Our sweet girl will be twenty-two months old by this time next week -- just two months shy of two years old. She sat on my lap on the rug just inside the front door with this morning and I pulled her pink and purple Nike sandals on as she sipped milk out of a yellow cup. I gave her a big hug before letting her go, and just before she slipped out the door, she said, "I love you," pronouncing the "l" more like a "w." Really just that moment is worth nine months of pregnancy, a caesarean section, bleeding nipples, the time she threw the wooden bookend at my foot. I think about this one true thing all the time these days -- being her mom is the best and most important thing I have ever done, will ever do. My favorite weekends these days are the ones where the three of us (four, including Zoe) do not have many plans with other people; we go on walks, we read books, maybe we visit a grocery store, the library, a farmer's market.
Ellie started preschool two weeks ago, the day after Labor Day. I had really flexed my worrying muscles in preparation for her first day and week of preschool. We had a collection of several books about the first day of preschool on repeat for weeks, visited the playground her class would play in, visited her teachers and her classroom, peppered her with questions about preschool. There were tears -- the first tears were mine, as soon as I left her classroom that first day -- but Ellie cried less than many of the other children, despite the significant transition from hanging with her Nani everyday to being one of nine children in a classroom. Her stuffed lamb, Baa, a gift from Grandma on her first Easter, has become a constant companion, so much so that we were compelled to buy a second Baa, so that the first Baa could be washed regularly. As she has become more comfortable at school, Baa spends more time in her cubby, and last week, Ellie gave her teacher, Ms. Kat, a hug before she left. She got a cold at the end of the first week, and the last couple days of the first week, she was tearful and bleary at pickup, and I contemplated quitting my job, selling our house, and moving to a place with low housing prices where Ellie and I could spend our days in the woods. She recovered quickly from the cold, and last week, she was happily engaged every day when I came to pick her up.
There has been an absolutely incredible language explosion in the last couple of months. We were very surprised by some of the words that she began casually using (pillow, for example) and she is stringing more sentences together. Nitin found her quizzing herself with her "first 100 words" book one morning when he came to wake her up. She also practices funny sentences, "Mama shoes, all wet," "Dada shoes, all wet," "Zozo shoes, all wet." She also loves to sing these days. The "sunny days" introduction song from Sesame Street is one of her favorites, and of course, she has caught on to the ubiquitous "Baby shark" craze; she frequently asks to listen to that during tooth brushing: "Baby shark, doo doo doo doo?"
She also plays very well with the other children at preschool, as well as younger kids. She has even become more gentle with Zoe recently, though Zoe would be wise not to trust her completely just yet! Every day, there are several moments when I think, "remember this," and I wish that I took the time to jot down a note or email myself then, because there are so many moments that some do slip through the cracks. She is still very passionate about water -- splashing in puddles, splashing in the bathtub, watering her Dada's garden with the garden hose, etc. She knows she is not supposed to splash in the bathtub, and has become a little bit more compliant with that rule, but she will frequently gently splash and say, "No splashing, no Elmo," because I once told her that if she splashed, there would be no Elmo video during tooth brushing. (That had been an ineffective consequence at the time -- she splashed vigorously, and we watched Baby Shark instead of Elmo, because truly, how could I otherwise brush her teeth?)
Since the day that Ellie was born, she has been the focal point of our lives, and right at the center of my heart. I have worried over decisions that we are making, knowing that it is impossible to choose correctly all the time, and there are benefits and drawbacks to every choice that one can make. In the interest of candor -- these posts may need to be edited before Ellie someday sees them -- some of the most painful moments were those in which I questioned whether I should work, how much, and who would watch Ellie when we could not be with her. I struggled tremendously with this. Nitin's mom very generously provided care for Ellie during the work week for about a year and a half, from the time that Ellie was four months old, until she began preschool two weeks ago. In many ways, this was simply incredible for Ellie, to be individually doted on during such a fundamental period. I do not know even now if I would have done this differently. But it twisted my heart when she gave me advice about our daughter, when she exercised veto over my parenting decisions, when she made comments about "raising" our daughter. These were some of the most painful experiences of my adult life. It may be a coincidence, but since Ellie has begun preschool, I feel a new cohesiveness to our family of three, and in particular, I feel there is no longer an outside force pressing against my precious bond with her.
I could not be more grateful to have been blessed with such a delightful, loving child, who is so full of joie de vivre. I love how she throws her head back and laughs her warm, bubbling laugh when something really tickles her. She has been waking up at night a bit more these days, and when we come in, we say, "Ellie, sweetheart, are you OK? What is wrong?" and she looks at us, and she says, "MOLT!!!" Which is her funny pronunciation of milk. It is absolutely hysterical, and we have started telling her this story during the day, and one of us says, "MOLT!!!" she screams with laughter. I love that her sense of humor is already is so much better than a lot of the grown ups I know -- and it really delights me that she has a sense of humor about herself!
I frequently wish that I had more time with her, and I toy with rearranging my schedule to be part-time, so that I could spend more time with her (and her sibling, fingers crossed) in the mornings. As any parent of a toddler knows, the after five witching hour can be a tricky time, when folks are grumpy, hungry and tired all around. But whatever happens, I hope not to keep our special bedtime routine going for as long as I can. (I hope to tweak our dinner routine, eventually, so that we eat dinner as a family more often, instead of me frantically warming up stirfry for Ellie and scurrying around the kitchen.) After Ellie's bath, she sits on my lap and snuggles in her hooded towel, and then she makes a mad dash to her bedroom, where we put on her new diaper (not her favorite part), her pajamas, and then brush her teeth with a video (not my favorite part). And then we snuggle in the glider while she drinks her milk, and we listen to "Thanks a lot," by Raffi. And we read books while she drinks her milk, until the last book of the night, "Wherever you are, my love will find you," which Ellie increasingly chats through, having probably memorized the book by now. Then we turn off the lights, turn on the sound machine, and sing songs: Goodnight my someone from the Music Man, Catch a falling star, sing a song, you are my sunshine, Baby mine, Lavender Blue, and a host of others. I tell Ellie and her menagerie of stuffed animals goodnight, and she says, "One more song?" "Last song?" And I sing another. And she says, "One more song?" and I have to leave, of course. On good nights, Ellie will call "Bye!!" from her crib, and I'll shout back "Bye!!" And this may go on for several rounds, with Dada sometimes chiming in. Like I said, the very best, and the very most important, thing.
