DEAR SOL: HERE IS YOUR FAMILY

Well, it finally happened:

#14 on the list of My Worries, from this post written waaaay back when I was pregnant.

 

The day when our family is compared to the other families at daycare.

Yesterday was like any other day; I left work to pick Sol up from daycare.  I walked in and saw my little monster walking up to me (omg, she's walking! let's take a second to raise the roof for my future marathoner!)

Sol perched on my left hip, diaper bag slung over my right shoulder, I was pulled aside by Miss Shannon, who mentioned to me that they're asking each child to bring in photos of his or her family over the next week.  These photos will be posted up on a wall alongside all the other kids' family photos.  They're doing this to help each child to learn about his or her family, to help each child associate a name with each person, to have the family "right there" with each child at daycare.

Family photos. 

Welllllll.
Isn't that special.

I slapped on the most outrageously fake smile and said, "Okay."  And I walked out the door.

My heart instantly sank and my throat tied itself into one large, ridiculously impossible knot.  The same knot I felt for months while I was pregnant.  The same knot that was originally tied by the man who abandoned me.  The same knot that manifested itself every night for 9 months, reminding me that I was different, that my child would be different.  The same knot that reminds me of every break my heart has suffered, every evil word spoken to me, every awkward "I'm pregnant and single" conversation I had to endure, every afternoon spent sobbing on my living room floor, every night spent lying in bed, tracing soft lines on my growing belly and crying into my pillow.  The same knot that I feel when I see a perfect nuclear family who's so cute and "together" that I want to vomit, or cry, or maybe both.  The same knot that you get when you're fatherless.

That knot tied me up the whole way home.  And it held that same restrictive power over me for the rest of the night.  It consumed me as I fell asleep, and it was still there this morning.  Sol will not have pictures of her father.  She will only have pictures of one set of grandparents.  Sol has half a family.

Family photos: proof that Sol is different because of things I did.

 I got to work this morning and searched my computer to find pics of our family.  And as I shuffled through the photos, I could feel the knot slowly begin to loosen.  With each happy photo of smiling faces surrounding my daughter, I too felt happy.  And I felt guilty.  And stupid.  For allowing that pesky knot to take control of me and cause me to forget what a great family we truly have.  Hodge-podge and unconventional though it may be, we have a ridiculously large family.  Sol and I are unbelievably blessed to be surrounded by good people who love us dearly.  

Blog/Facebook comments never cease to amaze me; as I read them I see just how much Sol is loved.  She may not have a perfect family in the traditional sense... but in my opinion she has something even better.  She has hundreds -- maybe even thousands -- of people who know and love her, most of whom have never even met her.  If only there were a wall big enough to post pictures of every member of our amazing family.

(If you want your photo on her wall at daycare, just let me know... 

how cool would it be to have her wall FILLED UP? haha)

Family photo day?

Bring.  It.  On.

Dear Sol,
 here is your family:

 I am your mother.  I love you dearly and always have. 
I want the very best for you in life, and I want you to be happy.
That is all you need to know.

 

This is Grandma CC.  She was there when you were born.

She cut your umbilical cord and gave you your first bath.

She says a prayer for you every night.

Her heart nearly explodes with all the love she has for you.

 

This is Grandpa Ken.  

He waited impatiently in the waiting room the night you were born.

He was the first man to hold you.

He never stops thinking about you.  He shows pictures of you whenever he can.

He calls almost daily to talk to you.

(I can't wait for you to start talking so you can actually talk to him...)

 

This is Aunt Liz.  She was with me when I first heard your heartbeat.

She was the first one at the hospital when I went into labor.

She held my hand as you took your first breath.

She loves you more than you will ever know.

Aunt Liz is holding your cousin Ellie.  You and Ellie are going to be best friends.

 This is Aunt Amanda.  She was the first one in our family to know about you.
She was also there, holding my hand as you entered the world.
Her whole office knows about you because she never stops talking about you.
She is proud of you and loves you.


This is GG Helen.  You will always have a very special place in her heart.
She has loved you for a long, long time.


This is GG Loretta.  She has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren,
but she has more than enough love to make each of them feel special.
You are no exception.  She loves you very dearly, and has always loved you.


 This is Uncle Gregg with Cooper.
Uncle Gregg was there the night you were born.
(but he didn't hold you because "he was sweaty from playing volleyball,"
but I think he was actually scared to hold such a tiny person)
Uncle Gregg loves you and your chubby self.
Cooper was the first one to know about you.
He sat with me alone in Aunt Liz's living room and listened to me cry.
He gave me hugs and, in his own canine way, he told me that it would work out.
You will love Cooper.  He gives the best hugs ever.

This is Uncle Matt.  We call him Mattitude.
He is hilarious.  He taught you to blow raspberries.
You didn't stop blowing raspberries for months.


This is Aunt Kenny.  She is your godmother.
She has loved you since before you were born.
She was so excited to meet you that she drove a long way
to be at the hospital the day after you were born.



This is Uncle Mike.  We call him Uncle Rafiki.
He loves to hold you up a la Lion King.
He came with Aunt Kenny to see you the day after you were born.
(and he's apparently a model on the side...)

 This is Aunt Stephanie.  She is one of my best friends.
She loves you mucho and wants the very best for you.
Her daughter Genesis will be your best friend :)

 This is Aunt Joleen.  We'll call her Auntie Jo.
She is VERY smart.
She loves to take you to the Beer Exchange.
She has been an important part of your life for almost your entire life.
She loves taking you to Target and putting ridiculous hats on you.


This is Aunt Leah.  She is amazing.
She loves you SO SO SO much.
She loves to come over and play with you.
She's going to teach you to dance!!

This is Aunt Chel-C.  She was the first one to know your name :)

She loves photography and loves snapping photos of you.

She sends you cool presents, and will teach you all about the She-Woman Man Haters Club.

We are founding members.

This is E-Machine.

E is very special to us too.

He likes cars and cows, and he can tell you all about them.

You two will be very good friends... most of the time.

FIVE GOOD THINGS FRIDAY

I'm so bad at this.  I apparently can't keep up with being a full-time mom, being sick, working, shooting photos on the side, having some inkling of a social life, and posting regularly on my blog.  Ahhhh, but I was doing so well for a while!  2013 looks promising, dear ones.  Fear not; I will regain my status as the #1 blogger of All Things Sol-Related.

Until then, however... back to five good things.

Good Thing #1: Outings with Joleen
 Have I mentioned how excited I am that Aunt Joleen lives in Kalamazoo?  Okay.  I'm excited that Aunt Joleen lives in Kalamazoo.  She brings us straight-up Michigan Christmas cookies like these:

That's a sugar beet and the lower peninsula of Michigan, btw :)

And she goes to Target with us and attempts to put Avengers helmets on my child, much to the dismay of poor Sol (haha).  And she stands at the checkout with us and listens to Mr. Crazyman tell her how beautiful my child is and oh can he take a picture of her and not every child is beautiful for example he has three kids of his own and his oldest son isn't so pretty but he's smart so that's good and he gives single moms a lot of credit because he doesn't have hips so he can't hold children the same way women can and his mom is a supermom when she goes to the Old Country Buffet with one kid on the left hip and one on the right and one on the teat and one holding her hand and she's still eating at the Old Country Buffet and oh well Merry Christmas anyway.  Oh yes, that whole scenario happened.  Joleen can vouch for it.  We did not allow him to photograph Sol; we DID, however, laugh about it the whole way home.  And THAT, my friends, is exactly why I like having company when I'm out in public.

Good Thing #2: (Christmas baked goodies!!)
The Christmas season is upon us.  And I like having meetings in different buildings.  Because a) I get to see a different crop of people than if I were holed up in my office all day long, and b) by the time I get back to my office, I've accumulated a container of treats that looks something like the Gladware delectability below:

Good Thing #3: brown paper packages tied up with strings (or packing tape)
I also like Christmastime because I come home from work and there are cool things like Christmas cards from friends, or packages on my doorstep.  The other day, I got what may be one of the cheeriest packages I've ever received:

 

Is that Bath and Body Works?  Oh yes it is.   

And this was also the best-smelling package I've ever received.  

Because the contents went a little something like this:

 Good Thing #4:  Christmas Cards (outgoing)
Christmastime also means I get to return the favor and send out masses of Christmas cards for the first time EVER.  (This also means I get to stay up till 12:32am five days before Christmas, addressing envelopes and losing 75% of my saliva to the gross adhesive on these glad tidings...)

 Good Thing #5: good butterflies

Butterflies when I'm straightening my hair and curling my eyelashes.

 

Butterflies when I'm frantically trying to pick out a shirt to wear.

Waiting for me to expound?  Let's just say that I had good butterflies on Saturday night.  Because it was just one of those Sunday morning things, you know, where God plops you down on the far left side of the fourth pew from the very back, and you turn around to share the peace with the person sitting behind you, and [oh yes] it's the same guy that caught your eye in church almost a month ago, and upon talking to him you find out that he's a single dad of a 1-year-old boy.  And somewhere after losing yourself in his blue eyes you give him your phone number, and then you spend the rest of the night wondering... Did he actually ask for my phone number?  Did he ever explicitly state that he was single?  Did I just make myself out to be a total moron?  Do I need to transfer my church membership now?  And two days later he calls you and you find out that you have a ridiculous/scary number of things in common, even down to the teeniest, WEIRDEST coincidences.  And then he asks you to go out on Saturday night and you go into it expecting very little (because that's the only way to avoid disappointment) and it ends up going so well that he asks to see you the next day and you're almost too excited to believe that this is happening.

Things are looking awfully bright.  There are very few presents wrapped up beneath our tree (and incidentally none with my name on them), but THIS gal is a happy Christmas camper regardless. 

<<<>>>

And one good song.

<<<>>>

My absolute favorite Christmas song.  I heard it a few years ago in Old Navy, and I was hooked.

After some extensive research, I found it and downloaded the entire album on iTunes.  Enjoy!  

Merry Christmas :)

WEAK-END

This weekend I compiled a list of some of my biggest weaknesses:

• Target at Christmastime
• Olive Garden
• Pasta. 
• Andes Mints
• Good sangria with a great friend
• Parades
• Nieces that scrunch their noses up when they smile
• Dark chocolate peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's
• Christmas lights at 6am
• Those nights where the only light in the house is coming from the lone burning candle
• Little ladies with rattails and stuffy noses who cuddle up with you like they're trying to break your heart or something
• Downtowns
• White tights over chubby little legs
• Men's handsoap that reminds me of good days
• Puffy vests
• Fedoras
• Freshly-bathed, chubby-cheeked babes who wear duck robes

Oh, life is so good.

REVELATIONS OF MATERNITY LEAVE

I'm loving maternity leave.  While it's amazing to not have to go into work every day (for countless reasons), this transition period isn't exactly a piece of cake.  All of a sudden I've got a little roommate.  And she's a noisy roommate at that.  And MES-SY.  And I'm stuck in my apartment, unless I want to pack up half of my belongings just to tote my 10-lb roommate to the grocery store.  The mind wanders when one is sentenced to six-plus weeks of confinement with a new baby.  So I'm low on sleep, low on food (due to lack of opportunity, not due to lack of food supply, by the way), and unsure of what's keeping me chugging along.  But I'm still managing to learn a few things along the way. 

Below, 20 revelations of maternity leave:

1. Sleeping in?  Not a chance.  Sleeping for longer than 4 hours?  Unheard of.
2. It's perfectly acceptable to stay in my pajamas until 4pm or until someone knocks on the door, whichever comes first.
3. When I do get dressed (in my first outfit of the day), I try to make sure it's nothing special.  I WILL be forced to change my outfit as the day progresses.
4. It's absolutely paramount that some store (preferably Target) figure out a way to offer a "third arm for the new mom" on their baby registry. I would sign up. 
5. It's better to live in town, as opposed to in the boonies.  Because I live in town, I live close to stores.  I live close to Target.  It's easy to go to Target weekly... okay, a couple times a week... okay, every other day.  (Note: I neither work for Target, nor am I in any way affiliated with the company.)
6. The Trade Home store in the mall (also right around the corner) gets its weekly shipment on Wednesdays at 3pm.  The manager's name is Ryan.  And no, there's really no good reason for anyone to know that.
7. Watching Maury Povich for 5 minutes is entertaining.  Watching it for any longer than that makes me feel like I belong on the show.
8. The commercials on daytime network TV are very specifically targeted.  Targeted to people who sit at home all day long ("alternative" universities, social security attorneys, how to prevent slip-and-fall accidents, etc.).
9. Daytime TV sucks.
10. DVDs come in handy.
11. Michael Scott never gets old.  The Office is amazing.
12. I'm not sure which is worse: being alone all day, or being alone all day with a crying baby.  The jury's still out on that one.
13. 4pm: The Ellen DeGeneres show. Makes my day. Especially with contests like the "Dance Dare" (in the videos here and here).
14. I can never spend too much time writing emails to the Ellen show.
15. Regardless of how many times I tell myself at 3am that I WILL BE TAKING A NAP THE NEXT DAY, I almost never do.
16. Sisters are wonderful.  Neighbors are wonderful too :)
17. There is literally no time more precious than the time I spend cuddling with my baby.
18. I can't do everything that I want to do.  My apartment is a mess, and I don't care.  I'm a new single mom.  If you don't like it, you can leave.
19. Faith can take you places.  It's gotten me this far.
20. Regardless of how irritated/frustrated/etc I feel at 3am, I refuse to let it take over me.  I will never allow myself to forget that I chose this.  I chose the sometimes-screaming, oftentimes-crying, living, breathing bundle of sunshine in my arms.  I will never regret choosing her.  Not even at 3am.  Not last night, not tonight, not tomorrow night.  She will always be the best decision I ever made.