Jump up and down...

It has been two years since my last blog. Two years!! Stupid ridiculous! Sadie is almost two and a half. She is like a teenager: she has a mind of her own, she wants to wear pretty dresses to school everyday, and she has sparkly hairclips that she must have put in her hair or else she just doesn't feel like "herself". Her best friend is a boy, Alessandro, who we regularly find her with when we go pick her up from school. Fortunately, we usually find them doing some version of calisthenics, jumping off of jungle gyms, or trying to climb them. No playing house yet.

We are suburbians, period. I have just accepted it. Life revolves around making sure spaces are quiet and safe and playful and conducive to naptime. Making sure the other parents at the park are parenting their own children. Making sure I'm parenting my own. It's life to me, and I am happy, but it makes me recognize that the title of my blog is probably more appropriate than I ever realized before. Sadie has taken to doing this little dance in the evenings, during what we call her "hour of power" where she kind of just goes insane right before bed. She runs all over the house, screaming and playing and having a jolly good time expressing herself in the freedom of our home. She sings a little song, "Jump up and down, turn all around, fall DOWN!" and at the end she plops on her bottom so hard I wonder if it hurts.

We are in trouble.

Bliss

It's an analogy for where we finally are in life with a child.

The pregnancy was beyond words difficult, the first months are insanity, the first year better but still challenging, ruled by breastmilk and sleepless nights. Traveling is impossible (see right). Then in the second year you hit your stride, nights are reliably restful, children have a bedtime and mom and dad reliably have alone time, packing for a trip includes diapers and wipes and a change of clothes, not what feels like the entire house.

Naptime actually happens, she takes direction well enough for you to have a free hand while you go walking down the street, she is playful and fun and creative on her own for longer than 20 minutes at a time.

Ultimately, the crazy jumping up and down and turning around and around in circles during the upheaval that follows the birth of a child - all of that is starting to hit the "fall down" phase - things are quiet, reliable, and routine.

There is finally a sense of FREEDOM!!! I have regained control of my body, it finally feels like it's mine! I am no longer guilt ridden over leaving her for more than an evening, I trust people to take care of her because she is no longer so incredibly dependent - OH IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!!!

Grandparents watched Sadie while we went on mini vaca, Porsche style.

But you know what Sadie does right after she falls down, even though it may have hurt, or she may be so dizzy from the turning around phase that she can't see straight? She gets up, and does it all over again. OH MY. Do it again, you must be insane. How do parents have more than one child? How does that work, exactly? How is there money when it seems you're stretched? How is there enough love for another when my heart feels it is exploding with love and I can't contain it with just the one I have? How is there time and space and freedom in life with more than one? I am one of FOUR! How did my parents do it?

Six months

 The only explanation I can come up with is that it is hardwired into us.  (And they are just so stinking cute, just look at that face!!)

Because not only is the actual parenting difficult, but especially for me (or anyone else who has been through complicated pregnancies - see prior posts) this process is crazy making and self and life defining and just plain hard. It seems it should be so much easier to say, "No way, we are a one child family, too bad Sadie, no brothers or sisters." But it's not, it just nags at you and nags at you and nags at you. And NAGS. And then some more, it nags. You get the idea.

Dear Uterus, shut up. Thank you.

 One friend expecting a boy, another expecting twins, another expecting a girl, another just had a girl, coworker expecting girl, another coworker expecting boy, another coworker just had a boy, friends trying for fourth, friends trying for first... AAAHHHHHH!!! Already crazy making!!

 I have a friend who has one. One and done. No sense of pressure from all the questions of if they will have another, able to see it only as a positive thing for her child, no pressure from everyone around her who has more. Just solemn decision making skills that I lack, basically.

 Well, at the end of the day, I am writing this blog. That must mean only one thing. In spite of myself, things seem a little too calm around here these days. Maybe time to start jumping up and down again. Baby on the brain.