gravity

One moment, Linnea was playing with my plastic water bottle, and the next moment she was not. One moment I was pulling her pajamas out of my suitcase, and the next moment they were flung to the floor. One moment, my nine-month-old daughter was sitting up on the bed, and the next moment she was sliding headfirst to the ground.

I did not catch Linnea before she hit the floor. I saw her falling in my periphery, and I reached my arms out too late to prevent the thud. Her mouth formed a wide oval, her eyes closed, and she tried to push air out through her shock. And then, the crying. The desperate, bewildered, frightened wailing that continued as I pulled her to my chest and rocked her back and forth.

My mind ran through all the signs of intercranial trauma that I knew. Remarkably, I had a penlight in my backpack, which I pulled out to check her pupillary reaction. Direct, consensual. Direct, consensual. PERRLA. I feel gently over her skull to check for swelling or fractures. Her anterior fontenelle is still not closed. I check for brain bulges. I check for hemorrhaging in the eyes. I check for any neurological asymmetry. I do this to stem the panic clutching at my throat. She is crying less frantically, although doing that post-crying breath catch that hurts my heart. I nurse her, and she falls asleep. I gently lower her into the crib, and then spend the rest of the night creeping up to check her breathing, feel that her hands are warm, silently begging forgiveness.

She is fine. She has a bruise on her forehead where she landed (it looks like lipstick marks). And she is still trying to peek over edges (but this time, we are holding her tight).

mother's day

For Mother's Day, Linnea woke us up at 5 am and wouldn't go back to sleep until 7:30 am (and then only for 20 minutes). I celebrated with a large coffee and by baking muffins. One day soon, I will get macaroni and glitter craft flotsum, and I will love it.

nine months

Dear Linnea,

For your nine month day, you are experiencing another first: your first work conference. You did awesome. You conquered stairs, letting other people hold you while I did my presentation, and understanding effective feedback models. Your dad was able to come with us for half of the time, for which I am totally grateful.

You are spending almost all of your time crawling around, trying to stand up, babbling. You are trying to walk before your muscles will support you. You are trying to talk before your mouth can form the words.

One day, when I picked you up from daycare, Fernanda told me that you had been trying to pull yourself up to standing, and falling. "Some other babies give up," she said. But not you. You kept pulling up, pulling up. You do the same in the bathtub, holding on to the smooth edges of the tub, slipping and falling. You sometimes smack the water in frustration. But no crying. Not giving up. This tenacity will come back to bite me in the ass someday soon, but for now, I just gawkingly admire it.

We are trying to keep you out of the kitchen and bathroom, mostly because those are where all the cleaning supplies are. Also, there are nooks and crannies that we can never possibly babyproof. You know you are not supposed to into those rooms. I know this because you'll gallumph quickly over to the carpet-linoleum boundary between the allowed-not allowed space, stop abruptly, and turn to look at me. Then you'll slowly inch your way into the space. Sometimes, you'll turn yourself parallel, almost as if to gloat, "I'm not in here!"

You start to cry if I leave you in a room all by yourself, and try to crawl after me. You eat everything we give you. You are doing a great job picking up Cheerios and snack puffs with your thumb and pointer finger.

Your smile lights up my day.

Happy ninth month, kiddo.

"a year ago today"

This whole year has been tainted and overcast, and it feels like I’ve been trying to put on rose-colored glasses throughout the whole year, but instead, I’ve been looking through a magnifying glass, with Tommy’s death as my focal point, burning everything that comes between the sun and me and the ground.

Tommy died a year ago today. His sister/my best friend wrote an incredibly moving post reflecting on the year, and remembering that day. There are things in that post that I had never heard before. My heart aches to not be there with them.

falling

family Skype date

eight months

Dear Linnea,

Whew. EIGHT MONTHS.

Every time I take a moment to think about where you are now, I find myself shaking my head and asking myself, "what the what?"

After many a frustrated start, you are ambling along the floor with much galumphing. You aren't quite able to do the cross-crawl yet, but can do the worm across the living room. Except when you get excited. Then you pull yourself up to a downward dog, inch forward, and thump to your belly with a shriek.

You keep trying to get into the kitchen, which is off-limits at this point. I know you know this because when you amble to the boundary of where the carpet of the living room meets the linoleum of the kitchen, you stop suddenly, turn, and look at me. I sternly tell you "no." You respond by flashing your Lucky charms grin. I tell you no again. You used to then inch your way over the boundary while continually checking my face until I picked you up and moved you back to your play area. Now you instead turn around yourself, and pull over a wastebasket.

Just a few days ago, you started doing this:

(I love your little cloth-diapered bubble butt.)

You say "da da" and "ba ba" frequently now. Once, your dad tried to get you to say "ma ma" and you responded with a raspberry. You taught yourself how to drink out of a cup with a straw, and now you wave your arms and pant excitedly whenever you see your sippy cup.

You are also eating a ton. You've liked everything we've given you so far. The word at daycare is that whenever any other kid gets food, you want food too. I've so far been making almost all of your food, which is something that I swore only crazy obsessive parents did. And yet here I am, steaming carrots and pureeing them in the food processor, and getting excited that spring is here and that means FRESH PEAS.

One morning, when we were all in bed, you crawled into my armpit and fell asleep, and for the first time since you were a newborn, we all took a morning nap together as a family.

However, this expression makes me think that we may be in for some trouble soon enough.

When do we decide when "getting through this" turns into "gotten through it"? When you're one? Five? Eighteen? Who can tell? All I know is that every morning I can't wait to see this face.