lissmo . dot . com

“My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.”
—Clarence Budington Kelland

...tooth! Caroline is not a great sleeper these days at the best of times, so her fussiness last night didn’t raise any immediate alarm bells. During this morning’s Fun With Gums time, though, the sharp little ridges in her bottom gum were unmistakeable. Upon investigation, there was a definite peep of little white tooth poking out.

She has been duly informed that the presence of teeth means that she must truly learn to eat now. She did not appear impressed at the logic, but we’ll see.

I figure if I write something here and get it posted tonight, I’ll have managed to update more this month in all of last year combined. Let’s hear it for accomplishing lofty goals! Right, okay…so three whole updates is not exactly a massive effort, but it’s better than nothing. It’s frustrating - every single day there’s something that I tell myself I won’t want to forget, but somehow finding the time to actually write it down ends up falling off the bottom of my to-do list before the day is over.

Abby is three, and it’s both the most frustrating, exasperating age yet and also really fun and amazing. She’s such a little personality now, and she makes me laugh every day with her creativity, her imagination, and her observations of the world. Example: tonight after bedtime stories she told me that she would grow bigger and bigger and bigger and then she can sit in the big chair and work on the big computer. I should grow smaller and smaller so I can sit on her lap. Then she will put her princess CD in the computer and we will “sing together happily and clap our hands.” Then I should get bigger and bigger and hold her again so she can be my tiny baby. I love that she comes up with these stories that give me just a little peek at what’s going on in her busy little head!

Caroline is almost four months old, and already I miss my squishy little baby. She’s full-on in “grab everything” mode right now, but in that maddening place where she grabs on but can’t figure out how to let go of something when she’s done. Instead she just screams until someone comes to rescue her from the awful fate of Continuing to Hold On. When she’s not busy grabbing everything in reach (or trying for what’s actually out of reach) she loves just looking around and studying the world. It’s so fun to watch her develop and start to see how she and her big sister are alike - and how they’re different. I’ll admit that I’m really glad that they don’t really look much alike at this stage - Abby is so blonde and fair, and Caroline has her father’s darker hair and coloring. If nothing else, it’s a subtle reminder to me that they are different and I can’t necessarily expect her to be just like her sister at every step of the game. Nothing like having expectations to give you a quick slap in the face as a parent!

It occurred to me just a bit ago that I really need to update that image up top there - the most recent photo in that group is from Christmas. Uh, Christmas 2006, that is. My big girl is TWICE as old as she was in that picture! And to not offend, of course, I should probably include some of the new baby girl, since she is also insanely cute. (That’s based on my completely objective observations, obviously.) (Wow, who knew there were so many words that start with “ob”?)

Making new masthead images don’t exactly fit into my schedule this weekend, though, so I will cheat and do this instead:

Every year has its ups and downs, but 2008 was awfully heavy on the “downs” and fairly light on the “ups” around here, and for most of our friends and family. In fact, I can’t remember a year that was so universally bad for so many people I care about. It wasn’t all bad (a beautiful healthy daughter is a pretty big bright spot, I’ll admit), but it was…pretty bad. I can’t say that I’m sorry at all to see the end of this year.

The new year can only bring better things - I’m ready for it. Happy New Year to everyone!

I don’t know what exactly I was thinking when I suggested that moving house right when we were having a baby was a good idea. To be fair, I didn’t exactly present it as a “good” idea…more of a “not as terrible as it sounds at first” idea. I will say right up front that if you are considering it yourself, do not do it. Seriously - it is a TERRIBLE idea.

When I say “right when we are having a baby” I am not exaggerating at all: the baby was born on Friday, the movers came on Sunday (to pack) and Monday (to move everything) and I left the hospital on Tuesday…to come home to a new house still in day-after-move-in disarray. It all worked out (or is working out) in the end, as things tend to do, but it was really, incredible, unbelievably bad at times. And that was with a not insignificant amount of help (including the fact that we did almost none of the packing ourselves and paid the movers to do it for us).

The good points:

• We don’t live in our old, much-too-small house anymore, which was obviously the goal.
• The new house has a kitchen that’s big enough for two (or more) to cook in and a bathroom that does not require acrobatic skills to share in the morning.
• We really love our new neighborhood. For one thing, it’s an actual neighborhood! Where people talk to each other and everything. Amazing.
• Eventually the stress of the move will all blend in with the new-baby stress, and we’ll hardly remember the difference. (Wishful thinking, maybe?)
• Recovering from major abdominal surgery and taking care of a newborn are really good excuses for not unpacking too quickly.

The bad points:

• Bringing a new baby home to a new, largely unfamiliar house that’s still almost entirely filled with boxes is not all that conducive to any kind of restful recovery period. This will result in a lot of crying on the part of the hormonal new mother.
• The person not actually giving birth is stuck overseeing the moving process and misses out on way too much of the boring sitting-around-the-hospital time that is actually really nice bonding time.
• The person whose bright idea it was to move will probably feel very guilty about how much work the other person is doing and also how much boring bonding they are missing and will become extremely emotional about it all, probably involving a good bit of crying (again). (Okay, maybe that’s just me.)
• Not unpacking quickly means that you will be living in a disaster area for a long time. You will spend large amounts of time balancing a baby in one arm while tossing boxes at random looking for things.

So, to recap: DO NOT move at the same time you are having a baby. (Or your partner is having a baby, or anyone in your household is having a baby.) Figure out some other solution on some other timeline. Trust me - any other plan at all will be easier. If you really, really have no choice in the matter, though, just keep reminding yourself that it will all work out in the end. At least that’s what I’m (still) doing.

It’s totally cliché to say that I’ve been busy, but…well, I’ve been busy. I was working full-time, and also freelancing almost full-time. There was a vacation in there somewhere, and a lot of other busy-ness both boring and less boring. We moved - that was not boring, but not a picnic.

Oh, and then there was this:

Caroline Amelia
October 3, 2008

I won’t say “and now I’m back!” but hopefully I’ll be around a little bit more.

I’ve been sitting here noodling around with a few things - a little bit of freelance work here, some web-surfing there - thinking the whole time how tired I am. At one point I actually said out loud “I am so exhausted I just wish I could go to sleep.” And then I realized…hey, I can! I don’t have to stay up to some arbitrary time, or to accomplish some non-deadline-suffering task. I can go to sleep whenever I want to!

So that’s what I’m going to do.

I was thinking today about the state of my life, trying to figure out whether I’m happier or less happy than I used to be. There are a lot of things in our world right now that are extremely frustrating and cause me not a little bit of stress. I try to manage it as best I can, but I’ve found myself lately reverting to my “old faithful” coping strategy - namely, ignore it and hope it goes away. That would be great, except I’m actually all grown up now and do in fact know that problems ignored do not tend to fade away painlessly.

All that aside, though, I realized that overall, I’m actually very happy. And it’s easy to see why - Abby. Every single day, she makes me smile and laugh like no one else can. When I’m sad, she looks at me with her little face all screwed up with concern and comes to sit on my lap and give me kisses and say “all better?” (It sounds more like “Ah Bettah” though.) She is such an earnest and serious child, all contemplation and examination - but she’s also an incredibly happy and funny person who loves nothing more than to do something silly just because she knows it will make me laugh.

She reminds me that no matter what problems I may think I have, I am actually fortunate and wealthy beyond what I could ever deserve. I could lose every material thing I have and I would still be one of the luckiest people around. She is perspective, personified.

The word “uninspired” does not even begin to cover my mental state today. My desk is a disaster looking for a cause, my daughter FINALLY napped today after two solid days of refusing to even consider it, and I am fresh out of ideas.

Here, have a picture instead:

Cousins