Today you are 11 (ELEVEN! HOLY Cowwww ELEVEN) months old. You are such a little girl now. We had a very busy weekend and last night at 7pm you were BEGGING to go to bed and because Daddy and I love to give you what we want we put you to bed but around 8:30 you were pretty sure it was time to get up. We understood your confusion with nap time but this was not nap time you see, it was BED time. Very large distinction there that you won’t fully appreciate until you have kids yourself. Daddy rescued you from your crib and brought you in the guest room where we were working on something and you sat on the bed and we were telling you about what we were doing a year ago.
We were waiting for you. We were BEGGING you to come out. I was telling you all about the benefits of a fourth of July birthday (you’d share with Amanda and Mike, fireworks JUST for YOU!, you’d be out of me) and about how I’d give you ice cream every single day if you just vacated my body. But I’m glad you were firm on your position of staying put. Daddy and I enjoyed the month of July very much last year and I think that was one of the first gifts you gave us.
This has been a very busy month for you - we moved to Greenwich, CT, it rained, you have your own room, it rained, you climb the stairs up to your room every single time we go up them (while I play security directly behind you), it rained some more and then finally it got nice out and we went to Central Park, the pool, the beach club. You’re standing up on everything now and your desire to climb has me fearful of the coming months. It’s not only that you’re fearless in climbing up things you’re fearless in climbing off of those things - regardless of the height or danger below. So, be careful.
You now point to things you want and yesterday when we saw Uncle Jay and his friend at the beach club you kept on pointing and Uncle Jay said “are you pointing to your home run” and I liked that. You’re starting to remember people more - it used to be you needed to see someone every few days to remember them but now you’re remembering people that you saw a couple of weeks ago and that makes me feel a lot better. You signal that you are done with your lunch by wiping your tray off….it’s cute unless you have something really messy on there and you basically spray the wall. We do a lot of wall clean ups.
You have a thing for noses and we speculate how you will be a plastic surgeon doing rhinoplasties when you grow up. You love to grab noses, make sure they are on real good - you’re very strong though and sometimes it results in a nose stinger…or a bleed. It’s not intentional but still we need to work on understanding your strength.
A couple Thursday’s ago we met Daddy at the pizza parlor for dinner - you double heart pizza - and you kept pointing to a glass of water with a straw in it and so I brought it over to you thinking that you’d blow in the straw and make bubbles. But you didn’t. You started drinking from the straw like you’d been doing it your whole life. Since then you prefer drinking out of a straw or from the glass. You’re growing up Lexi and I’m so proud of you but part of me just wants you to slow down.
People meet you and they find you charming and then you smile at them with your big toothy smile and they melt. You melt me too. You have a lot of teeth now. The four top teeth and six on the bottom. You love to bite things and you enjoy it when Val or I give you a whole apple peeled and you bite that apple in little pieces until you’ve gotten to the core - you love all fruits and most vegetables. Your favorite thing is Bug Macaroni and Cheese - I’m not sure exactly what it is about the bug shaped mac that appeals to you but I decided to throw different noodles in this time to see if you’d pick out the bugs and you did - bugs first, then elbows, then penne, then bowtie. You get really mean when people try to feed you - you want to do it yourself and you will keep your mouth shut real tight unless it’s ice cream. There is an exception to every rule after all and you’re no fool.
We lost your lamb in the city yesterday. (Dear Manhattan: if you find a little white lamb lovie that says Lexi it’s ours and we miss it - please e-mail me at casscomerford at gmail dot com. REWARD of happy baby and Mama and Starbucks gift card.) you love the lamb, you also love the Gorilla book, your golden retriever flash card, putting balls in your wagon and the Monkey’s on the Bed song. You dance to Cold Play, Michael Jackson (we had tribute day on Saturday and she really liked Beat it), Sara Barialles and anything that those crazy Backyardigans do.
You’re incredible. I know I’m mushy, I know that I happen to believe that you’re the best and I know that can be annoying sometimes but you deserve to have a biggest fan. Everyone does. That’s why we have Mom’s. You’re jibber jabbering in your crib ready to start the day now and when I walk in you’ll give me a big “hhhhhhhiiiiiiiiii” with your little voice inflection. You give us such joy Lexi.
So I get this e-mail from Jockey today and I have to say I’m just not buying it.
#1 - This women showering under the huge rain shower in the nude.
#2 - In the middle of a field LITTERED with deer ticks. I can see them EVERYWHERE now.
#3 - This lady isn’t wearing the full on brief. Women that shower in the buff in the middle of a field are risk takers. They’re not pulling out the granny panties. I’m sorry. I just don’t buy it.
#4 - This is a stretch Jockey - trying to tie in buying underwear in special colors for 4th of July. Why? Because that’s how our founding fathers would have wanted it?
#5 - Why not put a big scary statistic on the e-mail like “Millions of people get in car accidents over 4th of July weekend - don’t you want to have clean un-holed undies on when you get admitted to the ER?” See that’s how you sell big old underwear. Put the image of your father coming in the hospital to see your bruised up self in your skimpy g-string in your head and you’ll click right over to Jockey to buy some big old under-roo’s.
Today being a working Mom is difficult. Most days I like it well enough but today has been difficult.
Maybe its the work. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s the rain, the humidity, my jeans. I don’t know. Today I was slammed. Put in my place and in my opinion rather unfairly. It’s not personal - but it is. It is to me. It’s personal to me because as I’m sitting on my computer working away I’m not spending time with my daughter. So when I have a bad day at work I’m thinking about how I could have spent it with my Lexi.
Is it worth it? That’s what I keep on asking myself. Is this all worth it. At the end of the day I’m not curing cancer, I’m not contributing anything beautiful to the world, I’m not molding young minds, I’m not. I’m just not sure that I can continue. If I’m going to be away from my baby I want what I do to at least matter. And matter in a way that is bigger then a direct deposit. I want it to matter. I want to matter to it. And I’m just not feeling it today.
A few days ago I went to the nail salon to get a pedicure and an eyebrow wax. It had been a while since I had been for the eyebrow wax….it had been a long long while and I was starting to look like Austin Powers meets Brooke Shields in the eyebrow department. So she does the eyebrow wax and it looks great and I get up and she says “no, wait, we do lip now.”
I want all scooby doo on the situation and said “whhhaaa?” and she said “yes, lip, we do lip now too.” and as she repeated herself in about a three second window I had the following conversation with myself:
“She’s a professional, trust her, have your lip waxed, but wait you’re supposed to go out to lunch with Ross after this, it will be fine, you’ll have your pedicure and it will be fine, but what if it isn’t. WHAT if this is like the time in sixth grade where I shaved my eyebrow a teeny bit and it grew back like man-brows????? What if this one wax is the thing that gives me a full on mustache (cue Magnum PI music in my head…..NOW) what if this is a trick to get me to come in every other day. I didn’t even know I needed my lip waxed. Are people staring at me? Can you tell? Should I have noticed? Are there alternatives? Should I nair? Should I look into electrolysis? Do I have a hormone imbalance? Oh, no. What if this is like the house where the guy is using testosterone cream and Lexi is going to start growing a beard because of it. ROSSS!!!! God help you if this is your fault. I should trust her. She’s a professional.”
So I nodded. And with the Magnum PI background music going in my head I braced myself.
And she put the wax on and MOMENTS before she was ready to put the strip on my face I said “STOP!!!!! - I can’t do it. Wipe it off. I have to consult the internets. I must do that first.” I thought about going on Twitter but really microblogging doesn’t work for this question.
So I left the salon with a new pedicure and waxed eyebrows and I did what any sane person does: I drove to the closest super market and sat in the car with the vanity mirror (thank god I sprang for the lighted mirror) and I looked to see if this was a problem. I was clearly not in Magnum territory but did it warrant a wax???
Ross met me for lunch and I told him about the experience and at first he was really not interested he was more interested in other wax services offered (he’s so….what’s the word….male). And then he gets close and he looks at me and he says “I don’t know, I guess it’s not that bad.”
I wish he had an iPhone because if he could have captured my face at that moment it would have been pretty classic. WHAT? Not THAT bad? He then went on to say it wasn’t bad at all, he didn’t see a problem with it.
So I turn to you my dear Internets. What is a girl to do?
Lexi has a lot of names for Ross and she says all of them…all of the time. In fact that’s all she says. Ever. And while I wish that she said things like Mom or Mama I know my time will come and then she will not stop saying Mom for the rest of her life. So for now I’ll just enjoy her saying aDadada when Ross walks into the room.
I’m a girl that loves her Daddy, and my Grampa and my Papa and Ross’ Dad so I know the goodness that comes from loving a Dad and being loved by a Dad. There is nothing wrong with being a Daddy’s Girl. There is nothing wrong with being that one mans princess. In fact, being perfect to that one man on the planet is about all I can ask for some days when I do everything else wrong. So when Lexi says Dada - I’m glad. She’s got a great Dada and he loves her bigger then the sky.
This is Lexi giving Ross his Father’s Day card. She’s very good at sharing - you ask her for it and she gives it to you and smiles. She then asks you for it right back….and then freaks out if you don’t give it right back but the initial share - we’ve got that down.
Then they read the card.
It was SOOO good that they read it again - this time with more excitement.
Then Lexi had to make sure the card was constructed well.
Still testing. We’re VERY thorough when seeing if something is made well.
And then they read it again because Lexi thought it was a very great story. And it is. It’s a story about how much we love the Daddy.
It’s Friday, I made it. It was questionable there for a little bit. I’m not gonna lie. I considered throwing the whole thing in and busting out to where ever it is Pioneer Women lives and saying “me and this baby want to stay at the ranch and eat everything you make”. But we’re in Connecticut. So we didn’t do that. I owe my Mom some new pictures of Lexi so I’m going to put it in this post and say “well, at least I posted today”. When I post before coffee and before 7am you get a lot of this “internal dialogue” stuff. It’s great, right? ”They totally love it.”
This is Lexi in her new room. She was a little unhappy that I stopped her from scaling her book case - she felt that cracking her skull open wasn’t a legitimate risk. I disagreed.
This is Lexi in her new room looking at her picture album in which she finds all the faces she knows and gives them kisses. This could be considered a warning: If you go in Lexi’s room and you see a picture book don’t just go grab it. It’s got sloppy kisses all over it.
Then I gave her a mohawk in the tub. And she saw me get the camera from behind a towel and she’s saying: This isn’t fair. I can’t crawl away. No pictures. No pictures. No pictures.
And then I snapped that picture above. And she said “Ohhhh, hells no you didn’t”.
But then I faked sneezed, which is the funniest thing anyone can do around Lexi…real sneezing is also hilarious. And she agreed to smile.
She is always a lady - her feet are crossed like this when she’s in the tub trying to sit up - or when she’s reading, or when she’s drinking her bottle. Crossed at the ankles. This either mean she’s going to be President or a modern day Miss. Manners.
She likes to think that she can drink out of cups. Wait, that’s not right. She CAN drink out of cups but she does this really fun (read: messy and not so much fun for Mommy) thing where she spits it back at you like a fountain. Now, THAT is hilarious (to Lexi).
Last night I went to the gym at our new place and I was on the elliptical watching The Bachelorette because I like it. I like it better then The Bachelor and I like Jillian and her Canadian way. But I got to thinking about if I were to be on the show….well, if any of us married ladies ended up on the Bachelorette due to some off the yellow brick road planning. And it developed into a list.
If a previously married woman were on the Bachelorette…
To go on a date you’d need to complete a challenge - none of this GIVING dates away business. You want to date me how about you take out the garbage. The first man that takes the initiative to take out the garbage WITHOUT asking wins a date. (Incidentally, my husband took out the garbage without asking this morning which means I was actually talking this post aloud in my head last night or he’s just that good.)
If I find out that you’re dating someone else you die. I think that’s pretty clear. Marriage is all about fidelity after all. Oh yes, and if this women knew that you were competing for my love but kept up the relationship? Well, I’ll ruin her. Ruin. Seriously. I can do that.
Rather then drinking on every single date I’d have you do something like rub my shoulders or play 20 questions so that I can find out if I like you and how you rub my shoulders which I think are pretty important things. Particularly the shoulder part.
If I didn’t want to jump you within the first day of meeting you then you’re gone. I’m sorry but attraction is an important part of a relationship. Here’s the thing: attraction of the jump your Bones (Bones reference intended oh my god Booth…remember me?) variety doesn’t happen within the first full day then I likely won’t feel like jumping you after I just heard gas coming out of every outbox on your body.
Another challenge to weed out the weak: Create a plan of what you will eat for the next three days and then go to the grocery store to buy everything in which you need. If you do not buy at least one piece of fresh produce you are out. If your purchase is more then 25%alcohol you are out. If you included microwave meals for more then 50% of your three days you are out. If you had to call your Mom to find out what you’d like, what you’d need you’re out. If you call your Mom to ask her how to make it then you’re in.
I’m going to give you directions. They will be wrong. The first one to stop to get the right directions. Wins.
I will ask important questions like “When you go to Dunkin on Sunday morning how do I like my coffee?” and “What size am I should you go shopping?” and “How many days a week/month are you anticipating doing it?” and also “Do you believe in therapy should our relationship progress and we need to improve our communication?” and finally “Tell me some things that you’ve done wrong.”
Lexi is going to be one soon. ONE. A single digit. Twelve whole months. Lexi’s third night in the world had her away from me. She was in the NICU and I was sent home. The people at the White Plains NICU were incredible. They were so comforting, so kind, they explained things so well and even with all of that it was scary.
NICU is a scary place. You see the little ones and you pray for them - you pray for their Mommies and their Daddies. You pray for their doctors and their nurses. Even if you don’t really believe in God. You pray for them because they are the innocents. They are still perfection and they are fighting for something that they should have been given: life.
After we left the NICU I sent a letter to the ‘powers that be’ praising everyone there and I sent a basket for the parents in the NICU that may be short on pocket change for vending machine trips. I plan on doing the basket again this year and every single year for the rest of my life on Lexi’s birthday. But I wanted to do something more. I remember being in the NICU getting ready to go home and a couple asked me if I would take a picture of their family for them. And that’s what I’m thinking about.
I’m going to approach the department head and offer to come in once a week (or more if its a special situation) and offer to take pictures of these little families fighting to stay that way. What do you think? I know so many of you have been in this spot - would you have wanted that? this is one of the very few pictures I have of Lexi with her little IV Chicken Wing from the NICU
I feel like I need some authority figure in my life that says “YOU, young lady, in that corner, take a time out”. I’m chasing the list again. I’m seeking a state of doneness that will never come. I’m looking for tofu that actually does taste like scrambled eggs. I’m seeking balance and fulfillment. In short: I’m looking for the end of the rainbow.
Lexi does this new thing that she waves good bye to you when she’s had enough. Sometimes she does it to be cute. Sometimes she does it with authority. Like at Staples tonight when we entered a time warp where morons believed that “in a hurry” was secret code for “no, really, take your time, have a damn cup of coffee while you stop and smell those roses.” At Staples, Lexi looked at Jason and started waving to him. Waving good bye. And saying BuuuuuBuuuuuuBuuuuuBuuuuuuu. She’s so damn smart this kid. Unfortunately for her she can’t walk (despite her deep belief that she can, if I would only give her that chance in the middle of a crowded store) and she squirmed for another 10 minutes while they “hurried”. She did continue to wave though.
We call her “The Mayor” because this kid waves and smiles to people more then Mike Bloomberg on parade day. She IS destined to be somebody. People stop me in stores all the time to tell me how beautiful she is, how sweet she is, what a great smile, look at those eyes, is she modeling? they ask, is she going to be in “the pictures” (I get that from the Gold members of life, aka 75+) and every time I smile and think of Ross’s grandfather…he had a way of saying the word ‘pictures’ that is ingrained in my memory for some reason. God, I bet my grandpa and Ross’s grandpa watch out for her and just adore her. Anyways - back to the point (yes, I have one). As soon as people walk away I tell her “listen, you’re not just a pretty face, you’re brilliant and you’re going to change the world” and you know what? I believe she will.
Isn’t that incredible? One of our babies is going to change the world. We’ve got important work on our plates here. Now don’t mind me, I’ve got some deck chairs to go straighten on the ship that’s about to sink in my living room.
