Documenting Bea and the now here, in a very small way has been fun! I will be glad to look back on some of these pictures and posts. I love her busy hands, making worms and cookies, sorting beads, throwing beads. Oh, throwing beads. I bought those about six months ago because I felt a rush of inspiration to make beaded bracelets for all of the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins but quickly realized the fun mess they make, the sustaining mess they make, the sounds they make in the vacuum, the way they feel on the bare foot, and the way they slide off of the adult's tiny bracelet attempt without a care in the world. For now, beads are for sorting and listening to as they hit glass and plastic jars.

Add caption

Dani made Bea's birthday cake with incredible attention and care without being asked. We collect camellias because, well, they are clearly special to us. My friend Katie has me looking at the perfect imperfections of a living home. I really appreciate this even though I vacuum and spend a while cleaning every day. I love how Bea calls our house home. She already knows that it is important to me, I guess.  This place home is feeling very warm lately, very cozy, toasty. All of a sudden this kid is two. We let her use technology from time to time, see? She is not shy, she is coy, she is such a sweetheart.

Her favorite medium is paint, so far.

I have to tell you, this makes me very happy.

These winter traditions 

My little love is changing before our very eyes, every day, every minute. When any lapse of time goes by where I don't see her, eight hours of work, eleven hours of sleep (yeah, I said it and I can't believe it either), a few minutes of knitting, there is a noticeable lengthening in her torso, a new way she lays on the floor to play, a new combination of words (!). How can she possibly be able to reference a story she'd heard a week ago? Bea, you are a small green bud getting bigger and wider and stronger and richer by the minute! 

Today, out in the backyard at around three thirty in the afternoon, I very much enjoyed our conversation. I held you close as the wind was very biting. You felt so big and bulky, so different than you did last winter. We spoke of nests because with the trees being bare and all, we saw such perfect, big wads of sticks and leaves. In the spring, when more buds appear on the smoke tree, the lilac, the maple, the nests will fill with blue bird eggs. We'll be able to hear the chirp, chirp cries for food, worms, I said, that the mommy and daddy birds will bring for their baby birds. You wanted to hear that story over and over, until we had to go in to warm up. Bea, I am so happy to hold you, to kiss your cheeks and mouth and ears and hair in between your little words and my long sentences. I sneak all of that love in whenever I can. I grab you close, cuddle you all cozy as much as I possibly can. I am glad you mostly approve.

Making things with her is a beautiful experience. I love this little person more than I ever could have imagined.

Parenting a toddler is hard shit. It's hard shit because it's hard holding back your anger when she accidentally hits you with a solar pig flashlight you asked her to stop swinging, in public. She's got to swing it to see why it's not a good idea, right? I was left with a dinged up lip and she stopped swinging the flashlight because of the dinged up lip or because she noticed ice on a bench she wanted to eat. Gross! I had success in not huffing or growling at that flashlight bit which was unusual for me.
Since reading a few articles I have tried to really rein in my growls and realize the enormous amount of growing emotionally this child is doing right now. There is a lot of good I can do by keeping my cool and being a CEO (HA) parent, confident and effortless (this article sent from a good friend really resonated with me). It's an understatement: this parenting a toddler business is hard shit.

It's an incredibly complicated and intertwined web of real, raw, human stuff, from everyone in the family or anyone around for that matter. It's a rained drenched, wind blown, soggy, sun glistened web for all to see and also for no one to see. It's messy and beautifully real. I want to be violent at times, I said it. Sometimes I want to squeeze a wine glass (because it's so thin) until blood pours from my dry, unattended cracking hand. I want to run in the backyard and scream, howl, and have our neighbors hear it and think, "oh, they have a kid" and not come over to check on us. It's unexplainably beautiful because it's our life. I love being in this messy, safe place. I love watching my partner climb around in this tangly, uncharted, and stable web because I see the sacrifices and know the struggle too, in my way. I am lucky to see him grow and expand like a balloon, to fit all of her, him, and us into his life. I don't get the same perspective of myself because that's just the way it is, we reflect on ourselves differently. I get to be a part of his clear moments and his frustrated ones and he mine. Right now I love coming home to them spelling words like R O B O T on the fridge.

It is an honor, Bea, to help you start up in life. You add a rainbow of richness and education and love to mine.