04 Apr

Dear Bianca

Today you turn two. What an amazing year! A year ago, you weren’t quite walking yet, but now you’re running around and climbing on everything. We bought you a little footstool to make it easier to wash your hands and now you carry it around all over place so you can reach things you’re not supposed to get into. It cracks me up every time.

And you’re talking! Maybe not as much as some kids, but it still amazes me every time you come out with a new word, which is at least every day. And you’re starting to use sentences. This morning Daddy made you a babycino and when you finished you handed back your cup for “more dook.” Daddy asked you if you wanted just a regular drink and you said, “no, this dook.” I don’t know where ‘dook’ came from for drink but I think it’s adorable, especially since it’s about the only word you get wrong. I love that you can now tell us when you want something, most of the time anyway. You’re so serious about it and that “um, ah, ah…” as you cast about for the right word, like you’re speaking a foreign language, it’s just beautiful. It wasn’t so long ago that you got by with 15 different uses for the word No; now look at you.

It’s pretty good being your Mummy, especially these days now I’m feeling better. You make it fun in so many ways, like the way you back up to me from miles away and sit in my lap to watch TV. And how you hate being told “no” and will scowl and tell me to “go ‘way” if I do. The way you grab my hand and say “Mummy play,” and how you think everything the light touches is yours, even at other people’s houses.

To sum up, you’re just divine.

When you turned one people asked me how I felt, and I said it was like a door closing. I think they expected me to be sad, but really I felt relief that I could say the baby year was done and the hard part was over. Of course, now I realise that the hard bits don’t end, they just change once you’ve got used to them. And it wasn’t so much that a door closed as a chapter ended. Another one’s done now, and I wonder what chapter three contains. More talking, obviously, and more opinions as well. But what else? What will we look back on in a year’s time and be amazed at?

I have this picture in my mind, of you at three. You’re a little taller, your hair’s longer, and you’re standing there in pink leggings (the sort I once vowed I’d never dress you in), one leg crossed over the other, head on the side. Your mouth’s open because you’re telling me something, and you’re still full of energy and still cheeky. Your dimples are showing. I hope you never lose those dimples. I hope you never lose your cheekiness, and your energy, and your joy, and I can’t wait to read on in your story.

 

02 Apr

outsmarting myself

My resolution of giving up procrastination for Lent continues, with me managing to do something every day except Thursday which was given over for my Uncle’s funeral. Incidentally, I had a slight confusion last week because I’d numbered all the days in my diary so I could keep track, but that had Easter happening this weekend. What the heck? I thought it was the weekend after Bianca’s birthday. Had I numbered wrong? Accidentally skipped a week? Got Ash Wednesday’s date wrong? I counted from one to forty so many times, googled ‘Easter dates 2012’, and then discovered that the forty days of Lent do not include Sundays. Huh!  I suppose I could be forgiven for not knowing, I’ve always gone from Pancake Tuesday to Chocolate Egg Day in a sort of magical … time passes… sort of way, but it also came as news to my Catholic sister in law so there you go.

Anyway, so I’ve been making progress in all sorts of areas but I realised something. It’s really nice that the bookshelves are (almost) arranged and I’ve cleared out the first aid box, but I’m still putting off the big things that actually do need doing and I’m letting myself off easy because I’m faffing around with the little things.

So for this last week I’m going to work on my real procrastination list, which includes:

  • catch up with accounts
  • claim health insurance refunds
  • finish the doorknob painting project I started about 5 months ago
  • reinstate the mail redirection stuff from the old place
  • finish changing addresses on things so I don’t NEED a damn mail redirection
  • hang pictures in both our and Bianca’s bedrooms.
  • t*x

Let’s face it, I’m not likely to actually get all that done in the next 6 days even though there are six of them, but at least I can man up and work on the important things!