As one of their February activities, J’s daycare asked the parents to write a valentine love letter to their kids, which will be read to the child by a guide during circle time. For posterity, here’s mine:

Dearest J,

There are so many thing I love about you. I love the first sleepy smile of the day and the way you rest your head on my shoulder when I pick you up to start the day. I love the way you giggle when you get excited and the way you kick one leg up when you nurse. You are a determined, fearless, beautiful, smart girl who I can already see is ready to take on the world and chase her desires. I love how when you want something you don’t give up trying to get it (even when it’s that handful of dirt dad so desperately wants you not to eat!) I love it when we play the step step game and your little feet kick like you are tap dancing, and I love the enormous smile you get on your face when you step step. I love how when we say good night to the baby in the mirror every night, you look around for dad even if he’s not home, and the way you crane your neck at the sound of his voice. I love watching you explore the world. You are so ready to try anything and everything, whether it’s food like the lemon you chewed on the other day or swimming lessons in a crowded pool or sitting with your grandpa only 5 minutes after meeting him. When you were born my life changed further and faster than I ever thought possible. But even through those first exhausting, terrifying weeks, I knew that having you was exactly how I was meant to be. I can’t imagine that I will ever feel anything but joy that you are part of my life, that you are exactly who you are. Your father and I are the luckiest people in the world to have had you for a daughter. I love watching you grow and change and learn. I love being your mommy. Most of all, I love you.

– sucking her thumb. Obviously intentionally.

– First swimming lesson! She was unsure at first, not of the water but of all the noise and people. Ina few minutes though, she was splashing and having a great time.

– First bout of serious constipation. She pooped a little Wednesday morning, then nothing until Saturday afternoon. By that point we’d tried apple juice, prune juice, abdominal massage, and even a little Vaseline. Dad was out buying Pedialax at the doctor’s recommendation, and I was changing her diaper when suddenly she started screaming bloody murder. A moment later she had cleared the plug and we were both covered in poop (I was holding her, prepping the next diaper). Fortunately my mother in law was here, and she helped me get J cleaned up and watched her while I hopped in the shower and changed clothes.

– First time meeting Grandpa T.! She took right to him and is well on her way to charming his socks off.

– This one may not seem like a bug deal, but it was to me… For the first time I was able to transfer her from the car seat all the way to the crib without her waking up.

I love this blog post about breastfeeding.

– First snow day! No sledding and hot chocolate though. We stayed inside and played.

– Standing with no hands! She can now pull herself to standing, walk along the edge of what she used to pull up, and let go with one hand and stay standing. She is letting go with both hands too, but so far doesn’t last more than a couple seconds before she loses her balance

– She can now eat the food inside her fist. Before, if part of what she was eating was inside her curled up fingers, she couldn’t get to it. Now she can, and uses this advantage to grab whole handfuls of Cheerios.

– This isn’t really a “first” per se, but we seem to be in some kind of sleep regression or something. A couple times a night she’ll wake up screaming, much like she did when she was only a few weeks old and struggling with what I now think was gas. Is she constipated? Her poop has been changing, and it seems much stiffer than the peanut butter/hummus consistency I’ve been led to expect. Is it night terrors? Apparently this is the age around which they develop the ability to have nightmares. I dunno. It happens whether she’s in her crib, in my arms, or nursing. Sometimes I can console her. Last night she screamed so long and hard that she woke herself completely up and it took hours to get her back to sleep. So I’m not sure what’s going on. Wheee, preverbal babies!

It’s been a long week, tough for everyone, it seems.

– first case of conjunctivitis. She hates the eye ointment that I have to smear into her eyes 3 times a day. Well actually, what she hates is being immobilized so I can. Once we let her go she stops complaining.

– first tooth!! Hooray! I’ve been waiting a long time for that cute (sharp!) little nubbin! Lower right incisor.

– first time mom was late to pick her up :(. I was about 45 minutes late. The two of us were way more upset than the guide who stayed late to watch her. (I locked my keys in my car. Sigh)

– and another big one! First time pulling herself to standing and then letting go with first one, then both hands! Of course she falls almost immediately, but she does let go! She will also walk if a person is holding her hands and calling, “step! Step!” Like it’s the step-step game. She loves it.

– first real laugh! It was small, no more than a “heh! Heh! Hehe!” But it was there nonetheless. I about melted. At the time I was playing “kiss monster” which is a game where I basically just kiss her over and over, all over, exclaiming, “kiss monster!!” Many of the little games I play with her are kind of weird sounding when I try to describe them. Kiss monster indeed :p

Only one new thing I can think of, but it’s a big one this week! J has started pulling herself up to standing! It takes a lot of work and she’s pretty wobbly, but the smile on her face when she makes it up is pretty amazing.

Edit: oops, I had this set to save as a draft rather than publish. So it’s a little late this week.

Since she turns 33 weeks tomorrow, this week’s update is the one from Friday, I guess. Not much has changed in the last 3 days. She went back to daycare today and apparently spent most of the day trying to get up the single step in the infant room with no luck. I bet she can do it by the end of the week.

Oh there is one thing. This weekend I heard her cry for the first time because she was undeniably frustrated. Not hungry, tired, scared, hurting, or in need of a cuddle. Just straight up pissed off and frustrated. She was trying to crawl somewhere we wouldn’t let her (I forget where now, or why) and getting more and more insistent and annoyed until eventually she started screaming. I gave her a hug and then we went outside for a minute to distract her (but only fir a minute because it was cold.

Anyway, short update this Monday.

I would have posted this yesterday but I left my ipad at work, and it’s really hard to write a blog post on a paperwhite. So! I missed a couple weeks. We went back to Philly for the holidays and I immediately lost track of time. It was glorious to have no idea what day it was for multiple days in a row! Lots of new firsts came up. In no particular order:

– First (and second) plane flight! She handled the entire travel experience like a champ. Nothing seemed to frighten her and none of the rigamarole bothered her at all. Her ears only hurt a little bit during one of the ascents, but a quick nurse fixed that right up. We forgot all the goody bags we’d put together to hand out to our fellow travelers, but it turns out we didn’t need them at all. J was smiling at everyone the whole way to Philly. On the way home she was not as smiley, but just as cute as she played step step in the aisle and clapped and did tahdahs (more on that in a minute).

– First Christmas! There are so many firsts about this! In her stocking she got an orange, a bright bow, a squishy airplane toy, and a bell. She enjoyed 4 of them thoroughly, and I enjoyed the orange. She also got some great books and some great toys. Her favorite thing, however, was definitely the wrapping paper. She helped unwrap a number of her presents, but once she got a good strip of paper in her hands she lost all interest in everything else and proceeded to try to eat the paper. We tried hard to let her play with it without letting her actually eat it. We mostly succeeded, although I did find a little piece of red shiny wrapping paper in her diaper the next morning.

– Clapping! She’s figured out how to clap. Not only does she do it on her own, she’ll also clap if she sees you clapping. This led to some very adorable scenes where J would clap, and then a room of 10-12 people would all clap back at her. She would get a big smile on her face and do it again. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if she was clapping to imitate us, or if she was training us to clap

One per week? Per month?

Yes. Per month, starting in January. I’ll give it a shot! Even though I know I’m behind on my milestone posts :/.

How much have you loved? Count the people. Add it up. When it comes to love, I’ve always felt in red numbers. I’ve been so focused on the minuses — all of them based on the not-enoughness, the virus most of us suffer from, the glass half-empty, the “but” – the “won’t” – the “can’t” – the “don’t” — the “what if.”

So if you’re in red numbers too, let’s put the ball back in our court. How much have you loved? Have you loved even when it hurts, when you can’t, when you shouldn’t, when you wouldn’t, when you didn’t – just because love is a verb, not a noun, and it’s the hardest, most beautiful gift of life? If so, you’re richer than you feel.

What do you love doing that you aren’t doing? Furthermore, how could you get paid for doing what you love? Let’s brainstorm. It’s your right to be alive every second of the day. You’re not supposed to spend 8 hours a day in chains and the remaining 4 getting high on mental and physical distraction in order to cope with the depression of not doing what you should, what you really want, what you need to be doing.

What person or type of person would you choose as a life companion? A witness to your life? Forget the shoulds / the can’ts / the won’ts / the impossibles. Who would you love and who would love you back if you could have a say in it? Because see, your say in this makes all the difference. When you say your dreams out loud, you turn on the engine. It’s like this whole unlived, abundant life is waiting to come rushing out of you and in wishing it — out loud — you open the gates and give it permission to happen.

Where do you want to live? Are you happy with your life where you are? Could you be happier somewhere else? It’s true that you can be home wherever you are. But it’s also true that some places are more in tune with the kind of life that comes bursting out of you. There’s nothing more inspiring and motivating than good company and an environment that reflect and support your mission.

What do you want to accomplish? And most importantly, why — what’s your motivation? Be unrealistic. Life itself is unrealistic. Your very existence is as random, impossible and unrealistic as it gets. Only unrealistic people accomplish extraordinary things.

What do you want to be remembered by? Write it down. This is the man / the woman who _______________. Take your time.

What kind of life would make you jealous? And why? If you could start over, what would your life look like, right now? (psst…you can – but shh, don’t let your doubts in on this yet – they’re gonna’ ruin everything).

What adventures do you want to have? Can you list five? Adventures aren’t just for children — or maybe the 10-year old in us never dies. And it’s that inner child that really loves and lives life for what it is: the greatest adventure in the universe.

If you had to add something to humanity, what would your contribution be? List at least one. The world doesn’t owe you. You owe the world. The good news is that whatever the answer to this question, you’ll enjoy doing it. Your mission is encrypted in your blueprint.

What are your ghosts? Your unspoken demons? The stuff you keep in your closet under a lock? What are you most deeply afraid of? Say it out loud. Get real with yourself. It’s how you conquer them.

What are your favorite memories? Can you picture four or five instances in your childhood you are fond of? Do you see a river running through them? What’s that river, that common denominator, the deepest statement about you and life that lies at the core of them? There is usually only one – or two life-altering statements that come up when you dig.

Get to the bottom of it. How can you live from that same belief now? How can you transform your current experiences so they begin with that same idea – that fueled your most cherished childhood memories?

Who do you love the most? What 10 people would you put on a lifeboat in case of a universal tsunami / asteroid / zombie attack or any other realistic end of the world? Make a list. You can have a million friends on Facebook, but at the end of the day, you’re lucky if you can find 10 people you would die for and who would die for you. Email them as soon as you can. Remind them that if the world ends tomorrow, they’d be on your lifeboat.

Truth is…you never know if the world will end tomorrow. At least for you. And human beings are the most forgetful animals. Do you eat, drink and sleep every day? Then love everyday too.

What worries you the most? Why? Worry comes from fear. And most fear is imaginary. Fear of the Thing is not the Thing itself. Learn to distinguish one from the other. It’s as simple as asking Why.

So what are you worried about? List even the most trivial worries, they’re a projection of a deeper fear. And if any of these worries came true, do you think you could survive? And if the answer is No, then all the more reason to enjoy the world before it ends (and not worry about dead or dying ends).

What type of people inspire you and make you come alive? What people — at this point in your life — add to the truest equation of YOU? Reach out to them, get closer, “touch” them, spend time with them, be around them, aliveness is the one virus you always need to catch.

What type of people bring you down and make you hate yourself? Break up with them. Today. It’s not rejection, it’s just selection. Life is short. You can’t invest your love in people who don’t want it and who use it to deplete you.

Love is the most elevated, beautiful transaction between two creatures. But it’s still a transaction. The whole of nature is transaction: a give and take. When one is missing, the cycle is interrupted, the fire swallows all the oxygen and you burn out. We each have a choice – to give and to take love — and whether we are aware of it or not, we choose the people we give to and take from. You are responsible for your heart’s investments.

Who are your mentors? What have they taught you? Can you make a list? If you know them personally, thank them? Writers, thinkers, teachers, people who’ve shown you the way at some point, and the beautiful mystery of life made sense in their hands. Inspiration is contagious. It fuels you up. You owe them a mention on your lips and in your heart; and you must pay it forward and become a way-shower to someone else.

What is your cosmic elevator pitch? Not your job description, not your professional bio, not your resume, not your About page. But if you got in an elevator on a spaceship that tours the galaxy and you could say anything you wanted about yourself, what would you tell your elevator mates?

In short, who are you – raw, unedited, wild, ordinary and extraordinary you? What does it come down to? And why? (Always, that goddamn solid why).

What issues can you help with? We’re in trouble as a planet, as a species, as a global community, and as individuals. It’s not a choice, actually. If you want to live here, you need to pay the toll of helping out, or your so-called-living won’t be more than a selfish idea of living.
Interdependence is the new Independence. In order to make it real, you have to help clean up the mess others have made. Don’t worry, so will others help clean yours. It’s how it goes with humans. They mirror each other, for better or worse.

How can you express yourself creatively? Starting with the belief that we are all creative animals by nature, what’s your medium? Don’t think about profit, think only of how you can recycle your demons and become a channel for truth.

Art (any kind) speaks directly to the heart. It doesn’t go through reason. They are two parallel languages. You need to speak Art if you want to understand Heart. So pick a medium and start practicing.

How do you manage your time? What works for you? If you’re a mess, how can you get it together? Here are some creative tips on productivity. Can you make a schedule, write down your routine (to help you stick to it), come up with a productivity manifesto of some sort?

If you were to leave the world today, what’s your manifesto? What would you tell your children if you were forced to abandon them unexpectedly? Tell them now (even if you don’t have children). You do actually, we’re all inextricably interconnected to each other – in ways beyond our wildest imagination, and every child born on this planet is also a bit yours.

What makes you come alive? What ignites you? What makes you forget time, and space, and love, and food and water and even why – if taken to extreme? As Bukowski put it, “Find out what you love and let it kill you.” (Or resurrect you.)

What are your most painful memories? Are you still replaying them in your mind and using them as an excuse to fuel your fear of getting hurt again? Do you think they might be keeping you from trusting your heart again?

Why do you eat the way you eat and the things you eat? What do you think you should you eat that you’re not eating – and why? What can you put in your body that gives you pleasure and also respects and nourish it? If you don’t know, can you find out? Google it, read books, take a nutrition course, a cooking class, an online support program, hire a health counselor, do whatever it takes to get to know your body’s needs and then give it what it’s really asking for.

Your cells are made from the very food you eat. What you eat is the most important physiological aspect of your aliveness. You can’t honor life through your work, mission, relationships (you name it), if you don’t eat what gives you life.

What ignites your brain? What turns your light bulb on? Can you add more of that to your everyday? Get smarter? Train your brain? Evolve? Don’t waste your precious time on meaningless entertainment that numbs your mind and makes you smaller. It’s later than you think.

What physical exercise makes you sweat it like you mean it and enjoy both, the process and the afterward feeling? If you’re not currently practicing it, can you read more about it, surround yourself with people who practice it, sign up for a class, do whatever will motivate you to practice it?

What does your body need in order to function at its best? Can you make a list of what makes you feel healthiest and function optimally and try to practice it every day? If you’re not sure, start experimenting. Your 100% is just a little higher than your 80% but it makes a lifetime impact.

What feeds your spirit? What gives you goosebumps? What makes you fall down to your knees in awe (and weep)? Is it god? Religion? The universe? Science? Starry nights? Philosophy? Nature? Music? Art? It has to be higher than a person (than you), and surpass your understanding. There is no awe without mystery.

What are you proud of so far? What have you accomplished? Don’t compare yourself to others. There will always be someone who’s done “more” and some who’s done “less.” But what can you, at this point in your life (your circumstances, your reality), give yourself a hug for? Do it.

Fast-forward to your epitaph. What does it say? As a place-holder, let’s paraphrase Jack Kerouac: “They lived and loved and asked, blessed and adventured…and they weren’t sorry.”
Question 31 (I don’t like even numbers): What is the meaning of life?
To sit and have a drink with life, and ask her things, and hear your own heart (usually ignored) echo your larger-than-life answers in your chest? To realize that you’re rich solely because you have a universe inside you, that you can reach at any given moment – a world that will shrink and expand on your command? Yes. That.
There is no meaning outside of You that won’t take Your deepest, greatest truth in consideration. Fuck love, money or fame if they don’t come as a result of your life-driving truth – they’re the roof to your inner house, and to add a roof you must first discover, understand and create that house. And if you don’t know where to start building, just ask.
Life is an endless flow of questions – meaning is always in the making and it is constantly being created as we speak. The ultimate meaning of life then is the One that creates meaning: the traveler (not the journey), the subject (not its objects, ideas, circumstances, possessions), the lover (not the love), the wayseer (not the way), the warrior (not the battle)…
You.

We’re deep into teething the last few days, and J has been having some very rough nights. We have been giving her a half dose of Tylenol and letting her chew on ice chips in a little mesh bag. Most of her new developments are around crawling.

– She can now move both knees and lift her hand and then put it in front of her, but she topples at that point. She usually army crawls to her goal after that.

– She can push herself from her belly into a sitting position.

– First trip to the grocery store. She was fantastic, and didn’t even fuss at them when two strangers got right up in her face to admire her.

– I’m less proud of this, but I had my very first moment of frustration with her. It was mild. She was fussing and wiggling and my nipples were hurting and I knew she was tired and hungry and that her gums/jaws were really bothering her. I also knew that what she needed to do was nurse and the Tylenol would take effect soon and she could sleep. I said, “Oh sweetie, just go to sleep!” Like I said, it was mild. But since this is a post about firsts this week, I thought I’d mention it.

– Volume. She’s been playing a lot with being loud and soft. Mostly loud.

As usual, there’s something else I wanted to mention but have forgotten.

– Edit: Oh! I remembered one! She’s started flapping her arms when she gets excited. She’ll stick them up in the air like she’s going, “Look what I did!” and then flap them both down hard. Then up and down and up and down! We’ve started saying “Tah dah!” when she hold them up and, “Tah dum!” when she slaps down.