9 months and several light years later

Evelyn turned 9 months old last Wednesday! It's hard to believe that we're already over 3/4 of the way through the first year of life with a baby. A child. Our child.


We had a relatively uneventful 9 month checkup (until the end, when Evelyn got a vaccination, that we forgot we had to do, and a finger prick to test for anemia, which we didn't know we'd do). Evelyn is 23 lbs and 28.5 inches tall now. Still off the charts for a baby her age, and at the 75th percentile for babies 1 month older than she is, just like the last time we checked. I never would have guessed that I'd have such a big baby, and it's a good thing too, or else I might not have ever done it!

Evelyn continues down her path to independence at breakneck speed, a little too fast for me. Gone are the days when I would enjoy a nice long cuddle with her in the mornings after her first feeding of the day. She used to give me such sweet smiles when she was done nursing, and then would lean her head against my shoulder as I burped her and sang bits of "Good Morning" from Singing in the Rain. Now all she wants is to eat and then get down on the floor and play! I try to hold on to her for a just a little longer, distracting her with a shower of kisses on her face or a quick speed-read through Goodnight Moon (at the pace at which she turns the pages), but as soon as I'm done, she struggles to break free, shoving off with her legs to reach the curtains, pushing with her arms to get to her toys on the floor. Eventually, always, I concede and let her go.

I'm sure any seasoned mom reading this will tell me that motherhood is all about letting go. I spent 10 months growing this baby inside of me, sacrificing the essentials of life, such as sushi, wine, raw oysters, and speeding on the freeway, all for the sake of this little person I hadn't even met yet. And then we met. After a loooooong and intense labor. And I thought the hard part is over, only to be given an extremely rude awakening (repeatedly, oh, every 2-3 hours or so) to the realities of life with a newborn. And then the mess... the seemingly bottomless liquids ejected, sometimes forcibly, from all parts of the body. The constant, and I mean, constant nursing. The neverendingness of it all. I longed for the orderly life I once knew, the life in which I had complete control over my immediate situation. The 6 months of maternity leave spanned before me like the dunes of the Mojave....

But then things got easier, imperceptibly but certainly, and I got into a nice rhythm. Just when I thought I'd gotten things figured out, and Evelyn was sleeping well and I was confidently taking her out of the house to run errands and meet with other moms and their babies, it was time to go to back to work full time. And then it was time for a different kind of letting go. Of course, we have the best daycare situation next to me staying home, which is having my mom watch Evelyn. But I had to trust that the perfect little system we had, the routines and the sleep schedules and all of the carefully orchestrated interactive games we played, wouldn't completely fall apart when I left for the office. And of course it didn't. It took me a while to learn that Evelyn would do just fine while I was away, and maybe even better, because now she has another person she's attached to, another way to interact with the world, another way to learn and grow and become the complete little individual that she is today. The one who learned how to clap and wave and understand Chinese from her Grandma, the one who screams and shouts at strangers walking by to get their attention, and who saves the biggest screams and shouts for me when I get home from work.

Nowadays, both John and I rush home in the evenings, often leaving work too early and not getting enough done, so that we can give Evelyn her bath before bed. I bathe her, and John dresses her for bed, in a perfect little ritual we have. John loves taking her for walks to West Portal on the weekends, with or without me, sitting with her in front of Peet's and enjoying watching her attract attention from the passersby. As he says, it's like hanging out with a celebrity. I'd say he's come a long way from not ever even wanting a kid...

And the same goes for me. I wasn't sure at first, but now I can't imagine life without this little girl. In the beginning, she needed us, and me in particular, so much that it was overwhelming and almost suffocating. Then things got easier, and I had the luxury of wondering if I was holding her too much, spoiling her to the point that she'd want to be held all the time, or so my family warned me. And now, as I struggle to hold on to her for a just a little while longer in the mornings, I know that I had nothing to worry about. I know now to just enjoy everything that Evelyn is and does because these ephemeral moments will vanish before we know it. Now, when she wraps her arms around my shoulders with such ferocity, I just squeeze her and hold on to that feeling before she decides it's time to crawl after the cat. They say that babies grow so much during their first year, but no one ever told us how much we would grow too.