The Second Year

Person: So how’s your daughter?

Me: Oh she'll be turning 2 this Friday.

Person: Oh, is she running and climbing around the house and getting into things?

Me: pause...

Me Thinking: mental picture of a typical 2 year old versus my mental picture of Isabella

Pause again….

Response: No....

I have not really entertained Isabella’s chronological age for a long time. It just helps not thinking about where she is at and where she should be and to see that big difference in between. I have trained myself to focus on the things that she can do rather than obsessing on developmental checklists. I’d much rather get lost in the numbers, but on this particular moment, after this conversation, the numbers caught up on me… like a slap in the face.

I realized that my daughter is not really even a year old.

…

It’s been days since Isabella had her second birthday and I do owe this blog a post about that year that has passed. I’ve contemplated against writing something sad about her second year... but eventually I gave in... thus this blog post that I’ve procrastinated on writing.

Truth be told... it was painful for me to celebrate her second birthday.

I know, I know... there were significant developmental strides, and yes those were JOYS added to our list, but in between those strides are the long arduous wait times to see what she achieves next... and quite frankly, sometimes I feel that the wait takes its toll on me rubbing off the novelty of what she has achieved the latest.

Maybe its because they are too little to even describe or tell as a story.... mostly I think its me and my bitterness.

Yes, I still feel bitter from time to time, and with her second year, I felt it big time.

YES, she can sit and pull herself to stand, BUT all her younger counterparts are either walking, running, climbing, jumping, getting into things, making a mess around the house. While some who are even way younger already balancing while bearing weight on their legs.

YES, she's discovered toys and picks up things and shakes them like a rattle, BUT her way younger counterparts have moved past beyond the joys of rattling a toy and moved on to the musical light up ones. Even better, others have regular playmates and scheduled play-dates.

YES, she always has a ready smile for us. BUT I have yet to see a response that signifies a head shaking to tell No, or a nod, or a clap, a gesture to give something, a goodbye wave... or to just hear her call me "mama". Will she ever call me mama?

….

When she turned one, technically, her delays were not yet that far apart. I will often find myself looking out into the unknown future armed with hope... now at two and not even reaching the one year mark, what do I arm myself with as I look out into that big, and what seems really long, unknown future? Somewhere there my positive thinking was like a drug that gave me mood swings of denial.

But, I know that I cannot give up hope completely… because really, that’s all I really have. So, I just look out without those false glorified visions nor expectations.... Just a small stare out into the open with a soft pursed smile on my lips, because it hurts too much to hope too big.

I think there is this fine line between too much hoping and expecting and practically begging for something great to happen. Like I said, hoping too much was clouding my perception of reality.

....

We celebrated her day by going to the bowling alley, with the theme of "for all the developmental milestones she worked so hard on hitting one bowling pin at a time" kept in my mind... and yet I found myself silently grieving on her birthday while I bowled till my right arm hurt. It was frustrating to keep trying for a strike, or even just a spare instead of the frequent scattered pins or getting that dreaded gutter ball.

As apropos as bowling seemed as a way to celebrate her special day, I guess I need to get better at accepting that sometimes its not how the balls are thrown, not those carefully planned angles, nor the strength of your throw, nor the speed of release, nor the weight of the ball, nor the careful placement of the fingers, nor the strategic twist of the wrist, nor the graceful forward step and follow through.

Perhaps that’s just how the pins are supposed to stand, and I should get better at thinking and feeling that that's okay.

Because it will.

Because it is.

That, or, I’m just a really terrible bowler.

...

Now, I look at her, and I say “Kiss Nanay” and she readily leans forward for her cheek to touch my lips...  and she smiles at that moment of contact like that's the best thing ever... I just hope my heart catches up to that big silly grin on her beautiful face.

We Are Not in Kansas Anymore

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you know how to use the reminder and calendar function on your phone even with your eyes closed because you’ve developed a system to organize doctor’s appointments into manageable chunks that fit into your schedule.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you find feeding bags in your garbage can as much as you find diapers… and in your mind, you know that it’s going to be like that for a long time, so you worry about carbon foot prints and the situation of the landfills.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when changing the Mickey button feels just like inserting an earring into a hole, and you don’t get squeamish about it at all…. Not even one bit.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you have fallen deaf to inappropriate comments and blind to unwelcome stares… and you become more aware of this fact when you’ve learned to be bothered less by these things and you feel proud at what you have become…. and it almost also feels like you have a secret… you perceive things differently and see nothing but beautiful on every square micro-inch of your baby’s face... something that the stare-ers and whisperers are blind to.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you disinfect more than you usually did because you don’t want your child to get sick because a spiking fever leads to a whole set of more complicated issues so you try your best to nip the spread of germs as early as you can.

You are not in Kansas anymore when you are always curious about your daughter’s weight, have an obsession for ounces taken in during feeds; and nap times and medication schedules are followed diligently like it’s a religion. You’ve also learned how to really read labels to look at protein and potassium content because you just cannot afford having your child develop kidney mishaps.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you have medications, formula, and feeding bags and other medical paraphernalia delivered at your doorstep each month, and your son gets excited with anticipation on opening these packages because he wants to know if his guess is right (are these meds, feeding bags, or milk?)… I think though, that for him, it feels like Christmas every month.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore, when questions such as how’s the baby doing does not bother you anymore, nor do comments such as, “Oh they grow up so fast.” Because you know your baby doesn’t… and it’s okay, and I really really mean it when I say that.

You are not in Kansas anymore when you find yourself getting excited about friends and family having new babies because your child can have a playmate and you get better and better each time at accepting that that same child who once was a playmate will surpass your child in development moving on to other playmates... because you know that more new babies will come to play with yours. You know that surely your little one will not be little forever, they just take longer to grow, and that’s is okay, because you know that they will and that they do.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you have baby clothes of the same size for all four seasons that are mostly used clothes from other parents whose babies were born way after yours… and it’s okay because really the clothes are gently used and hardly worn and, most importantly, you don’t need to buy them anymore.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you try not to plan family vacations way ahead of time because you don’t know if something will come up…. And things actually become more exciting as your family trips are more spontaneous.

You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you realized that you have evolved into this morning person, and that 4 hours of sleep is a gift, and you can still get up, get moving and manage to look pretty in spite of that. And on having luxurious 6 hour sleep-in days, the sound of the overnight feeding pump running out has become your alarm clock.

You are not in Kansas anymore.

and you know you’re not in Holland either

All you know is that life has tremendously changed you and wherever you are is where you should be… and it feels just like HOME.

Flowing from Refusal to Acceptance

You know how when something does not work for you or you don’t like something you were told, taught and raised to say “No”  to it.

To refuse it.

Or to be an agent of change when the situation you are in isn’t ideal.

It is when you get older that you realize that there are things that you cannot change because it beyond your control… maybe even perhaps beyond changing… and so you just have to accept it. When you get older somebody or something (or your own realization perhaps) suggests it is YOU that need to be changed (your perspective) when you are challenged with things that seem unchangeable… or ARE unchangeable…

But nobody really tells you about the process that this entails….  Becoming the chang-er to being the change-ee is not an easy transition.

At first I think it would feel just like the struggle and battle with the pull of an undertow…. you somehow give up and let the tide just eat you, but then the mere act of the letting go is actually what saves you and you find yourself on the surface of the water… tired, wet, disheveled, but alive and breathing nonetheless.

This is why coming out of that sate of denial, anger, and grief is a tough journey… and you still often find yourself in places questioning where you are at.

While acceptance does not necessarily mean you’re happy…. That place where you realize that you’ve learned to go with the flow is a step into the right direction.

22 Month Update

After about a 2½  month hiatus, I finally found time to update Isabella’s blog. 

Here is her 22 month developmental update.

o       Isabella managed to recover her sitting and crawling and eating skills back two weeks after her big seizure in July 29^th.

o       She is currently close to being 18 lbs and is eating stage 2 foods. She is already opening her mouth and uses her lip to scrape the spoon when we feed her, although I feel that eating is still not her favorite activity.

o       It seems that she is starting to shake her head to say NO. She does this a lot during feeding time. She starts it as soon as she sees us getting some food from her bowl and the shaking goes fast when the spoon leaves the bowl and much faster when it comes close to her mouth. She is probably thinking that if she moves it fast enough, we won’t be able to catch her mouth. 

o       She shakes her head as if to say NO too when we tell her that it’s time to nap or sleep. She also does this shaking head thing when her eyes are getting droopy as if to wake herself up. We would see her on the video monitor making herself stay awake when she rouses at 3 in the morning. 

o       She pulls her self up to stand. I think she manages to cruise every now and then, ‘cause we’ll see her on one spot on her crib and we turn for a brief second and she’d be facing a different direction or be on a different spot.  She does this too on the edge of the couch. I have yet to catch this on video.

o       I found my favorite kissing spot, that’s the space by her nose in between her eyes.

o She makes happy vocalization sounds when we do cuddle wrestles or when she gets some of his brother's toys, as if to rejoice that she has conquered something. She bounces up and down too when she does this. 

o We  know when she is upset. She makes this unique, "I'm upset" sound. She gets upset when we take away something that she gets into, which are usually the things that she finds us fiddling around with. Things like the remote, or our cellphones, or the laptop, or her brother's Legos, Beyblades, etc. First she makes this happy sound and bounces up and down because she has conquered something, and when we take it away she does this whole other sound and does this thing that looks like she shakes her fists in the air. Oh my... what a brat huh?

o       I love it when I find her looking at me from the far end of the room and I smile and she smiles right back at me.

Check out the video of Isabella pulling herself up to stand… 

WE ARE SO PROUD OF HER!!!

See how she did on her last developmental update by clicking here