FOUR

THREE

 

To my sweet Ovie Lou,

as I like to call you these days (and to which you adamantly protest almost every time - 'No, Mama - it's EHHH-vee, not OHH-vee!'),

You're three and your eyes are sparkling and face is all aglow. You've insisted on it being your birthday every day for months now, but today is the day. We woke you up with a 'Happy Birthday' this morning, which you said right back. You fail to understand the concept of the Happy Birthday phrase and see it more as a greeting like 'good morning' or 'have a good day.' All day you would spread your cheer with 'happy birthday' responses, making people chuckle. I made salisbury steak a few nights before your birthday and you were sure that I had lost it - brown gravy was all wrong. Where was the white gravy? Where were the muffins (biscuits)?! So I knew then that your birthday breakfast would be biscuits and gravy.

After biscuits and gravy, we went off to church. It seems that people (especially older people) think that children need treats, all the time, at every event, whenever possible. I usually don't mind much when you've had a few treats in church, but I didn't want it to spoil your birthday cake. I knew you'd appreciate it more if you hadn't been munching on sweets all morning, so we had a talk along the way about how to tell someone, 'No, thank you. I'm having birthday cake later.' To my surprise, you succeeded in our endeavor to practice self control. A toaster oven is the extent of my baking abilities these days, so I knew I wouldn't be able to bake you an actual cake - and as much as I hate to admit it, I can't let my knowledge of what terrible things store bought frosting is made of go even on holidays. So I picked out the healthiest boxed whole wheat brownies I could find and you picked out sprinkles and dinosaur birthday candles, and together we made magic. You helped me pour and mix and sprinkle and your face lit up. You loved every minute of it. I set my camera on my tripod and videoed your Papa and I singing Happy Birthday to you as you blew out your candles one by one throughout the song, finished by the end. I asked your Papa to light them a second time, so I could get some pictures too and he obliged, accompanied by eye rolls, but he obliged. You didn't seem to mind, but were concerned about the water (wax) dripping off the candles onto the cake. We probably ate a lot of wax with our brownies.

You've talked with Papa a lot about what he does each day and you ask each morning he has to go to work if you can come with to ride the big machines. He patiently explains each time that the Air Force doesn't like to share their toys and you nod and ask with hopeful eyes, 'Someday?' I was a shy little girl, but there was a time when I stood on a stage and proudly proclaimed to the audience that I would be 'a firefighter, just like my Daddy.' I see that same sparkle in your eyes, that same reverence for what your Papa does all day while he isn't with us, and it makes me proud. I hope someday that you can look back on my 'work' here with you with a form of admiration, but for now - I'm happy your Papa is in the spotlight. He needs that - taking care of a family can be hard. So I went out in search of a construction site for you and found a little set of machines. We filled a tub full of barley and rocks and you and Papa played for hours, while I was content to sit and watch. It was a simple birthday, but just like our Christmas, it's simplicity made it something beautiful that I'll never forget.

Three years seems like very little, but it has felt like a lifetime. You brought joy into our lives that wasn't there before, but once it entered our lives, it felt familiar. It felt like you had always been there, a little bit of yourself in each of us, and now those little pieces had all come together to finally bring you here. I imagined you a long time before you were born, even long before I ever met your Papa. Somehow you turned out to be brighter, wilder, more beautiful than I had ever imagined. You have a spirit unlike anyone I've ever met. It can be a challenge to remember the beauty of it when it's intermingled with parenting, but I hope to polish you, never tame you. You are wild and loving, free and forgiving. You are so excited about life - when you run, you can't help but skip in excitement every few steps. There's something about it that makes strangers pause to watch you. Often I'm reminded by watching you that magic is real after all.

I love you, Evangeline Idella - more than you'll ever know, maybe more than I'll ever even be able to comprehend. Keep skipping through life in wild abandonment and I'll keep running along ride beside you, astounded by your beauty.

Love,
Mama

P.S. Ev's first + second birthdays + our first clock picture (each year we take a picture in front of a clock at the time she was born - 7:35)

52 in 2014 • Week 5

05/52.

02.01

I've already written paragraph after paragraph about this day, your 2nd birthday, so I'll keep it short. Each day I wake up in disbelief - I can't believe the amount of love that I have for you and that you actually love me back. You're messy and loud and really, sometimes I would rather just be alone than have you climbing up my back trying to put your finger in my nose - you push me and frustrate me, but wow, do I love you. I am stupidly, blow-my-mind lucky to get to spend everyday just watching you grow. I did my best to make this day special for you, even though you probably won't remember it. Your beaming smile, look of surprise, and 'ooh's and 'ah's and 'wow's when Papa brought out the cake was worth spending the entire morning baking it while simultaneously trying to keep you from putting your entire arm in the bowl of batter. It was harder than it sounds. You were so proud of yourself when you managed to blow out all of the candles without any help. I will never stop trying to make you happy, I will never stop working to give you a good life, and I will never stop loving your Papa and giving you the best example of an admirable wife and mother to follow after that I can.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,

desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing,

but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

- Jack Kerouac

(This reminds me so much of you. You're lively and spunky and feisty, my little roman candle,

but at the same time, you are one of the most beautiful, gentle souls I've ever met.)

Linking up over at Practising Simplicity.

Two

On Saturday morning my baby turned two.

I have a daughter. We have a daughter.

Sometimes I'm in disbelief of that and I have to really try to wrap my mind around it - that I'm not just watching someone else's kid all the time. She is mine and I'm her 'mom mom.' It's unbelievable and heart wrenching and terrifying, but the most joyful thing I've experienced all rolled into one. I've been thinking about what I would write on this day for months now. This letter started out as a list of one hundred things I wanted to teach you, but as I rounded out the list and finished number 97, my heart just wasn't in it anymore. Most of the things I wrote down were really things that I need to learn for myself before I can teach them to you. If we're all honest, a lot of them are things that we just learn over and over again through out life - a perpetual process of shaping ourselves. If I'm lucky, I'll have my whole life to show you what I want you to know, not just leave it here in list form. As much as I want to force important lessons and confidence and joy into you somehow, I can't. All I can do is keep showing you what I want you to know through my words and my actions and sometimes, my writing. I know I won't get it perfect, but I'm making a wild and passionate go of it. That's all I can do.

Papa had to work until two, so we spent the morning together, just us girls. I have this super secret tradition that I do each year on your birthday (well the last two at least), and by super secret I mean you and Papa are always laying next to me, spider legs hanging off the side of the bed and mouth gaping open, fast asleep. I set my alarm for 8:03 and I lay there and think. It's usually along the lines of two years ago, I woke up in labor at this exact moment and I get all the sappy out before you wake up so I can just turn on the fun. I'm never as sad as I expect to be when milestones come along, but I'm taking this one especially hard. Maybe it's all the uncertainties we're dealing with and the desire for a home that I've been swallowing and the guilt that comes with moving you away from everything you've ever loved, but I'm just extra emotional these days and you are too. I think about the days when you were an itty bitty baby and a little part of me wishes them back, for just a moment. I dealt with so much after you were born that looking back, most of the first few months are just a blur. I hope that doesn't make you sad to hear one day. I do remember one day in particular - you were just two days old or so. We were sitting on the couch, you were sleeping as I held you and Papa was playing the guitar in a chair across the room. I don't know what it was about that moment - my emotions were stable and the sun was shining and the anxiety was gone and the stars just aligned, I guess. It was the first time I had been able to really sit and look at you and realize you were here and mine. We clicked together like two puzzles pieces and it's been mad love ever since.

All you do is grow now - it's expected and even celebrated, but it still always catches me by surprise. Everyday is filled with new phrases and skills and facial expressions and they're all funny - you are such a character. I know I use the word 'joy' a lot, but you just exude it. I tried to think of ways to make this day special for you, because you deserve to feel special even if you're only two and won't remember my efforts. What it really resulted in was a special time of reconnection for Papa and I. Papa and I spent the night before your birthday putting together a play kitchen and wrapping a few presents. We covered the play kitchen with a sheet and hid it away in the corner of the living room, hoping you wouldn't find it until he's able to come home from work. We stayed up way too late, enjoyed drinks and sat around laughing like kids, reminiscing of favorite childhood birthdays and memories of you.

Keep Calm Craft On • A Birthday Scarf

A few days before Christmas, Alex casually mentioned that he would like me to make him a hat someday. I, of course, didn't have the time to make him one before Christmas, so in a moment of stocking stuffer shopping craze I ran to Hobby Lobby just for a skein of yarn. I looked and looked and finally settled on a rugged gray yarn, the only 100% wool yarn that they had (which reminds me - I would love some recommendations on your favorite all natural yarn and where to find it). I put it in his stocking with an 'I owe you a hat' tag on it. Somehow it made it into one of the boxes that were important enough to be put onto the trailer, all the way here, and into our storage unit. I've been itching to do something, anything creative since well, it's winter with a toddler, but we don't have a lot of room with our temporary living situation so I can't drag out the sewing machine. So I grabbed my crochet and drawing supplies and decided to make do with these things until we move to Brooklyn.
Alex originally requested a hat, but that was before we moved back to the East coast where scarves aren't accessories - you actually need them, and he's never been much of a scarf man before now. So he looked at my scarf that is so big it might actually be a blanket with envy a few days ago and I thought I'd whip one up for him. In my experience, crocheting for men is really hard. There are so many girly, frilly scarf and hat patterns out there, but few simple or handsome patterns suitable for men. I set out to find one and settled on a basket weave scarf, which is turning out really well so far. His birthday is coming up next month, so I thought I would finish it up by then and give it to him along with a few books on wild edibles and survival in the Northeast (he's an outdoor nerd).

What kind of crafty things are you working on lately? How do you stay busy in the Winter?

Linking up with Keep Calm Craft On over at Frontier Dreams.

WATCH EVIE GROW • ONE YEAR

 12 months old.

It is the 1st of February, 2013.

Somehow it is both expected and unbelievable that we are already celebrating this glorious day. Today, one year ago at 7:35 P.M., I watched you enter the world, weightless under water, brought you up to me, allowed my eyes to fall on yours, and fell in love. Even after experiencing it, that such a relationship can be forged, such love can be created in such a small amount of time is still inconceivable to me. These life changing moments, these few stepping stones that I’ve experienced in life, always spur thought and change in me, but none have provoked such passion and reform in me as the day we met. These stepping stones that we lay down at points in our lives are what lead us to who we are and will become. As I laid down your stepping stone in the garden of my mind on that Wednesday night, I realized that this just may be the most important thing I’ve ever done and will ever do. Loving you is the most important path I’ll take in this life.

This is probably the hardest letter I’ve written to you yet. It is hopefully one birthday of many, but in my mind, it is a momentous occasion. February 1, 2012 was the beginning of a life, but today is the beginning of a childhood. The warmth of your skin on mine, the sound of you enjoying your nightly nursing, the rise and fall of your chest close to mine are all still a part of us occasionally, but they are rapidly being replaced by curiosity, independence, and four little teeth that shine when you smile. The rolls of your legs are beginning to thin and your tiny feet are beginning to resemble the kind that run barefoot through the backyard on a summer day. The birth marks on one eye and the side of your nose are fading. Your eyes continue to darken, drawing closer to the color of mine.

They have gone from blue to green to brown, always evidence of your joyful soul.

I realize you do not look very joyful in these next two pictures. You were mad because I kept making you lay down. Something about being horizontal sends you into a frenzy nowadays.

We drew inspiration from multiple places when choosing your name, but the most memorable (and a little silly) one was from a Disney movie called ‘The Princess and the Frog.’ In it a firefly is always talking to the brightest star in the sky and names it Evangeline, thinking it is a fellow lady firefly. That description couldn’t be more accurate in describing the way we feel about you. There are many things that Papa and I enjoy in this life, but none compare to you. You are the brightest star in our skies, Evangeline. There is something about you that is so very special. It is more than your enthusiastic nature. It is undefinable, and I know in my heart that you’re destined for something special. There are a lot of things that I desire for you, but most of all I hope that you find something you love and run with it, affect lives with it, impact the world with it.

For the past year, I have looked at you and asked myself almost daily, “How can I make sure it all goes right? How can I make sure that I don’t lose her somewhere along the way?” The more time I have with you, the more I reflect on how much my parents must love me. It’s all-consuming. Some days feel like a battle of wills, yours against mine, and I just want to hold you and say, “Please, let’s be friends,” but I know you’re too young to understand what I mean. I can’t pinpoint when things went distant in my own family. It happened slowly, I guess, and now we’ve all matured enough or just accepted it enough to think, “Let’s move on.” We do, not because we’ve all forgiven and forgot, but because we can’t be bothered enough to be mad, or hurt, or waste time and energy worrying about the past we can’t change. And acknowledging this won’t change anything because this is our family dynamic, this is what people are comfortable with, this is the way it has been. People are creatures of habit, especially in their relationships. However, I hope that isn’t the way it will be between you and I.

I don’t want to waste a single moment I have with you. I want to call you. When you’ve grown up and gone away, I want you to call me because you miss our conversation, not because you feel obligated. I want you to feel known and understood. I want to speak your love language. I never want you to feel like I assume who you are. You’re free to evolve into whoever you want to be and I will always accept you. I want you to know that every time you put your arms out, I will reach right back. I will pick you up when you’re 2 or 20 and hold you as long as you need held. I never want you to feel like an inconvenience. I want to be your running partner or your book club or your best friend - whatever you need. I want to send you care packages when you’re in college and make sure you never feel lonely longer than you want to. I want to be the first person you need to call when you’re heartbroken. Most of all, I want you to be proud of me and cherish our friendship.

Even with all the things you do that frustrate me, if I could have chosen, I would have picked you - with your big toothy grin, your ability to know exactly what you want and not hesitate to tell us, your tiny feet that shoes still won't fit, your love of the four B's (baths, books, bike rides, and blueberries), your weird habit of pulling your hair when you nurse, and your fascination with taking everything apart and analyzing it. Your slobbery, open-mouthed kisses are the best I’ve had yet (Shh, don’t tell Papa!), and I can’t stop laughing when you grab both sides of my face to give me one. I love waking up to you laughing (even if it’s because you’re pulling my hair out). Oh Ev, my sweet Evangeline, please let me be the Mama you deserve.

Happy Birthday, my magical little human.

All the Love in the Universe,

Mama

P.S. I'm sorry about all the tears that were shed to capture these pictures. I hope you can appreciate my dedication to taking these each month someday, and you'll be glad to know that these were the last of the series.

Evie's 1st Birthday Party!

1: The whole shebang. 2: The chalkboard I DIY'd with little facts about Evie. 3: Burlap Happy Birthday Banner I made. 4: The birthday cake! 5: The washi tape cake topper I made. 6: She was pointing at things all day. She loved the decorations! 7: Mama cutting the cake. 8: Her monthly picture display. 9: Her smash cake fruit tart. 10: Seating. 11: Fresh flowers and blue Mason jars. 12: The floral vintage fabric banner I made. 13: The birthday girl! Amazed by the candle. She tried to grab it shortly after this. 14: She shoved a whole Strawberry in her mouth. 15: Family picture! We never get good family pictures. 16: Papa and Evie snuck off and took a nap together.