One
Dear Lil C,
One year ago tonight, I was just starting to hit the harder contractions after being in the hospital the entire day. Finally, at 1:05 am on October 4th, you, my beautiful baby girl, came into this world with your fist curled underneath your chin and my life was once again, turned completely upside down. In the months leading up to your birth I wondered to your daddy how we would love a second little girl as much as we already loved our first. I never could have imagined the amazing joy of becoming a parent for the second time, of becoming your very lucky Mama.
This year has been amazing, full of all those exciting firsts, and so full of love. You are adored by everyone who meets you. Your sister adores you completely, even during those moments when you knock all of her blocks over, or decide that one of her dolls makes a fine teether. One of your favorite things to do is run to the stairs, look back at me and your sister and say, "Go Up. Go. . go. . .go. . .go" as you crawl up the stairs as fast as you can, so that you can beat your sister to her room and get a prime location in front of her Cinderella vanity.
You are always up for a game of chase and tickle with your sister. She spent much of this year waiting anxiously for a chance to hold you, curl up with you on the sofa and stroke your little head. Now that you’re too busy for just lying around, your sister steals the cuddles where she can and often grabs you mid-step to give you a hug. Although often annoyed with these intrusive hugs, you sometimes return them with a wide open mouthed kiss that sends your sister into hysterics. Although there will be bumps in the road as you both grow, one thing that will never change is how much she loves you.
Recently, you have become very social and love to wave hello to perfect strangers, even cars that pass by as we wait for your sister at the bus stop or take a walk. If you’re unsure of someone though, you immediately lay your head down and grab hold tightly of my arm and shirt. I can’t help but love these moments, because it’s during these times that I’m able to truly cuddle you and hold you close. Those moments are becoming more and more rare since you’ve become an expert at walking, climbing, and getting into trouble.
You are easily able to climb up onto furniture now, and although you have no idea how to go down steps, your ease at going up completely amazes me. You are also no stranger to innovative thinking. The ottoman provides easy access to your port-a-crib and I fully expect to see you trying to dive into the crib within the next few weeks. When there isn’t a piece of furniture to assist you in your endeavors, you find other ways. Books make great stepping stools, and handfuls of Mama’s hair makes for great leverage. At this rate I’ll be bald before I ever get a gray hair.
Although you took your first three steps at about 8 1/2 months, you waited until September to start walking like a pro. I have to say that I was happy for the delay, because now you are unstoppable in your destructive adventures. Whether pulling all the DVD’s out of the cabinet, finding your way to the bathroom and shredding toilet paper, or dumping every single toy out of your port-a-crib, you do so with great enthusiasm. Often, on a return trip, you will hold one of your found "treasures" high above your head, swinging the other arm high above your head as well, and your daddy and I can’t help thinking that you would make the orangutans at the zoo very proud.
In recent weeks I have caught you "reading" to yourself and flipping pages with ease. Although in the beginning, only "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" would do, you have now expanded your reading tastes to include some of your sister’s books too, and Elmo is always a welcome treat. Speaking of Elmo, you adore Sesame Street and say "Elmo" with ease. I am hoping that all the hard work of turning our house into the backdrop for Elmo’s World this week is a hit with you at your party.
You seem to have an amazing grasp of language already. Your daddy and I were shocked when you sat up in bed last weekend, waved, and said "hi da". We were also amazed at your interest in the pantry closet’s contents, particularly the jars and bottles of spices. One of your favorite past-times is requesting that I open up the vanilla extract so that you can take a little sniff. A few weeks ago, after hearing me say it for the 100th time, you repeated back "wanilla" and I about fell over. Because I didn’t believe it myself, I called your daddy and let him listen to you repeat it over the phone. We laughed because you sounded so incredibly cute and you laughed too.
You’ve also become very proficient at baby signs and have decided that the sign for "more" applies to so much more than just food. Often, after reading you a book, you will look up with those big beautiful eyes and smile a little smile that shows how proud you are of yourself and tap your palm with your pointer finger. More stories please, and who could resist?
As I count down the hours until you turn one, I am a little sad that this first year is over, and that it has gone so fast. But I am also excited about what the coming year will bring. This year has been so much fun as I’ve watched your personality grow and blossom into this adorable and fun-loving little baby girl. You are so filled with joy and excitement when you do something new and have no problem giving yourself a round of applause, which sometimes turns into a spirited game of patty cake. Your smile, now with six teeth, has the ability to light up the room and especially my heart.
You are an incredible little miracle who has made my life so happy. I can’t wait to see what is yet to come.
Happy 1st Birthday! I love you with all my heart.
Love,
Mama
What is going on?
I sit here today watching a news conference. The officer on the television is saying that a 32-year old man stormed a one-room school house armed with guns and planks of wood to secure the doors. Once inside he divided the boys from the girls. He released 15 boys and kept and bound between 10-12 young female students, ranging in age from 6-12. He proceeded to shoot all of the girls, killing some of them execution style before shooting himself. The man had no criminal record. He left suicide notes for his wife and children. Two hours after walking his own children to their bus stop, he was shooting innocent little girls. He said in rambling fashion in one of the notes he left that he was getting "revenge" for something that happened 20 years ago. These children were not even a glimmer in their parents’ eyes 20 years ago and now at least three little girls are dead and several others are fighting for their lives. Last week was Colorado, now Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. . . Amish country Pennsylvania.
When Columbine happened many years ago, I was camped out on my living room floor working on a project for one of my classes for my Masters degree in Education. It was Earth shattering then, as I worked on my teaching degree. Once I was a teacher it was terrifying and simultaneously annoying: the multiple school evacuations due to bomb threats scrawled on bathroom mirrors, the afternoons spent camped out in the stadium freezing since we were unable to retrieve any of our personal belongings before evacuating the building yet again, the inquiries from administration as to which students went to the bathroom and when to try to figure out who might have been behind the threat of the day. When I gave up my teaching career, I was especially glad to be done with the bomb threats and the security measures we were constantly being made aware of as they changed and evolved along with each new threat.
As a parent, the increasing amount of school shootings is even more alarming and unsettling. Years ago, other students were the shooters; now they are grown men who are entering our children’s schools and wreaking havoc. Before I had children, I considered homeschooling as an option because sending a child to a school just seemed terrifying to me. I talked myself out of it when I realized my daughter is as stubborn as I am and that it would probably just not work. I rationalized that this doesn’t happen in my area, that the media exaggerates and over reports on these stories, that the instance is actually very rare. Today, it happened close to home and every parent has to be thinking that if it can happen in a one-room Amish school house, My God, it could happen in my child’s school.
How is a parent supposed to protect a child at school? You can hope and pray that the school has safety measures sufficient to protect your children. You can pick and choose where you send your child based on which school you think is the safest. But let’s be honest. . . schools were not built to withstand being stormed by lunatics. School used to be a place where children were safe, where the biggest threat was a bully student. Now, there are grown men, armed with multiple weapons, who threaten our children’s safety and lives.
The only kind of evacuation I ever had to deal with as a child was the mandatory fire drill on occasion. Now children are exposed to much more. When I was a child, I played outside for hours at a time with my friends. Our yards and sidewalks were safe places. Now our playgrounds, sidewalks, and yards are tainted by the memory of Samantha Runnion. Our schools are the target of revenge seeking monsters.
Today I am mourning the loss of these innocent little Lancaster county girls. I am also mourning the fact that my children will never have the kind of care free childhood that I had. And I am angry as hell that I am raising children in this type of world. They deserve so much better.
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