Epiphany 2
Sure, you know about the coming of the Three Kings, celebrated around January 6. But did you know about the coming of the Two Princesses, honored a week later? Edith instructed me this past Sunday that we were to act out the story of Cinderella and Belle, traveling by donkey to Bethlehem, looking for a place to stay and being turned down all over town, then finding a spot in a stable. There, Cindy and Belle discover that there's a family with a new baby named Jesus. Later that night, Cindy has her own baby and surprises Belle with it. This second baby doesn't have a biological father either; I gather that Cindy and Belle are partners.
In another conflation of information gathered from hither and yon and brought together in Edith's brain, yesterday she and Tom were talking about Barack Obama and the fact that he was going to be our president in a few days. Edith asked if he was going to be Alice's president, too, and Tom said he was.
"I bet he's gonna make some good jobs for Alice," Edith said.
I'm guessing that that's some combination of my singing Peggy Seeger's "I'm Gonna Be an Engineer" at bedtime, about a little girl who is determined to be an engineer in the face of lifelong gender discrimination + reading picture books about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at the library + listening to NPR on Obama's job creation promises? With maybe a dash of Good Ways to Get Rid of Sister thrown in. (An alternative to her attempt to send the stroller careening down the aisle from the back pew at church, aborted last Sunday. But more on that in another post.)
For her part, Edith announced that she's going to have two jobs when she grows up: storywriter and decorator. The decorating is a fairly new craze, fed by the influx of sparkly wrappings and silky ribbons to the house in the last month. Edith loves to take these, as well as art supplies, jewelry, princess dresses, and hair accessories and busily cut, tie, and wrap to decorate the floor, the walls, herself, and gifts she wraps for her princess friends.
A train Edith created for herselfI've been reflecting on one of the differences between a first and second child being how much a parent lives in the present versus the future. With Edith we were always so excited to see what would come next--the next milestone, the next piece of the puzzle, the next stage in the adventure. It was amazing to see this little creature change before our eyes. And yes, there was no doubt plenty of anxiety about her meeting those milestones and pride in her doing so.
We will be enchanted to see Alice develop into her own person, too. But this time we're a little less eager to see the next developments come as soon as possible. Knowing now just how fleeting each stage is, we want to hold onto those things precious about infanthood as long as we can. We savor the hours spent sleeping with a baby on our chest, the gummy smiles, the little unconscious grasp of our finger...knowing they will be over all too soon.
6 comments:
that's so funny about the decorating. JSC's been OBSESSED with decorating since the holidays. I can't count the number of times I've heard "Daddy, I need more tape!"
Alice looks like a tiny little Gretchen.
She is an advanced smiler for her age! (Of course, she's several weeks older than her birthday would seem to indicate...)
Re smiles: The pediatrician made the same comment at the one-month appointment, where Alice was throwing her grins. Dr. H noted that the social smile usually comes at 6 weeks. We observed that gestationally, Alice was the equivalent of six weeks old.
I thought that about the smiles too...Gwen hasn't done a lot of smiling yet. Love the picture of Edith in curlers! Liam is so often in costume that we've decided to have a costume party for his birthday. Looks like Edith would fit right in.
I think knowing to savor the moment with the second one was one of the biggest differences for me. I enjoyed those frustrating times more with Abby, knowing that eventually she would only sleep in her bed so I should enjoy holding her sleeping... of course, Abby, being the sweet girl she is, has kept those little things much longer than Hannah-I can still hold Abby till she falls asleep, whereas Hannah gave that up at 5 months, go figure!
So true how fleeting it is, and how much we try to hold on to each stage a little longer this time around. And the sad thing - it actually goes by even faster this time, because you're a bit distracted. :(
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