12 Month Update

Dear Lana,

Happy Birthday! Today you are a whole year old. It’s hard to believe that this time last year you and I were just getting acquainted, that I spent the morning with you in my belly, the afternoon with you trying to vacate my belly, and the evening holding you in my arms. If that much changed in the course of a day, you can imagine how much has changed in the course of a year.

Witnessing your development throughout your first year of life has been truly remarkable. You’ve gone from a colicky, inconsolable newborn to a happy, charming one-year-old. You’ve learned how to roll over, sit up, laugh, clap your hands, wave, roll your tongue, hold a cup, dance, and operate the television remote. I know some adults who haven’t mastered all those things.

Your twelfth month of life, in particular, has been filled with excitement and new discoveries. For starters, you are increasingly mobile. You are now crawling like an old pro, pulling up like a little monkey, and walking like baby Frankenstein. You had the audacity to make your first walk across the room (with the assistance of a push toy) while I was working and your Granny T was watching you. She wisely chose to withhold this information from me, in hopes that I would discover you doing it and assume I was the first to see. The second time you did it was with your father while I was once again out of the room. After he put you to bed for the night he strolled upstairs and nonchalantly asked if I had seen you walk yet. As if the woman who keeps him informed of your quality and quantity of bowel movements would simply forget to mention a little thing like walking. You finally had the decency to show me your walk the following morning, and I’ve since learned to accept that I might not always be the first one to see your major milestones – even though I totally deserve that honor. You were almost 10lbs at birth, remember?

In the past month you’ve also become increasingly fascinated with the things and the people in your world, and eager to point them out to us. You’ve gotten into the habit of greeting your father when he comes home from work with a perfunctory wave followed by a pointing tour of the major attractions in the room you are currently occupying. One day he arrived home early and caught you by surprise. You gave him a quick wave and then frantically looked around the room in search of something, anything, to point to. “Oh, no! Dad’s home and I’ve got nothing! Let’s see… the plant – no I did that yesterday! Where are the balloons? Someone moved the balloons!! They were up there and NOW THEY ARE GONE!! Wait, what’s that up there? Yes, it’s the ceiling fan! Quick, point at that! Whew, good save.”

When I think back on the past year and the changes it has brought, I can’t decide whether it flew or crawled by. I can’t believe that you are already turning one, but I also struggle to remember a time before you were in my life. If the past year has taught me anything, it’s that motherhood is full of those contradictions. That I can simultaneously wish to spend every waking moment with you and also long for a break from mommy duties. That I can dream about what you will be like as a toddler, a teenager, an adult, but also yearn to keep you my baby forever. That I can be profoundly unable to describe my love for you, but completely determined to keep trying.

I could not possibly love you more or be more proud of you, my beautiful, smart, funny, sweet, one-year-old girl. Thank you for giving me the most amazing year of my life.

Love,
Mom



(Photos in this post courtesy of Sabrina Sexton).

Baby's First Birthday Party

On Saturday we held Lana’s first birthday party – a Sesame-Street themed affair with generous amounts of balloons and food, the former being far more popular with the birthday girl than the latter. We tried to keep the party low-key by limiting our guest list to immediate family and Lana’s little girlfriend, Alexandra. Still, we ended up with quite a crowd, but Lana handled the excitement amazingly well. She happily demonstrated her new walking skills and pointed out our home’s attractions to her guests. I would have taken the time to dust the ceiling fan had I known it would be the highlight of her pointing tour.

Lana particularly enjoyed opening and exploring her gifts, which included some beautiful new clothes and fun, big girl toys. Almost all the new toys make music or talk, but I’ve become surprisingly immune to the persistent din of Fisher-Price tunes and talking Elmo toys. I wake up with the “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” song in my head, but it’s a small price to pay for keeping Lana entertained.

Less enjoyable for Lana was her introduction to birthday cake. When John and I selected a cake at Publix, we had visions of our delighted daughter admiring her beautiful cake and tearing into her complimentary “baby smash cake.” And she did at least smile as the guests sang “Happy Birthday” and we blew out the candle. Things went downhill quickly, though, as she tentatively grazed her hands over the cake. She surveyed the resulting neon, sugary mess on her hands with a look that said, “Seriously, guys. This is completely uncivilized. Ever heard of a fork?” Fortunately, a hand washing and a bowl of ice cream perked her right back up, and hey – more cake for me!

The true highlight of the day was spending it with the friends and family who have played an important part in Lana’s first year of life. We feel especially fortunate to have such a beautiful little girl and so many people who share our love for her.


View more photos from the party

Ding Dong, the Pump is Gone

(Warning – the following post contains talk of boobies. If you snickered when you read the word boobies, this post is not for you.)

I turned in my rented breast pump a couple of weeks ago, a move that signals the end of all breastfeeding activities. It was a day that I dreamed about pretty much since the day I began using the breast pump. A day when I would no longer have to deal with the pain of breast engorgement, the hassle of pumping, or the cleaning of a zillion little plastic breast pump pieces.

Still, I felt a little guilty when I unceremoniously dropped the pump off at the Mobility Warehouse from whence it came. I used that thing approximately 1,350 times in the past year. I spent more quality time with the pump than with the dog. Perhaps a relationship like that requires a more formal ending. I probably should have buried the pump in the back yard and said a few parting words, but then I wouldn’t have gotten my deposit back.

I elected to begin expressing milk on a full-time basis after struggling briefly with the more conventional form of breastfeeding. During our short hospital stay after Lana’s birth, an endless stream of hospital nurses questioned whether or not Lana had “gone to the breast” yet. “Yes,” I told them. “And she decided she didn’t like it.” I suppose we could have tried harder, but the horror stories I heard about cracked nipples and the intense pain of breastfeeding did little to encourage me to push “the breast” on my reluctant child.

The nurses and lactation consultants were skeptical of my planned approach, believing it would be too difficult to keep up on a long term basis. And there were plenty of times when I felt like quitting – when the stress of expressing milk, putting it into a bottle, feeding it to my baby, cleaning the bottle, and repeating the entire process again two or three hours later seemed absolutely overwhelming. But I trudged on, content in the knowledge that I was doing the best thing I could for my baby and all too aware that stopping cold turkey would mean a slow, painful death by breast engorgement.

Now that it’s done, I feel immensely proud of my accomplishment. Breastfeeding is a daunting proposition, and the legions of breastfeeding fanatics (see The Art of Breastfeeding) and breastfeeding haters (the folks that shoot nasty looks at women who have the audacity to feed their child in public) make it no easier. In the end, it’s a very personal decision. I’m happy with my decision, happy that Lana has been so healthy in her first year of life, and happy to have that breast pump out of my house at last.