It's the little things

To my snugglebear,

Years from now, when you are an independent, cranky teenager who wants nothing to do with her mother, I will comfort myself with memories like those that happened this morning.

You have a tendency to snuggle... well, more like burrow into me when we sleep. Let me back up. At 5:00 a.m. today you woke and stood in your crib and waited for me to get you. I brought you back to my bed, where you proceeded to grab, pull, stroke, and eat my hair. It's your way of soothing yourself when you are sleepy. You have never wanted a pacifier or your thumb. You want hair and yours is long enough now that you can suck on your own hair, but I guess mine is tastier. You lay on the pillow next to me and pulled my hair as I doozed in that half-consciousness, with one arm around you because you have no fear of the edge of the bed and you are quicker than a cat as I have learned the hard way twice now. When you were drowsy enough, you turned and flung yourself over my torso. You were laying so your back draped across my belly, your head hanging off my right side, your legs hanging off my left side. You love this. I don't; I worry about all the blood rushing to your brain and try to gently move you, so you flip to your tummy. Your tummy lays across my chest and your upper body hangs off my right side and your legs hang off my left side. You love to sleep like this but it never lasts too long. Eventually you roll yourself so that your head is tucked under my chin and your body does a half-curl around my head. This is wonderful for me except for the fact that by morning, you often smell of saturated diaper and your hair is so massive that it's often hard for me to breathe. I usually wiggle to try to find a comfortable spot because I know you like to sleep like this and I want you to be comfortable and sleep while I retain the ability to breathe.

More often than not, all this wiggling and adjusting ends up with you curled up with your forehead pressed to my cheek or forehead and your warm body enveloped by my arm. Your arm is splayed across my chest or buried in my hair. I like to tell myself it's because you can't get close enough to me. That somewhere in your 1 year old body, you feel the intense love/adoration/joy for me that I feel for you. I love this more than any other part of my day. This moment when I wake up to find you pressed against my face and the gentle movements of your breath remind me how small and precious you are. I will never forget how small but strong you are at this age. How determined, yet loving. How perfectly wonderful you are, how we are together.

All my love,

Mama

Words

I am a firm believer in self-improvement, mostly because I have lots to do. :) Yes, we should love ourselves just as we are—absolutely—but we should also want to be a better person, do better things, think better thoughts. By better, I mean more loving, positive, giving, selfless, etc.

With that in mind, I have been ferociously trying to remove a few words from my vocabulary. They are:

hate
retard
idiot
mine

Hate is a word that I think a lot, but only feel very rarely. It's just a quick, powerful word that seems so very handy. I don't want to think or feel or say hate, much less teach my daughter such a negative word.

Retard is a word that I haven't really used since I was a kid. But every once in a while, especially while driving, it pops in my head. Almost involuntarily, like the "C" word. Both awful, ugly words. I don't speak either word but I would rather not even think them. Because you know once they are in your thoughts, they could easily pop out of your mouth when you least want it to.

Idiot is a word that I say a lot, think a lot, and generally sums up my dislike for people or things. It's a gross word too. How would I feel if someone called me an idiot? I would feel pretty dang awful. So, I think it's something that should be removed from my vocabulary all together.

Mine. I have a 1 y/o learning to speak, so removing this from my vocabulary only makes sense. Mine. Yuck. I can't stand when a little kid grabs something and shouts "MINE!" The hair stands up on the back of my neck and I can feel my lip curling up into a snarl. I know all kids go through this stage, as will Ruby. But if I can side-step this or lessen the impact at all on Ruby, I'm going to do that. Besides how awful and rude it sounds, there's a whole moral, deeper reason that the word disgusts me.

I didn't realize how difficult it would be to change the way I think/speak. Attempting to remove a few words from my vocabulary has kind of exacerbated the problem. They are in my mind tumbling around the front, where I can easily see them and access them. Someone pulls out in front of me on an icy road forcing me to stomp my brakes, "IDIOT!" More snow falling from the sky, when it clearly could be turning spring, "I HATE winter!" It's all right there, for easy picking. But I will conquer this.

What words do you choose not to use?


(Sidenote: A word that I love? Typo. It's just fun to say. :)

Monday highlight

This weekend was quietly spent at home. I did lots of "spring cleaning" which is just another way to say that I pulled junk from places Ruby didn't have access to and suddenly she had a playground of new toys. There was lots of "No, Ruby!" "Don't eat that!" "Careful, Bean!" "Ugh! Ruby!"

I'm sure she was as tired of hearing "no" as I was of saying it.

Then this morning... I brought her to daycare. I put her in a highchair in the kitchen with all the other pretoddlers. The teacher put her breakfast in front of her as I waved goodbye. Ruby grinned and waved. No tears (Relief!). After spending the last 48+ hours straight with her, and her alone, I thought I'd welcome a little break, but no luck! I ached for her. I missed her so much today. I had to slide through the photos of her on my phone and imagine her compact little body sitting in my lap to get through my morning.

This evening when I picked her up from daycare, she heard the classroom door open, turned and saw me enter. Her face absolutely lit up. A huge smile broke out and she came crawling across that room as fast as she could. I got on my hands and knees to greet her. About 3 feet from me, she raised up so she was standing on her knees and flung herself into my arms. I had all I could do not to sob (RELIEF!).

My girl was back in my arms, exactly where she belongs.

Bedtime prayers

My dearest Ruby,

Tomorrow is... was your due date. I think about March 5 and my heart does this single, huge thump because with the thought of March 5 comes the memories of the prenatal appointments when they couldn't decide on my due date, and then the ultrasound that finally did decide my due date... the ultrasound where I learned that I was going to have a girl... the appointment where my Mom and I drove to Fargo to meet with a specialist because of all the issues I could have potentially had... the appointment I waited for over an hour and a half because the doctor had an emergency... the appointment where I waited, my unborn baby sitting on my bladder, and having to pee every 2 minutes but was glad for the distraction of having to pee because I couldn't imagine, didn't want to imagine what the emergency was that took my doctor away from me, from you... the appointment where the kind and wonderful nurse looked terribly sad and insinuated that the doctor had been prolonged by an hour and a half because some other couple was receiving horrible news... the tears I knew were waiting to spill from her eyes... the appointment where all the could-a, should-a, would-a's came tumbling through my mind and I was so numb with fear and worry and yet my insides were buzzing with excitement, but cautious excitement... It was all so jumbled and complex and I couldn't put into words what I was feeling if I had wanted to. When it was announced that you were a girl, I immediately cried. I knew it all along, of course. I could feel it. I knew you already. I sang to you at night, when I laid in bed dreaming about your future. I prayed for you, sometimes outloud, sometimes in whispers, and sometimes almost involuntary prayers only sent to God in my mind. You and I, we already were "tight" as they say. I loved you and I hadn't yet seen your face.

In that dark ultrasound room, I made my mom nervous when I started to cry, but when she realized I was crying from happiness, she cried too. On the way home from Fargo that evening, I drove as my Mom made calls to our family to tell them the happy news, my voice and emotions were not stable enough to relay my awesome news without sobbing. That it's a GIRL! And so far, so good... better yet, it's a HEALTHY GIRL! As she talked to my family members, I cried more. I could feel their love and relief through the phone, through my Mom's replies. As I drove and Mom talked, I thought about the couple that the doctor was with before me that evening. In my mind, I asked God why he had blessed me so richly. I prayed for that couple and I prayed for you.

Because of you, I have come to realize that I know frighteningly little about... mostly, well, everything. I know too little about the Bible. I know a little about Jesus and some about God. But not enough. Not nearly enough. I wonder if I studied the Bible every day for the rest of my life, if I felt like it would be enough. Probably not. What I do know is that God loves me and you. He also hears us. For a really, really long time I doubted that. When you were growing in my tummy, every night I prayed so fervently and feverishly that you would be born healthy... and in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, when you were about to be born in the ambulance only blocks from the hospital, I screamed/prayed to God in my mind that He couldn't take you. I loved you too much, we had been through too much together already, and that He needed to let me see this through... to see you through. As scared and angry as I was, I was praying and God heard my prayer.

All your beautiful, short life, I have prayed for you. Sometimes, as a parent that's all I know how to do. I can't fix the situation, I can't make it better, but I can pray. And in prayer, it gives me strength to let go and trust in the Lord. It's not easy, that's for sure. But every night, after we've gone through your bedtime routine, we say your prayers. When you were tiny, I would whisper the prayer as you slept. Now, I make sure to say prayers as you are awake, so you know and learn. As much as I can teach you to talk or count or read, teaching you to pray and to trust in God is about the most important thing I can do for you.

You and I have quite a history already, my love. But I see a wonderfully bright and hopeful future for you. For us both. I want to make sure that we both have our sights set on God, because really, He's all that matters and He's where all hope flows from.

You are so amazing. You really are my dreams come true. I think about how much I love you and it feels like my heart could just burst open. Then I think, God loves us even more than that! I don't know how that is possible. How blessed are we?

All my love (every last bit),

Mama

Dear new NICU mom

I didn't let this make me cry... too much.

http://www.lifewithjack.com/2012/10/dear-new-nicu-mom.html