I can’t believe that you have been outside in this world almost as long as you were inside of me. That makes me sad in some ways. Like, this big bad world will be WINNING in some way a few weeks from now. That can’t happen. Just ask your father how much I enjoy a good competition. If it were up to me I’d try to find a way to stuff you back in and carry you around for a few more years just so I would WIN. I don’t know exactly what I would win-other than some pretty nasty stretch marks and bad case of urinary incontinence. But, it isn’t what you get that matters. It’s just that you actually WIN. The preceding three sentences will probably also explain to you later in life why I will beat you soundly without apology at any board games we might play despite you being a hapless toddler/kid/adolescent.
I come from a long line of WINNERS. My Mamaw, your great-grandmother, taught me to play poker and scrabble at the ripe old age of 5 and no matter how cute or innocent I was, she beat me every single time until I finally honed my skills enough to win fair and square. And, let me tell you, there are some days I still can’t repeat that beat down and she’s now eighty and deaf and blind. Your Mamaw can still play a mean game of poker. She’s like Helen Keller in Vegas.
You yourself are working on a very good poker face. In the past few months you have learned enumerable new skills and are using them to deftly manipulate your father and me into pretty much giving you whatever you want. As soon as you realized that crawling let you get wherever you needed to go without depending upon us to put you there, you immediately begin to refuse to be held and cuddled. Nay, I need a word stronger than “refuse”. When we pick you up off the floor to take away whatever object you’ve decided must enter your mouth you flail, push, and yell your desire to be dropped back upon your four appendages so you can take off again. If this doesn’t happen within a predetermined amount of time, the wailing begins. And, let me tell you, when the wailing starts you will often take “drama” to new heights by wailing until you choke yourself on your own spit. If it didn’t hurt our ears so much, we would laugh more. People openly remark about the drama of this scream. I’m almost proud as I know you get this proclivity towards the dramatic from me. I’ve wailed enough times in my life to notice the similarities in my progeny. Pretty soon this wailing will be replaced with creative forms of cursing and writing on bathroom walls. When it does, I will consider my work here done.
This past month you’ve taken to entertaining yourself by grabbing fistfuls of either of our hair and then yelling like Mel Gibson in “Braveheart” right before battle. It is very deep and throaty and victorious-and somewhat delicious. Sometimes you yell like that just to yell. We tell ourselves you are simply testing your decibel levels. I can’t tell you how much I love it. It makes me laugh and feel like you are strong and independent. I have no idea what kind of woman you will be when you grow up, but I can tell right now that it will be one that doesn’t take shit off anyone. And just as a side note, that whole “pulling hair” thing will serve you well all the way thru high school-especially with the bitchy girls.
We started attempting to transition you from co-sleeping to your crib in the past month. This happened with more urgency than we originally planned as last weekend included our very first trip to the ER with you after you fell off the bed while taking a nap. You turned out to be fine as you seemed to have inherited your father’s extremely large and hard head. But, it scared the beejesus out of the both of us and we agreed that you sleeping in your crib must happen sooner rather than later.
The first few nights this happened with such ease that we led ourselves to believe that “This whole transitioning thing is a breeze. We are genius parents. Look at us parenting our well-adjusted child so effortlessly and seamlessly.” Then the second week of the transition hit and we finally realized that we were not in control of this situation at all.
It’s like you thought “Well, I can handle this whole crib thing for about a week. But, any longer than that and I’m going to have to file a grievance with the parenting committee”.
You filed that grievance last night. We ran into your room at the sound of cries so horrific we thought for sure part of your face had fallen off, only to find you gripping the sides of the crib and hiking a leg up making somewhat of an attempt at a jail break. There’s no way you can actually get over the side of the crib, but you were going to try goddamnit…and you were going to scream while you did it.
Your father was convinced that something had to be wrong with you considering the noises that were coming from your mouth until I picked you up and you immediately stopped crying and actually grinned and giggled. This scenario repeated itself for two hours and included at least one attempt by your father and I to let you “cry it out”. You don’t “Cry It Out”. You “Cry OUT”. Then you choke on your own spit and start making spastic noises that should only be coming from someone having a seizure. I should have known this wasn’t going to work as the last time we made any attempt at letting you “self-soothe” you shit your pants so bad it shot up your back and out the neck hole of your shirt. You get this from me. I always get diarrhea when I’m upset or nervous. I pre-apologize for the rest of your life for all of the time you will spend on the toilet the first day of the school year, right before a big test, or when you have a really hot date. Hell, your father went to New Orleans this past week for four days and I got so excited the day he was coming home that I still had to stop and poop four times. You come by this naturally.
When you finally realized that we weren’t giving up on the crib thing you allowed both of us to cuddle with you while we rocked you back to sleep. This was a delight to both your father and I as your strong independent streak makes these moments so rare. I was actually holding you while you cuddled into my chest and I stroked your head and looked at your dad and said, “This is so sweet”. He looked at me and said, “I know. I’m jealous”. So, we traded places and you burrowed into his chest and he stroked your head for a while until you finally drifted off. It’s the moments like that I know I will remember when you are thirteen and demanding a body piercing and an 18-year-old boyfriend named “Skeeter” be allowed to stay over.
It’s these moments that will keep us from killing you when you wreck the car at seventeen or stay out past curfew and call us “shitheads”. It’s these moments that help me to understand why people say being a parent is the hardest thing on Earth but there are tiny moments of it that will scar your soul with love so strong you won’t ever be the same.
You have made every child my child. And I can never thank you enough for that.
Love,
Mama
