She Turned Two

I don't know how this happened. She was born. I blinked. And now she's two.

She demands Cheerios for lunch and eats them nude in her "Freya chair." Naked Toddler Brunch: it's the new lunch. When she drops something, she says "oopsidaisy" and when she's startled by something, she says "cheese cries!" (Jesus Christ.) 

She mimics her parents ruthlessly and without guile, to devastating comic effect.

The other morning, she toddled into our bedroom with a box of tampons, yelling "Daddy, biscuits!" (We were perplexed until we realized the yellow tampon outer paper vaguely resembles Belvita biscuit wrappers.)

She has a very faint, very fine scar running from the corner of her right eye down her cheek from running (oh, how she loves to run!) into a metal sign and, each time I see it, I think I might never forgive myself for that moment of slow reflex. It fades during the day, but reddens in the bath or when she cries. I guess it will always be there -- a bell-weather for her mood. Friends and lovers, down the road, may thank me for it...

A friend of mine, pregnant with her first baby, isn't having an easy time of it. "It's sooooo slow and I'm sooooo uncomfortable. I can't wait until this baby arrives."

I was the same. Even if I had a relatively easy pregnancy, the anticipation was too much to bear. I just. wanted. it. to. happen. already. Past my official date at 40+1 week, I recall reading an article in which a mother -- pregnant with her third child -- expressed sadness that these final weeks would be the last time her baby would be truly safe inside. "Crazy!" I thought at the time. "Don't you want to meet this kid?!" 

But I get it now. 

The slowest nine months of your life, followed by the fastest 24 months (and counting.) It sounds so facile, but the time flies. It also doesn't escape me that my success as a parent ultimately lies in being the agent of my own obsolescence -- to get her to a point where she may want me around, but doesn't need me there. 

That's what that wise third-time-mother realized that this first-time-freaked-out-nursery-paint-color-obsessed-almost-mother couldn't: the journey to independence starts the second they leave utero (safe, albeit increasingly uncomfortable) and become aware that there's a big, bold world outside. A slow, but inexorable shuffle apart...it's not sad, but it is bittersweet.

My message to you at two years of age, baby girl, is simply this: I will be your safe place for as long and whenever you need one. And one day, you'll be the safe place for a friend, a child, a partner...and you'll realize that it is truly one of life's great privileges. 

In the meantime, we have roads to travel. Helping you understand the difference between a box of tampons and biscuits, for example. Teaching you that the intersection of face and metal sign should be avoided -- and how to avoid it (look in front of you, not behind, when running.) Sensibilizing you to the nuances of when and when not to use "Jesus Christ," ie: okay-ish at home, but not in front of nuns...

My mother always said she didn't raise me to keep me next to her. I will do the same for you.

But for now, I really really really like having you next to me...

Yup

Interior Disaster

I am an interior disaster.

We bought a house last May.  (Not the photo above, thankfully -- that's photographic hyperbole.)  A lovely new-build blank slate.  I was beside myself with excitement at the thought of insta-decorating it, just as I've done with the seven rental properties we've lived in the past eight or so years.  Insta-home is my specialty!  A few well-placed knickknacks, some artwork...I know the drill.

Only...I seem to have lost my touch.  Cases in point:

• I've brought in and rejected no fewer than three rugs for the living room.  You'd think with each I'd be getting that little bit closer to the nebulous aesthetic I'm aiming for...but the opposite is true.  The first rug was by far the best of the three (though still absolutely wrong); the last was, both M and I agreed, an unmitigated disaster.  We are on rug-hold.  Freya must play on hard laminate.  Her Safta would not be impressed.

• Our bedroom is blue.  Blue, blue and more blue.  I'm so sick of blue!  And equally terrified of injecting color!  We slumber in decor-limbo.

• I admit to purchasing the living room sofa for form rather than function.  Meaning I picked it out online and didn't really pay much attention to how, erm,d **comfortable** it might be.  The upshot of which is -- M hates it.  Like, won't-sit-in-it-drags-a-chair-into-the-room-instead hates it.  Soooo, I did the practical, wifely thing and put it up for sale online -- I even had a buyer for it, but...we would have had to take a small hit on the price.  And suddenly M was all, "no, it's okay, let's keep it at least for a couple of years.  Pillows -- pillows will make the difference."  And so we kept it.  And a friend of his came over last week and commented that the living room (the sofa is pretty much the only thing in there right now) looked like the waiting area of a doctor's office.  Cue reappearance of M's passive aggressive sofa hatred.  It is, quite literally, the beige, corner-shaped elephant in the room.

• Freya's bedroom is perfect.  It took no effort at all -- I randomly chose things I loved and it all came together beautifully.  It's also pristinely clean and untouched because SHE REFUSES TO SLEEP IN THERE.  She slumbers in blue decor-limbo with us.

• In our kitchen, we have: modern, off-white gloss units, chrome appliances and pale tile floors (already in the house when we bought it); an absurd Moroccan mosaic vinyl backsplash in blue, red and grey (what was I ON?); a country kitchen table and chairs (gifted); an orange sofa with turquoise cushions and a lot of dog hair and crumbs...all visible to the naked eye because the floor is light and un-patterned enough to show EVERYTHING.  I was hoping for Scandi-design chic, but we are firmly in schizo-design territory.  Don't know quite how to claw it all back, but instinct tells me to start with the backsplash.

• There are no pictures hung anywhere (apart from Freya's perfect room.)  My mania can't bear the thought of nails et al on pristine, new walls (because inevitably we will hang something in the wrong place, thus creating visible holes where there don't need to be holes.)  Instead, our artwork remains stacked against the wall in the spare bedroom with blankets shading it from view, like sleeping guests, who may eventually stay in the room if, as and when we maybe, like, get a bed for it...

• I impulse-buy curtains that are the wrong size.  Somehow we always end up in fabric and home design stores without the written-down measurements so I guesstimate the length and width of our large and non-standard house windows.  When-oh-when will I learn that 90 inches (standard, readymade curtain length) is not (I repeat, not) long enough for our windows?  Fifth time will perhaps be the charm.  Sidenote: also, do not order curtains from a disreputable websites in China.  I work for a technology company and, still, in my house decorating optimism and frenzy, had to learn this the hard way. 

• For those of you who followed the saga that was Freya's nursery preparation in our old house, you'll recognize that choosing a paint color is no simple task for me.  Eleven shades of yellow later, I finally settled on something between warm sunshine and butter.  It took three coats to cover all my tester spots.  Multiply that by six rooms, with differing lighting and internal style -- the tyranny of possibility is upon me!  This is a nice problem to have, don't get me wrong.  (I'm not really complaining.)  I could probably patchwork-cover an entire room at this point with all the tester paint tubes I've invested in.  "Hmmm, actually, maybe that's not such a bad idea...?" says wicked design angel on my shoulder...you see what I'm up against?

• We've finally put up feature wallpaper in the living room and I'm terrified to tell M that I'm not sure it's right.  Pretty sure I'm just going to have to live with it for a few years at this point, or find a new husband.  I like him more than I dislike the wallpaper, so we'll go with option A.  

But I still have ideas...and optimism.  So much optimism.  Presently in the form of weathered brick effect wallpaper in the kitchen.  What do you think?  No, you know what?  Don't tell me.  I probably won't listen anyway.  

Onwards & upwards.

Wellytime

It was brilliant...

...until it wasn't.

Cheerio(s)

A few changes since I last my last post.  In fairness, it's been a while...

M has left his job to mind Freya full-time.  Well, almost full-time -- she's still in creche two mornings a week, because she loves it (and we big people appreciate the hours to ourselves for leisure activities like sleeping, cleaning and taking the dogs to the V-E-T.)

I snapped this pic as I was leaving the house the other morning.  Cheerio time in matching chairs.  She made him switch her little bowl for his big.  

Heart. Officially. Melted.

Kelloggs: I'm happy rent them out for photo shoots.  Call me.

Focusing on the Positives -- Dangley Earrings

So I stole (with pride) the title of this post from a friend's Facebook status, referring to her return to work last week after a nine month maternity leave.  I, too, am back in the [cruel, inhumane -- no, not really] workaday world, as of three weeks ago.  It's been equal parts refreshing and heartbreaking, unsettling and reassuring.  But from the time I found out I was pregnant, this return has also been inevitable.  So no crying over spilled milk.  Let's focus on the positives, right?  Dangley earrings.  Full cups of coffee.  Cute shoes.

 But, but, but...?

If I were to philosophize a moment -- I fear that the two-working-parents model is doing Freya a disservice.  Morning feeds are rushed, as I scramble for the train.  She doesn't sleep well in creche, because it takes her time (and nursing) to wind down.  She's happy to play with toys and other babies -- for a while -- and then, quite naturally, she wants to be held.  The daycare is lovely, don't get me wrong -- but is it the ideal environment for a little one, who likes lots of individual attention and has a hard time switching off?

I wonder about life in traditional -- okay, I'll say it: poorer -- societies, where women wear babies on their backs as they go about their daily lives, because paying upwards of $1,200 a month for 9 hours a day of childcare is unattainable, bordering on absurd.  (Also feels somewhat unattainable /absurd to us, for the record!  Just perhaps not the same level of unattainable/absurd.)  Where they nurse, because there are no other options.  Where babies sleep in beds with their parents because there is no nursery and no cot.  Where women are surrounded by their extended families, because they don't have the option to travel further afield.  I'm not trying to romanticize life for the adults in these situations.  Freya, M and I have it easier in so very many, many ways.  But for the babies, it seems much more the natural way of things than the quagmire of work-life-childcare-who's-doing-the-pick-up-we-both-have-to-work-late-arggghhh-I-forgot-my-breast-pump-again that is our current family refrain.

"She'll be so sociable, after being with other people all day, and other babies in daycare -- you're doing a great thing for her!  It'll really benefit her development."

"It's just her separation anxiety phase, she'll stop crying and settle eventually."

"She'll catch everything going in creche in the first while, but then her immune system will be rock solid!"

I want to believe these comments, so often repeated to me.  But are they true, in Freya's case, or am I holding on to them to make me feel better about our situation? 

Question mark.

No, I'm not the first or last mother to grapple with these issues.  Nor am I foolish enough to believe that staying home with her wouldn't also have its price, beyond lost income.  My maternity leave was mostly wonderful, but also quite lonely -- my parents live across the ocean, and my husband works, as do my close friends...none of whom have babies yet.  I found a lovely community of other mamas, who became friends and lifelines.  But I also went through a particularly difficult period, when Freya was four months old, and I will be forever indebted to my mother for flying across the ocean to hold my hand for two weeks and promise me that I would feel normal again one day.  (And I do.)  

It would also be a lie for me to say my career and my overall identity were mutually exclusive entities...

"You work, so you can provide a great life for Freya and buy her all the things she wants."

Of course!  I want her to have everything that makes her happy, every opportunity the world can provide.  Only, the thing she wants most right now is...me.  The one thing I can't give her while working. 

Ironic.  A little sad.  And a fact of life.

So let me not take the positives for granted.  I pledge to:
> Wear dangley earrings once a week
> Rediscover my ridiculously large shoe collection
> Enjoy every sip of coffee, down to the last drop

Ultimately -- here's my hypothesis -- these activities will help me feel more confident, attractive and awake (fairly important) at work, boosting productivity while here and allowing me to skip (carefully, in heels) out the door on time to pick up the little love of my life, so we can spend QT together before she falls asleep in my arms.

It's not perfect, no...but it's positive.