what are you trying to say?

i have a pink remote that i use for the tv. it's actually a controller for our nintendo wii, but i watch tv through the wii....so for all intents and purposes...it's a remote.
...although...when you are old enough to read this, words like "remote" and "wii" and "tv" may not make much sense anymore, now that i think about it.

but! for story's sake, go with it.

i have a pink remote that i use to watch tv.
you are FASCINATED by this pink remote. you don't care about the white one. the black one. or even the extra broken one we have especially for you to play with. those don't matter in the slightest. i guess because they aren't fabulous?

or...maybe you are trying to tell me something.
because every.single.day. you find a way to bamboozle that pink remote out of my safe place (on the couch...) and walk it all the way across the house into the office where you dispose of it in the trashcan.

the first time you did it, your daddy and i searched high and low around the house for the remote. it's hot pink. in a house full of muted neutrals. how could we POSSIBLY miss that?! i thought long and hard and remembered at one point when i was in the kitchen i heard a clutter form the office....and so i looked in the trashcan on a whim and TA-DA! there is was.

every day when you do this, i don't see it happening. which makes NO sense to me because i stare at you all day long. so how do you do it? do you wait for me to go to the restroom?  do you do it when i am trying to get the dogs to come back inside? or are you just so fast that you are able to steal the remote out from under my nose and travel 30 feet (give or take) where you can throw it away between my blinks?

your nana thinks you are trying to tell me that pink remote controls are trashy.

BAH! that's absurd!

i think you are like duncan. you save it for later in your hiding spot like he takes the newspaper into the backyard and buries it under a bush.

....but if you continue to use the trashcan as your hiding spot, lots and lots of things are going to be accidentally thrown away. you might want to rethink your secret place to be somewhere a little more permanent than that, love. just a suggestion. you, by no means, have to take my advise.

:)

of course...this is probably all part of your master plan to train mommy, isn't it? get her to do silly little things like check the rubbish before it goes out on tuesdays and once i have perfected that, you will teach me a new trick.

yes. you are teaching me a lot, kiddo. a lot more than i expected. :)

the day you were born.

i had spent the majority of the day with your uncle sean in the recording studio tracking vocals for his pending debut record. the studio we were recording in was actually a house that was turned into a studio. and the actual singing took place in the living room behind a big wall of fabric. the fabric helps control the sounds and makes the recording as pure as possible. 

what WASN'T as pure as possible was my voice. as a mommy becomes 9 months pregnant, the baby in her tummy takes up a LOT of real estate. precious space where my lungs used to be able to fill up with oxygen became incredibly cramped and singing was NOT as easy as it once was when breathing became difficult. sitting down made the inadequate space worse, but standing up for longer than 5 minutes was completely out of the question. 

i had one foot that was remarkably swollen-er than the other. mind you...they were both HUGE. but...ask me for pictures i will show you. my left foot was about one glass of water from blowing up. the doctor instructed me to keep my feet elevated to help with the swelling. 

so. here i am. too heavy to stand. to fat to sit. and trying to sing clearly and perfectly for the record. i had to spread my feet about 4 feet apart, so that even though i was "sitting" on a stool, i was still "standing" and my lungs could stretch out enough for me to be able to hold notes. 

and. even though i thought it all sounded good enough....

your uncle is a perfectionist. 

so i had to sing various lines, over. and over. and over. and over again until it was perfect. 

i.was.so.very.tired.

and. you were either just so sick of my singing that you wanted to run away...or you wanted to help sing...but...the contractions started in the studio. 

i didn't say much about the contractions, though, because i had been having them for almost a week and the doctor said you weren't ready yet. 

so after a grueling day in the studio, i went home and climbed into bed. as i lay in bed, i got a funny feeling that i was not going to be able to make it to work the next day and the first day of the month is my BIGGEST day. it's the day that everyone gets paid! so...i got up...came to the study and worked on payroll so that it would be done in the morning and no one would have to panic about being paid. 

i was up until 2am. minor contractions the whole time. 

the little contractions feel almost like ladies days cramps. you will learn this feeling by the time you are a teenager. and by the time you read this, you will have a very keen understanding about this feeling. 

it's uncomfortable, but it isn't unmanageable. and you just...deal with it. 

but. at 4am when i woke up and you were ready to evacuate....

heaven bless my heart...that is the most...i don't even know how to describe it. 

painful? sure. scary? yes. awkward? absolutely. "oh dear heaven i'm about to be a parent for reals"? yes. very very yes. 

i woke your daddy up and we put on sneakers as fast as we could and drove to the hospital. 

we had been at the hospital at 4am on monday night (two days before) with a false alarm. i was having similar pains but not nearly as intense. after being admitted, they decided i just had a bladder infection which caused false labor and that i was fine and needed to go home. this time, however...i couldn't even see straight. and i knew that if THIS was false labor...i had already decided just to keep you in my stomach forever. 

as we finally got to the delivery room, i got remarkably sicker. i spent most of the time for the next hour or so in the bathroom throwing up and being sick. until finally there was nothing left inside my body but you and bones. 

over the course of the next 4 hours i was hooked to machines and monitors to tell me how hard the contractions were, how far apart they were, what your heart beat was, what mine was, there was even a monitor that the nurse somehow was able to attach to your head while you were still in my tummy to register your stress levels. boy was THAT a weird feeling when you would wiggle around and make that wire move....

as i was being prepped for iv fluids and prepared for the epidural, no less than 10 people came into the room asking various questions about my medical history, insurance information, billing information, and i don't even know what else. 

it's hard to be able to carry 4 different conversations at a time while you are seeing stars and trying not to puke on yourself. as you now know...i can't handle over stimulation very well. 

your dad was VERY aware of this, and was probably scared out of his mind so he helped me diffuse some of the questions and i made everyone stop talking and would only allow people to ask one question at a time. 

finally...all the excitement died down. and the epidural came and i was finally warm and comfy and just sat there on the bed from about 9am until noon. 

at noon, the nurse had me do a "practice push" to make certain i knew how to breath and push correctly, etc. in the middle of my practice push, her eyes got huge and she said "STOP STOPS TOP!!!!!" and ran out of the room to get our doctor. 

10 minutes later, dr walsh was in the room and we were ready to push for reals. before i even finished the first push, you were in my arms. 

just like that. 

you were NOTHING like what i expected. i expected a bald baby. with very pale skin. 

you had a full head of the most beautiful black hair. 

i remember screaming "MY BABY!!!!!" and then i started crying and shaking violently and couldn't stop shaking. i was so very happy. so so very happy. i've never felt that kind of joy before in my life. and i just.could.not.stop.shaking. 

i was covered in blankets, you were taken away from me so that your dad could cut your umbilical cord, the nurses could clean you off and wrap you up in a diaper and a swaddle and while that was happening, dr walsh was helping me deliver the placenta (which is super gross and i will spare you the details about how it looked like a jiggly purple brain....) and then finally. FINALLY. you were handed to me again. 

you immediately started nursing and i finally stopped convulsing. 

your little nails were blood red. and so papery thin. they grew so long that they were attached over the tips of your fingers. i wanted to clip them right then and there, but i was too scared. so i just looked at you. you weren't very good at focusing. your eyes sort of rolled around a lot, but you kept trying and kept trying to see lights and colors. 

i know you were trying to process the sounds and smells and sights. what were you thinking? were you scared? were you confused? were you excited?  i know i was scared. confused. excited. 

and so much joy. 

so much absolute. pure. endless. and terrifying joy. 

....the day that you were born was exactly 2 weeks before the day that you were supposed to be born. which concerns me. i am late to EVERYTHING. your daddy is too. so if you are as early as 2 weeks, i was alarmed that you may not even BE my child...but don't worry. you are absolutely my little girl. 

i have tons and tons of love for you to prove it. 

lots of information

on wednesday, my world got a LOT bigger. you started walking. like...for REALS this time. not that fake "gotta hold on the the furniture" or the ridiculous "mom and dad have to practically BEG me and trick me with promises of candy and sharp objects" to walk kinda walk. this was IT.

we were in your music class...just like any other wednesday. only THIS time, you were being a holy terror. you didn't want to play the games. or to sing the songs. clap the hands, or play with mommy. you refused to be held, threw a tantrum if i held your hand...you set your sights further. to the pen that was underneath the cabinet across the room. or the small objects in the bottom of my diaper bag that was about 20 feet away.

do you have xray vision?

so i finally gave up on you. i looked around for any items that you would want lodged in your esophagus and moved them out of reach along with my diaper bag; the ONLY diaper bag in the room full of diaper bags that you have interest in (hey. you gots style!) sat you in the middle of the circle and ignored you because you were stressing me out....

as long as you aren't eating other babies or performing surgical prodcedures on your stomach with ink pens, i kind of have to turn off my radar for a few minutes to keep my sanity. you are welcome.

in the middle of the song, my friend, Amy, bumps my knee and points to you "KRISTA! pay attention!" and there you were....up and running!

i screamed (in the middle of the church music class) OH MY GAWD! and slapped Miss Holly in the leg and pointed to you. it was a pretty grand moment for you and for me. for me, because i was freaking proud and for you because....well...you are like me. you hold out until you have an audience to do something super cool. and you had the entire room captive as you tottled around. :)

they even clapped for you! that's my girl!

that was the day before your daddy's super old man birthday. he turned 31 the next day.

for his birthday, you and i went to his work and picked him up for lunch and took him to a park close to his office to have a picnic and to play on the swings for a bit.
because he works in such an urban atmosphere, it's touch and go to try to find a decent place to be a suburban family on an afternoon outing. and since time was of the essence, we had precisely 60 minutes to get him, find a good shade, throw out the picnic spread, shovbe the food in our faces and go back to his high-rise.

so i chose proximity.

AWESOME.

it looked harmless enough. and it probably is. it was next to a really cute baseball park though there wasn't really any grass to picnic on, so we had to sit on the cobblestone entrance to the baseball stadium...that's ok though, we got our dose of nature when we saw - in the stadium - a fairy ring of mushrooms aroung the pitchers mound. i mean....here we are. inner-city picnicing and getting to see woodland vegetation. so refreshing. :)

after we ate, i put my cookie the cookie that you and i were goign to share later on in my handbag and we went to the swings. your daddy pushed you in the little infant swing as my purse hung out in the infant swing next to you. i sat on your other side and played in the big-kid swing. it was all harmless enough.

then, a girl that was about 5 years younger than me came up out of no where. sat in the swing next to me, and started to play too. i talked to her a bit. asked her the time. made a comment about swinging never getting old. and then she got up and walked off. that was it.

which....at first i thought was kind of a neat exchange. two grown women just....wanting to feel youthful again by playing on an empty playground. and then going about our adult-like business.

but as we drove home, i started thinking about that girl. and what her story was. and where she was coming from. and where she was going. and that's when i got all panicked. a little late, i'm sure. even though nothing happened to us...something COULD HAVE.

now Jovie. as you get older, i am sure that you will read some of my stories about working downtown and my run-ins with misfits and riff-raff in the ghetto. i'm naive. so i always found it fun. but you need to know that EVERYONE IS A BAD GUY. NO ONE DOESN'T WANT TO MURDER YOU OR STEAL YOUR CANDY. ok? no one is excluded from you thinking they are bad. lesson learned? OK.

and my mind reeling about this woman making a point to be a part of our familial outing and then walking off without a word made me think of what she really wanted.
people buy drugs from people on playgrounds. did she think we had some? did she think we would ask for some? was she on the lookout of my purse?

oh dear heavens....bless my heart.
she could have stolen my our cookie!!!!!

i just left my our cookie inside of a little bag willy nilly for any bad person to steal from me us!

i feel like such a horrible parent for not protecting myself you from that sort of heartache!

i must be more careful with my cookies you. from now on!

next time, i'll just eat the cookie even though i don't have room for it, so no other nasty person gets their stinky fingers on it! it's MINE! MINE! MINE!

i mean. um.....
well... what i mean is even though most people seem nice, we have to keep our cookies safe JUST IN CASE.

empty-nesting

it's slightly ridiculous how sad i am when you are not with me.
i got the awful idea to go to six flags with your daddy for his birthday, and since you are SUPER under the required height for rides, you don't get to come with. Your nana is sick, so i called your mimi to see if she wanted you to come visit for the weekend.

deep down inside, i was hoping she would say no.
that way i could harbor resentment AND still have you all to myself. (two of my favorite hobbies)

but. she was thrilled to have you.
i took you to the lake house this afternoon around 3:00.
i dropped you off at 5:00.
i got back home around 7:00.

i've been pouting LOUDLY for 3 solid hours.

this is going to sound really creepy....but when you aren't here, i feel kind of pointless.
like i have no direction to go.
you take up so much of my day - in a good way - that when you aren't here, i'm sort of confused.

i don't know HOW i am going to manage you going away to college when you are 12 - because you WILL be some sort of freaky genius that leaves me WAY too early....i have rotten luck in that way...

hopefully by the time you move out of the house i will have found a different, less needy hobby than being your sidekick. but for now...i haven't. i just sort of stare blankly at the walls.
ugh. i hope you grow up to be slightly dumb and get held back in kindergarden about 7 times so that i can have you all to myself longer!

doesn't that sound more fun than college house parties?

: /

actually...on second thought. no. it doesn't. HEY! I KNOW! when you are in college, i can come hang out with you! win/win! i get to be with you AND i get to have reckless behavior!
this is such a great idea! you ARE a genius!

dream land

i just want to tell you that i am sorry.
you need a nap. and i need to breathe.
you are in your room at nana's. a room you are rarely in. you are terrified.
and i can't do it.
i'm so tired.
i have so much to do.
please. just go to sleep. you will feel safe in  your dreams. they are more familiar to you now than  your room at nana's. one day you will feel equally safe in both places. but for today...just dream.