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.)

the finite and the ever-after.

The time that Leila and I have that used to seem to infinite seems much more finite now. These days and days that would hang haphazardly from the string of weeks, and months, are drawing to an end. Soon I'll be working. Soon she'll be with her dad half the week. Soon. Soon. But now, right now, she's in the other room sleeping. And I am here. Waiting to be her mother again as soon as she wakes.

it's been a long time, baby.

Dear Leila,

I missed your ten month birthday, I'm sorry. There's a lot going on right now little bean. Your dad and I aren't very happy with each other. We love you immensely though. Never doubt that. Of all the things in your life that you should doubt, please, never doubt that.

Doubt that the world is round. That floral print was ever cool. That it was a good idea to let you steal Norton's toys. That so-and-so is a good date to the dance. But please, never, ever doubt that your dad and I love you more than anything. I want you to be happy. And I want to be happy. You usually seem happiest when I am. So, I'm trying to make the changes in life to have that happen.

I knew before you were born that I would love you. When you were just this tiny little lump that made me throw up five or six times a day I knew that I loved you then. There was a heatwave the summer I was pregnant with you and I would drink water all day long and then lie with my face on the cool, concrete floor of the bathroom and think of you, who you would be, and how much I would adore you, all the adventures we would have together. I still feel like that, although now you are real, and wonderful and very present. You are the center of my universe and you will always be. I knew I would love you but I didn't know I would love you this much. I didn't know you would become my heart. That it would be through my love for you that I would feel the rest of the world. I've never been very tough. I cry at movies, at books. But since you were born I feel a million times more. You have become every child. Any time I hear of a child being hurt I cry. I can't help it. I understand now. You're it. You're the reason we do everything. The reason we drag ourselves out of bed in the morning is because sometimes you bury your head in my shoulder and wrap your arms around me and then look at me and smile.

I'm here bean. You and your dad are going to spend the next three days together, flying solo, playing games, causing mischief, and I will miss you like my right hand. But even when I can't be with you my love will find you. It will find you on transistor radio waves. It will come to you in the middle of the night in your dreams. I'm in every lullaby that gets sung to you. In every heart that beats close to yours. I'm there, loving you.

oxo

Mom

a house!

We found a new home. A house! Or at least the main floor of it. It's a giant old house close to where we live now but a little farther east. It's half a block to the dog park and it has a yard! I'm not usually prone to exclamation marks, but I guess I'm excited since I've already used two in the first four sentences.

It's the sort of place where I feel like Leila can make memories. We can grow carrots in the back yard and she'll remember the stained glass doors to her bedroom. We can easily walk to New Brighton pool in the summer. There's even a basement we can use. I have designs on tucking a desk away in a corner to write at and I think Tom wants to be able to do whatever is he does with tools down there. I might be getting ahead of myself, but I always thought it would be rad to have a dartboard.

I couldn't face the thought of Christmas alone in this crowded apartment so I was trying to find a cute cabin in the woods somewhere, but now, now I think we'll spend Christmas in our new house, and you're most certainly invited for dinner if you're in town. I'm so excited to put up the white Christmas lights that we had up at our wedding, I'm excited to bake, I'm just plain excited. I'm looking forward to seeing Leila's face as we try to show her how to rip paper off of presents, and Norton's enthusiasm at being so close to his favourite place in the world. I'm excited to meet our upstairs neighbours who have a three year old boy.

This is going to be good, I can feel it.

of family and other open wounds.

I'm having a hard time lately. My parents have decided they're furious with me for reasons I don't understand and don't think are as serious as they do. All my life I've tried not to make them angry except for a few times when I was a teenager when I pretended I didn't care. But I do care. I still care. I hate it when they decide they're not speaking to me. It makes me feel like I have a hole in the center of who I am.

They're not bad people. They work hard and they try hard, but it's like their idea of who I am supposed to be never added up to who I actually am. And every time they're reminded of this they get angry. This time it's different. This time, I'm a parent too. Granted, they've been doing it for twenty four years longer than I have, but I still know what it feels like to love a child. I know that Leila and I will eventually have disagreements, even fights, but I also know that my job is to love her no matter what. My love for Leila is boundless and unconditional, and I will try to remember that at all times.

My mother's father, my grandfather, would occasionally get mad and her and inform her he wasn't speaking to her and I remember how it made her feel. She would be so sad and empty. I remember feeling protective of her and angry at him for hurting my mother. I wonder if she remembers this. I wonder what it is my parents see when they think of me. It's taken me years and years not to see myself as deeply flawed and awful. But I know I'm not. Years ago, my counsellor made me draw up a list of ten things I liked about myself. It took me hours, and I'm pretty sure one of them was, "I like my impeccable taste in Star Treks, TNG forever!"

I want to make peace with my parents. I want to prevent this from happening in the future. I want Leila to know her grandparents. But if I can't  have that, then I want to find the strength to let go, to know that I am good person whether or not my parents tell me.

happy nine months, baby menace.

Dear Leila,

I would have written this yesterday, on your actual nine-month day, but you decided a couple of days ago that you are undergoing your first existential crisis. In baby terms, this means you screamed for two days straight. We're working through it together and you seem much more at ease with your existence today.

You've now been an outside baby for as long as you were in an inside baby. You're turning into a totally awesome tiny human with definite opinions and preferences. You have just mastered pulling yourself up onto furniture and it delights you to no end. So much so, in fact, that when you're standing you'll often look over your shoulder with a big grin on your face to make sure your audience fully appreciates your accomplishment.

You still don't have any teeth, but that doesn't stop you from eating a ton. Your current favourites are pitted kalamata olives, humous, cheerios and mango baby food. I especially like that you like olives. It makes me feel related. This is important since people are constantly telling me how much you look like your dad. In fact, no one has told me that you look like me. Although there are times when I am looking at your face that I feel this strange twinge of familiarity, like I am looking at a part of me reflected in you.

Lately, you have learned the joys of making a mess. You like to pull leaves off of plants, dirt out of pots, cotton balls out of the bag, laundry out of the hamper. Sometimes in the morning while I eat breakfast I put your toy basket on its side and let you remove all the toys. You think this is pretty much the best thing ever. And I think you're pretty much the best thing ever.

Love always,

Mom

sakineh ashtiani

This woman was supposed to die today. She hasn't yet. But Iran isn't saying when or if they will spare her. Only that the West needs to stop interfering with their justice. They say Sakineh is an adulterer (a crime she supposedly committed after her husband's death). For this crime she has alternatively been sentenced to death by stoning, whipping and hanging.

The politics of Iran vs. the West aside, I can't help but feel compelled by this case. There is something so painfully beautiful about this woman's face. About the love that Sakineh's son has for his mother. His tireless campaign to save her, so much so that he is in  jail now too. Her lawyers have been forced to flee the country, and her life is stretched out for yet another day.

 Before Leila was born I was terrified of having a daughter. I was scared of all the things that come with teaching someone how to be a woman. What if I fucked her up? What if I made her feel bad about herself without knowing it? And it's hard to figure out how to be a woman. At least I found it hard. I never knew where the line was on certain things until I'd crossed it, until it was too late and I was in over my head. This somehow, put it all in perspective. So this woman allegedly cheated on her dead husband. Something she confessed to only under torture. In essence, this woman has been convicted of being female. Had she been a man, there would have been no repercussions for her actions. I am still scared for my daughter, and for everyone's daughters because this is so wrong, so tragic and so incomprehensible.

For a more comprehensive overview of what's going on with Sakineh, go here.

If you would like to sign a petition to send to world leaders to try to pressure Iran to save Sakineh go here.

I am not in the habit of trying to get people to take action on political issues, but I can't keep from thinking what if she was my daughter, what would I want people to do? The answer, of course, is that I would want her to be protected at all costs.