of beginings and endings.

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.

Your first Birthday.

Dear Leila,

Yesterday you turned one. I spent the whole day thinking about what I was doing exactly a year before. Counting down the minutes until 10pm. The exact time you were born. The tenth hour of the tenth day of the second month of the year 2010. You've turned into such a magical little person Leila, I am so happy you are my daughter.

Your dad and I took you out for pasta last night. It's your favourite food. You sat there slurping up noodles with an air of contentment on your face. Everyone kept commenting on what a happy baby you are. You charmed an old couple and a couple with a sleeping six month old,and every server in the place.

This has been a hard year in a lot of ways Leila. Your dad and I are no longer together. We just aren't good that way. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to take you out for dinner every year on your birthday. That doesn't mean we're not going to go to every single silly school thing you ever do. Together. Because we're your parents, and we love you. Because your dad let me listen to the same two Neil Young albums over and over and over again for twenty hours while I was in labour (I think he slipped Paul Simon in there once). Because you're the best thing both of us has ever done.

I was sacred of you at first. Scared of having a daughter, of raising a woman. But the second night you were alive I was lying in bed after your uncle Chris and auntie Chelso had gone home, and you lifted your head up off my chest and looked at me with these hilarious crossed eyes and my heart broke and melted into a thousand pieces. And I still haven't found all of them. I'm still picking them up every time you do something new and sweet. Every time you play peek-a-boo with me. Every time you smile and curl up in my lap with a bottle. Every time you say, "ma ma ma ma".

Love you kiddo.

Ma ma ma ma

Day One.

(Yes, that's an icepack I'm holding on my boob.)

eight months

Dear Leila,

today you are eight months old. It's your first thanksgiving this weekend and you've become such a little charmer crawling around smiling at your family.

I feel like we're finally starting to string days together into weeks, months even. Before, when you were brand new, everything was just a series of randomly occurring events. Each day we would wake up and tackle every problem like it was the first time. We could never put together time in a way that made sense. We couldn't learn to repeat days into patterns, into weeks, into time. In those early months I felt like we were floating through a void and all we had to keep us afloat was our love. You clinging to me and me to you, bouncing on the blue exercise ball in a poor attempt to emulate the rhythm of waves.

Now that you can laugh, and play and eat bites of my french toast everything is different. You still reach for me when you need me, but now, that's not all the time.

I love you small human,

Mom

Happy babies know that puppy toys are better than human toys.

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

solid(ish) foods

I know you're supposed to wait until babies are six months old to feed them solids. However, almost everyone I know has started earlier and their babies seem to be fine. So after Leila made yet another mad grab for my cereal this morning I was all: "fine, I'll get you some." And she was all, "thank god woman, I've only been asking for a month."

I was expecting her to be really bummed on her rice cereal with breast milk combo that looked like something a momma wolf would regurgitate for her young, but Leila was surprisingly into it. She grabbed the spoon right out of my hands and attempted to feed herself, which worked to a degree, but she hasn't yet mastered the refilling concept. We'll have to see how her stomach handles it over the next couple days, but so far she is stoked.

"Woman, I can do it myself!"

"Please, Sir, can I have some more?"

five monthday (only a few days late)

Dear Leila,

This past Saturday you turned five months old! We were at your grandparent's house on Pender Island hence the belated letter. You had fun there though. You've decided that with enough introduction people who aren't me or your dad are ok and are allowed to hold you. We left you alone with them for a couple of hours so we could go canoeing (we would have taken you, but you hate your life jacket and cry the whole time), and I was so worried about you we came home early, but when we got back you were all smiles sitting on your grandad's lap.

It's so strange to see my parents with you and get the smallest of insights into what it must have looked like when I was your age. I feel like I am saving up all these anecdotes that will become the stories of who you were as a baby, stories you will carry around the rest of your life, but that you will have no real memory of.

You're doing all sorts of cool baby things these days. You can sit on your own for a few minutes now. You're also really really excited about your jolly jumper and bounce away happily until you're bored and need to move on to the next activity. You still don't sleep all that well, but we're working on that. You've actually started doing this somewhat cute somewhat frustrating thing where once you're asleep you wake up as soon as I put you down in your crib, so I have to pick you back up and hold you in my arms until your as limp as a noodle and then I can carefully put you back in your own bed. It's a little hard if I need to get something done, but there's something really lovely about your solid warmth in my arms so I try to have a book handy for those extra couple of minutes it takes you to fall deeply asleep.

You've really turned my world upside down little girl, but I love you so much more than I ever knew I could. You're a rose, you're a pearl, you're the spin on my world.

Love you always,

Mom

Sitting with Sophie!

Somebody has doubled in weight since birth. Leila is currently fourteen pounds and seven ounces of serious chub.

fanging

The poor little miss can't seem to catch a break these days. She's a drooling mess soaking through bibs and onsies and covering anyone who holds her in slime. I was putting some homeopathic topical stuff on her gums today and I could feel the tiny bit of loose gum on the bottom covering the teeth. They seem so close, yet so dreadfully far away.

Having a baby really brought out my latent hippie tendencies, I mean I had a home birth, I drank weird tasting teas, and I was certainly all against drugging my child. However, the other day I was talking to a woman from La Leche League, who I assume to be about as hippie as they come, (they promote and help women with breastfeeding) about Leila's teething and she was all, "give her infant tylenol." And so I did. And a chorus of Birkenstock wearing angels sang. Seriously though, I give her half the recommended dosage when she starts to wail like a banshee and she chills out and drools pink stuff down her chin and looks like an adorable baby vampire with a hankering for barbie blood. I'll try to take a picture next time. In the meantime, here is Leila chilling in her Jolly Jumper, and yes that's a drool bubble on her lower lip.

One big thumbs up for jumping.

Last night Leila laughed for the first time, it was pretty much the best thing ever.