One Month Later: December 2012

Holding the leash while you walk the dog

Beautiful smile!

Crawling is a thing of the past

My Dog Sunday

Bears at Hoover Library!

Swinging at Chace Lake

My Bed in My Room

Sunset (or is it sunrise?) at the Beach



Things have been busy & I haven’t found the time to update my blog recently. As I’m posting this morning I’ve thought about why I have a blog about you. I don’t think it is supposed to be a log of what happens in your life. Rather I think it is a way to share my unique perspective of thoughts about and experiences with you. This time I chose pictures to try to illustrate a few of them. It is a long post…but I’ll justify it since it’s been a long time since I posted. First, whenever go out with Sunday, you want to hold the leash. It made me laugh to see you doing the same thing with your Dad. Even though it’s not really helping, you want to have some responsibility for the dog. Eventually you’re going to be big enough to really help walk the dog (and lots of other things!) and I think it’s important to not tell you “no” when you want to hold the leash. I also like this picture because I think it’s wonderful you ride on your Dad's back! Your Mom & Dad take you camping & to the beach & on hikes. You are going to have a connection to “the great outdoors” that I never had.  How awesome!

For a long time, because you were so good at crawling quickly whereever you needed to go, you weren’t too interested in walking. I think your official “first step” was Oct 28, but now you’re confidently and consistently walking! Although you have more mobility progress ahead (tricycle, bicycle, roller skates etc.) becoming biped is clearly the most significant and monumental. You are now officially a “toddler”!

I chose the picture of your beautiful smile while sitting in your “food chair” not only to show how beautiful you are, but how happy you are. Almost all of the time you laugh & play & hug & smile and really enjoy life. It is contagious. Happy times with you are the best part of my life! You see joy in little things which adds so much joy to my life.

You & I have gone to the Hoover Library several times. But the first time we went we discovered your big bear who lives at your Dad’s mother’s house has a “secret life” and a buddy at the library. You were so amazed! As we mature we become aware the world exists when we’re not observing it. (There is a specific term for that but I can’t remember it now). The next time we went to the library the bears were busy holding decorations and couldn’t play with you. You were very disappointed but adjusted pretty quickly. Maybe they can play next time! The Hoover Library is a great place to visit. Although it doesn’t have a “merry-go-round” like the mall, neither does it have the many distractions of the mall! And it has books & puzzles & puppets & a great outdoor play area and other children. You really really like other children! What a joy to watch you interact and play with other children!

The swing at Chace Lake is such a special place. Not only do you love to swing (so did your mother and so did I!) it is a place where we talk about birds & trees & leaves & airplanes etc. Recently we visit the decorations at the house across the street. Last year I carried you in my arms to see them (we now have an “annual tradition”!) There is a giant inflatable Santa & a snowman and your favorite…Snoopy on a mail box with Woodstock the yellow bird inside. I won’t even try to explain my life-long love of the Peanuts characters! The biggest driver of my desire to learn to read was to be able to read the newspaper cartoons to myself. When I was in college my mother mailed me the Peanuts cartoons so I could keep up with what was going on with Snoopy and the others. They’re still in a box in the attic! And I have MANY Peanuts books!

I love to watch your joy when you have a chance to be with your dog Sunday. You don’t realize Sunday doesn’t really like you very much. She is happy you drop so much food on the floor for her to eat. But otherwise she isn’t happy you joined the family. However, you don’t know that! Or if you do, you love her any way. We all have people in our lives who don’t really care about us. We have to “let go” of some of them, but just like you love Sunday, there are some we love any way & find joy in our imperfect relationship with them. And sometimes we are delightfully unaware they don’t really like us! I’m sure there are a lot of those people in my life but “ignorance is bliss” sometimes!

The amazingly beautiful picture of you at the beach was taken on a fall trip to the beach with your parents & another family. I grew up in Mobile and the beach was an important part of my life. My grandmother McMillan had a house at Dauphin Island and I had happy times there with my cousins and the grandmother we called “Bobo”. My family spent a wonderful week at Gulf Shores for many years. I always took one friend & I had a freedom there I didn’t have elsewhere. There is something wonderful about the place where the sky & water & beach come together.  I love the picture of you looking at the sunset (or is it sunrise; does it matter? Maybe I’ll get to go to the beach with you every summer! And one day take you & your friends? 

Finally the picture of you in your bed marks your height & illustrates how you wake up happy. I love to get you out of bed in the morning or after your nap because you are always so happy! Sleep is such a wonderful refreshing part of life. And greeting the day with joy is awesome. Because your parents have a monitor in your room we can hear and see you at times you think you’re alone! The night of Dec 5 one of your parents “tweeted” you said “Elmo” in your sleep. It delighted me to think you must have been dreaming about Elmo! Stuffed animals were a comforting and loving part of my childhood. I still have some of my favorites but when my parents moved from my childhood home they got rid of a lot of them! I am looking forward to sharing Sesame Street characters like precious Elmo with you. They didn’t exist when I was a child but I had Yogi Bear & Huckleberry Hound etc. I’ll still have a few of them! I hope you have wonderful dreams about your real & imaginary world. I loved my baby bed and had no desire to get out of it. It was a cozy place to be. Please don’t think this post is trying to affirm you are like me. You  are Lyla & have many many “Lyla-specific” traits. You may reject your crib next week! But my childhood memories and memories of mothering your mom help me connect to you. I realize you are making memories already which you may share one day with your grandchild! I hope you tell them about me!

It is such a joy to spend time with you at least one or two days a week. I love you & I’m looking forward to sharing many things with you in the future!