For two or three days last week I left the house after feeding and changing Olive first thing in the morning. I grabbed my laptop and headed to a coffee shop and sat for two hours, and wrote.
It was amazing. I couldn’t do laundry. I couldn’t jump up and make a snack, or pace, or check on Olive (still sleeping!) a million times. I just grab my decaf coffee (UGH decaf WHAT IS THE POINT?) and find a seat and sit there with my laptop with all of the other people with their laptops and comfort myself with the fact that I am slightly less ridiculous, acting out this stereotype, because I really AM writing a book, a real book!
It went well. Really well. And if this keeps up, if I do this every single day (and let’s not talk about this past weekend where I didn’t write at all , and chose instead to make Olive approximately 11 toques because what else does a baby need as it crawls into spring/summer but a whole bunch of wool toques?). Anyway, if I do this every day, I may just be done in time. And even have a few days left over for editing!
And then there’s this.
I took these pictures the other day when Olive was in a ridiculously happy mood. She is notoriously camera shy, and no matter what she’s doing, as soon as she sees that lens she goes dead-faced and mouth agape.
But this day she smiled and cooed and when I looked at the pictures a few hours later, it was the first time I saw something in myself in her face. I think it’s her eyes, which, in this light, in these photos, look a lot like mine.
She turns six months old on April 5, and we are starting her on solids this weekend when my mom visits for Easter. The plan is to try some avocado, and I am equal parts excited, curious and sad that my baby, my BABY will be eating real food.
She is almost sitting up on her own- doing a little weeble-wobbling back and forth but fairly stable, and it’s crazy how much bigger it makes her seem when you walk into a room and she;s sitting there, reaching for toys. Like, not only can she sit up and get her hands to do what she wants them to do, she WANTS things. She has wants!
Up to this point, wanting hasn’t really played a part in our lives, not her wants anyway. Up to this point it has been all about needs. Basic- really basic- needs.
Food, comfort, warmth, sleep.
But these small movements to reach and grasp and want, these are the tiniest beginnings of her becoming a real person, with a real mind of her own.
Imagine that.
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