Here are my options:
1. A baby book - nonstarter. I know better than to try and make that happen.
2. My journal - I'm not sure that my child's first word belongs between my regret over my latest ice cream binge and my concern for our national security.
3. A napkin - .....
4. (Re)join the blogging community.
I don't relish the thought of starting a blog that could potentially end up exactly where my last one did. To give you a glimpse of it's success, I'll just say that when I finally wracked my brain enough to find the blogging platform I used the last time I made an attempt to "write it down", I logged in and found my "13 Weeks" blog entry of my pregnancy with my daughter... who is now two and a half.
My daughter: Layna. She hilarious, which I'm 97% sure is genetic. Top of her list right now on things I can't go a day without hearing:
The hilarious: "Hey Mama, I wan' show ya." This is used in a myriad of ways - any time she thinks you aren't paying attention; any time she thinks she's doing something funny; any time she wants to actually show you something; and any time she wants a specific snack, cup, utensil, etc.
The irritating: "Why?" All. The. Time. Even when it doesn't make sense.
- Layna: "I wan' go paawwwwt." (I want to go to the park.)
- Me: "Okay, Sweetie. We can go to the park."
- Layna: "Whyyyyy?"
- Me: ...........
Finally, the inappropriate: "Layna poota." Our family has taken to calling "passing gas" a "pookah". It came from my husband's side of the family so I won't venture the connection, but Layna now announces her transgression every time it happens. Thank God no one knows what she's saying most of the time.
My son, Josiah, while also hilarious, is only eight months (today actually). So the funny things he does are a little more nondescript. He does do this hilarious "no" head shake, though, and me, being the gene that passes on my daughters hilarity, got him to do it right after asking him if he liked vegetables and also caught it on video. Boom.
He is also simultaneously 100% stoic and 100% a complete joy. He will look at you with his head tilted down and eyes tilted up just until you're feeling completely judged, and then he'll bust out this huge, toothless smile that makes your heart melt.
I want to say I'll never forget these things, because how could I? But already I've become desensitized to the fact that "lovey" is not pronounced by making your mouth into an "o" shape and moving your tongue back and forth over the opening while using various inflections of sound. And the memory of Layna army crawling from 6-8 months is faded by her constant two-foot jumping, which took months to master. I'm left aghast by her baby baldness in photos, now that she has flowing locks.... or used to be completely bald and now she has a pretty serious whispy mullet.
If I could just go on a tangent about that: my daughter was so bald that a co-worker, who was completely unfamiliar with children, repeatedly asked me when they got hair. To which I replied, "Every child is different!" which I'm pretty sure is a mother's self-protective response when their child is abnormal.
The truth is I'll try to write things down. The truth is I'll miss a lot. The truth is I have no idea how to be a "good" mom, or even exactly what I think that means, though I'm growing more certain it's a series of trial and error. But in my 28 years of life, nothing has taught me more than the last 2.5 years of parenting, so I figure that's worth capturing somewhere.
My life is more than motherhood, and I hope this will reflect that. (Maybe I'll even throw in a glimpse of my latest ice cream binge I mentioned.) But the reality is, once you are a parent, it affects everything else that you do. So while I am a Jesus-loving wife with two kids who works full-time and tries to train for marathons, and you can pretty much take my priorities in that order, it's all taken on a new light with my latest nickname: Mama.
