5 Months

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."
-Mother Teresa

Although I agonize a bit over how quickly our baby is growing, I have to admit, each month is more fun than the last one. Each month is also more work than the last one, but I still love it. I have found that as I have poured all of my love & energy into this little person that my heart has been healed & I feel whole again. A very happy 5 months, indeed.

Just Because





Everything

Today Ruby had her check-up appointment & her next round of shots. I couldn't help but wonder if the lady giving those shots knew that she was ripping my heart out as she poked my baby's chubby thighs. Poor Ruby was smiling & cooing at this lady even through the first shot until she realized what was going on and started screaming. When I was out & about the other day I was talking with an older lady who was admiring Ruby & she said, "You know, if you have a healthy baby you really have everything." And I kept thinking about that as the Doctor was giving me a glowing report of my healthy baby girl today & how she's right on the mark developmentally. I could hardly contain myself I was so proud of my little girl. It's a silly thing to be proud over & yet I was beaming. I just feel so incredibly grateful for this baby that I can call my own.

20 + 8

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience." Eleanor Roosevelt

I had a birthday & adding another year to my life has left me feeling a bit older & wiser. This past year of my life has been an exciting one & a happy one. 27 has been good to me. And a lot of that has to do with that perfect face in the pictures above. Good heavens, that girl has brought joy & fulfillment unlike any I've ever known.

I Believe in Pretty

The Death of Pretty

By Pat Archibald

This post is intended as a lament of sorts, a lament for something in the culture that is dying and may never been seen again.

People will define pretty differently. For the purposes of this piece, I define pretty as a mutually enriching balanced combination of beauty and projected innocence.

Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence. I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is. But some things were different in the back then. First and foremost, many beautiful women, whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence and virtue. And that combination of beauty and innocence is what I define as pretty.

By nature, generally when men see this combination in women it brings out their better qualities, their best in fact. That special combination of beauty and innocence, the pretty inspires men to protect and defend it.

Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different. When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.

As I said, pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend. Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity. Its value is temporary and must be used. It is a consumable.

Nowhere is this pretty deficit more obvious than in our “stars,” the people we elevate as the “ideal.” The stars of the fifties surely suffered from the same sin as do stars of today. Stars of the fifties weren’t ideal but they pursued a public ideal different from today.

The merits of hotness over pretty is easy enough to understand, they made an entire musical about it. Who can forget how pretty Olivia Newton John was at the beginning of Grease. Beautiful and innocent. But her desire to be desired leads her to throw away all that is valuable in herself in the vain hopes of getting the attention of a boy. In the process, she destroys her innocence and thus destroys the pretty. What we are left with is hotness.

Hotness is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth.

Most girls don’t want to be pretty anymore even if they understand what it is. It is ironic that 40 years of women’s liberation has succeeded only in turning women into a commodity. Something to be used up and thrown out.

Of course men play a role in this as well, but women should know better and they once did. Once upon a time you would hear girls talk about kind of women men date and the kind they marry. You don’t hear things like that anymore.

But here is the real truth. Most men prefer pretty over hot. Even back in 6th grade I hated the “hot” Olivia Newton John and felt sorry for her that she had to debase herself in such a way. Still do.

Our problem is that society doesn’t value innocence anymore, real or imagined. Nobody aspires to innocence anymore. Nobody wants to be thought of as innocent, the good girl. They want to be hot, not pretty.

I still hope that pretty comes back, although I think it not likely any time soon. For every Taylor Swift, there are a hundred Megan Foxs, or Lindsay Lohans, or Miley Cyruses etc.

Girls, please, bring back the pretty.

The Life of a Baby

It blows my mind how quickly our baby is growing up. Here's what she's been doing lately:

Being adorable

Playing with toys & practicing her "attitude" face. Let's hope that was unintentional.

Sitting in her bouncy seat outside & loving every minute of it.

This girl is obsessed with being outside & we LOVE it! She can be out there for hours with us & won't make a peep. Tyler is convinced this means she's going to love the outdoors & camping as much as him. I can't wait to see if she likes swimming this summer!

Sitting up with a little bit of help.

Hanging upside down

She has also learned to spit which I surprisingly find kind of cute...only a mother's love I guess. And she loves when I read books to her - she'll sit through several of them & turns her head left to right really fast looking at the pages. She's the best sleeper around (which I will forever thank Babywise for) & she loves her mama. I love the way her eyes follow me when I leave, & how she kicks & squeals when I come to get her out of her crib, & how she seems to reserve some of her very best smiles & laughs for me. I feel such a connection with this little person & it reminds me that we were always meant to be together. It was always her that we were waiting for.

Disaster

The other day we had our third & final supervisory visit with our caseworker. We're required to do these visits before Ruby is 6 months old so our agency can make sure everything is going well & Ruby is in a healthy & happy environment. It seems like there are quite a few Walmart patrons who could use some supervisory visits if you ask me...just saying. So we have a new caseworker who we love & she came to our home for the first time to ask us questions which basically gives us a platform to gush about how perfect/brilliant/wonderful our baby girl is. Ruby was down for her nap & as we were all sitting & talking I heard her wake up so I & went upstairs to get her & bring her down for our visit. Now I am positive that I put my baby down in that crib but I swear it was an entirely different baby there an hour later. This baby went from pouty to hysterical in no more than 5 seconds. I'm talking fists clenched, red face, & screaming so loud she was practically shaking. If I hadn't been there for the birth I might have sworn this was an evil twin I didn't know about. We tried everything to calm her down & I reluctantly brought her downstairs & she became more hysterical by the minute. Between nervous/awkward chuckles & promises that "She's never like this, really!" I was feeling like I was back at square one with this whole parenting thing. As I silently prayed she would stop, the shrieks only became louder. She was turning on me. What human being was even capable of making those sounds? It was as if she had entirely forgotten who changes her diapers, feeds her, burps her, dresses her & did she even remember our wonderful afternoon? I let her coo & babble at ridiculously high volumes in the fabric store despite all the attention it was drawing. So Tyler just took her back upstairs & then for a walk & brought her back in without a bow in her hair. Well all Hell had officially broken loose at this point. She eventually calmed down but would do a little heave every so often just to keep me in panic mode. After our caseworker left, Tyler & I just looked at each other completely baffled. What on earth had just occured in our home? I still have no idea. But I do know that she was happy as can be for the rest of the night. So Ruby, thanks for humbling me & reminding me to not get too comfortable with this parenting stuff. I'll take the bad with the good, but all I ask is that next time you go berserk, just do it when we don't have company, because that was uncalled for. Deal? Deal.



A Fresh Start

I love the new year & how it suddenly feels like you have a blank slate with endless possibilities right in front of you. It always makes me think about my life, where I am, & where I want to be. There's an excitement in not knowing what this new year will bring. 2011 was the Year of the Baby for us & it was one that I'll forever remember as one of the happiest times in my life. It kind of felt like an exhale.

 I have a lot of goals I want to accomplish - things like going grocery shopping every Monday (why do I have such an aversion to grocery shopping?!), working out (I hate this more than grocery shopping), & making a conscious effort to stop snorting when I laugh. About 6 months into 2011 I started snorting when I laugh really hard & especially when I'm tired. I have gone 27.5 years snort-free & now I develop this awful habit. It's so strange & I'm determined to get this monkey off my back. But my main goal for 2012 is to fill my life with good things. Things like good literature, more time outdoors, good music, & less time on my computer & cell phone. I want to surround myself more fully with the positive & uplifting because there's so much of it in the world & I feel like I've barely even scratched the surface of all that's available. So I'm going to strive for feeding myself physically, mentally & spiritually each day. Here's to another great year!