Saisquoi?

This post is L-O-N-G overdue, and I apologize to Annika both for the crappy quality of my cellphone pictures and for the fact that it's taken me so long to post about Emmett. I promise I will take better pictures once I can find my actual camera.



I loved knitting this sweater. The yarn was a YarnPirate teal I bought many moons ago. The pattern was straightforward and the finished product is practical. Unless you're really particular regarding the placement of buttons for boys and girls, this is one of very few items I've knit that could totally be used by a male sibling, should such a thing come to pass. Of course, this sweater doesn't actually have buttons, because C finds them to be offensive.

Toddlers. They are weird.



Speaking of toddlers...I'm not going to have one for much longer. Someone is coming right up on three. MY BABY! WHAT HAPPENED?! C is getting so big. She talks all. The. Time. She loves mermaids and princesses and skulls and dolls and her family and rubber chickens and OMGgiraffes. She was a giraffe for Halloween and is still talking about it.



We have had a very difficult few months Chez Saisquoi, but things seem like they might be mending. I'm debating on how much to air via blog post because some of the stories are not entirely mine to tell. And the ones that are mine to tell are not happy and cheerful and I don't like how they present me as being, you know, human and all. But, at the same time, maybe it's helpful to post the difficult alongside the easy...the awful alongside the awesome. I don't know.

What I do know is that US Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I have a whole heck of a lot to be thankful for--starting with my big girl who makes turkey pictures with handprints and wants to sing Puff the Magic Dragon every night at bedtime, snuggled up with her Mama and Daddy.

PS: I do have buttons for the sweater. But since my child won't wear the sweater if it has buttons? I'll sew them on when she outgrows it. Oy.

This week, Catherine at Her Bad Mother wrote a wonderful post about herself, her mother, and the unseen and unacknowledged beauty of young women.

A few weeks ago, I was looking at my daughter who is so beautiful it sometimes hurts to look at her.



She doesn't have a clue. She just does her thing...and does it as fully and completely as possible, which only makes her lovelier.

And as I sat gazing at my beautiful daughter, I felt my heart start to break with the knowledge that one day, probably when she hit Middle School, she was likely to come stomping into the house and tell me how ugly she was. And I would tell her, No, Baby, you're not. You're beautiful. And she would respond with an eye roll and the "You're my Mom; you have to say that" comment before dragging herself to her room, slamming the door, and having a sulk.

How do I know she'll do it? Because I did it to my Mom.

After I had this realization, I tried really hard to apologize to my Mother--like so many things she told me I'd someday understand, I get it now. But the words wouldn't come out--I was so horrified and upset with how I imagined I made her feel--how I would feel if C today decided to behave like my teenaged self--that all I could do was weep and say I'm so very sorry...I just didn't know...

And my mother, being my mother, gave me a hug and said "It's OK. We all do it. It's part of being a daughter and part of being a mother. And when C does it, you'll be sad and frustrated, but you'll both be OK. And one day, she'll get it, too."

I wish there was a way I could keep it from happening--a way I could help C always see what I see. So that she always knows she's beautiful and loved and smart, regardless of what she thinks the other kids are thinking. She's getting so big so fast...there are days now I can see the independence (I do it, Mama!) and I know that even if I found a way to help her bypass all that self-doubt and angst, she wouldn't let me.

It's hard, isn't it? Having to trust that they'll come out OK on the other side when they refuse all offers of help? When you see all the beauty and all the potential while they focus on the scars and the failings?

Maybe she'll bypass some of it. I suppose it could happen. After all, it takes a strong woman to pull off a panda suit.

I love books. The feel of them, their smell, the stories contained within. I just love them. We...well I...have quite a collection. Every bookcase in our house is packed and there is at least one book resting on every flat surface. And I have so looked forward to the opportunity to share them with my children.

C...well...C took a long time to come by. When I found out I was pregnant with her, I had basically given up hoping The Beloved and I would ever have a child of our own. But, lo and behold, I was wrong. And so now I have someone with whom to share stories old and new.

We were fortunate to receive many books from friends at a baby shower prior to C's birth. And I was so excited to begin reading them with her. When we all came home and I held her in my arms and tried to read, all I could do was cry. There she was...she was so perfect...and she was ours and we were hers! And whenever I tried to share my books--our stories--I wept. I wept because she was wonderful and because she was a miracle and because I didn't believe I would ever have the opportunity that stood before me but there she was in my arms looking up at me in all of her perfection...and probably because of all the hormones, too, but that's something else.

After a week or two, I gave up trying to read picture books because I couldn't possibly get through them. So, the first book we read together ended up being Coraline by Neil Gaiman. We then moved on to stories from The Blue Fairy Book...which I had actually started reading aloud to my belly during the latter part of my pregnancy.

Eventually, I could read picture books and board books with her. She loves her stories and will frequently bring people books to share...Sometimes she wants The Very Hungry Caterpiller, and sometimes she favors The Essential Gandhi. She's a strange one.

This morning before school, she brought me a board book I had purposefully hidden: The Velveteen Rabbit.

The pages have a fair amount of text on them, considering it's a board book, so I just talked about the pictures thinking that by avoiding the actual text of the story, I'd be OK. And...so close...but no. When I got to the picture of the rabbit in the bag of discarded toys and the Nursery Fairy, I could feel my throat close and my eyes well up and somehow I made it to the end and only cried a little. We repeated the process this afternoon.

At bedtime, she wanted it again, but this time she wanted the whole story. She wanted me to read it to her, not just point out the pictures. So I did. And I cried a little when the old rocking horse talks about being Real. And I cried some more when the boy pronounces the rabbit Real. And I sobbed when the Fairy talks about how she can make the rabbit Real because he has been loved by a child. All the while, my poor child is looking at me in utter confusion: Why do bunnies make Mama so sad?

The story has always made me teary, but it's somehow different...truer...when I tell it to my own dear girl than it was the last time I read it. I can't help but wonder if it's because C has made me Real by loving and needing me as much as I love and need her.

I don't get as much time with C as I would like to have. It's the biggest struggle I've had since becoming a mother and returning to work. I hesitate to even refer to it as work/life balance because such a thing is not possible with an impossibly cute and naughty toddler on one side and a 40 hour per week plus 45 minute each way commute on the other.

My solution has been to make the most of our all-too-limited Mommy-Daughter time and build in some special routines. Currently, Saturday mornings are ours. We get up early and go to the Farmer's Market. Sometimes we go to the playground. Then we go out for breakfast. It's not huge, but it's ours. And it's special.

Also special? Watching your kid DEVOUR eggs and homefries. If you're ever at the Friendly Toast, C highly recommends the Guy Scramble. She thinks it would be really great with coffee, but Mama isn't quite ready for that level of special.

Still no finished knitting to show you. If anyone is still there. Bueller...Bueller? Yeah. Anyway.

I've struggled over the past several weeks on whether I should shut down the blog entirely or just let it change focus in some sort of mostly natural way. I mean...my life has changed pretty dramatically in the past six months; it's only fitting that my focus would change as well. But does the world need another Mommy blog? Probably as much as it needs the Bebe Gloton, but that's another matter for another day.

Then the question becomes, if the world doesn't need another Mommy blog, do I need to blog? And, while need is a very strong word here, I've come to the conclusion that I miss having some sort of outlet. It's funny--I write all day at work, but don't get to say anything. And I come home to my baby and my husband, both of whom I adore, but both of whom look at me cross-eyed whenever I try to say what's on my mind. Granted, by the end of the day most of my thoughts are a garbled mess of near insanity, but still.

So, I guess, expect less knitting and more ramblings to come. Suffice to say that my deep thoughts currently involve breastfeeding, babywearing, and cloth diapering. The Tadpole and I still go to church, I'm still greatly bothered by the inability of large portions of the human race to GET ALONG and such, but stringing a series of words into a coherent thought has become a Herculean task on most days.

Would I change it, though? No way. I love being a Mom. Like, crazy-love in a way I didn't think was possible. The Tadpole is a rockin' baby and in spite of the mega-sleep deprivation and complete loss of knitting/reading/yoga/self time, I'm having a blast. The only change I wish I could make would be to spend more time with her. My job + commute keeps me away from her 10 hours a day, which is miserable. If I won the lottery this week, I would seriously quit my job, pull the baby from daycare, and buy a Suburu Outback so that I could properly revel in my Mommy-glory. Well, I'd quit my job and pull the baby from daycare, at any rate.

Mommyhood hasn't necessarily been easy, but it hasn't been as hard for me as it is for some. I haven't had PPD and except for the first two weeks of "getting used to things," breastfeeding hasn't been difficult. Pumping sucks (ha-ha--yes, I deserve to be put down for that), but nursing is...good. I have a cheerful and mostly-healthy baby (I suspect we have some allergies in the works, but there's very little I can do about that right now except try to keep my house clean). Life, overall, is very, very good.

Particularly when bananas are involved.