It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a post on Olivia. Lo and behold, she turned 18 months on Sunday. Yes, seriously. EIGHT.TEEN.MONTHS.

I will let you digest that for a moment.

Done?

She has an opinion on everything. And smirks frequently. Like, SMIRKS. Little baby corners of her mouth twitch upward imperceptibly and she squints slightly. Then moves about her business. Her very important toddler business.

She can sign dog, fish, banana, diaper, eat, more, want. She will often use them interchangeably just to make sure you’re paying attention.

She RUNS everywhere and is afraid of NOTHING…including, but not limited to, her own well-being. The child has no sense of self-preservation and will pitch herself off anything no matter the height. I must be part cat with the number of lives I’ve lost snatching her from busting her face on the floor or edge of something.

It’s as precious as it sounds.

She loves music. LOVES music. Especially music on TV. She even understands when a song ends because she’ll grin really huge and look at me and clap. She appreciates performance and demonstrates thusly. That’s my girl.

She is still chubby though a lot of it is slowly lengthening into toddlerhood. At 18 months, she wears a combination of 2T and 3T clothing. Size 6 shoes. So there’s that happy wardrobe change.

Her imagination is beginning to blossom. The other day, she crawled around on the floor barking then stood up and patted her belly, which is her sign for dog. This cracked her up immensely so she repeated it, totally oblivious to me watching.

She’s a such a treasure. My little angel. I could sit and watch her read for hours. I could watch her delight in a Disney song, clapping excitedly and twirling and dancing, forever. She constantly reminds me to find the happy in everything, no matter how innocuous.

We’ll pretend I was thinking something deep and profound there and not mentally calculating how much laundry I have to do.

We bought Olivia a wooden train. It has pegs for colorful blocks to stack and rolls around with the faintest of squeaks. She loves it. She loved it more when she figured out that the blocks could Come Off! and then go Back On! And then Off!

She puts a block on, claps, puts another block on, claps, so on. She looks to me or her daddy for approval. We clap and say, “Yay!” to let her know that, yes, we do approve and this is a great thing you have accomplished.

My baby fever is no secret to anyone who has paid even a half a second of attention to me in the past, oh, six months. I’m so ready for the next pregnancy, the next squishy, the next sibling, next, next.

But then I have these moments with Olivia, the learning, the growing, the development, the snuggles and I wonder if I’m being selfish already looking ahead to the next child instead of focusing on her. Now.

Am I forfeiting future moments such as these because I will be too wrapped up in caring for a newborn? Am I being wrong in wanting to hurry to the next stage instead of relishing the one we are in and just being content?

No matter the answers to these questions (and I know everyone out there has an answer), I do need to learn to be content. My mindset is….jacked.

My mind right now is a tumultuous storm of wants. I want another baby. I want to write this book. I want a house to decorate. I want a garden. I want to make and sell things. And the Want is driving me into a spiral of darkness. I open my eyes in the morning…another morning where what I want seems so utterly far away…

Yes, we are frustrated with having to put pretty much everything on hold to get our financial lives in order again. Yes, we are frustrated at not having a space or a home to call our own – to be living with my parents. Yes, we are frustrated at this, that or the other as they all creep up month after month. And, yes, I get frustrated when people I love announce the next pregnancy with all the joy and happy and elation that comes with it.

However, I can either continue to be frustrated or I can try to be content with my less than ideal situation right now because I know it’s for the better. I know the decision we made was for our future and so we can have those Wants.

The next chapter will happen when it is meant to and we will make it work somehow. If I get pregnant here now in this situation, we will make it work as we always do. If we aren’t able to get a home loan and have to rent again, we will make it work as we always do. If our health insurance doesn’t work out the way we need it to…again…we will make it work as we always do. We have been thrown some pretty amazing curve balls in our time as a family and we’ve weathered all of them. Some may call it luck. Some may attribute a higher power. I nod and murmur and smile and blink back tears.

I really don’t understand the tumble of words that just happened. They needed to get out because I feel wrapped up in self-pity lately and that’s making me a horrible wife and mother.

I need a new mindset.

Saturday, we took Olivia to the St. Louis Science Center.  I remember when they first built it – grander and larger and shinier than the Old Science Center.  It has a domed IMAX, four levels of awesome, a huge wire and loop ball track that criss-crosses the whole front foyer, shows, and Two! Huge! Animatronic! Dinosaurs!

Hi, I would like to see your pretend crutches.

Trains!

The Science Center sits in Forest Park, a huge central city park that also houses the Zoo and the Art Museum.  Everything in Forest Park (with the exception of special exhibits) is free.  Free.  F.R.E.E.  If you bring your own food and don’t see any special exhibits you can have a complete, entertaining day trip for Free.

Anyway.

Hi

BAAAALLS

Since I moved away and returned, the Science Center has changed a bit.  New exhibits replaced some of the ones I remembered.  More stuff for various ages are around.  One such new thing is the Discovery Room.  It’s a giant playroom.  It costs $3 and runs for 45 minutes.  You walk in, set your kid down, and let them go berserk with drums, blocks, trains, ball pits, doll houses, medical toys, wheelchairs, magnets, hula hoops, water table, cars, puppets, books, puzzles, musical instruments, bugs (live ones, yes….)…..and more.

Trains with daddy

The little boy could NOT figure out why Olivia was playing with trains

Olivia had a blast.  The second we put her down, she was toddling everywhere, getting into everything.  She walked right up to other kids and wanted up.  She carried things around the room.  She did NOT want to be picked up ever by us.  She beat on drums.  She fished with a magnetic fishing pole.  She saw a real live rainforest cockroach.

It was huge.  I moved away quietly and let Daddy field that experience.

Daddy tried to show her gears. She was amused for a moment.  And helped by dumping them all out for him.

Gears are better on the floor.  Clearly.

They had a table of wooden puzzles that she kept returning to as well.  She was especially enthralled with the colored fish one.

Puzzle Time

When it was done, she was understandably upset. 45 minutes was not long enough in her opinion.  We tried putting her in the Ergo on daddy but she was having none of it.  I had also brought in my wrap so we found an out of the way spot for me to back-wrap her.

In less than four seconds, we had a small crowd.  Stephen murmured (as I’m bent over with Olivia giggling on my back and I’m trying to keep the fabric straight), “You have an audience.”

When I was done, one woman looked at her husband and said, “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

I smiled and we walked away, Olivia happily riding on my back.

We visited the gift shop where she quietly looked around until we passed a shelf of stuffed dinosaurs.  She craned as far as she could for one of them so we bought her a red one.  She spent the first part of the car ride babbling to him and calling him, “Dog.”

Until she sacked out holding onto his head.

So.

My mama gut has been telling me for a little bit now that Olivia would benefit from one nap a day as opposed to two.  However, she’s only sometimes doing that and I’m a bit at a loss as to how to transition her to this while keeping in mind both her and my sanity.

When she was itty bitty, she fell naturally into the 2-3-4 pattern.  She’s nearly 15 months old (WHAT?) and is still pretty much sticking to that schedule.  Of course, it’s more like 2-3.5-3 because she wakes up at 8am and goes to bed around 8.30pm.

Which is fine.

However.

Lately, her second nap has been very VERY short (like less than an hour) and she wakes up in a mood that has all of us watching the clock for bedtime.

So.

Her first nap, though, is far too early for us to try to keep her up from the end of it to bedtime.  The logical conclusion would be to postpone the first/only nap until later in the day, hope for the best, then keep her up until bedtime.

I don’t want to force her if she’s not ready but I don’t think she’s actually getting any rest during her second nap given how grumpy she wakes up.

Therefore.

I am asking for those of you who have experience with this to lend me your stories.  Did you have a kid go naturally from two to one?  Did you have to aid in the transition?  If you aided, what did you do?  Was it better going to one nap or do you miss the days of two naps?

Disclaimer: Yes, I’m asking for advice. Please keep it civil.  Everyone parents differently and I respect and value all choices.  I ask you do the same.  Inflammatory comments will be deleted.

I had a moment of clarity the other day as I watched Olivia play. She rolled and tumbled on couch cushions, squealing with unfettered delight. In that moment, she was 100% happy.

Sure, she’s playing on my mom’s floor instead of her own in a house her parents own.

Sure, she’s playing alone instead of with a sibling.

But she could care less.

And, in that moment, she taught me to be happy Now.
Right. Now. And not be sad about what isn’t happening Now.

Don’t get me wrong. If I found out I was pregnant today, I would be ecstatic. If we found out we could buy a home next week, we would be at the bank.

But my little tumbleweed reminded me that she is here Now in this place and is Happy.

That’s all that matters.

On my birthday back in June, I got my hair cut for the first time since my wedding in 2009.  Last night, my husband helped me dye it a lovely shade of shocking red.

I’m having these moments lately where I take a step out of myself and say, “This is my life.”

Routine. Routine. Play with the baby. Furiously try to have “me” time during naps.  Spouse time after baby is in bed.  Go to bed. Do it all again the next morning.

Most of the time, I’m fine with that.  There’s a peace in my soul about my life and what I’m doing and the mom I am and the wife I am.  I may not be the world’s greatest at any of them but I do my best and my best is fine with everyone.  Especially me.

Don’t get me wrong.  I LOVE my life.  I love everything about it and everyone in it.  However, being in love with something doesn’t mean it’s always perfect.  That would be boring.

Sometimes, I’m not okay with The Now.  I think of my mental dreams and to-do lists and a depression takes a hold of me.  ”I only have X hours a day to myself IF she naps and what am I doing with that time? It’s not enough to do Y or Z.”

“I’ll try to finish it tomorrow.”  My mantra lately.  Tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  Someday. Tick Tock. Tomorrow.

So I try, on those days, to work on SOMETHING.  And I have my long-term goals and plans.

Writing.

Crochet.

Sewing.

Paying off debt which leads to getting our own place.

Having another baby.

One all leads to another in my mind and it’s that end result – the bigger family and our own home – that my soul really yearns for.  So the meanwhile is filled with crafts and writing and trying to cram as much of it into the naptimes as I can.  The rest is spent watching this little person grow and discover and speak and walk and run and NEED me all.the.time.

It’s exhausting.

And fantastic.

And scary.

And unknown.

And moving too.damn.slowly.

Sometimes.

July 4 last year.

July 4 this year.

Whoa.

I have tons more to write but Stephen leaves today for his week out of town so I’m off to spend some time with him.

Happy 4th, y’all.

Today.

She is happy.

I am happy.

He is happy.

His family is coming to visit my family.

The baby pool has water waiting for splashes.

I am 1/4 through a really awesome made up crochet project.

She is nearly running.

Happy.

This post has been rolling around in my head for a few weeks now.  I wrote about it briefly but still felt that a lot of things went unsaid.

Anyway.

As some…most…all…of you know, Stephen went out of town for a week at the beginning of June.  As per his agreement with his job, his boss allowed him to move me and Olivia up to St. Louis to be with my family and still keep his job if he came back to Atlanta the first week of every month for face-to-face meetings, etc.  Not a bad trade-off, actually.  He keeps a job he really loves and gets to see his family once a month.  I get to move and live with my family again.

Coming up on the First. Time. Apart. we were both nervous.  He confided in me on numerous occasions he was worried.  Worried about leaving us for that long without him.  Worried he’d miss a milestone from Olivia.  Worried he’d miss us too much. I told him I had the same worries.  So, we both did our best to reassure each other.  We reminded each other that other families do it all the time and for longer periods and we’d be fine and it was going to be no big deal.  Meanwhile, each of us fretted internally.

It also didn’t help that the first week of every month is usually when Aunt Flo drops by.  Hi, hormone imbalance! Coffee? Scone? Midol?

So, he left.  And we were fine, for the most part.  Then that first night came and it hit us both hard.  I spent that week trying to stay as busy as possible but enveloped in loneliness and feeling out of kilter with everything around me.

Some of you may think this is silly.  ”It’s just a week.  Why is she so upset?”

And you’re right.  It’s [just] a week.  However.  How long is long enough apart before one is [allowed] to be appropriately upset?  And I don’t mean that to be snarky – I’m genuinely curious.  A day? A week? A month? A year? More?

Several factors (besides hormones) played a part in how upset I was.

First. This was the very first time in the six years since we began dating that we’d ever been apart.  We met November 2005.  He moved in April 2006.  We were engaged January 26, 2008.  Married May 2, 2009.  We have spent every night together and virtually every day together.

It’s hard.  It’s hard when you’re used to a constant and that constant suddenly isn’t there anymore.  That warm body in the bed next to you.  The person watching and heckling the movie with you.  It doesn’t matter if it’s one night or seven nights or 365 nights – the constant was broken and that throws you off.  And people deal with that differently.

Second. Stephen and I are partners in every sense of the word.  He’s Olivia’s father.  He’s my husband.  We help and support each other all the time.  We tag-team with Olivia if she’s being fussy at night.  He plays with her in the morning so I can wash my face and get dressed and put my contacts in undisturbed.  We share the load of everything, support each other in everything always.  Sure, it isn’t perfect and we bicker at times.  But there is a steady, strong partnership that we both cherish.

It’s really hard to share the load with a baby when you’re 600 miles apart.

Thankfully, Olivia was [for the most part] great the whole week. Naps, playing, bedtime, etc.

Third. We are living in my parents’ house.  This is my high school home.  I’ve alluded to it in the past how that wasn’t the best of times in my life.  It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t great.  Stephen and Olivia keep me grounded Here and Now and help me look forward always.

Night time was the hardest.  The hours between Olivia going to be and us going to bed are Our Time.  We watch movies, play video games, fool around, talk.  We talk about everything and anything.  Movies, Plans, Money, Family, Past, Future, Writing, Crafting, Coding, Projects, Animals, Dream Home, Renovations, Wine, Beer, Food…everything.  But we [talk] every single night together.

So.

Yes. We were [both] incredibly lonely and upset to be that far apart.  Will we still the next time around?  Yes.  Will it get easier over time? Probably.  Will we miss each other less? Never.

The only thing that will change is I probably won’t mention it again or mention it rarely.  I need to get in the habit of not mentioning when he’s gone for when we do live in our own place and I truly am home alone with the kid(s).  Also, the thought or actual knowledge of anyone thinking I’m silly or stupid for being upset makes it harder.

This all sounds like I’m defending myself.  Maybe I am.  Mostly, it’s just a brief look into my head because it’s chaotic in there right now.

What’s that expression? Pictures speak louder than words?

Father's Day last year

Father's Day this year

I will say this.

Stephen,

You are an amazing father.  A truly amazing, understanding, protective, loving father.  Neither of us are perfect parents but you have a wellspring of patience that never ceases to amaze me.  That little baby brings out so many good qualities.  My heart always goes pitter patter when I see you, hear you.  You are my partner, my mate, my best friend.  And I always melt inside when I see you with our daughter.

Love,
me