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My grandmother contributed to Doctors Without Borders every year. I made a contribution to their work in Haiti, with her in mind. If you’re like me, sitting in your kitchen doing pleasurable things, holding a singing baby, grateful for the amazing fortune you’ve happened upon, maybe you’ll do the same. Instead of take-out tonight, give that amount to the doctors who are trying to make it right.
Today she goes to bed as a full-fledged four-year-old. Wow that went by really fast.
We had a great weekend with freezing cold weather, the Cinderella ballet at the Miami Ballet Opera House (wow!), a helium tank and a ton of balloons, two butterfly pinatas, and a pink cake. Her favorite gifts were the fairy wand and the satin ballet shoes with ribbons. And she wore her new red pajamas for a solid 48 hours straight. A great weekend to be four.
Four years ago tonight I was eating eggplant parmigiana, trying to hear LOST over the din of the hospital nurses. I remember being so enamored of her, and so terribly scared all at once. Not scared of anything more than the simple fact that she was no longer connected to me. I’d never know what she thought. I’d never have all the answers to her questions. Scared that she’d one day be four. FOUR!
I wrote this letter to her when I was twenty-one weeks pregnant:
Dear Little One-
It’s the end of week twenty-one, and I’m finally starting to show you off. My insatiable appetite has returned, and what surely must be the coolest thing in the world is just starting to occur- you’re flipping and kicking all day long. You react to our gentle pushes on my belly. Your daddy’s voice will wake you and you flip over to say hello. It must be sheer heaven in there- warm, nearly weightless pleasure. We’ll try to make it heaven out here, but I don’t know if it ever gets that good again.
Last night on the Daily Show, John Stuart suggested that his son’s first words were going to be, “Dad, what the f***?,” like everything they’d been doing was wrong to this point. Something tells us you’re happy- whether it’s the steak fajitas, the new Coldplay album, or the cheers for Big Papi, we don’t know. We hope you’re happy. We’ll never be rich, but we promise you everything you need and most of what your heart desires. We promise you’ll be the only kid at preschool happy to take a toy drill and scuba mask to show-and-tell. You’ll know how to crimp an electrical connection and mend a garden hose, how to bleed a fuel line and mend a headsail before any of the other kids!!
We promise to introduce you to the finer pleasures too—music, good homecooked food, woodstoves, a little wine with dinner, riding on trains, playing with dogs, sleeping past noon . . . There’s much to see out here- stars at night, the woods (your woods) in Maine, enough books to keep you reading for a lifetime. So it’s not half bad. Your father promises too, never to turn off your flashlight when you read under the covers, and never to take the fuzzy puppy out of your bed. That stuff makes it all seem worthwhile. And we want you to know all of that joy our parents imparted to us.
We love you Sophia Anne. We can’t wait to see you..
It’s funny how much rings true already. The puppy isn’t a real one yet, but he’s fuzzy, and we’d never dare take Herbert out of her bed.
She has a series of pretend games we play where she goes to a class for the first time and when I ask her name, she invariably says, “My name’s Sophia Anne Landrum, but everyone calls me Sophie.” Exactly what I imagined when I wrote that letter four years ago. Exactly.
Sophie is TWO! from Ellen on Vimeo.
How quickly time passes. I barely recognize her teeny tiny voice! Preparations are underway for Sunday’s festivities- butterfly pinatas, cake decor, gifting (my big project=homemade yoga mats, as the girls got a Yoga Kids DVD for the holidays and LOVE it), a bike to put her bell on. Lots to do. Saturday we’re off to see a children’s production of the ballet, Cinderella. Could anything be more perfect for my tiny ballerina?
Not so tiny anymore.
Favorites this week. Pizza, the new Regina Spektor CD (so stinkin’ good), Florida clementines (seedier than the ones from Spain, but so much better and so much CLOSER!), and our new holding tank! Who knew a 40-gallon plastic tank could make us so happy. The poop system was the #1 most dreaded and most-often-tended -to system on our last boat. We’re hoping with a big tank, a new potty, and some careful thought, the new set-up will keep us from getting our hands in the muck so often.
Now if we could just teach Rosy to use the potty . . . I wish my grandmother was here to give me tips on potty training the smallest victims. My mom says she was trained at 15 months, just before her little sister joined the cloth-diapered clan. Rosy is peeing right through her Fuzzi Bunz, which is driving me batty. I’ve even gone back to the old way, prefolds and covers, just to keep her clothes dry. She’s thrilled by the idea of panties, but hasn’t quite put the pieces together yet. Soon, I think.
They’ve gotten into a CD book, so off to rescue the disks from tiny (and most likely sticky) fingers.
Hip Mountain Mama’s One Small Change challenge is a rockin’ idea. One small GREEN change every month for the four months leading up to Earth Day. If she gets hundreds of participants (and she will), think of all that change added up. It does a lot to help with the “drop-in-the-bucket” feeling of doing everyday stuff like hanging laundry out, or using a cloth napkin for dinner. I was a bit proud when I read her list and saw that we’re doing just about all we can do, from cloth diapers to rags in the kitchen, recycling to LED holiday lights. But there’s always more.
So for us, it will be a new recipe once a week from my fabulous new cookbook (thank you Susan) that seeks to OUST the diet dictocrats. Nourishing Traditions promotes the good stuff. Unrefined, unprocessed, grass-fed goodness. Also on the food front I need to commit to finding something other than soymilk for my kids to drink. So sweet. And my candy consumption has been ridiculous over the holidays. New late-night snacks for mama. Stat.
So there. We’ll check in on February 1 to see how we’ve done!
John found this list of life rules on a sailing blog. A mama was terminally ill, sailing with her kids. She wrote this for them. I think we can all take a bit from it.
1. Live your life with passion. Dare to dream big dreams.
2. Focus on your dream and keep it in front of you until you can visualize it as real.
3. Make a plan, and write it down.
4. Begin immediately, even if you are not ready.
5. The greater the obstacle in front of you, the greater is your opportunity for growth.
6. There is no great accomplishment without risk.
7. Never, never, never give up.
8. When all else fails, you can always laugh!
9. There is no “them” and “us,” there is only us.
10. You can start an avalanche by plinking a pebble down a mountainside.
11. To the world, you may be only one person, but to one person, you can be the world.
Ten years ago this month I was holed up with my little family in our living room, as a freak ice storm had knocked out the power in Atlanta. One of my favorite memories was on day three without heat, we made our way to a fancy restaurant for dinner. It was supremely restorative.
We’re having an unusually cold spell in the Keys and I’m holed up with a different little family of Four. My family ten years ago will never be the same, thanks to the three people I brought in the back door.
Ten years ago I was about to embark on an adventure in South Africa. I’ve never learned so much in four months as I learned there. All three of my grandparents were still alive and my grandfather made his last airline trip to see me graduate from college in 2001. On the same lawn where he paraded during World War II.
January 2002 took me to the Everglades for the first time, where I met the John who would introduce me to my John. Winter 2003 was the coldest and snowiest of my life. Thank you, Boston. Winter 2004 we spent traversing the country. We ended up in the Keys. This first week of the year was when we visited my dear Granny Ross at her house in Texas. She cooked so darn much she had to sit down from feeling light-headed. We climbed the highest peak in Texas, and bought our 17 acres of paradise in Maine.
5 years ago we arrived in Florida by boat.
and 4 years ago, in January 2006, our lives were turned upside down by a little lady who’s about to have a birthday.
What a decade it has been.
Happy 2010!! Have an adventure. By all means, begin immediately, even if you are not ready. We plan to.
