traffic.

It was fun.

Well, if you’re idea of fun is sitting still in a minivan on a highway with an increasingly displeased, but really cute baby.

We fine-a-lee made it to ye old trusty dmv way up north and as I was getting out of the van, I said a silent prayer – or was it out loud – begging for there to be a short line.

I grabbed the stroller, unbuckled the baby and found a diaper needing some immediate attention.

So, we (and by we, I mean Baby Swiss and me minus Baby Swiss) changed the diaper, loaded said baby into the stroller and head inside.  You’ll never guess what I happened upon when I went inside.

The angels were singing and the bring light from heaven was shining down because there were only three people in line.  Hallelujah – I won’t have to drive off a bridge with my new driver’s license after all.

The guy in front of me was a dollar short on what he needed and was digging through his pockets for change.  I was just standing there waiting and overhead, so I gave him the quarter that he needed to save him from a trip to the atm for twenty cents.  Sometimes, it’s okay to be nosy.  Besides, I don’t think atms dispense dimes.

Then I was called, paid my $26, took my eye test, lied about my weight, told the truth about my address, remained an organ donor  and took a brand spanking new picture with my current hair color – which happens to be quite a change from my former hair color.   And that, my friends, is change you can believe in.

All of that to say: today I renewed my driver’s license.

and then I heard my congested baby snoring on the monitor and all was right with the world

If there is one thing that is true about me, it is that I am a sucker for a good Lifetime movie – particular a Lifetime movie about teen pregnancy.  Don’t ask me where this came from, but I’ve enjoyed these as long as I can remember.

So, Mr. Mouse was out-of-town last night and rather than my normal tv fare, I found myself watching this.

It is the story of a girl who had a baby and, together with her mother and sister, is trying to get a fresh start in a new school, etc. where no one knows that her baby brother is really her son.  It is also the story of this girl’s hip school counselor and swim coach – who are facing infertility and have lived through a failed adoption.

Well, I imagine you can see where this is going.  The secret comes out, the teenager meets up with a birth mother group and learns about open adoption, and starts to realize that she needs to think about what’s best for her son versus what she wants.  She chooses to place her son in an open adoption and choose the school counselor/swim coach to be mom and dad.

I cried through pretty much the entire second half of the movie because a.) it’s a Lifetime movie, duh and b.) hello, hitting a little close to home here!

The very end of the movie showed the adoptive parents interviewing their son on his fifth birthday and he talks about his mom and dad and his baby sister – who grew in his mom’s tummy – and then the home video pans around to show his birth mom and he says a few different things, but two of them were just too sweet:

“I’m the only one who knows what her heart feels like from inside of her.”

“She’s my birth mom and she helped me find my family.”

toddlers and tiaras, here were come

So, my sister has been bugging me to enter Baby Swiss into this contest basically since she was born.  One way or another, she found out that it was going on now, and sent me the link.  And, I did it.  (I’m hanging my head in shame right now.)

Of course, I think my child is the most beautiful child that ever crawled on this planet, but I might be a teensy bit biased since she looks exactly like me.  Oh, right.  She doesn’t so much look like me.  She is pretty cute though (if I do say so myself…which I do).

I will not be posting the link here to beg for votes.  I don’t roll that way.  Plus also, there are some kids that have 17,000 votes and I don’t really plan on trying to compete with that.  Really, I just want to win a gift certificate to this place.  Actually, really…I just want to get my sister off my back.

Someone shoot me if I put her in high heels before she’s 2.

10.15

So, today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.  I image it is named that to include everyone, but I’m going to call it Baby Loss Awareness Day because that’s what it’s about.  People don’t like to think about dead babies, but that’s what miscarriage is.  That’s what stillbirth is.  That’s what SIDS is.  And so on and so forth.

Now, I have a bit of a conflict about this for me personally.  If it weren’t for those three lost babies, I wouldn’t have the baby that I have now.  I remember thinking this when I was pregnant with baby #2 and pregnant with baby #3 because had either of those pregnancies ended up in a real alive baby, it would have been because none of the others did.

So, what do I do with that?

I don’t know.

Mr. Mouse would tell me to not over think it, but what does he know

i was not paid to do this

Oh my goodness.  I just have to tell you about this.  I won a Custom Board Book in an online giveaway that I entered and it just arrived in the mail.  You choose 12 photos and your own story/captions and they will make you a customized board book.

We chose “Who Loves Baby Swiss” as our title and then included pictures of her birth parents, grandparents, aunts, uncle, cousins and us with her as the pages with the corresponding captions (Mama loves Daphne, Nana loves Daphne, etc.).  I read it to her as soon as we got it and I kid you not, she was grinning the entire time and she is normally not into reading books.  She loved seeing the baby in the pictures and I think it will be a great way for her to learn to know her extended family.

I highly recommend these books!  With 12 pages, you could do one a year for your child and include a photo from each month.  You could document a holiday or special trip.  The possibilities are endless.  AND, it’s a board book, so it is sturdy and tough(er) for babies and toddlers to destroy.

I think I will take Heather’s suggestion and wrap it up for a birthday present.  I think the family and friends at her birthday party will be excited to see it too.

Here are a couple of pictures.  I don’t have my camera, so these were taken with my phone.  Forgive the poor quality.

This is the front cover.

And this is an example of what the pages look like.

love. Love. LOVE it!

one

So, we have a birthday party coming up in another month-ish for a certain almost one year old.  I have a few birthday party quandaries.  Before we get to those, let’s review the basics:

• There will be no theme.  I don’t do themes well and I don’t care to spend a bunch of money on things just for the sake of theme-iness.  Don’t get me wrong, themes are cute – just not a strength of mine.  I will probably buy cute disposable plates and napkins in whatever cuteness strikes my fancy and if I’m feeling ambitious, I might get a helium balloon to tie to Baby Swiss’ high chair.  I rarely feel ambitious though.
• There will be no smash cake.  Let me refer back to my lack of ambition on this one.  Baby Swiss will get a piece of cake to do with what she pleases and I’m sure pictures will be taken of a chocolate covered chocolate baby.  I kind of hate the idea of the cake smash (whether it’s a personal cake, a cupcake or a piece of cake).  I feel like it has gotten to be this thing where everyone has these great expectations for this kid to be super cute with the smash and it just puts this pressure on the party that shouldn’t be there.  I will play this part down as much as possible probably by serving everyone else their cake first.
• Since it will be a delicious fall party, the menu will be something of the chili/soup/chowder option variety with the appropriate garnishes and probably some pb&j for the kids.   Send me your great soup recipes now.

Okay, those are the basics.  Now onto the questions:

• How far-reaching do we get with the invite list?  I never know how to handle this.  I don’t like to leave people out, but I don’t want to make people feel like they have to come.  Obviously, we will invite our parents, siblings and Baby Swiss’ birth parents.  We will also invite a small handful of close friends.  The question for me is about inviting Mr. Mouse’s extended family.  He has a set of aunts on his dad’s side that all live within 2 hours of us and who we see fairly regularly.  Do we invite them?
• Gifts.  Do we buy Baby Swiss a gift?  I don’t really feel the need to buy her one.  We buy her everything she needs plus also MORE.  At the same time, is it tacky to not buy your child a gift when you are essentially asking all of the people you invite to the party to bring a gift?  (I don’t care if people bring a gift or not, but I know they will.)  Perhaps the best solution to this is just to wrap up something that we’ve gotten for her recently?  I do feel a little bit about the gift opening like I feel about the cake smash.  There is a lot of pressure on a baby to be really interested in opening gifts, when I seriously doubt she’ll even care once she has one piece of tissue paper in her hands/mouth.

There you have it.  Tell me what to do.

weekend recap

Friday was my dad’s 60th birthday.  Both of my parents are now 60 and they hold the #2 and #3 spots on my Facebook friends list if I order them all by age.  Way to stay up to date, old folks.

Mr. Mouse, Baby Swiss and I headed north for a big party.  My dad is into all thing outdoorsy, so we tried to class that up a bit and use it as a theme.

This is a picture of the buffet table (before the food).  Flowers, pheasant feathers, shotgun shells and camo… who would have thunk it?  (My mom and my sister, that’s who!)

This is what my sister did with the light fixture in the dining room – fishing rods and fishing lures.  She got all of the creative genes and I got the fat jeans.

Here she is at the finished dining room table.  I’d like to state for the record, that I did the favors – the bags with the ribbon had two big pieces of fudge inside.  My mom made the fudge, but cutting it and tying all of those bows was way more labor intensive than throwing some butter and chocolate together.

Here I am with Mr. Mouse and my mom.  Mom and I were making a salad.  Mr. Mouse was just looking handsome.

And here’s the birthday boy – on his actual birthday – with my contribution to the weekend.

Last, but not least – my dad’s favorite daughter.  He says she’s the only one who hasn’t left him.  Maybe he should have tried the shock collar on us.