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.

Dylan will be two in just a couple of months. Two. Years. Old. I think about that constantly, and yet still cannot seem to fully process this information. Because I just gave birth to her, like, yesterday. How does this happen?

So, since my darling little girl will be an ACTUAL little girl soon, I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that we (I) need to accomplish before too long. It feels like we’ll be graduating, moving onto the next stage, and while I’m hoping there isn’t an actual test at the end of this term, I realize there are certain milestones one is expected to master. Or at the very least, attempt.

Here, in no particular order, is Dylan’s cram list (I’ll provide the Red Bull and pancakes, she’s gotta do the heavy lifting):

-Weaning. I KNOW. We had this conversation a few months ago. Or a year ago, whatever. Anyway, the point is, I started weaning, it was going awesomely (is that a word?), and then we kind of stalled out. Bedtime and nap time were the ones we held onto, and the rare occasion when she woke up at night. I was ok with getting rid of those sessions a little more slowly. But then I started working at night, and in the interest of sleeping in a little later in the mornings, I started bringing her to bed with me, and giving her a boob to get her back to sleep. Rookie mistake. And now it’s kind of a…thing. I don’t even know where to begin on this one.
-Pacifiers. I don’t hate them. I actually kind of love them. They saved my sanity many, many a night. And day. And car ride. But, it’s almost time to ditch the paci. I’m just not nearly stupid enough to cut off the boob and the baby plug at the same time. Boob first, then pacis.
-Potty training. Um. Yeah. We got a toilet? It should just resolve itself, right? (Please, leave me to my delusions. I don’t even want to think about all the pee. All. The. Pee.)
-Big Girl Bed. This one sends shivers down my spine, even more so than the peeing. I mean, cribs have bars for a reason people. Toddlers are insane little creatures that would set fire to their own foot if given the chance and a box of matches. The idea of her being unshackled and able to roam freely, even if it’s just in her little bedroom, is enough to keep me awake for the next 7 years. I think we’ll push this one off for a little while longer. Cribs are cool in high school, right?

If we buckle down and put our nose to the grindstone and burn the candle at both ends and any other clichés you can think of, I am fairly confident we’ll get this done in the next few months. But I’m not worried, and honestly, I’m not in too much of a rush. Dylan has always, since we brought her home all tiny and wiggly and pink, taken the lead. When she’s ready, she’s ready, and she gets shit done. I know her well enough to not push her, to wait until its her time. I know this because I am the exact same way.

So if I change her diaper, nurse her, then put her to bed in her crib with a pacifier (ok, two) the night of her second birthday? Meh. I’m ok with that. I know her time is soon. And when her time comes to graduate, please, send me booze. Not wine. Hard shit. Because lord help me, a toddler who can pee on your floor in the middle of the night because her baby jail is gone and who cannot be silenced with a boob? There is nothing more terrifying.

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.

I know how much she loves me. I do. She tells me now, all the time, even at her age. I know by how tightly she holds onto to me when I hold her, by how big she smiles when I walk into the room. I know, because I am the first person she looks for, asks for, needs. I KNOW how much she loves me, because I do.

But she never smiles and runs to me like she does her daddy. At the end of the day, when his key turns in the door and he walks in, jacket folded over his arm, briefcase swinging by his side, she almost bursts with happiness. She doesn’t laugh like that with me. She doesn’t run that fast to me.

She loves me, but she doesn’t ever miss me. I’m never gone.

I was gone this evening, for a few hours. When I got home, and my key turned in the door, I heard her. I heard the squeal, the pounding of tiny toddler feet running to the door, to me. I opened the door to the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, the tightest embrace, the best kisses. Her little fingers prodded my face, her head rested on my shoulder, her voice whispered “mama” in my ear. She was bursting with happiness. For me.

She missed me when I was gone. I know how much she loves 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.

Two weeks. That’s how long it’s been since I’ve been here. Two weeks. That’s a long time, in blog time. I’ve missed it, have missed you all, but can I be honest? It’s been…nice. Quiet (ish) (I do still have the Queen D running around at full steam, natch). I’ve been ridiculously busy and crazed and stressed on more days than not in the last 14, but I feel at peace. Let me tell you why…

I’ve decided to cut myself some slack. Let myself off the hook. Stop expecting so much of myself. I have a child, a husband, a home, and a job, all of which require 100% of my time and attention and energy and effort. And that is where I want to put it. Which is not to say that I DON’T want to put as much love and time into my writing, but right now, I don’t have it to give. I was posting 3 times a week, every week, and I don’t think I can keep that up. I’m going to try, to write and share as much as I can, but when it comes down to hunkering down with my laptop to write, or playing Fairy Princess Parade with her, well, I can’t put my tutu and wings on fast enough, friends.

So I made a deal, with myself, to not be so hard on me. To cut me some slack, let out the line a little. I write down everything, and have weeks of posts scribbled all over the place, so when I get the time to share it here, I will. I have no intention of going away, or stopping what I do here, because I love it and need it and it’s a part of me now. But it’s a smaller part than my other parts, and that’s ok, and that’s how it should be. I am a writer, yes, but only because I am a wife and mother. They are my inspiration, my reason, my heart. And I need to nurture them now.

And I need them to nurture me.

Sigh.

It’s been over a week since I’ve been here, in this place I love so much. Over a week since I’ve been able to stop and listen to the words in my brain, and have enough time to put them down. It’s been a blur of toddlers and work and comings and goings and meals and cleaning and barely seeing the husband and and and and and.

Sigh.

Things have changed quite a bit in the last month. I started working, which is GOOD, but it’s a lot. Husband got a new job, which is AMAZING, but takes him away now, instead of letting him be here a lot. So husband is gone all day, all week, and I am here, and the kid is here, and it’s me and her all day. Every day. And into the evening. And during the night. And in the morning. And all day again. Every day. My job is in there, not the kid one, but the paying one, and while I love that I have it, it is a weight. It’s all weighted. And heavy on my shoulders. And my arms are getting tired.

Sigh.

I miss rest. I miss having time, even just an hour or two, to myself. I miss my husband. I miss writing. Life is here, and it is moving, and I’m caught in the tide, and I feel like I’m missing everything. But I am going to stop swimming, and relax, and go with the current. I’ll circle back around when I catch a calm spot.

Sigh.

My job is pretty boring. Not boring, in the “oh my god snooooooooooooze” kinda way, but in the repetitive, brain on auto-pilot, kinda way. So most nights, I tend to zone out and my mind wanders and when my mind wanders I come up with some really weird shit. Hence, this post.

{Side note: I read some really disheartening stuff for work, so the zone out is part unintentional, part necessity, because if I allowed myself to fully process the crazy that people spew, I would curl up in a fetal position and cry for days}

So, the other night, I started thinking about what I would want to be able to do if I could do anything in the world. Not like a job, but like a natural talent. I think I had watched The Voice earlier that evening, and whenever I watch singing or dancing shows, I spend an inordinate amount of time afterwards imagining how awesome it would be to have that much talent. Or, in my case, ANY talent. I can dance pretty well (for a white girl), but holy mother of god, I should not be allowed to sing. Even Dylan gives me side-eye when I do, and she eats lint from the floor.

Sometimes I think I would LOVE to be able to sing or dance like they do on So You Think You Can Dance or The Voice (not American Idol, because apparently you can only be on that show now if you’re prepubescent). I mean, who wouldn’t want to entertain the world with their beautiful talent? But then I think about ALL THE PEOPLE who can sing and dance, and how very, very few of them actually get to entertain anyone else but their mom and grandparents. And honestly, I don’t want to be able to sing or dance if the world isn’t watching. My family has to love me, I don’t need to impress them.

Then I thought about how cool it would be to be able to draw or paint something other than slightly embellished stick figures. But Jesus, that must take a ridiculous amount of time to practice and hone and what have you. And really, I want a low maintenance talent.

Know what I eventually settled on? After hours of thinking about it? Math. I would love LOVE to be able to do math. Not basic math (I can do THAT. Kind of.). I’m talking long, complicated problems. I want to be able to do that in my head. I don’t know why, since one, I don’t have a job that requires any math skills whatsoever, and two, have a phone that does whatever little math I need. But man, how cool would that be, to just bust that shit out at a party or something? “What’s that? You need to know what 8374648293747 divided by 3858593927264 is right this second? Oh, no worries, let me just BUST OUT MY BRAIN.” I realize that the odds of anyone, ever, anywhere needing to know anything like that are slim to none, but I’m not worried about that. Whatever time wasn’t spent doing math shit in my head would be dedicated to coming up with scenarios in which my incredible super power would come up ORGANICALLY. Plus! Oh my god, it just occurred to me: Dylan could take me to school for Show N Tell! As the thing she’s showing and telling! Can someone say best mother ever?

So, yeah. That’s what I do when I’m bored and zoning out. Well, that’s one thing, anyway. You know what I DON’T do when I’m bored and zoning out? Complicated math problems. How unfortunate. For us all.

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?

When you give a toddler an iPad, expect to find a shit ton of the following:

(She must open the camera while the case is on and just go apeshit, because I find more of these black squares than I know what to do with).

This is her handy work after, oh, 15 minutes with the iPad and a little freedom. She usually gravitates between the Toca Boca Hair Salon and Easy Bake Treats apps (both found on iTunes), with a Sesame Street video thrown in as a palate cleanser. She loves it, and can navigate her way through the games like no ones business. I don’t think she even realizes that she’s taking pictures, she just likes the little “click!” that the camera makes. I’m gonna introduce her to the actual camera app soon, and show her how to take reverse camera pictures, because I am dying for some shots of the inside of her nose.

I’m taking gallery suggestions for the public unveiling of her (clearly) award winning photography collection next month.