My Baby turned One and I wanted to note what we’d done!
That sounded cheesy I know 🙂 So I’m a little tipsy and apologize for any errors syntactical or otherwise that follow. Yes, I drank a few glasses of wine, we both, husband and wife did and sadly it was just 2. I am a cheap date and have always been. I suspect it’s why my husband married me. But, I digress. My daughter has turned one and after throwing her a fantastic party a week earlier and pretty much having dedicated ourselves to a day of fun for her today, we decided we must celebrate. She is sound asleep of course.
She started today with refusing to drink any milk. She pointed to the banana and said, why what else banana 🙂 I’m so proud of her. She ate a few choice bites and decided to let the pieces less worthy of her fall to the floor. Mom and Dad happily cleaned up after her. I dressed her a little more fancier than usual. She typically looks like a roadside mongrel, and I mean that in the nicest way, after a day of play at her daycare she has sand in her diaper and mud on her clothes and socks. So I dress her up in play clothes, code for the cheapest ones my angel can fit into. So she wore her ‘pineapple kiss’ fancy striped pants with a full sleeve shirt and an orange polka dot clip to pin her less than abundant hair. It still beats me. How in the world does she not have an overflowing mop of hair on her head. Her mom and dad have thick thick hair so how come she has thin wisps of curls faking full coverage on her head. She does resemble my sis though when she was a baby and my hubby when he was a baby though they both did have more hair than this one does. I’m thinking of shaving her head and testing the theory that it sprouts more hair. My daughter can’t say anything now and I intend to exploit that right by dressing her any way I want and fooling around with her tresses until she exercises her rights to speak up against the atrocities which she will surely deem them to be. It’s what all girls do. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m not that old either okay.
But again I digress. So she went to daycare happy as ever, giving the innocent bystander the impression that she cannot get away from her parents. If said innocent bystander per chance also took note of how she goes to the window, glass door every now and then; stands there forlorn face to glass, lost ‘please rescue me’ look in her big brown eyes and also cries bloody murder as we pick her up from daycare, we may as well be reported to child welfare. Poor little lass obviously gets mistreated and neglected at home.
Okay okay, this is about today. She went to daycare and I spent a full hour planning out my day and re-planning because I didn’t account for the hour I used to plan it. I went shopping and bought her some fall clothing. I’ve probably been the only parent who continues to dress her in summer clothing. I run to whole foods and pick up a dozen or so cute mini cupcakes for the teachers as a thank you to them on her birthday. I spent an unreasonable amount of time debating whether I should get whole or mini – would they think me cheap that I’m skimping by buying mini; but they all do look like they don’t eat whole cupcakes; slender, waif like; I could easily eat two of those teachers whole myself. I finally decided the way most anyone with a little common sense and rationale would. I went with the mini cupcakes. They had glitter on them and they looked way cuter.
I picked my baby up and she does not do her customary tap on the head of one of the younger babies and makes them cry. I was getting a bit worried about that. She seemed to think of it as a whole new tradition on how to greet mommy. The teachers assured me that at this age they’re just curious and mine is a whole lot curiouser so she want’s to tap something and see hmm let’s see what that does? But somehow it still worried me. I mean it seemed more like let’s see if that one does it again? how about this one? how about this one on Wednesday? Okay, well I’m exaggerating but I did watch Dexter avidly during my pregnancy and was in fact watching it when I went into labor. Okay fine, I know she’ll get over the phase and I’ve hopefully passed on no more than the love for morbid mystery shows on television.
Once she was back home we played and played until she demanded she be fed and tucked in for a nap. I got a bit carried away. God bless this kid! She knows when and how to communicate to me. Then Dad came home and both mom and dad baked a cake for her. Once she was up we sang to her, blew her candle and let her go crazy with her smash cake. And smash the cake she did. We spent a decent amount of time later cleaning up the mess and hence the wine. But it was worth every drop of sweat I didn’t drop to see her smiling happy messy little cute as a button chocolate covered face. We then let her bathe to her hearts content – big tub all to herself. She loved it! Then we dressed her up and I took pictures of her. This part she didn’t care for much. Finally we took her to a toy store and oh my God! Much to my husband’s dismay she’s a born shopper. She would do my fashionista cousin N proud! She systematically covered aisle after aisle of stuffed toys, boxed treasures, oodles of baby goods a baby could very well do without and a litany of books. She liked the cookie monster, the big bird (sesame street beckoning?), the book ‘on the night you were born’ awwww, the chair and ottoman combos, all the babies and kids she followed around like she couldn’t wait to get rid of us, the maclaren, city mini, oh and the bugaboo strollers – all branded and from mommy’s ‘if only I could buy them’ list – no prodding from mommy and finally and in particular the little toy car. Of course dad bought it for her. Once home she played around some more and finally went to bed with mommy.
You though that was that. Nope. She got up again 15 mts after convincing mom she was asleep and played for another half hour downstairs. I wrapped her up burrito style in the same swaddle cloth we used when she was 10 days old and put her in the same spot on the couch between the same two cushions but the girl wouldn’t sit still for a minute 🙂 and that’s exactly how much has changed 🙂
With mom gone to India things have been tough. But being mommy, really being the responsible mommy is amazing. The tears, tantrums, poopy diapers, struggling through mealtimes and getting her dressed, playing with her even though all you want to do is sleep, the exhaustion, the giggles, the peels of laughter, the hugs, the licks i.e kisses, the doleful eyes that look to you like you’re everything in the world to them – it’s wonderful, all of it! Also the perks don’t hurt. Everyone is more sympathetic, oh the looks I got when I said mom’s been here helping (read: you wretched bitch) vs we’re by ourselves (read: you poor poor dears) are very very different if you haven’t already discerned that. Okay, I’m being a bit of a smart ass. It’s the wine, I tell you. Though some may argue it should have worn off by the first sentence. But I told you I’m a cheap date.
Ahem! Back to the story now. Everyone is more tolerant of your tardiness, some even want to cook for you and make things easier. You’re also less hard on yourself. I had a lot more expectations of myself before and now not so much. Okay, that didn’t sound right but you’ll know what I mean especially if you’re a parent and if you’re not I real don’t care hence driving back to the point of not many expectations. We don’t watch any T.V anymoe. Dexter’s last season started today and I didn’t pine over not watching it. Running after your kid counts as working out, or so we say 🙂 And we’re using the guest bedroom next door to her bedroom to sleep instead of our Master downstairs. Of the many reasons I married Ravi, one reason of paramount importance to marrying him or for that matter to just marrying was the body warmth this union provides me with when I’m cold. Our King bed seriously made me reconsider my decision what with having to search for him sometimes, since it felt that big. But now, with the Queen bed in the guest bedroom my reasons for marriage have once again been reaffirmed. What can I say, this whole thing has worked out charmingly well.
Jokes aside, despite the difficulties it’s nice to struggle. There’s a satisfaction in it all; now talk to me in a month, I might change my tune 😉 because it has only been, what? a week? Yeah! All these poetic notions and fantasies might just be flushed down the toilet along with my baby’s poopy diapers. Oh, never do that! Dirty diaper must go to the dumpster. They do have this thing called Diaper Genie which is supposed to keep the stink out but it never really does. And there I digress again and again.
So, life’s so much more demanding, chaotic, exhausting but honestly we wouldn’t trade a second for anything else. I got nostalgic at the end of today thinking of my sister and how she would be with her little niece. But I think my sis is back with me, pushing me to move forward, to be happy. And she reminds me of her so much. Her independence, her willfulness, her pride, her acceptance when unwell and the sparkle in her eyes. There’s a bit of me, of my husband and a lot of my sister. What else could I ask for. We love her more than words can express and we’ve had a wonderful first year with her. Plus, she’s been giving me some writing material 🙂 they’re all but a part of a devious scheme – the husband, the baby 😉 and again I digress and digress … talk about scatterbrained … Goodnight!
