At This Moment

Time is slippery with this little one and before another stage comes and goes I wanted to record who we are at this point in our lives.

The other evening I was putting Lucy to bed and where previously she wanted her crib filled her dolls and stuffed animals and blankets, this night she insisted on just two blankets. She was very clear that she wanted two and nothing else. I kept thinking, she will be so lonely tonight and will change her mind soon. But from there on out she would throw anything of excess of two blankets out of her crib before going to sleep. It struck me then and still does how acutely she knows what she wants and how empowered she feels to ask for what she feels is right for her.

Another interesting piece of this stage in Lucy's life is how curious she is up to the point of touching something messy. She doesn't like too much stimulus on her hands. Reluctant finger-painter and play-dough user.

Lucy constantly refers to herself in the third person and loves to give every item ownership. "Lucy's whale shirt" or "daddy's sock". She is getting adjusted to the access that full sentences give her to connecting with other people and getting what she wants. Every night Mike and I will lay in bed and invariable one of us will say, "Did you teach Lucy ______ because she just _______ and ________ is so cute." But most days it is unclear how she picks up everything she does.

I also want to remember who I am as a mother at this point.

I hate that I have to wake Lucy up in the morning to go to school with me but I love that I always get to be the first person to talk to her each day. She is slow to wake up but starts talking from the moment she opens her eyes until the moment we get to school. She loves when I sing "Good Morning" from Singing in the Rain even though I only know two lines. Every morning I think, I should really look up the rest of this song, but I never do. I hate getting her dressed, she is too big to be tossed around and stuffed into clothes without straining my back and I can't wait until she can go potty and get dressed by herself.

I'm not a super house cleaner, but what I do, I always try to involve Lucy. I want to her to see work and be a part of it. She likes to stir food and pull laundry out of the machine. She likes to wipe counters and dust tables. She is not particularly good at picking up because she is easily distracted. Both because of this philosophy to work alongside Lucy and out of the sheer need for some down time, I don't normally do chores when she naps.

I love love love reading books with Lucy on my lap. It is the best activity that ever happened to me. But it kills me when she loves a book that has pictures I find aesthetically unpleasing and is equally frustrating when I am reading her a brilliantly clever book and she is clearly not in to it. We usually have about 30 books checked out from the library at any given time.

I never want to forget what a perfect cross-section of time this stage has been. I adore where our family is right now. It shouldn't be neglected to say that while I haven't nailed down exactly who Mike is at this stage in our family, he is such a brilliant father and husband. I can't imagine being a mother without him by my side.