First Birthday Wrap Up

On Friday Emmalee turned one year old.  I decided the fact that we both survived the year deserved a momentous celebration.  In retrospect, I probably could have scaled it back a bit.  But I think I’m glad that I didn’t.  I realize the festivities were probably more for my sake than Emmalee’s, who would have much preferred to munch on cake with a smaller audience, but it was fun.  And the pictures will forever prove to Emmalee how much I loved her on her very first birthday.  Because providing excessive indulgences equals love, right?

To honor my daughter I took two days off from work.  Friday was her actual birthday and I took her to Disney World, with Grammy and Aunt Lers along for the ride.  I was a little skeptical about how Emmalee would do at a crowded theme park, but to my surprise and relief she seemed to enjoy herself immensely.  Luckily the lines weren’t too long and the temperature wasn’t too hot, and the stars and planets aligned just right to keep Emma in a mostly pleasant mood for the duration of our trip (minus one little pre-nap melt down).  Emmalee sat through “It’s a Small World” in mouth-gaping awe.  I’m pretty sure that it was truly the most amazing thing she has ever seen.  When she caught sight of the Carousel, Emmalee held her hand out and insisted that we try it out by yelling “Ahh!”  She is familiar with carousels because there is one in the mall that we frequent and she also experienced one at Sea World a few weeks ago, but neither could measure up to the grandeur of the Disney Carousel.  She seemed especially excited that we could ride together and she lay back against me in pure contentment.  When the ride ended much too soon she held onto the handles and it took a good bit of coaxing to get her off.  We also rode the Winnie-the-Pooh ride, where Emmalee shouted with glee and waved fervently each time she spotted her dear friend Pooh.  It was a fun, exhausting day.

Saturday was Emmalee’s party.  My plan was to keep the party on the small side, and though I only invited family and close friends with children my house still felt much too small to accommodate everyone.  The party only lasted two hours, but it was a noisy and chaotic time.  Luckily Emmalee handled it much better than I would have hoped.  Despite the commotion and the only slightly familiar faces, Emma did not feel the need to remain attached to my hip the entire time.  She even played happily while Mommy was in a completely different room, which is unheard of most of the time.  The highlight of the day was by far the cake.  Emmalee listened while we sang her “Happy Birthday,” seemingly both confused and amused by our chorus.  Then she was given cake, which she has had before, but this was her first taste of icing.  She dug in a little hesitantly, but it wasn’t long before she was covered in the creamy, sugary goodness, to the delight of her attentive, picture snapping audience.  Next came presents, and to Mommy’s dismay, Emmalee just wasn’t all that interested.  Perhaps she was just too distracted by all the people and voices, or perhaps she was too hyper from all the sugar she’d just ingested, but Emma wanted to crawl around and explore leaving Mommy to star in the opening-presents spotlight.  And there were lots of presents.  I am very grateful for the generosity displayed by our family and friends, and I would like to thank everyone who contributed in making sure that Emmalee retains her “most spoiled baby in the universe” title.  As soon as the presents were opened, our guests quickly bailed in a comical all-at-the-same-time way, not that I blame them.  It was fun and I was happy to share the moment with everyone, but I was also happy for the quiet left in their stead! 

After a day of shopping on Sunday, we wrapped up Emmalee’s birthday weekend extravaganza by going to her one year check up at the pediatrician’s office on Monday.  Emmalee, predictably, wailed in a heartbroken, completely desolate way after the poor nurse took her temperature and the tears and despair continued until Emmalee realized we were on our way out.  The bright side of her dramatics is that Emma was already crying so hard before she got her shots that she barely noticed when they administered them.  She is still in the 95^th percentile for both weight and height, she seems to be developmentally on track (despite her obstinate refusal to hold her own bottle) and was given an overall “healthy” stamp by her doctor. 

So I am now the mother of a toddler.  We survived the first year, and the weekend devoted to celebrating it.  I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store for us.

Moments

Once in awhile there are moments that change your life forever.  One such moment happened for me when I was thirteen years old.  I was in the front passenger seat of my mom’s little white Toyota and we were on the highway headed to my uncle’s house.  A song came on the radio.  “This is that song I was telling you about,” my mom exclaimed, “The one by those cute little boys.”  She may have said more but I was no longer listening.  I was instantly captivated by the pre-pubescent voice squeaking through the car’s crappy sound system.  I didn’t know his name or even what he looked like, but I knew that I loved him.  An immediate and all consuming obsession, the kind I think you’re only capable of having when you’re a thirteen year old girl, had begun.  The song was “Mmmbop” by Hanson.  (Go ahead, laugh if you must.)  I would never be the same.

Another life changing moment happened for me on the morning of July 10, 2009.  I was 25 years old and my husband and I had been trying to conceive for a few months.  So far we’d had no luck and I was losing patience with the whole process, as I tend to do.  When I want something, I want it right at that moment; otherwise I get bored.  That night I was going out to dinner to celebrate my best friend’s birthday and I wanted to drink.  I decided to take a pregnancy test just to be on the safe side, even though my period wasn’t technically late yet.  I was sure that it would come back negative, just like the tests from the past few months, and that I would get the green light to get sloppy that evening.  Instead the display on the digital test said “pregnant.”  An onslaught of emotions washed over me.  I remember feeling surprised because I really didn’t expect the positive result, guilty because I’d had several drinks the weekend before to celebrate our nation’s independence, excited because I’d finally achieved my goal, and a little numb because this was a lot to process all at once.  Things would never be the same.

How do these two moments relate, you ask?  No, Emmalee is not Taylor Hanson’s secret love child.  Though wouldn’t that make the story interesting!  But no.  The two began to mesh sometime after the sixteenth week of pregnancy, when little Emmalee began to be aware of noises outside of the womb.  Over the years my obsession for Hanson waned a bit, but the love has always been there.  When they release a new CD I am all over it and listen to it repetitively for months.  While pregnant with Emmalee, Hanson happened to release a five song EP which was a preview to the new album they would release the following summer.  I listened to these songs with such frequency that they seem to have affected the wiring in Emmalee’s tiny little still-developing brain. 

I didn’t realize the impact until several months after she was born.  It probably didn’t help anything that we continued to listen to Hanson every time we were in the car.  Still, I was taken by surprise the first time Emmalee stopped crying and appeared to be completely soothed by my favorite song from that previously mentioned EP, a song called “These Walls.”  When she began protesting when the song ended, whining and crying until I started the track over, I thought it was adorable.  When we were in the car with my husband (who is not a Hanson fan) and had to put the song on to calm her, I thought it was hilarious.  Now though, four or five months after this began, her preference for one particular song is a little less endearing.  I try to broaden her Hanson horizons by letting her listen to other songs.  If I tell her that we’re still listening to Hanson she seems to accept it, but if she is tired or cranky forget it, it is “Walls” or wailing. 

The moral of the story, then, is this:  your child will find a way to make you despise even the things you love the most.  I’m kidding, of course.  Luckily my love for Hanson is such a deeply rooted part of who I am I don’t think anything could ever change it, and I do enjoy being able to share this passion of mine with my daughter.  There are moments that change your life forever.  Hopefully, they change it for the better, as I feel mine (mostly) have.  But if you should ever happen to find yourself pregnant, think carefully about the music you listen to and be sure that you can handle listening to said music on repeat for an indeterminate number of months.  It could happen to you.

In the Name of Love

Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate the martyrdom of the notoriously romantic St. Valentine.  Right?  When Googling the history of Valentine’s Day I found some interesting information.  St. Valentine was a priest who fought against the Roman Emperor Claudius’ ridiculous declaration that single men make better soldiers and his outlaw of marriage by marrying young couples in secret.  When he was discovered he was put to death on February 14th.  Or perhaps St. Valentine was killed after it was discovered that he helped Christians escape being beaten and tortured in Roman prisons.  Another account claims that St. Valentine fell in love with the jailor’s daughter while he was imprisoned (perhaps for one of the previously mentioned reasons) and sent a letter signed “From Your Valentine,” thereby sending the first ever “valentine.”  Others say the holiday originated with the Pagan fertility festival, Lupercalis, which was celebrated on February 15^th, but was renamed and dedicated to a saint by Christians in an attempt to make the transition from Paganism to Christianity a little easier. 

The history, I suppose, is mostly irrelevant these days.   Valentine’s Day has become a commercialized sensation.  According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion cards are sent each year in the name of love.  Some cynics of the holiday say that it is a joke.  Why should we spend our hard earned money on this day each year to tell the people we care about that we love them?  Because some ancient inmate named Valentine fell in love, or because some ancient Romans wanted to get knocked up?  No thank you. 

I tend to disagree.  Life is hectic.  There is always so much to do and so little time.  I think it’s safe to say that many of us are guilty of taking the people close to us for granted from time to time.  We assume that they know we love them, and they probably do.  But isn’t it nice to take a moment now and again to tell them?  And if billions of other people also decide to take a moment out of their busy lives to do something nice for their loved ones on the same day, is that really such a bad thing? 

I love all holidays.  Perhaps it is the compulsive shopper in me talking, but I find holidays to be exciting.  Growing up, my mom always used all major holidays as an excuse to buy my sister and I something.  Even if it was something small, we absolutely loved it.  I plan to do the same with Emmalee.  Maybe this is just another bullet to add to the list of ways that I am spoiling her, but maybe not.  According to Dictionary.com, to spoil means “to impair, damage, or harm the character of someone by … excessive indulgence.”  I don’t consider my character to have been impaired, damaged or harmed by the holiday indulgences.  I don’t think Emmalee will suffer either.  At least I hope not.

This past year has been especially exciting because each holiday that passes is Emmalee’s first.  Her first St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, 4^th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and now Valentine’s Day.  This Valentine’s Day was a little bittersweet for me as it marked the last first holiday Emmalee would experience, with the exception of her birthday (which is a holiday, right?).  Her first birthday is fast approaching and as excited as I am to celebrate I also can’t believe that a year has already just about passed.  I look at it as just another reminder of how quickly time passes by and I feel even more certain that we should take every excuse we are given to stop for a moment and rejoice with the ones we love most.

(I suppose this blog would have been more fun to read had it been posted on Valentine’s Day, but I’ve been sick.  So forgive me… in the name of St. Valentine/fertility/consumerism/love...  you pick the one that feels right.)

Spoil-Proof?

Can you spoil a baby?  Google this question and you will get a resounding no.  In fact, Babycenter.com’s article on the topic goes so far as to state, “Young babies are completely spoil-proof.”  My response to this is, are you sure?  Because just a couple of hours ago I washed some bottles, fed the dogs, put in a load of laundry, took the garbage out to the garage and wheeled the big can out to the curb all with one hand because the other hand was busy holding a 24 pound baby.  Now I could be way off base here, but that seems kind of spoiled to me.  Emmalee likes to be held.  A lot.  And even if she does agree to play on the floor, she pretty much insists that I be on the floor with her.  The only time I can really get things done around the house without holding her is if she is napping (but then I can only do things that can be done very quietly) or if I put her in her highchair or exersaucer with Gerber Puffs.  Those things are a life saver.

For a long time Emmalee wouldn’t let anyone hold her, or touch her for that matter, except for me and her Grammy.  She is slowly getting a little better about this and has ever so slightly begun to include more people in her exclusive circle… however she still rarely lets others hold her without screaming her head off and if Mommy or Grammy are nearby then forget it.  Again, I could be wrong, but this seems spoiled to me.  I can understand and even at times appreciate her avoidance of strangers.  But you would think she’d give the people she sees regularly a little more love.  This is especially troublesome at the doctor’s office where she won’t let anyone get within ten feet of her without losing it.  On Friday she went in to see her pediatrician because her nose had been running for ten days without showing any signs of stopping.  The doctor approached her to have a look in her ears, while her Grammy was holding her, and she screamed like she was being branded.  She is ten months old and literally had to be held down and restrained just so that the doctor could look into her ears.  I can’t wait to take her in for her shots in a few weeks… 

At about 7 months old Emmalee decided that she no longer preferred being in her car seat (maybe she was worried about decapitation?).  She let me know that she’d made this decision by arching her back, screaming, and shaking her head vehemently “no.”  This was my first glimpse of a tantrum.  Now Emmalee no longer reserves this behavior for being strapped into the car.  Stop her from grabbing something that she wants, or take something she shouldn’t have away from her, and you will get a show… arm flailing, back arching, leg kicking, and intense wailing.  All in the name of protest.  I don’t know where this penchant for drama comes from, but she sure didn’t get it from me.  At the moment I actually find these tantrums sort of funny.  It amuses me that she gets so upset over something so simple.  But I worry that these baby tantrums are just a preview of things to come, and when she throws herself onto the ground and has one of these fits in public I might not be quite so entertained.  Are tantrums a sign of a spoiled baby?  I kind of think they might be.

Emmalee has a beautiful nursery.  I spent a great deal of time painting, decorating and getting it just right.  She also has a play room.  She hasn’t even been alive a year yet and she already has two entire rooms of our home devoted to just her.  Her closet and dresser are full of clothes.  There are 3 large storage bins full of the clothes she’s outgrown.  She has more blankets than we know what to do with, and we live in Florida.  Her play room is full of stuff.  Thanks to Mommy’s, and Grammy’s, love for shopping (see previous blog), Emmalee has managed to accumulate an impressive collection of toys and stuffed animals in her short life.  She has two entire shelves full of books that she can’t yet read.  It is almost embarrassing how much stuff she has, and her first birthday is still six weeks away, meaning there is more “stuff” to come.  (Her already purchased presents are stored in a third room of the house!)

Not to mention the suspected laziness.  She didn't crawl until ten months.  She still lays on her back like a helpless, overturned turtle at times until someone comes along and helps her sit up.  And though she will feed herself Puffs, she won't even consider holding her own bottle.

So can you spoil a baby?  Experts tend to think no.  But it seems that I’m working hard at proving them wrong. 

(And for the record, Emmalee is totally okay with that.)