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Ivy Marcos

I realized last week when Chris called Ivy "Imelda" that I may have gone overboard on the shoes.  I counted and only 8 pairs were bought by me, most of those cheap Target or Old Navy shoes that really are a waste of money because they wear out so fast (and a couple of pairs of slippers - surely that doesn't count, right?) The best and easily cutest shoes ever are Pedipeds, which were recommended to me by my friend Gina, whose daughter was born on the same day as Ivy.  She had cute little soft, leather-soled pink shoes with red flowers with green leaves.  So cute! But my down fall was the website, and it will be yours too if you click HERE, and if it doesn't melt your heart with sweet kitteny cuteness, well, your heart is black and dead. I rarely even buy shoes for myself and here I am trying to narrow it down to 3.  Help me Imelda!

Happy Birthday Ivy!

I know, I am totally lame, I just now am posting about a birthday that occurred 4 weeks ago. Want lamer?  I wasn't even with Ivy for her birthday, I was in New York for work.  It was a great trip if that's any help.

I can't believe this last year has flown by so fast.  It has been the hardest and the most wonderful year of my life.  I was so afraid that I would not enjoy my child, that I would not be able to be selfless enough, that I would be impatient, frustrated and unhappy.  True, those first 4 months were all those things and more (terrifying, anxiety-ridden, miserable, lonely, isolating, deep-down-bone exhausting, you get the idea...FUN!), but now I enjoy about 99.4% of every single moment with my dear Ivy, even the mucusy ones, even the screaming ones, even the sleepless ones.  She has injected my life with a joy I didn't know was possible.  I never could really understand why people had kids, and now I know.

Happy 1 year on this rock my Sweet.

It Is the Mucus That Binds Us

I realized at the ATM today that I have become a mom, not in the physical sense, I am, of course a mom because I gave birth to a human. No, I've become a mom in the wipe-the-baby's-nose-with-my-hand-and-wipe-it-on-her-onesie kind of way. Outside the bank I noticed that Ivy's nose was running, and so that the lovely woman at the ATM didn't think I was a total slacker with one of those snot-nosed kids, I wiped her nose. With my hand. And I totally would have wiped it with my shirt but I couldn't reach down that far, it would have been really awkward. So, away came the hand with a snot-load and where else am I going to put it? Her onesie had to be changed anyway and, trust me, she really doesn't care if I wipe snot on her. Does it make it better that I made sure to NOT use that hand for the entire banking transaction?

Sigh.

As I walked away, marveling at my momness, I thought about my pre-mom self, who used to be completely grossed out by snotty kids (and they are snotty because they have colds half the year and don't really have a lot of mucus control), I was just sure that that snot and those grubby hands were carrying boat loads of germs and parasites and smudgy sticky goopy fingerprints. Yet now, I love my child and her snot, it offends me not at all. Not like I go out of my way to interact with it, it is just a mucusy by-product of my sweet Tiny. She's not sticky and yucky, she sweet and warm and smells like frosting.