It seems like I do one of these every other month or so. You know, the “I’m sorry I’m a terrible blogger who only blogs like, once a month” post. But it doesn’t make it any less true. I am a terrible blogger. I’m not all that sorry though, if I’m to be completely honest. It was summer, people! We had to do SUMMER!

But alas, summer is over now. I don’t know where the hell it went, but I suspect I lost sight of it somewhere back in July, when the insanity of holiday-birthday-birthday-birthday-birthday-holiday began. Fun was had, oh yes it was. I sincerely hope you don’t expect a full summer recap, because I won’t be doing that. BUT, I will offer you a few photographic tidbits of the last few weeks, hows about that?

First up: Dylan’s Birthday. Oh my god. This kid is awesome, and awesome kids deserve awesome birthdays, so dammit! That’s what she got! Disneyland, party, presents. I had a mad case of the greens all weekend.

She asked for a solid week after it was all over when her next birthday was. She’s still asking for presents. And we may let her blow out candles on her dinner on occasion, just to get her over the hump.

Toms birthday was a couple of weeks after Dylans but it was much more low key. I asked, but he said he didn’t want a pool party and Hello Kitty! cake, so whatever, his loss.

On Saturday, we went to the Ronald Reagan Library to check out the Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives exhibit. It. Was. AMAZING. We are major Disney nerds, so for the super fan, this was awesome. Even for the less-obsessed, it’s worth checking out. So much history and memorabilia, from all my childhood favorites, and most of Dylans. We loved it, and also got the chance to walk through the Ronald Reagan museum, which was so beautiful. If you live anywhere near Simi Valley, I highly recommend visiting. I took so, so many pictures of the exhibit itself, and haven’t had any time to edit any of them, but I have a few from the gardens:

And one of Dylan breaking through the Berlin Wall towards freedom:

This is Tom, thinking about how much it would cost to own our own plane:

Dylan is unimpressed.

So, there you have it, some pictures to prove that we were supersupersuper busy and I just couldn’t possibly find the time to write. Oh, and somewhere in there, my kid got all old and shit:

Gosh, she sure is pretty ::loads shotgun to prepare for 14 years from now::

Hey! We also had ice cream:

And we even found the time to go to Costco and ride our bikes!

See? Not a second to spare. But, sadly, summer is over now, and I imagine all the fun will cease immediately. So I’m hoping (trying) to get into a more regular posting groove. I’m not going to promise anything, and I’m not going to hold myself to a certain schedule, but things are slowing down a bit, and I’d like to spend my free time here, if you’ll have me.

How was your summer? As fun as museums and Costco? Doubtful, but I hope it was full of love and memories were made. Stick around, yeah? I’ll be around too.

One of the things I remember most from those first days and weeks and months is how much I held you. It seemed as if I never put you down. Out of necessity or first time mom possessiveness, I couldn’t say for sure, but you spent most of your time in my arms. It was hard and beautiful and comfortable and stifling and I recall those memories sometimes, when I’m trying to sleep or relax, and I can see your tiny fingers and toes and I can smell your smell and feel your downy hair, and it calms me. You WERE my baby, once upon a time in a land far, far away. Looking at you today, on your 2nd birthday, it seems impossible. But you were. I remember.

You tell me, “I luz you mama!”. You crawl into my lap and ask for big huggies, and if I don’t squeeze tight enough, you say bigger. BIGGER HUGGIES MAMA. Then you’re off, and my lap is empty again. I think you notice sometimes, maybe a certain thing my face does or the slightest watering of my eyes, and you come to me and you’re my baby again. But just for a moment, just enough to take the edge off. One of the biggest adjustments for me when you were born was how much you needed me. I’d never experienced that level of dependence. Now, I’m trying to adjust to how much you don’t need me. And how much I’m starting to realize I need you.

You still look just like your daddy, but oh boy, do you have my insides. You’re a yeller, in frustration and joy. You are quick to anger, but quicker to laughter. You crave independence and space, but need to know I am but an arms length away to be able to truly relax. You are so, so smart. I thought we’d have a few years before the “Whys” took up residence in our home, but alas, your curiosity is insatiable, and I spend the majority of our day explaining to you how every single thing in the world works. A simple “because I said so” just will not suffice, much to my and your fathers chagrin. You GET stuff, stuff that I don’t think an almost 2 year old should get, but then what the hell do I know. You’re shockingly girly, in a rough and tumble in a tutu and lipgloss kind of way. I am NOT, so this is new for us. You sing, made up songs and songs you hear on the radio and songs you hear me sing. And you dance. Oh baby girl, how you dance. With abandon and joy and pure, unadulterated madness. You dance like there is no one else in the room, even in a room full of people. I hope you never stop doing that. Hell, I hope we all START doing that. You’re not what I would call a “people person”. Like me and your dad, you’re wary of people you don’t know or don’t know well, and you play your cards pretty close to the vest in situations where you’re not 100% comfortable. But once you decide you like someone, they are beholden to you, forever and forever. I hope you never stop doing that, either.

My sweet, sweet girl. I cannot believe you’re already 2. I cannot believe you’re only 2. I feel like I’ve known you forever. And maybe I have. Maybe you’ve always been here, just waiting for your moment to join us and complete us and fix us. You made me so much more than a mom 2 years ago. In many ways, you made me whole. I have loved every single second of the last 2 years, the good and the bad and the horrible. And I am so, so, thankful to be yours. Happy, happy, happy birthday, my amazing Dylan Rose. My big girl, my little baby. I can’t put into words how very much I love you, but it is more than the moon and stars and the ocean and sand, times forever. Happy birthday, baby.

Now slow down.

Hey there. How the hell are you? It’s been a while. Again. I KNOW. Please, allow me to essplain. Not, it is too much, allow me to sum up (random Princess Bride reference FTW): summers are busy ’round these parts. My birthday, Dylan’s birthday, Tom’s birthday, plus 2 of my nieces birthdays, plus it’s summer! The season of fun and beaches and swimming and cold food that requires no cooking! Forgiven? Sweet.

Since we last spoke, I had myself a little birthday. Well, first, America had herself a little birthday, which we celebrated in true patriotic style by going to Disneyland. We don’t need much of an excuse to go to the Mouse House, but we’ve never been on the 4th, so we thought, hey! Let’s do it! It was fun, as Dland is wont to be, but a wee bit crowded. And ::whispering:: kind of a crappy fireworks show. I mean, they have a giant fireworks show every damn night for cripes sake, you’d think they would pull out all the stops for Murica’s big day. But alas, they did not, and Dylan was super pissed that Tinkerbell was not featured prominently (that’s how often we go to Disneyland: my toddler has pretty much memorized the choreography of the fireworks show). Meh, now we know. Here’s a gratuitous picture of my cute kid:

My big day is the 9th, but we celebrated a little early by taking a roader to San Diego with the little, Tom’s brother Charles (whose birthday is also the 9th), and his girlfriend Cheri. Drove down on Saturday, stuffed our faces with seafood and fancy ass cake from Extraordinary Desserts (if you like sweets, and you are ANYWHERE NEAR SAN DIEGO, go to this place. Go now!), got awesome ass presents (a tattoo for meeeeeeeeeee! More to come), and then did the obligatory Sea World trip on Sunday. Now, I had not been to Sea World since I was probably 8, so I had zero idea of what to expect. Which turned out to be a blessing, because I would’ve been really pissed by what we got.

Sea World is, basically, an amusement park with sea creatures. Dolphins, whales, turtles, sharks, all manner of fish and fowl, all present and accounted for, and adorable as all get out. That much I was prepared for, and looking forward to (and thoroughly enjoyed). But the amusement portion of the amusement park? Ummmmm, how do I say…thumbs down. We’ve been spoiled by Disneyland. Nothing compares to it. Food, rides, ambiance, experience: they think of everything. Sea World feels sort of like a big county fair with whales and aquariums. It was weird. But, we got the tickets for free thanks to Charles, and Dylan had a great time, so it was a successful day. Would we go back? For free, yes. I would never buy tickets. Unless Dylan wakes up one day and decides she wants to be a dolphin trainer, in which case I’d buy a season pass and live vicariously through her. Some more gratuitous pictures, for your perusal:

I will say, I was terrified of staying the night in a hotel with Dylan. She’s never slept away from home, and toddlers have this weird thing where they flip the fuck out for absolutely no reason and without warning, so I was prepared for no sleep at all on Saturday. Um, she slept better than anyone. To whit:

Didn’t even wake up when I changed her clothes. The key is, wake them up super early, deprive them of a nap all day, pump them full of sugar 2 hours before bed, and wait for the inevitable crash. Then take pictures and laugh at your passed out kid, and resist all urges to draw on them with a Sharpie and put their diapers in the freezer. Next time.

So that’s our first 2 weeks of July. We’re pretty much catching our breath this week before jumping right back in with more birthdays, parties, Disneyland, maybe another trip or two to who knows where. We’ve got time and a cool as kid. Anything can happen.

I am not a particularly “girly” woman. I’m feminine and all woman baby, but dainty and foofoo and precious? Nope. I’m more Katherine Hepburn than Marilyn Monroe. So it totally makes sense that my daughter, fruit of my loins, would be a complete, pinkified, tutu-ed with a pair of glittery fairy wings, PRINCESS.

Hold me.

I never pushed the princess culture on her. Hell, I don’t even remember introducing her to it. I think the first Disney movie I played for her was Cars. But little by little, her royal DNA has taken over. If it’s pink, she likes it. If it has sparkles, Jesus, she wants to live in it. She notices shoes. Makeup. Clothes. Anyone in a skirt is a “pweeeeety pwincess”. She can recognize and name several Disney princesses, despite having never seen their respective movies. She talks all day about wanting to hug and kiss Pwincess Tinana and Awiel. And lately, the first thing she asks for after the boob and some breakfast in the morning, is her pink tutu and fairy wings. And she wears them. ALL DAY LONG.

I thought it would bother me a little, this obsession with all things pretty. But truth be told, I find it absolutely freaking adorable. It brings me such joy that she’s identified and embraced this part of her ever changing personality. I may not understand it, and the thought of the makeovers in my future is enough to make me shiver, but it’s her. And if she wants to prance around in a tutu and feather boa while she sings her ABC’s, well, who am I to judge? She’s the most perfect prettypretty princess that ever there was. Who also happens to be Asian smart, and tough as a Roller Derby broad.

Plus, she has showed quite the interest in bugs lately. Which, gross. But not pink.

It hit me as I was putting groceries into the car. I looked over at her, sitting in the cart with her sunglasses on, hair in a ponytail, laughing at airplanes and talking a mile a minute about God knows what, and suddenly my breath caught in the back of my throat, and the backs of my knees got cold, and the rushing in my ears drowned out all other noise, and I realized:

My baby is GONE.

And in her place, is this new little person. With her own mind and personality and heart. I don’t know when it happened. It felt sudden, like a flip was switched somewhere while we were sleeping, and we woke up in a new frame in the slide show. In reality, it’s been happening, slowly, in tiny pieces, everyday since that day almost 2 years ago. But when days fly by in a blur, it’s hard to pinpoint the subtlety of growing up. The silent changes go unnoticed, until they’re not silent, until they’re singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star all by herself without any help from mama (SOB).

I’m ready for this new person, and all the light she brings. But I’m not ready to not have a baby anymore. Which is confusing to me, because I thought I was. Would be. It’s hard to have someone so dependent on you, but not as hard, as it turns out, as giving that someone their independence, letting go a little, tiny bit at a time. My heart swells with pride when I see her playing by herself, or with little friends. But the ache that comes when I’m rebuffed when I attempt to join her, oh, the ache. I want her to do it herself, but I want her to need me. I need her to need me still.

So maybe I hold her a little longer, a little tighter, when she asks for a hug. Maybe I bring her, half asleep, to lay next to me in bed in the mornings, so I’m the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes, the first she lights her smile on. Maybe weaning has slowed down and taken a back seat to embracing the quiet time we share, that only we can share. Thousands of little moments that make up the big ones. Little moments that mean so much.

Exact moments are big. Huge. But so are the little ones, the ones that fly by in a blur. Those moments are the ones I try to catch and hold close. They’re the ones that I want to remember. I can’t take pictures of them, or write them all down, but I have them, inside. They help me keep my baby close, as she walks farther away from me.

We’ve been to Disneyland 3 times in the last 2 weeks (thank you, annual passes!). You’d think I would be tired of it by now. But you would be wrong. In fact, I’m probably singing my way through It’s a Small World for the 5th time as you read this. And, as you can see by the look of crazed excitement on my childs face in these pictures from her first time (technically, her second time, but she was only 1 when we took her for the first time, so it didn’t really count), it’s shocking we haven’t moved down the street from the place by now.

There is nothing like seeing your child see Disneyland for the first time. It was one of the most amazing moments I’ve had as her mom so far. I am so, so lucky.

We found these sunglasses for her in the dollar bin at Target. These are her car glasses, and every time I buckle her in her seat, she asks for them. “Suglasses? Suglasses mama?” At first, she just played with them, and occasionally aimed well enough to get them close to her head. And then one day, she figured it out, and now she wears them all the time. 99% of the time, she puts them on right. But some days, a girl just needs to wear her shit upside down for a car nap. Amirite?

I made a quasi resolution in the beginning of year that I didn’t share with anyone, because I was absolutely positive that it would be broken, like, later that day. The resolution was to go the entire year without buying anything NEW for me and the girl child. Meaning, not paying retail for clothes and such, with a few notable exceptions: underwear/lingerie (because EWW), shoes (also, eww, and I realize that many people buy perfectly good shoes secondhand but let me assure you that I cannot be one of them {this one applies only to me, because kids shoes are freaking expensive, yo}, work out clothes (too much…personal sweating), and a bathing suit (again, this applies to me, not the diaper clad small). The shoe rule will work in my favor very, very soon, when I get my grubby little hands on the most adorable pair of crocheted Toms. For me. And I guess one for the kid too.

A little background: I worked in retail for a very long time (12ish years?), and working in retail is the quickest way to develop a little, ahem, problem with shopping. You see it first! Brand new! At a discount! It’s hard to resist the siren call of the perfect boyfriend jean or LBD, even if you already have both hanging in your closet at home. When I got pregnant, my husband made me promise I wouldn’t go overboard on buying baby stuff, and I didn’t, for the most part. I knew that buying tons of cute and expensive clothes for a newborn was literally throwing money down the drain, since we probably wouldn’t be leaving the house for quite some time, and when we did, it wouldn’t be to anywhere that a onesie and bloomers wouldn’t be appropriate. And I was lucky enough to have a lot of awesome moms who gave me tons of clothes and gear, which is the way to go. So I stayed in control with baby stuff. And being pregnant and then postpartum makes clothes buying excruciatingly nightmarish, so my own consumption has slowed quite a bit. But the last time I cleaned out my closet, I found so much stuff with tags still attached, it really got me thinking. Why am I buying stuff that I may never wear, and paying full price?

Hence, the Nothing New Resolution. About a month ago, I participated in a clothing swap with some other women and moms, and I scored some great pieces (and got rid of quite a bit of excess in my own closet). And today, my lovely friend Tessa and I attended the presale day for LA Kids Consignment Sale. It’s a giant sale that happens about 6 times a year, where anyone who wants to can register and sell their baby gear, clothes, furniture, toys, etc. We did not participate as consigners (oh my god the time involved in that), but we did purchase passes to shop the sale a day before it opened to the public (consigners and volunteers also get the shop early, for free). I didn’t really know what to expect, so when I walked into the WAREHOUSE, I started hyperventilating a bit at the sheer magnitude of what was before me. It. Was. MASSIVE. Rows and rows and rows (and rows and rows and rows) of clothes, books, toys, strollers, swings, bouncers, cribs, gliders, potty seats, and on and on and on (seemingly into infinity). Anything that anyone can possibly even think of wanting for their baby or kid, was there. The best part? It was there, in (mostly) great condition, for a fraction of what you’d pay retail. Bouncers for $20. Books for .50. High end strollers like Quinnys and B.O.Bs for $80. It was a bargain oasis.

Since it was my first time, I went in without a game plan, and that’s what you need for this kind of shopping. You need a list of must gets, you need shopping partners, comfy shoes, and time. I had an awesome (but equally flummoxed) partner in Tessa, but nothing else. Hell, I even brought the kid. We did browse some, and I did end up scoring some good stuff: 2 pairs of shorts, a skirt, a tank, a pair of sandals, and 8 books for $20. That alone is reason enough to hit up the next sale, which incidentally, is only a month away!

So I’m starting my list now, in preparation for the April sale. I want to get most of her summer wardrobe, a lot more books, and I really want a jogging stroller so she can go on runs with me. And I’m sure I’ll find a few extra goodies too. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go the whole year without buying anything new, but the LA Kids Consignment Sale will make it pretty much a cinch for the girl. I don’t know if I can swallow paying full price for stuff anymore, knowing that I can get it for $2. I’m a smart girl.

Now, if only they had this sale for grown ups. I want to start thrifting, but am clueless as to where to begin. So if you’re a thrifting mama (and I know some of you are masters, judging from my Instagram feed), I would love some tips/advice/pointers. I’m willing to pay more than $2 for my stuff. But not much. Like I said, I’m a smart girl.

Dylan loves music. LOVES. As soon as she hears any kind of beat, she drops whatever she’s doing to dance. And then once the song ends, she looks at me with her big, gorgeous brown eyes and asks, “again?”. And I, of course, rewind the song once or twice or seventeen times, because she always asks so sweetly, and because oh my god, she is heartbreakingly cute when she dances.

She doesn’t seem to have a favorite song or type of music, and we don’t really censor or monitor the kind of music we listen to around her. I mean, we’re typically rock/some pop people, so unless the song is laden with curse words, it’s fair game. But, I’ve noticed that certain kinds of music elicit different reactions and behaviors. For example, I’ve learned not to play LMFAO or Lady Gaga right before bedtime, lest I want to spend an hour peeling her off the ceiling. Sometimes, you just need something mellow. And I’m sorry, but kids music? Blows. Hard. I’d rather listen to myself singing than listen to that crap over and over again, and I sound just awful.

So when my dear friend Tracy Bartelle told me she had an album she wanted to share with me, of soothing (but gorgeous) music she composed herself, I was so excited. And oh my god, you guys. It is so beautiful. So. Beautiful. “The Secret Life of Trees” is one of those albums that you want to be listening to when you’re soaking in a hot bath, or unwinding with a glass of wine, or twisting yourself into a pretzel doing yoga. It’s so relaxing. I play it during parts of the day when I need the girl to mellow out a bit, and just hang out reading books or lounging around or whatever. And, it doesn’t put mom to sleep. Bonus.

I’ve known Tracy for a couple of years. We met while we were both slaves to the man at Bloomingdales, and she is just about the sweetest thing alive. She is originally from Australia, and sounds just like Olivia Newton John, which is reason enough to love her. She’s a very, very talented musician, and has composed and produced soundtracks for several television shows and movies. “The Secret Life of Trees” is her latest solo venture, and it is so lovely. I’ve been listening to the flow version of the album, so it’s continuous with no breaks between songs, which is also a plus when you’ve got a toddler with the attention span of a bean. Both versions are available on iTunes and can be found here, or on Amazon here. Trust me, you’ll love it. We do. Dylan even has a special dance for it, wherein she closes her eyes and sways in place. Come on, now you have to get it. Don’t you want to see if it makes your kid do the same?

Full disclosure: Tracy offered to send me a copy of her album because she knew Dylan would probably enjoy it. I offered to write a review here after listening to it. I didn’t receive any compensation, other than the album. I did it because I loved it, and Tracy is pure light./em>