Author's note: It occurred to me after posting that this kind of makes it seem as though he's dead. He's not. Very much alive and thriving. That would be the miracle I speak of. Sorry if I temporarily upset you. Oops.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Handsome Boy Modeling School
Oh Moet, we have not forgotten you. This post is dedicated to my delicious Lil'Boss, because before you I didn't believe that miracles were possible.
Author's note: It occurred to me after posting that this kind of makes it seem as though he's dead. He's not. Very much alive and thriving. That would be the miracle I speak of. Sorry if I temporarily upset you. Oops.
Author's note: It occurred to me after posting that this kind of makes it seem as though he's dead. He's not. Very much alive and thriving. That would be the miracle I speak of. Sorry if I temporarily upset you. Oops.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Tiny Dancer
Or, as I like to call your Halloween costume this year: Bellarina. And could you have possibly been prettier? Biased or not, I'm thinking no.
Happy Birthday To You: 21 Months Old
Dear Anabella,
Last weekend you turned 21 months old. As per usual I am stunned by this amazing feat of amazingness. Every time the 30th of the month rolls around again, it hits me like a freight train, I HAVE A CHILD AND SHE IS XX MONTHS OLD. Just so happens that this month it's 21. Could be 25 years and I'd probably feel the same degree of shock and awe.
I have a million and one stories that I could tell about the crazy things you've done this month. The 200,000 ways you've made me laugh out loud. Or, I could list off all the accomplishments and milestones that you've crossed off the grand list of things that happen when you transform from an embryo into an actual walking talking human child . But I think this month I'll spare you the rambling, gushing, mother-is-so-proud speech. Instead, I'm going to let you do what you have learned to do best this month, speak for yourself.
Don't judge me for the weird things I have you repeat. I swear that they are all words and phrases that you say on your own accord all the time (including "Mommy's coffee," which this entire family knows is the single most important thing that happens to Mommy each day). But these are a selection of my favourite words and a) I wanted them recorded so I'll always have that sweet little baby voice to go back to when you are 16 years old and mumbling obscenities at me under your breath and b) I needed something to do in order to distract you from throwing your entire lunch to the dog.
In fact, these vids were recorded at the beginning of October. By now you are saying so many more words and phrases and singing so many songs that I'd be hard pressed to get a fraction of them on film. Besides, though you belt out songs and chatter up a storm on the regular, as soon as the camera appears you clam up and get a little shy and weird. This behaviour is not going to help you bring home the big bucks as a world famous movie/pop star. I'm just saying.
So concludes another busy month. All of the growing and talking and singing and SCREAMING "NO NO NO" at the top of your lungs and chasing Moet and not brushing your teeth EVER and throwing all your Cheerios on the ground and jumping but only getting one leg off the ground and having your picture taken 376,080 times is clearly exhausting stuff. As evidenced by this happening during your 21 month photo shoot:
Guess that's a wrap.
I love you,
Mommy
Last weekend you turned 21 months old. As per usual I am stunned by this amazing feat of amazingness. Every time the 30th of the month rolls around again, it hits me like a freight train, I HAVE A CHILD AND SHE IS XX MONTHS OLD. Just so happens that this month it's 21. Could be 25 years and I'd probably feel the same degree of shock and awe.
I have a million and one stories that I could tell about the crazy things you've done this month. The 200,000 ways you've made me laugh out loud. Or, I could list off all the accomplishments and milestones that you've crossed off the grand list of things that happen when you transform from an embryo into an actual walking talking human child . But I think this month I'll spare you the rambling, gushing, mother-is-so-proud speech. Instead, I'm going to let you do what you have learned to do best this month, speak for yourself.
Don't judge me for the weird things I have you repeat. I swear that they are all words and phrases that you say on your own accord all the time (including "Mommy's coffee," which this entire family knows is the single most important thing that happens to Mommy each day). But these are a selection of my favourite words and a) I wanted them recorded so I'll always have that sweet little baby voice to go back to when you are 16 years old and mumbling obscenities at me under your breath and b) I needed something to do in order to distract you from throwing your entire lunch to the dog.
In fact, these vids were recorded at the beginning of October. By now you are saying so many more words and phrases and singing so many songs that I'd be hard pressed to get a fraction of them on film. Besides, though you belt out songs and chatter up a storm on the regular, as soon as the camera appears you clam up and get a little shy and weird. This behaviour is not going to help you bring home the big bucks as a world famous movie/pop star. I'm just saying.
So concludes another busy month. All of the growing and talking and singing and SCREAMING "NO NO NO" at the top of your lungs and chasing Moet and not brushing your teeth EVER and throwing all your Cheerios on the ground and jumping but only getting one leg off the ground and having your picture taken 376,080 times is clearly exhausting stuff. As evidenced by this happening during your 21 month photo shoot:
Guess that's a wrap.
I love you,
Mommy
Friday, October 02, 2009
Happy Birthday to You: 20 Months Old
Dear Anabella,
This week you turned 20 months old.
Sigh. I remember my 20's. They were fantastic.
Second, school starts! Even though I am no longer in school, haven't been for a long, long, long (you get the point) time, I still feel a little nostalgic thrill every year when school begins. I love the feeling of all the university students pouring back into the city and walking around U of T campus with their new clothes and glossy books. I love watching the teenagers on the bus, gossiping or sulking, on their way to class.
September is pretty close to perfect. But for the last couple of years we have had some tough times in this particular month. In 2007, when you were still safely tucked away in my belly, there was a terrible accident with Momo and we nearly lost him. Then last year, the unthinkable happened to a family that we know. It stopped me in my tracks for a while and still does, when I think of them, even now. So this year when September rolled around I found that I entered it not with my usual giddy sense of excitement and joy but instead with a sense of foreboding doom.
But then, just when I feel like I've gotten lost in the fog, there shines my light. My impish, smiling, squishable light. I just need to watch you for a minute, just being you, and I realize why I get so anxious about the possibility of something terrible happening. It's because of the love. Every day I love you more. And the more that I love you the more I stand to lose. It's that simple. It's the risk that we all take when we decide to become parents.
You are 20 months old this week. One day you will be 20 years old. Can my heart hold 20 years worth of ever increasing love? Can it hold 60? I have to assume that it can because if there is one truth, one undeniable fact that I can share with you it is this, every second of every minute of every hour that goes by I love you more and more and more. And somehow my heart just expands.
If there is one thing that can make September -- that beautiful, complicated month -- even more perfect that it already is, Anabella, it's you.
I love you.
Mommy
Sigh. I remember my 20's. They were fantastic.
September is one of my favourite months of the year for many reasons. First of all, it's my birthday month, though this one has crawled pretty far down the reasons-I-love-September ladder since I grew out of my aforementioned 20's.
Third, the weather. September is the new summer. Though I was born on the last official day of summer, I consider myself entirely a summer baby. I LOVE summer, the hotter the better. For the last few years September has been the sunniest, warmest, most beautiful summer month. We always spend Labour Day weekend and some of the following week in Ipperwash, soaking up those final summer rays on that most incredible beach -- a beach that clears out after holiday Monday and becomes all ours and ours alone. It is the definition of happiness for me to be on that beach with nobody else but the people I love most in the entire world.
Like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like everything is too perfect. Too beautiful. Too happy. I find myself starting to seek out all the terrible things that could happen. To ready myself for them. Steel myself against them. Prepare.
You are 20 months old this week. One day you will be 20 years old. Can my heart hold 20 years worth of ever increasing love? Can it hold 60? I have to assume that it can because if there is one truth, one undeniable fact that I can share with you it is this, every second of every minute of every hour that goes by I love you more and more and more. And somehow my heart just expands.
I love you.
Mommy
Monday, September 14, 2009
Pictures of You
Anybody out there ever had passport photos taken of their toddler? Can I borrow your ear for a moment and tell you that it is a NIGHTMARE to get a toddler to sit still for a fucking passport photo?
How about trying to do it at the local ghetto mall on a Sunday afternoon... with a hangover?
So here's the thing, I thought she'd just sit on the chair, stare blankly at the stranger with the flashing camera like she usually does when she's bored with my incessent photo-taken habit, and we'd be out of there after a few clicks.
WRONG.
They had to take about 2000 photos of Bella. Do you know what’s involved here in this passport photo business? Let me tell you. The baby can’t be smiling, crying, talking, moving or looking anywhere but directly at the camera lens. Their mouths must be closed, but not so closed that you can’t see the natural shape of their lower face. There can’t be any shadows behind their curly little heads of flouncy hair. You can’t see anything in the photo but their head and shoulders. This includes their arms and hands which means they need to keep them neatly at their sides while the photo is taken. They can’t be wearing white.
OH BUT WAIT… even if you finally get the shot, the one that fulfills all of the IMPOSSIBLE criteria, and causes the entire shop and the small crowd that’s gathered in the mall to watch this circus occur to break into loud applause, they will still go into the back room to look closer at the perfect picture and then come back out, head hung low with a sheepish grin, and tell you that the perfect shot that they thought they had will not work after all because HER LIPS ARE TOO SHINY.
I kid you not. Her juicy, perfect, glistening baby lips were too shiny. We had to de-shine our daughter’s lips.
But we finally got the shot. She's looking ever so slightly above the camera lens at the dangling set of keys that we were using to try to jingle-jangle her into some kind of a passport-photo-worthy trance. They assure me that they will reshoot the photo for free should it not be accepted. What they do not understand is that if it is not accepted I am going to go postal on the asses of everyone involved in the process. There won't be much need for international travel after that.
My own passport photo is truly hilarious because the expression on my face is 100 per cent indicative of the mood I was in while trying to suvive this particular parenting right of passage.
Survived it. And let me tell you something? We are going to be TRAVELLING OUR ASSES off now even if it puts us into a hole of debt so deep that we'll never again see the light of creditless day.
How about trying to do it at the local ghetto mall on a Sunday afternoon... with a hangover?
So here's the thing, I thought she'd just sit on the chair, stare blankly at the stranger with the flashing camera like she usually does when she's bored with my incessent photo-taken habit, and we'd be out of there after a few clicks.
WRONG.
They had to take about 2000 photos of Bella. Do you know what’s involved here in this passport photo business? Let me tell you. The baby can’t be smiling, crying, talking, moving or looking anywhere but directly at the camera lens. Their mouths must be closed, but not so closed that you can’t see the natural shape of their lower face. There can’t be any shadows behind their curly little heads of flouncy hair. You can’t see anything in the photo but their head and shoulders. This includes their arms and hands which means they need to keep them neatly at their sides while the photo is taken. They can’t be wearing white.
OH BUT WAIT… even if you finally get the shot, the one that fulfills all of the IMPOSSIBLE criteria, and causes the entire shop and the small crowd that’s gathered in the mall to watch this circus occur to break into loud applause, they will still go into the back room to look closer at the perfect picture and then come back out, head hung low with a sheepish grin, and tell you that the perfect shot that they thought they had will not work after all because HER LIPS ARE TOO SHINY.
I kid you not. Her juicy, perfect, glistening baby lips were too shiny. We had to de-shine our daughter’s lips.
But we finally got the shot. She's looking ever so slightly above the camera lens at the dangling set of keys that we were using to try to jingle-jangle her into some kind of a passport-photo-worthy trance. They assure me that they will reshoot the photo for free should it not be accepted. What they do not understand is that if it is not accepted I am going to go postal on the asses of everyone involved in the process. There won't be much need for international travel after that.
My own passport photo is truly hilarious because the expression on my face is 100 per cent indicative of the mood I was in while trying to suvive this particular parenting right of passage.
Survived it. And let me tell you something? We are going to be TRAVELLING OUR ASSES off now even if it puts us into a hole of debt so deep that we'll never again see the light of creditless day.
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