To Matty, on your birthday

It's Matty's 39th birthday! On this special day, here are five things you might not know about him:

1. He's from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
2. He once went ten years without eating a vegetable. (And then he met me.)
3. He proposed to me after dating for three weeks.
4. He once used his own sock as a napkin.
5. He often falls asleep at night tucked in with a good book on minor league baseball stats.

He's also funny, kind, big-hearted, and handsome. Happy Birthday, my love.

Five

Dear Alyce,

Yesterday you woke up and you were five years old. Do you remember when you were born? I do. You'll learn about this when you're older, but grown-ups are always thinking about the past. We cling to it the way that you leap toward your future. I think about the day you were born because it was magical. You don't ask me too often to tell you the story of your birth, except for the part where we named you (and I love to tell that story). But one day you'll want to know that it was very, very cold outside on the day you were born. I'll tell you how I walked around the house for almost two days, encouraging you to move down, down, down.  How I was frightened of my labour pains but then you were born I wasn't frightened anymore. How when we met I understood that you were mine and I knew how to love you and everything was how it should be. Sometimes I make mistakes but I always know how to love you. I write you love letters all the time, like this one, on your birthday.

Will you read this when you are grown and remember what it was like to be five? Let me help. You still believe in imaginary worlds, even though you pretend not to sometimes. One day at school I watched your librarian read you a story about bats sneaking into a library late at night to read all the books, and then she asked your class if this story could happen in real life. (Of course it could happen, bats love to read, we all know that.) You were the only one to raise your hand. So now I'm watching you learn that other people have already stopped believing in stories, and while it makes me sad to think you might have given up hope, I know better. I still believe in fairies, Alyce, so don't bother with what other people think.

Before you were born I thought children were sweet and delicious. You, my Alyce, are sweet and delicious, but you are also brave, and confident, and stubborn, and curious, and electric. The other day you asked me what would happen if a space rock hit the earth like it did the dinosaurs. Later that day you asked me to explain war. I wish you still asked mostly about unicorns, but you are five now and have one small foot planted firmly in the world. You already know why it is wrong to hurt someone else, that one of our most important tasks in this world is to be kind. You also know that things are complicated and that sometimes it isn't easy to be kind. But the thing is, you try harder than anyone I know, and that is one of the reasons I love you so much.

I struggled writing this letter. I started yesterday, on your birthday, but I kept putting it away. Nothing felt right. Ask anyone else and they'll tell you why: I'm not quite on board with your growing older. Why is this so hard for mothers to do, to get on board with the inevitable, and wonderfully exciting new things you'll experience as you get bigger and bigger, like wearing earrings, going to the mall alone with your friends, or falling in love with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (hands down the greatest heroine ever)? Is it because we worry about the not-so-wonderfully exciting new things you'll also experience? I think it is all true. But there is something else that makes me drag my feet. I have loved so much about you at every year of your life, and at each birthday I just can't imagine that there could be more.

So I'll use this special place, this blog I write mostly to you and your sister, to tell you all the wonderful things I love about you when you are five. I love that you pronounce scissors as zizzors, and say burgerker instead of burger. I love how you spoon me when we sleep together, how you nuzzle your head in the space at the back of my neck. I love how you sing, dance, and leap your way through so much of your life. I love how you never forget your sister. I love that you asked for a fish for your birthday and you named him Periwinkle. I love that you care so deeply.

Yesterday you woke up and you were five years old. I predict that it will be an excellent year.

Love,
Your Mama

A birthday wish for my mum

Happy birthday to my beautiful mother! If you celebrate your birthday with half the intensity of your granddaughter it will be a great day. I hope your day is filled with only good things, and tomorrow we'll arrive bearing two little girls who are eager to bake you a chocolate cake.

Love you,

d

And it was a great birthday

I had a birthday last week and wanted to share a few photos with you. On the morning of my birthday I was showered with not one, not two, but at least six birthday cards from Alyce and Shira, not to mention the presents, both new and old. What do I mean by old presents? If you're a parent you probably know what I'm taking about: young children find unbelievable joy in the giving of presents, so much so that they will find old things around the house and lovingly wrap them up just for you on your birthday. In addition to the new baking spatula and ovenproof baking dishes I received (thanks Mum), I also opened a half-used sheet of stickers, a points card from our local frozen yogurt store, and sponge, all wrapped carefully in Tinkerbell wrapping paper. What else could I possibly need?

I celebrated my birthday weekend (why celebrate only for one day?) in style: lunch dates with friends, quiet dinners with husbands (mine), and an all-afternoon dinner with my family. The girls were dressed in their best birthday clothes, fairy princess costumes optional. Sadly I did not take a single photo of Matt that weekend, but I can assure you he was there celebrating with us.  I did, however, snap a photo of myself, for posterity. Mostly it's just a photo of my iPhone. Danielle, age 35, and her iPhone. You're welcome.

Thank you to everyone for giving me the loveliest of birthdays.

P.S. That baby I was waiting for? Well, she arrived a few days later. And she is perfect, in case you were wondering. As is her mother.

Ten things on my birthday

1. I love birthdays so, so much. I love my birthday, your birthday, her birthday. I've been ridiculed a fair amount in my thirty-five years about my love of celebrating, but no matter, it won't stop me. Birthdays are renewing, as are the celebrations that can come from them. Feeling blue? Bake a cake for someone who is an entire year older now! Turning a year older yourself? Turn to your friends for some old-fashioned self-indulgence. Eat a good meal and reminisce about your silly youth. Or your silly last year. You won't regret it.

2. Yesterday I spent eleven dollars on pink sparkly nail polish for me, Alyce and Shira to wear on my birthday. Nothing says birthday quite like pink sparkles.

3. I have come to understand that mistakes are good. You can't make mistakes unless you are acting in the world, moving forward.

4. My preference for birthday cake is chocolate with butter cream icing. I don't really enjoy fondant. But I'll enjoy pies, brownies, ice cream sundays, and any and all cookies if chocolate cake is unavailable because this is just the kind of person I am. I also only want to indulge in these things if you'll share them with me.

5. I have watched two babies enter the world this year. I always knew my calling, but now I really know. Those mistakes I've made in my life? This is most certainly not one of them.

6. I'm braver than I think.

7. As a parent birthdays are less about yourself and more about watching your children rip open the presents they wrapped themselves the night before in Tinkerbell wrapping paper. Birthdays also now include no less than six cards, most of which have Snow White on them. I couldn't love them more.

8. Turning thirty-five doesn't make me old. But what it does make me is a person with wrinkles around my eyes. I've always thought smiling eye wrinkles a beautiful part of a person's face, but at the same time it never quite occurred to me that I, too, would smile my way into a face full of them. But I've certainly earned them, what with all the smiling I've done in my life, and I couldn't be luckier.

9. One year for my birthday I would like to host an enormous dinner where I would cook for all of my favourite people. I would celebrate another year by saying thank you to the people I love the most. Doesn't that sound lovely? I think that's how I'll celebrate turning forty. Save the date.

10. I'm still on-call for a good friend waiting to give birth to her first child. If she's wondering what to do for my birthday, a baby would do nicely. I would be honoured to share my birthday.

A good game

It was a good game and a good birthday. Most of all, it was an excellent date with my husband.

It's the end of the Victoria Day holiday here, and as soon as I run down the street and threaten all those hooligans with their lives for setting off fireworks in the vicinity of my sleeping babies, I'm heading to bed. What better to celebrate a queen than with some lovely quiet. She'd like the quiet, we all know that.

Happy Victoria Day, everyone! May it be filled with the quiet sounds of babies sleeping everywhere.

P.S. Do you know Karen Walrond? She had this to say about all the complaining going around on the internet, and I think you should read. I'm with her: I'm also calling bullshit (did I just swear again?) on the need to critique and complain about Every. Single. Thing. I have done my fair share of complaining and will continue, I'm sure, to share my complaints some days. But most days I'm here to laugh and maybe, just maybe, write down enough details so that one day when I'm old I can remember just how much fun all this is. Let's do this together.

Celebrating Two

Yesterday we celebrated Shira turning two. There were party dresses, cake, presents, balloons, and a few family and friends. It was a small gathering perfect to mark this very special day. Shira beamed.

We don't have a baby anymore, Matt told me last night after the girls were tucked in bed. I ignored him for a minute. I was unwilling to concede that detail. But he's right. We don't have a baby anymore. We have two children, four and two. Do you know how I can tell that Shira is no longer a baby? Because I watch her take comfort in people who aren't my boobs me. For the first two years she was all mine, breastfeeding or not. She turned to me for almost everything.
 

I think I'm witnessing the very beginnings of a transition in her, a move away from me and Matt and toward her sister. No, this isn't where I start sobbing that my baby is leaving me, because she will never leave me as such. She came from me, she is me. But the relationship that is growing between her and Alyce is something apart from me. I don't understand it because I have never experienced it, but I have my suspicions. There is so much emotion between the two of, so much intensity. They argue (oh how they argue), they manipulate, they scheme, they giggle so hard they lose their breath. At four and two (see, there it is again) they already have a special language, and I'm not included. Is this how it all begins?

Shira was the star of her birthday, and Alyce, devastated as she was that it wasn't her birthday, was excited to celebrate with her. Even when it was clear that Alyce's skin was crawling with birthday envy, she took joy in Shira's day. And maybe even one day, one day far into the future, Shira will let Alyce play with her new dollhouse.

Maybe.

P.S. If you are interested in Shira's birth story you can find it here.

And she's two

Shira Clementine makes my heart swell each and every day, even when I'm exhausted and irritated. Today she is two. Here is a list of things she enjoys: Alyce, butterflies, farm animals, lentils, hats, princesses, marching, painting, breastfeeding, and cake. I could go on all day but then you would surely roll your eyes and wonder why it was that you even joined me here.

She's excited about her birthday, but let me be clear: this birthday is really all about her parents. At two years old her birth is still fresh in my mind and I find myself daydreaming about my labour and what it felt like when she finally emerged. In case you are interested: a lot of pain, worry, a little panic, relief, delight, heartache (the good kind), euphoria, and hunger, in that order.

The harder memories, like the isolation I felt when she was born so many hours away from friends and family, are more distant. Instead I am grateful for the generous visitors we did have, who traveled very far, not just to meet Shira, but to offer us support. These visitors might not remember much about their trip to Delaware two years ago, but when I think of Shira's birth I think of them, too. Thank you doesn't quite cover it.

***

We are having a very small party tomorrow afternoon with some friends and their two young children. Today it is just me and the girls, as it is most days. I've spent the day baking this yellow butter cake and cupcakes, and even though we're saving most of the celebrations for tomorrow, the three of us shared a pink birthday cupcake this afternoon, candle and all. Now I'm off to assemble a wooden dollhouse for a certain two year old (please don't spoil the surprise)!

What you missed last week

 

• A trip to Riverdale Farm in downtown Toronto. We traveled into the city one day last week with Matt, and while he was working we enjoyed the most beautiful little farm in the centre of an otherwise very busy city. Also: I took Matt to the Riverdale farm on our first (sort of) date in 2005. He didn't know it was a date, but I did.
• Shira napped and I took a walk in the woods near Alyce's school one morning.
• I baked two loaves of pumpkin bread, one for home and one to charm my new classmates at the doula training I began last weekend. Yes, I am on my way to becoming a labour doula (I'll fill you in on that a little bit later) and I can't wait. It's a good way to spend my time this year. Anyone looking for a doula?

• There were many trips to the library. One of my favourite parts of the day is watching Alyce put her bed together each night, carefully placing her best library books in the just the right spot. Also on her bed: Bear and Mrs. Bear, a hair brush, a drawing of her best friend, a valentine, and a certificate she received after a hard morning of entomology training at Kindergarten last week.
• Alyce learned to feed pigeons. 
• We hosted a party for my grandfather (Mary Alyce's husband) this weekend and celebrated his eightieth birthday. At eighty years old my grandfather gardens all day long, has learned to cook for the first time in his life, and is not above playing baby stroller with Alyce.

• Took Alyce and Shira out for breakfast while we were visiting Toronto. 
• Sought refuge at a friend's house after a long day of errands with The Children. I love having friends who let you throw your kids in the tub with their kids.

Now it's a new week. I'm excited for some new beginnings and I'm already working on some strategies for rediscovering my energy. Do you have any suggestions? What works for you?