I just had one of the sweetest moments I’ve had so far as a parent. I was cleaning some things up in the kitchen and bumped my hand and said “ow!” Brad asked me what had happened and I said I hurt my hand.

Eva, who was playing by herself and didn’t appear to be paying any attention to me, suddenly ran up to me and said, “kiss!” I always kiss her when she gets hurt so I thought maybe she was hurt somewhere. So I held out my hand to her and said, “where do you need a kiss?”

“Hand!” she said and leaned forward and gave my hand a kiss, then ran off. She was kissing my hand because she heard me say I hurt my hand!

She’s also been spending the last half-hour laying her animals on the floor, putting a blanket on them, saying “night-night” and giving them kisses.

It is so amazing to watch this child who up until recently has been 100% focused on her own needs (as is normal for babies, of course) start to develop empathy, compassion and affection. Having Eva is the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done in my life and I am so excited to see what else she has in store for me.

Recently we traded in a big plastic Fisher-Price toy for this cute little table and chair set from Ikea. Not only does Eva like this better, but it’s looks a hell of a lot nicer in our living room.

Eva absolutely loves to color, so this was a huge win for her. Now she can sit up on this chair (and even though her feet dangle way above the floor, somehow she can get up and down from this chair on her own) and color anytime she wants.

Assembling the table was almost as fun for her as sitting at it. She dove right in and started using the tools in just the same way her Dad was. She even knew where the second leg of the table was supposed to go and started trying to put it there herself. Next I’m going to set her to work fixing my broken kitchen cabinet.

I’m feeling rather extremely frustrated. A week’s worth of sleep deprivation will do that to you, and it makes me remember in vivid, gory detail just exactly how mentally ill I was after weeks of extreme sleep deprivation when Eva was a newborn. Thankfully I’m not that bad yet, but if I don’t get some sleep soon I can see where this is headed.

I seem to have this problem when I hit a critical stage of sleep deprivation. If I become too tired for too many days, I eventually lose the ability to fall asleep. This has happened to me many times in my life and I eventually get over it, but it’s pretty painful. I can spend many hours in bed, tossing, turning, thinking, not thinking, planning, worrying, meditating, and even occasionally dozing, having mostly bad or at least bizarre dreams, but not sleeping. I haven’t slept in five nights, not in any way that was the least bit restful.

The initial cause was Eva teething two canines and also having a nasty cold, neither of which is conducive to a long, quiet sleep. And Brad having the same nasty cold, which involves a lot of sniffling and coughing and snoring. But the last couple of nights Brad has mostly slept on the couch and Eva hasn’t been quite as demanding at night, but I still can’t sleep.

It actually got so bad yesterday that I wasn’t functioning. I had to leave work and come home to take a nap, then I worked from home for the rest of the day. I don’t quite know how it was that I’d napped successfully but can’t sleep at night. I think it must have something to do with anxiety over worrying about when Eva’s going to wake me up.

It’s 9:00 and Eva is finally quiet and I’m yawning but I’m afraid to go to bed and have another terrible night. A night where I will try desperately not to worry about Eva waking up crying, about Brad having a coughing fit, and about everything else that’s stressful including but most certainly not limited to my kitchen falling apart. Wish me luck.

At the same time, I sometimes get rubbed the wrong way when I read about some bloggers’ Life Lists. They’re not all like this, by any stretch, but occasionally I get the feeling like they’re a bunch of over-privileged people manufacturing yet another to-do list and feeling pressured to check items off it. The last thing I need is another to-do list in my life and another reason to feel like a failure if I can’t accomplish the things on it.

There is this one blogger in particular whose writing I generally quite like, but she is working on a list of things to do by her next birthday. More than any of the others, she seems like she’s a chronic overachiever who’s putting pressure on herself to get things done. And I kind of think that goes against the fundamental idea of a Life List–a list of things that would make you feel like you’re living your life to the fullest.

That said, I do have a list going, though I have no plans to publish it. It’s only got 17 items on it so far. One item has been checked off–”swim at a beach”. I haven’t done that in years and had such ridiculous amounts of fun when Brad and I both took a day off and biked to the beach and went swimming a few weeks ago. Another is a more lofty idea and I have already made plans to make it happen this fall (stay tuned; I guarantee that one will make for an interesting post!)

It can be really hard, especially now that I’m a parent, to remind myself to do the things I’ve always wanted to do. There are a few things I’ve been wanting to do for years and years and I clearly need a nudge to actually get started on them. So that’s what I choose to take away from the Life List phenomenon. A nudge to remind myself that there’s no time like the present.

Brad and I are trying to write down some of the funny phrases and pronunciations because at the rate she’s going, she’ll soon be reciting the Oxford English Dictionary from memory and I want to be sure not to miss out on my opportunity to embarrass her in the future by letting her know that she pronounced ”sock” as “cock” and “pages” as “bitches”.

She’s also really into helping with things lately. She picks up her toys, puts dishes away, wipes down her tray, brings food from the fridge to the table, and helps Brad put things together (well, she likes to play with screwdrivers, anyway). Of course, she won’t necessarily do any of these things if told; it has to be her idea and God forbid if we don’t want help with something. If she wants to help, she’s going to help, and we’d better like it! Or there will be hell to pay.

It’s sad to admit, but I’ve come to realize that much of parenting toddlers revolves around manipulating and tricking them. If I can just make Eva think that something was her idea, she’ll embrace it wholeheartedly. And I’m often manufacturing silly tasks for her to do to feel independent, because it makes it so much easier to get her to go along with things. Like if she’s underfoot and I’m trying to get something done, I’ll ask her to go show whatever she has in her hands to Daddy and she’ll happily run out of the room and excitedly hold her treasure out to him.

Every day that goes by, her personality grows bigger and I wonder how much of it will carry through to her adult life. Judging from how she treats the cat, for example, she’s going to be a strange mix of super-affectionate and intolerably bossy. If we ever decide to have a second kid, I pity the poor little brother or sister who will have to suffer through Eva’s reign as Big Sister.

6am – Eva wakes up babbling and playing in her crib.
6:30am – I finally crawl out of bed and retrieve her. We nurse and she points out all her body parts. For “teeth” she shoves her finger way back into her mouth.
7am – Eva runs all around the house laughing at the sound of the birds singing outside. It’s the first morning this spring that’s really warm enough to have the windows open. We look for pictures of birds in her books.
7:20am – Eva pretends to make oatmeal while I actually make oatmeal.

7:30am – Breakfast. Oatmeal with cinnamon and bananas is pretty much the best breakfast ever. She makes a valiant attempt to use the spoon herself and actually gets a little bit of oatmeal into her mouth.

7:45-8am – Eva runs around playing by herself and babbling while I check my email.
8am – Brush teeth and hair. Eva pretends to put toothpaste on her toothbrush.
8:15am – Watch a little bit of Curious George while I clip her fingernails. Fingernail-clipping time is pretty much the only time Eva watches television, and it’s pretty much the only way I can get her to allow me to clip them.
8:20 – We play with the plastic Easter eggs her daycare gave her the day before. She calls them “ball”.
9-10am – We go for a bike ride around the neighborhood and stop at the playground. She is pretty cozy in her bike trailer. She says “wheeee!” when I go fast enough.

10:10am – Snack of water, yogurt and peanut butter toast. She feeds me a few bites of her toast and thinks that’s pretty funny. I check my email while she finishes her snack.
10:30am – Eva plays by herself while I clean up the kitchen.
10:45-11am – Read books.
11am – I wonder what else I can do to keep Eva occupied (how do stay-at-home parents do it?). I consider taking her somewhere for lunch and ultimately decide to put in “Snack Time” by Barenaked Ladies. Eva dances, reads books, and plays happily mostly by herself.
Noon – Lunch of leftover tofu and veggies with strawberries and some salad for me. I give Eva a fork to play with and she learns how to spear tofu with it. In the process, I think she sabotages her spoon skills because for the rest of the weekend she tries spearing food with her spoon.
12:20pm – It’s getting dark outside. Not sure if it’s the changing weather or allergies, but I have a terrible headache. I take 3 Advil.
12:30pm – Thunderstorm begins. We watch from the deck door and I open it a little bit so she can feel the rain on her hands. Eva runs all over the house entertaining herself and laughing this big fake “Ha Ha Ha!” laugh.
12:45-1pm – Get ready for nap. Nursing, reading books (favorite book right now: “Twas the Night Before Christmas”) and snuggling.
1pm – Eva’s out for the count.
1:05pm – Huge thunderclap scares the cats out of their skin. Eva doesn’t make a peep.
1pm-1:25pm – I wait for dishwasher to finish so I can take a shower. Meantime I clean up, watch some Hulu, eat some chocolate (which ultimately helps get rid of my headache), and fold laundry.
1:25 – Shower, then put laundry in, check work email.
2:05pm – Decide to start knitting, figuring that will cause Eva to prematurely waken from nap. I knit and enjoy the sounds of the rain and the cool wet breeze.
2:20 – Respond to a few work emails.
2:40 – Back to knitting. It’s raining hard now!
3:15 – Brad’s home!
3:30 – Brad must have woken Eva up.
3:30-4 – Eva runs around playing and being insanely cute. We hear crows outside and start making “caw caw” noises, which she immediately decides is the noise every bird makes and thereafter says “caw caw!” anytime anyone mentions the word “bird”.
4pm – Eva starts crying for no apparent reason. Finally a snack placates her.
4:30 – Leave for Midtown Global Market to go see the Easter bunny and eat delicious Middle Eastern food. There is some live music and a small dance floor where lots of little kids are rocking out, but Eva just stands there looking bemused.

7pm – Home again. Eva practices going up the stairs (“Up! Up! Up!”). Still doesn’t get the concept of going down the stairs; just tries to walk down them and nearly kills herself or at least gives parents high blood pressure.
7:15 – Bedtime. Read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and two Sandra Boynton books (“Doggies” and “Moo, Baa, La La La”).

Now that Eva’s a year old, we no longer have weekly pages to fill in and the time seems to slip by ever more quickly. So I’m going to try to make an effort to write here and remember each month of Eva’s life.

And the last month, has it ever been a doozy. First, the good:

A week after her first birthday, Eva took her first steps. She’d been walking while holding our hands for months and Brad and I knew she really just lacked the confidence to strike out on her own. So it was a very exciting day when she willingly let go of Brad’s hand and stumbled towards me. Three weeks later, she’s much steadier. She can walk across a room pretty well, but still falls on her butt a lot and resorts to crawling most of the time. She’s not completely a toddler yet, but she’s well on her way.

It’s bizarre how quickly this toddlerhood is taking hold of her in other ways, too. She’s becoming so much more independent, often throwing little temper tantrums if we try to help her do things. She’s communicating so much better, pointing at the things she wants and at the person who she’s chosen to do her bidding, and clearly saying “no” (with a decisive head-shake) if we’ve guessed incorrectly. She has plans, these days, and a stubborn determination to make them happen. This can be frustrating because her coordination and communication are just not at the level she’d like them to be. I have a feeling this will be an issue for a long time to come.

I’ve been wondering lately at what age do parents stop cooing and sighing over how special and wonderful and perfect their offspring are. Because Brad and I still do that on a daily basis. Does that ever go away? Do my parents still bask in that glow of wonder over how amazing they think I am? Hard to envision, but maybe that’s true. Being a parent has made me see my own parents in a different way.

So, the bad aspect of the last month: right after posting last time about how great life was and how wonderful our new schedule was, Brad suddenly learned that his job was in jeopardy. Not through any fault of his own, but because his employer decided to go with a different contract company to employ their IT workers. This is a bit convoluted, but in his current job basically Brad is a glorified temp worker. He works for an IT staffing company who placed him at the giant corporation where he works. Said giant corporation negotiated a contract with a different staffing company so that all their IT workers in his group would have be employed by the other company.

After a few weeks of ulcer-inducing stress, he was finally able to negotiate with all the companies involved so that he could be employed by the other staffing agency and keep his job. In the end, it seems to be working out fine. But the last few weeks have brought back all the fear and anxiety of having an unemployed husband for all those months while having a baby and incurring all these new baby-related expenses. I’ve gotten so skittish in the last year because every time it seems like we have our feet back under us, something else happens. I hate that when I contemplate the idea of having a second child, all I can think of is that it would either cost too much, or I would be so afraid of bankruptcy the entire time that I would be a constant ball of anxiety.

I can understand now how it is that our grandparents, who lived through the Great Depression, could still all these years later hoard food in their basements. I wonder if this recession will have a long-term effect on me? I hope that I can take something good from it. Because I don’t want Eva to grow up with a fearful and pessimistic person for her mother.

She can say “hi”, “bye”, “mama”, “daddy”, “baby”, “no”, “puh-puh” (that means “puppy”) and “buh-buh” (which means “button”) and just this morning I think she started saying “up”.
She crawls everywhere.
She scribbles with her crayons.
She dances.
She runs all around the coffee table and back and forth along the couch, but hasn’t quite gotten brave enough to try to walk without support.
She can sit by herself quietly absorbed in turning the pages of books, or she can work a crowd with her peals of fake-laughter and melodramatic gesticulation.
She hugs and nuzzles into my neck when she’s sleepy.
She points at everything that looks interesting to her and waves at everyone she sees in public.
She gets so excited when her Dad comes home that she repeats every greeting she knows — “hi-bye-hi-bye-hi-bye-hi-bye!”
She gets the giggles if she’s really tired and content and I’m rocking her to sleep.
She’s an adventurous eater (and even loves meat, much to my chagrin).
She politely says to herself “no, no, no” while reaching for the forbidden cords or putting crayons in her mouth.
She understands nearly everything that comes out of my mouth.
She loves the cats and all her stuffed animals, searching for their faces and giving them huge smiles.
She has seven big teeth in her toothy grin.

Nothing about being a parent has been what I imagined it would be. When I think back on it, sometimes I can’t believe I decided to have a child. I went through most of my life never planning or wanting to have kids and then suddenly I wanted one? How could I have taken that enormous of a leap of faith? I only had the vaguest ideas about what my life would be like, and none of them were really right. I guess the human instinct to reproduce can be a very powerful thing.

Of course, now that I know what I know, I’m incredibly glad I naively jumped into the whole idea of having a baby. It’s addictive and refreshing to love someone so fully without any reservations. In the midst of everything bad going on in the world, it feels good to be constantly impressed by someone. It feels good to know that there’s someone out there for whom I would do anything, without question, without even thinking about it.

It hasn’t all been sunshine and roses and bunnies. In the first four or five months, when I had postpartum depression, there were far too many days when no matter how hard I tried, I’d try to imagine the next day and I’d just see blankness, as though I wouldn’t exist anymore. I wasn’t suicidal, but simply couldn’t imagine living anymore. It was scary. But having lived through that, it’s pretty easy for me to keep my perspective on the days when Eva’s fussy or I’m tired or just sick of the drudgery of taking care of a baby. The good moments so vastly outweigh the bad moments.

And there are lots of little things about our daily life together that are just getting easier and more fun every day. Taking care of Eva is getting easier. Balancing work and family is getting easier, especially now that Brad is working some new hours at work and he’ll actually be home during Eva’s awake time in the evening. Eva’s on the cusp of walking and the calendar is moving ever closer to spring and I’m imagining what it will be like to have a toddler this summer.

Life is so good right now.

She wasn’t too fazed by the weird feeling of wet cement under her foot.

So far, so good.

The handprint didn’t work so well. Eva was very grabby. So she just kind of gauged a hole in the sidewalk.

The finished product:

At this point it was sort of a frantic effort to keep Eva from eating the cement off her hand. We immediately went inside and dunked her in a sinkful of water.

We later went back and added her name and the date to the sidewalk, but haven’t gotten a photo of it yet. My parents have plans to do a better job fixing the sidewalk sometime in the future, so we’ll save that piece of it and I’ll have something to put in my own garden someday when I have a garden.