Tag Archives: baby girl

Happy 1st Birthday, Harley

1st birthday

Today, my tiny little preemie princess turns one. ONE! How has a whole year gone by already? How is it already her 1st birthday?! It’s that usual conundrum of time moving so quickly when we look back, and yet feeling like it was standing still at times. Those first few months were so slow, so hard. She seemed to be in the hospital for ages, needing time to grow and become ready for the world. Then we got her home, and that was a whole new kind of hard. The days and weeks blurred together like a weird exhaustion-induced fever dream. And all of a sudden I’ve woken up and my little baby, my tiny princess is a year old.

I had so many plans for this post, for all the words that I wanted to write about Harley, about how far she has come, about what this year has been like. And yet, I’m finding myself just sitting here, listening to her breathe while she sleeps on my chest, feeling the weight of her tiny body against mine. This is the new normal, this is my life now – I am the safe place for a tiny person. I am her mommy and she is my baby and that is our life. Until she wakes up, of course, and then I become her jungle gym, food court and general entertainment system.  Continue Reading

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A pause at 11 months

11 months

Today, Harley is 11 months old. I honestly feel dumbfounded about it. I know time keeps marching on, I understand that the older we get, the faster time seems to move. And everyone warned me that having a baby makes time go even faster. I get all of that, and yet I simply can’t understand where the last 11 months have gone. How can Harley be so big already? How can so many months have passed?

It’s tempting to look at this milestone as almost a year. She is almost a year old, it’s been almost a year since she came into our lives… and yet, that somehow seems to undermine the impact of 11 months. It’s not quite a year, it’s something different. It’s something that still deserves a celebration, and moment to pause and look back on the time that’s elapsed and the time that’s ahead. I mean, after this milestone, I doubt I’ll be counting months anymore. From here on out, it will be years, and they will still go screaming past. So, here’s a break, a breather, to think about 11 months. Continue Reading

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The longest and shortest 10 months of my life

10 months

My baby, my tiny little preemie princess is now 10 months old. How is that even possible? Time is such a strange thing, both screaming past at an insane rate and also moving so slowly at times. Those early, impossible, dark days seemed to stretch on forever… and then all of a sudden they were over. My little girl is already 10 months old, and I simply can’t believe it. How did it go so fast? At the same time, it feels like forever – I can barely remember what life was like before my little person came along. Okay, that’s a bit of a lie; of course I can remember my life before Harley, but it sort of feels like she has always been a part of my life, that is how important she is now.

10 months ago, she was a tiny, helpless thing being fed through a tube. It was already an accomplishment that she could breathe on her own, and didn’t need oxygen. So much has changed in that time. She has grown, I have changed, our whole view of the world and our future has been radically and forever altered. Harley will always be my little baby, but she isn’t quite the tiny human that she once was. She is growing up so fast, and it’s so exciting (and terrifying) to watch. She is becoming her own person, and I love every second of it. Continue Reading

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Becoming a mom changed my view of my mom

mom

When people ask, I say that my mom and I have always been close. It’s funny, though, when she and my father were going through their awful, drawn out divorce, we had tearful conversations about how hadn’t felt close when I was growing up. But then we went back and read our diaries and found at the time, we actually had always felt close – both writing about going for coffee together, visiting museums, and all our funny jokes that just we shared. Obviously, we had the usual dramas and tears that adolescence brought; at one point I even shouted “you don’t know me and I don’t know you” during a fight, only to laugh about it a couple hours later.

As I’ve grown into adulthood, we’ve stayed close. At some points growing closer together and at others further apart. But we always spoke, we always shared pretty much everything, and we have always based everything on the foundation of loving each other no matter what. Even when we disagree, we can usually at least see where the other person is coming from. We get each other in a profound way, and our relationship has been such a solid part of my life. And having Harley made things even more meaningful for me. Continue Reading

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The ends of the earth

ends of the earth

As I’ve gotten older, I’m even more amused and intrigued by the difference between what people say and what they do. I truly value the people who have those two things align, but I know it’s so very rare. Sometimes it’s a good thing, like when any of us get upset and talk about what we feel like doing. But sometimes, it shows a real disconnect in terms of what we imagine we would do for someone and where our boundaries actually lie. Nothing says it for me more than the phrase “but I would go to the ends of the earth for you/him/her”.  Continue Reading

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