Happy Birthday Evelyn!

Happy 1st Birthday, Evelyn! We made it through the first year! I have to admit there were times when John and I both seriously doubted we'd see this day in one piece.


It's funny how her first birthday really does feel special, not just your average run of the mill day, even as we go about our normal routine. It feels like the events of the past year, big and small, daunting and easy, have all been running their course and are culminating in this one point in time, and now we can take a moment to just be still and take stock of all that's happened. As John put it, Evelyn's birth day feels like it was just yesterday, and it also feels like it was 10 years ago. We have been through so much, and yet it's just the tip of the iceberg.
I don't think either of us was fully prepared to become a parent, or even had a single clue about what that really meant. While I absolutely loved being pregnant, and even have only the fondest of memories of labor (thanks to those memory-erasing hormones!), I was (we were) completely unprepared for what came next. And boy did we find out.

But I guess those memory-erasing hormones last quite a while, because the long sleepless nights, the endless diaper explosions, the fear, the doubt, the panic... they are all but a distant memory. What stands out to me are:

• The early morning light in the hospital room right after Evelyn was born (at 8:42am). I had labored through the night and all was dark and peaceful, and when Evelyn was born, it was as if I were opening my eyes for the first time. Blinking in that grey light, nursing Evelyn for the first time, I watched the hustle and bustle around me suddenly come into sharp focus -- John, who hadn't left my side for even a single second all night, finally sitting down and looking happy and shocked. Paula (pregnant and exhausted, having been with us throughout labor) stalling my aunt and uncle who were anxiously waiting outside, to give me a little more time.
• Watching with amazement as my little girl grew, and grew, and grew... she was a chunky little Buddha baby whose chubby cheeks and perpetually surprised expression drew attention everywhere we went.
• The shock and surprising sadness when I held Evelyn one day and realized that her torso was no longer the solidly squishy ball of fat it once was, and I could actually feel her ribs! She lengthened as she slimmed, and suddenly I saw a little girl emerging from the folds.
  

And now of course, we have this beautiful, blossoming one year old girl (a toddler I guess!), who makes us laugh every day and also continues to surprise us every day. For instance, on the very day of her birthday, she took her first extended walk across half the living room! Unbelievable timing. (video pending)

While I once questioned whether I'd be a good mom, now I know that I am, no matter how much time I have to be away from her during the day or how little I know about child development -- I am learning, and I won't let her down. John is learning too, and has a special connection with Evelyn that even I don't have. She has this special level of excitement that she reserves only for him, and sometimes literally screams with joy when he comes home from work.

We're growing into the roles we have laid out for us, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

Class of 2006

This past Sunday, we had our 3rd Bradley class reunion, and it is really amazing to see how much all of the babies have grown in the past year. There is nothing like a growing child to really make you feel the passage of time.

The babies are now between 10 and 14 months old, with Evelyn just about in the middle, though she is probably the biggest and tallest of the bunch. It was with a touch of sadness when I realized that we have moved beyond the cute baby lineups on the couches, where they all slumped together and depended on each other's squishy bodies to keep themselves upright. This time, between all 6 cameras going at once (with one family missing), I think probably someone out there got a good picture of all the kids before they quickly scattered. I wonder how the next reunion pictures will look?!

We had these reunions when Evelyn was:

• 3.5 months old -- she is missing from the first picture because we were all at the hospital waiting to meet Rhea!
• 7 months old -- battered by babies on all sides, feverish with a cold, and just reunited with her Mama who just returned from her last-minute trip to New York... yes I am still feeling guilty about that.
  
• 4 days shy of 1 year old!

About halfway through the reunion, as the room got more crowded with arriving parents and babies, Evelyn started to get really fussy and clingy. She's got 5 teeth out now, with 3 more simultaneously on their way, and has definitely been a bit out of sorts lately because of it. She had a great time early on, when there were fewer babies and parents to contend with, but I think she was starting to get a little overwhelmed and overstimulated towards the end. Eventually she found her way to the baby's room and was happily playing with a box of toys in there by herself, away from the crowded living room.

Though I know that this is totally normal, I wonder if she'd be more comfortable in a roomful of strangers if I took her out more on playdates and things like that. Yes, this is mommy guilt rearing its ugly head again, as I tell myself that if I were home more, and took her out more, she'd be better equipped to handle all of life's challenges! When all it is is probably her teething discomfort exacerbated by an understandably overwhelming environment. After all, both John and I found the gathering totally exhausting, as introverts tend to do, even though we had fun.

Evelyn's big birthday party is this Saturday (and it is definitely getting big by the looks of the evite so far), and I wonder if it will be the worst possible way for Evelyn to celebrate her birthday. Hopefully she won't burst into tears when we all sing Happy Birthday to her!

Who's that girl?

What I lack in quality entries, I make up in quantity. Here's another pseudo blog entry. This video was taken just today of Evelyn discovering herself in the mirror. It's jam-packed with lots of Evelynisms - it's like condensing the entire Evelyn experience into a minute or so. Well, almost.

Chaos and order

This month has been an incredibly hectic month at work (so sorry for the serious lack of substantial posts to the blog!). It figures that it's also the month of Evelyn's first birthday (which is exactly a week from today!), and we've done little (zero) planning for her party (date TBD).

True to form, here's another video to pass as a blog entry. Usually, Evelyn creates chaos wherever she goes (which explains the messiness in the background of all these videos... yeah, that's it). She generally likes to take things from where they should be and tosses them haphazardly, content that wherever they land is not where they belong. So it came as a pleasant surprise to see Evelyn trying to put things on a table or shelf rather than pulling them off. For example...

Dancing queen

I couldn't resist posting some more videos of Evelyn dancing to the eerie beat of her rundown walking toy. The "Old McDonald Had a Farm" song is especially good (bad).



This snippet, taken from the same morning (this morning actually), shows a couple of exciting seconds of Evelyn hovering/standing! She's looking and blowing at the paper fish that are blown up and hanging from one corner of the ceiling. That's one of her favorite things to do, and we've inadvertantly taught her to blow at just about everything, hanging from the ceiling or otherwise.

Movin' on up

Evelyn's on the cusp of learning to walk I think! As John says, she's been working on it for a while now, with all of her cruising along furniture and holding onto our hands while she walks... and walks... and walks... We borrowed this walking toy thing from John's coworker, which is totally hilarious because it's so old (or the batteries are so run down) that the music sounds really creepy.



Evelyn sure seems to like the music though. I took this video early one chilly morning (the girl still wakes us up at almost exactly 6am every day!).



Yesterday, as witnessed by myself, John, and Mike, Evelyn crouched into a squat to grab some wooden blocks, got a couple in her hands, and straightened herself into a standing position all without holding on to anything! She stood there for what seemed like forever (OK, maybe 5 seconds, which is forever for her), then she took the tiniest step forward! Unfortunately, no one but me saw that because at that point, I had my arms hovering around her on all sides to protect her from falling into the surrounding furniture or the hard, sharp-cornered box of blocks. Oh boy, we are really in for it now...