On Weaning

I'm going to be honest: It often feels as though I have about four readers of this precious blog of mine, and I'm a writer...and writers like an audience. Well, this writer likes an audience. But I persist because 1) I've persuaded myself that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of you out there just dying to hear about Hadley's life and 2) this blog has turned into a great way for me to process motherhood and record some of Hadley's daily life. When she's older, she can moan and tell me to stop sharing her life with the world, but for now, I'm in charge of this space.

But tonight, I'm going to post on a topic that's a bit personal, so if there are only four of you, I'm cool with that.

Hadley is in the amorphous place between babyhood and toddlerhood, and she's running toward toddlerhood faster than I can believe. She's walking all over the place; eating almost everything (last night, at Mumsie and Granddaddy's house, she ate olives and goat cheese, which is proof that she is indeed my child); expressing her opinion (more proof that she's mine); talking ("hat" and "toes" are new words); and looking more and more like a little girl every day.

But one remnant of her babyhood remains: nursing.

When Hadley was born, I was determined to breast feed her for a year. It was difficult and painful at first, but I got through those first weeks knowing that it was best for her. And then, one day, about a month into Hadley's life, it was easy--and wonderful. All that snuggling, all that togetherness, I loved it, and I could tell she did, too. I loved that nursing was convenient and free and formulated perfectly for her.

When I went back to work, I pumped at least three times a day, and in case you faithful readers have never pumped, let me assure you there is nothing glamorous about it. It added at least 15 minutes to my morning routine; it was the last thing I did before bed every night; I squeezed it in between meetings ("squeezed" being the operative word there); and it made me feel like Bessy the Milk Cow. But still, it was worth it.

Those first few weeks, I wondered how I'd make it a whole year. A whole year later, I wonder how I'll give it up.

We're down to two feedings a day: one when she wakes up in the morning, and one before she goes to bed at night. (Now, after we put her pjs on, she looks at Jason, waves and says "bye-bye." It's pretty funny.) My hunch is that she's nearly ready to wean, and I should just do it once and for all. But I keep putting it off. "Just one more week," I tell myself. "Not now, we're getting ready to go out of town. Not next week, Jason will be in Chicago for business." I have a million excuses, but the real reason I haven't done it is that I will miss it.

Her growing independence is such a good and healthy thing, but it means that she's often too busy to be held. One of the greatest joys in life--the best, simple gifts moms get--is the feeling of our babies pressed up against us. I can't let that go just yet.

Just Plain Fun...

When we took Hadley in for her one-year-old doctor's appointment last month, the doctor (who has grown kids) said, "I loved the summer after my kids turned one. It's such a fun time." And I remember really liking him at that moment because our appointment wasn't just about tongue depressors and stethoscopes; it was about our family, having a good time together in the summer sun (slathered in sunscreen, of course).

And that's what these last few weeks have been: F-U-N. Hadley is walking all over the place, five steps here, 10 steps there. She teeters less, and the classic I'm-learning-to-walk gait has become far more stable in recent days. She understands more; I'm amazed by how often she responds to a random question or suggestion. (Just yesterday, we were reading a book that has an owl on one page, and I said to her, "Hm. Why don't you give that owl a kiss?" She did, and she does--every time we read the book.) And our little girl is so easy to entertain. She likes to go in the backyard, pick up tiny sticks and slide them through the open spaces in our woven wrought-iron furniture. Then she walks up and down the cobblestone path. She teases me by pretending she's going to pluck a leaf from the big potted plant outside--and then she laughs that great belly laugh that is more contagious than the winter flu at an indoor playground.

She's curious and generally up for anything (except the aforementioned car trip, perhaps). And here's the real kicker: She's great company. I love to spend time with her. I've always loved to spend time with her, but now, she's just so...fun. Interested. Excited. Earnest. (For all of her gumption--and heaven help us, she has plenty--Hadley is a serious observer. When we go to the Children's Museum, for example, she generally sits in the toddlers' play space for a good five minutes, watching the other kids, taking it all in. Then she takes off to play. I hope this habit of hers is a lifelong one. Taking a few minutes to evaluate a situation before jumping right in is generally a good approach, if you ask me.)

So all of this is just to say that we're having a blast. We're looking forward to lazy afternoons in the kiddie pool Mumsie and Granddaddy gave her for her birthday; mornings at the playground, library and museum; and maybe a few special trips to the zoo, aquarium, a petting zoo I discovered online and a restored old-fashioned carousel in Nederland that I can't wait to see.

It hardly seems like there's enough summer for all of our adventures.

Silly, Parents. Car Trips are for...Three-Year-Olds?

I suspect that this won't be the first time that we make a dumb decision, and I pray that our other dumb decisions are as relatively harmless. Here's what happened: Jason's cousin Andrew got engaged to a great woman named Tracy. Andrew and Tracy invited us to their wedding outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. We decided to go. We decided to drive. With Hadley. 500 miles.

It sounds foolish now, I know. But when we decided to go--via car--we thought, "Well, Hadley will have her new forward-facing car seat by then. She'll dig it. We'll stop every so often. She'll probably sleep most of the way. She'll love it!"

So there you go. Dumb decision supported by the most ridiculous reasoning (or non-reasoning, as it is more aptly called) we could have dreamt up.

Here's what happened next: As Friday, our day of departure, drew nearer, I began to worry a bit. Could Hadley really make it 500 miles strapped into the car? Did we have the energy to entertain her for, oh, eight hours? What would we do if she had a breakdown mid-way?

But for each of these misgivings, I had a response: Hadley is a great traveler (on the airplane). She plays well by herself. Breakdown? My child doesn't have breakdowns.

So we packed half of what we own (or rather, half of what Hadley owns) into Jason's car and headed out on Friday morning. We felt so brave, so familial, so...National Lampoon's Baby Vacation. Hadley was great for an hour. She looked at her books, looked out the window, ate a snack, blabbered her super-cute baby talk. Then I turned around to check on her, and she grabbed the straps on her car seat and scrinched up her nose, as only Hadley can do. Then she gave me the "all done" sign. Clear. As. Day.

Oh, crap. Oh-crap-oh-crap-oh-crap. One hour? We had made it to Ft. Morgan. So we got off at an exit, parked in the McDonald's lot and proceeded to try to help Hadley fall asleep. Let's just say that episode lasted 45 minutes and involved Jason rocking Hadley in his arms in a nearby Baptist church sanctuary. We must have looked a bit distraught because after we gave up trying to get Hadley to fall asleep, the pastor came out and asked if he could pray for us before we went on our way. Um, yes. Remember when God put Adam to sleep while He created Eve? We wanted THAT kind of sleep for Hadley, please.

We didn't get it.

Instead, we got grumpiness. We got fidgeting. And then I looked at Jason in the rearview mirror (I was driving and he was taking a turn entertaining Hadley), and said, "Do you think we can make it?" And he said, "Nope, I don't think we can." At this point, we had gone 100 miles...and we'd been gone from home for two-and-a-half hours. At that rate, our trip would take 12 hours, not the eight or so we had planned.

After hemming and hawing for another 15 minutes, we finally decided to turn around. We stopped in Ft. Morgan again and ate lunch, and then Hadley fell asleep and slept the last 90 minutes home.

We were disappointed--and mad at ourselves. We would miss the wedding and a visit with Hadley's Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Crystal, not to mention a swath of extended family she's never even met. Why didn't we think to buy plane tickets? Why did we think that driving 500 miles with a very busy, very active one-year-old would be a good idea? Are we crazy?

Nope, not crazy, we decided after we beat ourselves up for a few hours. Just first-time parents. Rookies with a quixotic notion of road-tripping with our baby girl.

Friday evening, we unpacked the car and laughed when we thought about how Hadley viewed our day. "Mom? Dad? That Subway in Ft. Morgan was a nice place, but there's a Subway--and about six other places to get a sandwich--three miles from our house. No need to drive quite so far next time."

We spent our long weekend together, planting our garden (lettuce, bell peppers, tomatoes, basil, rosemary--oh, I can't wait!) and playing. We were disappointed to miss the wedding, but there was something very sweet about having time together that we hadn't expected to have. Hadley played outside a lot. We took her to the children's museum, out to breakfast (twice), on walks to the park, to the grocery store (which she loves). We played a lot of peek-a-boo and read a lot of books. ("Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? I see a red bird looking at me.")

And I think we forgave ourselves for our ridiculous notion. Jason kept saying, "Nobody died. Nobody's hurt." And it's true. It would have been great to celebrate with Andrew and Tracy, but in the grand scheme, we have to see this mishap as a tiny mark on our parenting record. We'll make more mistakes, bigger mistakes, but I hope that we find grace even in those bigger mistakes like we found it this weekend.

Now, because no post is complete with a few photos of Hadley, here are some photos from her birthday celebration. More to come, I promise.

And Then She Turned One

Our baby is a year old. A year and a day, really, because I spent yesterday celebrating and not blogging--as it should be. How is Hadley, little baby Hadley with the spiky black hair and impish grin, already a one-year-old? Here she was a year ago:

And here she is today:

And I tell you the truth: I could not have imagined how much my love for her would grow in one year. Oh, I loved her the first minute I saw her, but the more I get to know her and the more she reveals herself to us, the more in love I fall.

I can hardly remember what it felt like to be pregnant and wonder about who she was. Now, all I can think is, "Of course the baby inside me was Hadley. Of course the baby inside me was this spark of a child, whose happiness is matched only by her willfulness. Of course the baby inside me was this beautiful girl with grey-green eyes and a smile that makes her whole face beam. Of course." She is just who she is supposed to be, just who we were supposed to have.

She is growing into quite a little girl. She has ideas of her own--where she wants to go, what she wants to eat (I swear she would survive on pears, cheese and O's if we let her), what she wants to play. She knows how to be silly, how to make us laugh, how to press our buttons. She gives hugs and the occasional kiss, which she bestows in one of two ways: a smooch so quick we don't know we've received it until it's over, or a big, wet, mushy, open-mouthed slobber that leaves the recipient's face rather sticky for a long while. No middle ground.

She understands so much. Tonight, I asked if she was ready for a bath. She laughed and walked (holding on to my fingers, as I trailed, doubled-over, behind her) directly to the bathtub. She plays music on her little musical table and dances. She looks for people when we ask where they are. She knows her tummy, the light, her nose, her shoes and socks, and probably a dozen things she's keeping secret for now.

I love her. Wildly, deeply. And even though she gets presents on her birthday, I will forever feel that on May 4, 2009, Jason and I got the biggest, most wonderful gift of all when the doctor put Hadley in our arms.

Happy birthday, sweet girl.

Home Again

We are home. Last night, we walked in after spending nine days in Florida, visiting Jason's family and our childhood friends, and I thought, "Ahh, this feels good." And Hadley, who was a trooper and a happy kid in her Grandma and Grandpa's house, lunged for Lucy Lamb on her bedroom floor, as if to say, "Ah, Lucy. I've missed you!"

We had a wonderful time in Naples, sharing our baby with lots of people who have loved her from afar for almost a year. Hadley laughed at the waves at the beach--truly, laughed out loud--and I think she would have bobbed in the water forever, she and I, letting the surf push us gently with the tide. That feeling will always remind me of my childhood. When we had to get out (to get our picture taken with some of our old high school friends and their kids), Hadley was not so happy. So that photo is rather funny.

After a couple of days, she warmed right up to Jason's parents, his grandma and sister, Crystal. In fact, after the third or fourth day, Hadley and her grandma took a walk every morning and then "played" basketball in the neighbor's driveway. It is no surprise, perhaps, that Hadley began saying "ball" while we were away. And every time she entered a room and saw Granny Myrt (her great-grandma), she would smile and wave. They are good buddies, those two.

We visited my best friend, Andrea, and her hubby, Steve. We played with our friends and their kids in the pool. We had a fabulous driveway grill-out at the home of one of our oldest friends. (Jason and Dustin have been friends since they were 18 months, and Dustin and I were kindergarten sweethearts.) We spent hours playing with Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Crystal and Granny Myrt. Hadley ate like a champ. (She liked sitting on the patio and looking at the pool while she ate.) We visited my cousin Tad and his wife, Pat. (Hadley loved their dog's toys.) We strolled through some of our old favorite spots and ate at one of our favorite restaurants--twice! We had an Oswald family photo shoot. (You can see a sneak peak here, if you scroll to the end of the most recent post.) We celebrated Hadley's first birthday with Jason's family. And we didn't get to see all of the people we wanted to see, but I suppose there's goodness in that fact: Our lives are so full of people we love, we needed four weeks to be able to see them all.

But all in all, we had a marvelous trip. We're all a little worn out, but I loved taking a break from the crazy schedules we normally keep to be together and visit with people we love. Tomorrow it's back to the insanity, but for now, I'm happy to look through these pictures and relish the time we got to spend together.

Birthday Party Invitations (and Some More Rambling)

The invitations are done! Not all mailed yet, but done. I spent a lot of time cutting and stamping and tying bows, but I loved it. Now I'm eager for the days when Hadley and I can do crafts together at the kitchen table. (I'm saving all of the wallpaper samples I get at work--perks of being the editor of a home-design publication--for our craft box. I'm not sure what we'll do with them, but certainly they'll inspire some sort of project.)

So here are the invites to our "bug bash."

We'll mail the rest tomorrow, and then it's party-planning time. Of course, top of my list is food. I'm thinking we need this pan to make cupcakes, and maybe we'll have some kind of cleverly named punch. (Beetle juice? Ha!) I'm thinking about trying to find bug-shaped cookie cutters and making PB&J sandwiches for the kids, then cutting them into cute shapes. (Any of you grown-up attendees who are readers, fear not: We'll have bug-free fare for the adults--burgers, potato salad and other "normal" picnic treats.)

I bought a few adorable (cheap) tin buckets in bright colors, and I'm going to make little signs that say "Hadley's 1st birthday" and stick them in the buckets. They'll be the centerpieces for the picnic tables. The picnic site is right next to a playground, so we'll probably have one or two games for the older kids--pin the wing on the ladybug, anyone?--but I'm thinking that they will want to run around the playground for as long as possible. That, and stuff their faces with butterfly-shaped cupcakes.

I cannot believe how excited I am about this party...

And...every parent says it, but I have to repeat it: I cannot believe my child is going to be a year old. In some ways, I feel like I just went back to work, but it's been almost nine months. (In that time, I could have grown another baby! Holy bad idea, Batman.) Some days, we hit our groove. Some days, we barely find our way out from under piles of (usually clean) laundry. I suspect it will be this way for a very long time, but I wouldn't want it any other way. The irony is that for all of the busy-ness and exhaustion, I feel tremendous peace. Our life together is good. Nuts, but good.

And in a couple of weeks, we'll celebrate that goodness when Hadley turns one. So here's my confession (and any parent willing to tell the truth will say the same thing): First birthdays aren't for kids. They're for moms and dads, who are feeling 1) happy to have survived the first year and 2) overwhelmed by deep, pure gratitude for their children.

We're disguising our party as a bug-themed bash, but really, it's a holy-cow-she's-ours-and-we're-crazy-in-love-with-her party.

But that was a bit too long to put on the invitation.

Confessions of a Delinquent Blogger

Here's the trouble with a mommy blog: Even though I love to write, it's far more fun to play with Hadley than it is to blog (even about the funny things Hadley does). But for our eight fans out there who are dying for an update, I've carved out this time to share some news with you.

Hadley is talking a bit. She told Granddaddy "bye-bye" last week, and if I had to swear on a stack of Ghirardelli chocolate, I'd say she said "toes" this morning. She says "Da" for "Dada" and "Mamama" for yours truly. So she says (maybe) four words, but she communicates a whole lot. Hadley does not, ahem, hesitate to let us know precisely what she thinks about just about anything. I can tell you right now how she feels about asparagus (hates it), walks in the park (loves them), her highchair (wishes she could live without it), Mumsie (adores her), playing peek-a-boo (can't get enough), cell phones (wants one of her own), and being held (prefers it to all other modes of transport). And yet, she says just four words.

Babies are smart, I tell you. Scary smart.

We also know, without a doubt, that Hadley loves Easter. Before 7:00 on Sunday morning, she was babbling away in her crib. Her eyes got huge when we walked out from her bedroom to the living room and she saw what the Easter Bunny left for her:

Can we just take a moment to enjoy the simple goodness of new jammies, particularly Easter jammies that are this darn cute?

We had a very happy day that started with good family time, continued at Mumsie and Granddaddy's house, and ended with long naps for Hadley and me, and an evening church service (where I sat in the nursery with Hadley who is going through a bit of separation anxiety). But I hear that the service was lovely.

That reminds me: Hadley also loves songs at church. The louder, the better. She spends the entire time wiggling and smiling and clapping. I wonder what she thinks it's all about. Regardless, she has a wonderful time.

What else is new? Standing up. By herself. She just lets go of the table or my leg or the window sill and...stands. She's very nonchalant about the whole thing, but I can tell that she finds it thrilling. And I can see in her eyes that she's thinking about taking a step. I keep waiting for that moment, praying it doesn't happen while I'm at work or the grocery store or somewhere really lame, like the dentist's office.

We are gearing up for her first birthday party--a lady bug and honey bee picnic. Random, perhaps, but here's the story: For a long time (relative to Hadley's 11 months), I've called her "Bug"--short for "love bug" and "snuggle bug." I don't know why, and I can't remember when it started or how. But she's "Bug." So it seemed somehow appropriate to have a bug-inspired party. Then Mumsie bought a cake pan in the shape of a bee hive. I really wanted a lady bug picnic, and truly, Mumsie wouldn't have cared, but maybe boys don't want to come to a lady bug picnic...so we have a two-bug party, and attendees can, I suppose, choose to identify with either bug. Or no bugs. Whatever.

I've been out scouring Denver for lady bug and honey bee stamps to make the invitations. I've bought card stock and ribbon and special pens that I didn't really need but seemed like a great idea when I was standing in the art store surrounded by so many options. And who doesn't love a few great pens?

So my project in the coming days is to create birthday party invitations fit for my Bug's first birthday celebration. I realize I could have very easily (and less expensively) purchased pre-made invites, but there's something about Hadley's first birthday that makes me want to create my own. I'll post pictures here once they are completed.

That's all the news for now. Tomorrow will bring something new, no doubt, and I promise to try to be a more diligent blogger...