Mamazen

June begins tomorrow. My year of blogging daily was really only two or three good months and now here we are, at June. Truth be told, we've been slogging through a VERY wet May and we have another week of rain forecasted. It's beyond depressing to have spring slipped by with very few sunny days.
However, the theme for June is NOW... and I think I need a little mindfulness around the NOW in my life. So, I'm committing to daily blogging for the month of June, to post at least one snippet of the NOW that means something, good or bad.
See you tomorrow!

47 months

My dear amazing Ruby,

You are now 47 months old. What a month it's been! You've continued to keep talking more and more, and your vocabulary is expanding each week. You seem to care more about what your peers are doing, and purposefully seek them out at times. 

You also have started asserting yourself much more, with what you want and don't want, and when someone (particularly Max and Shoghi) is in your way. As much as I'm not really a fan on your pushing another kid, it's obviously a way you're making your needs known, and sometimes choose words over actions. Instead of shying away from your peers you are choosing to interact, and this is important.  We are working on the nuances of HOW to interact, and we'll get there some day. 

 

We went to a street fair for the first time in a LONG time. Usually we avoid such activities that involve huge crowds and huge melt down potential, but we were going to support your Auntie Celeste's new business and decided to give it a shot. It was amazing. You were in a fantastic mood, and had a great time people watching and listening to music. 

 

You also ate lunch at the table, and mastered the spoon the entire time. As a matter of fact, you've pretty much mastered feeding yourself all your meals, and not making much mess! This fine motor skill is a huge deal! It's a giant task to get your brain to tell your hand to bring the spoon to your mouth, and you did it!  Sometimes when you're tired you still want our help, but it's pretty awesome for you to have this independence. 

You also had your first ice cream cone of the season. Well, let's rephrase that... you had yours, and mine. I'm happy to share with you cause it sure was fun to watch you devour it. I'm sure there will be many more shared cones in our future.  
 
You're totally into hats right now. You wore your daddy's favorite Michigan State hat out to do some gardening one day and I think it made his heart pretty happy. You are also really into this new hat that we bought you at the street fair, and it sure makes my heart happy to see you grab it as you head out the door. 

 

It's adorably fashionable, reversible, and when you put it on you say "cute!"  I have to agree. 

You are still really into the Wicked soundtrack. I mean REALLY into it. We play it in the car often and sometimes at home, and you sing along like your life depended on it. One day we looked back as you finished a song and you had your hands splayed out like jazz hands in a fantastic display of glee. (or is it Glee?)

 

You've had some big shifts this month, my sweet, and every one of them fills my heart with complete and utter joy. You wake me up each morning by climbing on top of my chest nuzzling your face into my neck. It's always earlier than I want to wake up, but you're the best reason to get up too early in the morning, so I get up.  Some days are rough, and some days are smooth, but every day I tell you I love you, and every day you say "I love you too!" and that makes every day perfect. 

Every day you grow up a little bit more, and every day my heart is equally proud and sad that it's happening. 

All my love, Mama
 
 

Awareness

As you probably well know, April was Autism Awareness month. The last week of the month was also National Infertility Awareness Week ending today, May 1st. As you can guess, I'm well aware of these two things. I had grand plans to blog endlessly about Autism, it's entry into our family, it's affect on our lives, and how it's made me a better mother in some ways, but life was busy, and the actual mothering of said sweet child got in the way of writing about it.  I'd also intended to post this past week about the toll infertility takes on a family, but sickness got in the way of that. 

Yesterday morning I had a long and tearful session with my therapist. Partially, I was just exhausted from Ryan being away all week and having to solo parent with a 102 fever for 2 days but mostly it was because my period started a week early. A short cycle isn't remotely a blessing when you're trying to make a baby. It's either a crazy fluke, or (with the tale of woe my hormones have been telling this past year) a sign that you're old before your time. I sat on her couch and wept and wept. I was filled with self loathing and anger and sadness. I wanted my life to be anything other than what it currently was. 

At one point I talked about how I had planned on writing about these topics and how I'd failed. My therapist remarked "You don't always have to be the cheerleader, spokesperson and warrior. Sometimes you can just be". And then I realized how much easier it is to BE the cheerleader and spokesperson than to sit with my own broken heart and injured soul. Writing about something is difficult, but NOT writing it and just feeling it can be completely overwhelming. 

And so that's where I am. Overwhelmed. We don't have a plan. Not for bringing a second child into our home, or for exactly what our next steps our with Ruby's development. Obviously our whole family needs some healing, physical and emotional and I don't know where to start. So we won't do anything. We'll just sit in this place of overwhelmedness and be. Eventually, I'll be able to take a deep breath and pick myself up and choose a path, but today, I am still.