I’m so happy you were born, my lovely little angel. Below is a photo of Isabel giving herself a hug. My sentiments exactly!
Memories
Isabel will be two years old two weeks from tomorrow. As I held her snuggled against me and nursing in the early dawn hours today, I realized that our days of cuddling like that are numbered. She is moving out of babyhood ever so surely. Before I know it she will have legs as long as mine and I will not be able to really remember what it was like to hold her so close, when she fit in my arms, when her length was such that her legs reached only to my belly. I try to hold these memories against me as she nurses. When she is tired she will let her eyes drift, half closed, then she will look up at me, tracking my gaze for a few moments, before letting her eyes drift again. When she has decided that she is going to sleep, she raises her arm in front of her face to block out the light. Gradually her sucking recedes. I can tell when she is not moving so quickly into slumber or when she doesn’t want to sleep but keep on sucking when the sucking fades and I try to move away, then the mouth comes after me like a little leech: Get back here! I’m not done! Open and ready to grab my nipple and hold tight again. Oh, I love nursing and holding my baby. I don’t want to lose these memories. We have them little for such a short time. While it’s happening it is so easy to complain about the time we don’t have to sew or write or whatever, but then the time is gone and we wonder how it passed so fast. I recognize this dilemma. I know that over the next year, she will become taller and stronger. Her burgeoning vocabulary will become full sentences and words everyone else can understand. She will still nurse, but she won’t be a baby really anymore. They enter two a baby; they leave it a child. I welcome who she will be, but I do not want to forget the baby she was.
Isabel on a bench in Barcelona, August 2011
Isabelli is Growing Up
I haven’t written on here in a long time. Mainly I started the site as a means of keeping track of her first year. It was tough, what with work and single-parenting and everything, so when the year ended, I dwindled down to never writing here. Tonight I decided to say a little something.
Isabel is getting bigger and developing into a lovely human being. Of course! I would never think otherwise, but she is. She is such a happy little person. Today her dad said to me that Isabel is a self-starter. This is a very accurate picture of her. She likes to delve right into all sorts of projects, whether it is removing the rice from the rice jar and moving it into the granola jar, or stacking all her stackable blocks into a sack so she can carry them with her. And of course, there is the ever present, ubiquitous doll. She has two, one of which must go with her most all the time.
Every day I hold her while nursing and marvel at the person she is becoming. I look at Milla, my 12 year old, and try to remember when she was this small. I really cannot. I remember with photos, sort of, but mostly she is who she is now. I look at Isabel and try to imagine her with filly legs and wild hair like her sister. Will I forget these moments of holding her, stroking her hair, smelling her skin, kissing her constantly? I did not know with Milla that these moments could slip so far into the ether, or I would have spent more time trying to hold them. I hope that because with Isabel I have tried to imprint them on my brain, more of them will remain as she grows.
I am definitely still in baby love.
Walking
It would not really be possible to put down one day that counts as the first day Isabel walked. Unlike Milla, who decided one day to stop touching the wall or a table or anything else while walking and then crossed the room unassisted the first time, Isabel has taken steps here and there and here and there. She will walk four or five steps and then fall to her knees, either kneeling or taking off to get to whatever caught her attention. There was one day she took a step between the edge of the couch and the edge of the table. She let go of one and reached for the other. Does this count as her first steps walking? I tend not to think so, but I supposed technically it could be yes. A couple of days later she did nearly the same thing for four steps. Now she stands for quite some time unaided. In any case, regardless what date is considered the first day she started, she’s on her way. Soon we will be chasing little feet instead of a wiggling little butt crawling as fast as it can.
Stairs
Isabel has figured out how to go down stairs now too. She very carefully reaches her leg out behind her until she touches the step below, then moves down. I love watching her make these kinds of discoveries.
I forgot to mention here that last week she sprouted her sixth tooth. As has been the case since the beginning, she did not act as if there was any pain with this eruption. Lucky baby.
Isabel still loves drinking her milky. I am glad for the closeness this provides. As I have stated before, there really is no other time in our lives when we are so physically intimate with someone that does not involve sex. I love the intimacy of breastfeeding. I also love bathing with her. She always has milk when she breastfeeds. So sweet!
I Love Her
I love Isabel so much. This morning I laid with her in our bed, she all tucked into the crook of my arm, her head resting on my shoulder. I could place my lips on her hair and smell her warm, soft skin. Utter bliss.
I arose to get ready for the morning. Isabel stretched, her little lips all puffy and red as her face scrunched then relaxed, her arms still above her head. Baby love–there’s nothing like it.
Happy Birthday, Dear Isabel, part 2
Isabel had quite the birthday bash. The guest list included two great-grandmas, one great-grandpa, two grandmas, two grandpas, a second cousin, a first cousin, an uncle, and loads of my friends and their children. It was quite the gathering. Our dog enjoyed the festivities–children at parties are prone to drop food and our party was no exception. Ava loved eating the fallen tidbits.
Isabel began the day going to visit ladies at the church where her dad plays piano. She ended up playing with the children in the nursery and getting thoroughly tuckered out. She came home and fell asleep through the beginning of her party. I brought her into the living room asleep on my shoulder and she gradually awakened. She opened her little eyes and looked at Grandma while I held her. Then she moved her head to my other shoulder and looked around, gradually realizing the room was filled with people. She raised her head, a red crease in her right cheek. Oh, she was so adorable.
We decided we would start with opening gifts. Isabel liked this. She figured out right away about ripping open packages. She would reach into bags and pull stuff out, find the seam, and open. She played with each item–first a Jack-in-the-Box, then some books, she even waved around some clothes. She really liked the book with touchy feely photos and the hairbrush.
After opening gifts, we moved to the kitchen to eat cake. We sang happy birthday to Isabel and she looked at us skeptically. I just went ahead and gave her a slice of cake. She dug right in, squishing it and eating it and generally getting it all over the place. The cake was chocolate with creamy butter cream frosting. Yum! After everyone had been served, I gave her another slice. She pretty much just played with it and we all enjoyed watching her doing so. There was cake all over her chair, on the table corner next to her, and some on the floor.
A friend of mine told me this today: “The first birthday is a BIG deal in a some of the old cultures. It represents when the child is fully supported by all of the tribe….I suppose living to get to one was an accomplishment then. Now our challenge is to help the one year old hold on to the “magic” of loving the wonder of life. That challenge falls on all of us adults that know her.”
If today is any indication, Isabel is certainly supported by her tribe. I hope we can all rise to the occasion and help her keep the magic of today throughout the rest of her life. I am humbly grateful for the gift of her. I truly appreciate what she is, her magic, her joy, the happiness she brings all of us.
Happy Birthday, Dear Isabel!
Today she is one. I will write more later about her party and the day. Suffice to say, I love her very much.
