Last week, Leila started daycare. We went over on Tuesday for an hour so she could get used to the kids and the place, and she was fine. She played with the dogs and with the two little boys who go there as well. They're five and two. And when I came to pick her up she cried. She was having fun and didn't want to go.
I dropped her off the next morning for real, for the whole day. And again she was fine, she didn't cry when I left and I stayed, listening against the front door for a good ten minutes just to be sure. It was a hard day for me. She's seventeen months old. Not really a baby anymore, just a sweet little toddler who waves at everyone as she walks down the street. But still, so little in some ways. I want to be able to be with her all the time, but I enjoy being my own person again too.
It was so hard to walk away from her, to know that those long, endless days of each other had finally reached an end. And I'm glad we had seventeen months together. They went on for so long, and were gone so quickly.
Showing posts with label growing up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growing up. Show all posts
Monday, July 11, 2011
Monday, August 9, 2010
half a year with you
Dear Leila,
Tomorrow you will be six months old. It really feels like a long time, and not just because I've barely slept. You're really your own person now. You smile all the time and you're laughing more and more everyday. People keep commenting on what a happy baby you are, it's wonderful. You and your dad are getting along better too. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see the big smiles you give him when he gets home from work.
To say that you were a demanding baby doesn't even come close to explaining what the first six months were like. But now, now I feel like you genuinely love me. You curl your chubby little arms around me when I'm holding you, and reach out for me when you want to be picked up. You giggle and bury your head in my chest when I tickle you.
These instances don't really do justice to the change that's taken place over the past couple of months. There were nights when I would stare out at the water after you'd gone to bed wondering how this had happened. How we'd ended up here, the three of us each seemingly lost and inconsolable. But now you wake up burbling to yourself instead of crying, you splash in your bath instead of wailing, and in return we love you with the kind of love you feel when you know it is being returned.
oxo
Mom
Tomorrow you will be six months old. It really feels like a long time, and not just because I've barely slept. You're really your own person now. You smile all the time and you're laughing more and more everyday. People keep commenting on what a happy baby you are, it's wonderful. You and your dad are getting along better too. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see the big smiles you give him when he gets home from work.
To say that you were a demanding baby doesn't even come close to explaining what the first six months were like. But now, now I feel like you genuinely love me. You curl your chubby little arms around me when I'm holding you, and reach out for me when you want to be picked up. You giggle and bury your head in my chest when I tickle you.
These instances don't really do justice to the change that's taken place over the past couple of months. There were nights when I would stare out at the water after you'd gone to bed wondering how this had happened. How we'd ended up here, the three of us each seemingly lost and inconsolable. But now you wake up burbling to yourself instead of crying, you splash in your bath instead of wailing, and in return we love you with the kind of love you feel when you know it is being returned.
oxo
Mom
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