Already surpassing her mother's math skills

Sasha has been counting from one to ten since yesterday.

Also, lots of hugs. I've been counting those.

New Stuff

I am the perfect storm of laziness, sleep-deprived, and perfectionista - all of which has prevented me from writing here for THREE months. So, I'll keep it short and add some photos.

These last few months, Sasha has grown so much. Not just physically, but in her speech and mannerisms. The other night we were reading a book, Baby Born, that we have read many times. She pointed to a set of words on one of the pages and recited, word for word, what was written there. I know she has memorized it, and was not actually reading it, but still it amazed me. She retains so much in that brain of hers. And the sentences!

We have been struggling this week to get her to sleep in her bed ("tiny bed") at night and not ours ("big bed"). So, every night as I sit with her and work through the night time thing, she pulls out all the stops to get me to bring her into "big bed." She nearly got me last night when she said, clear as a bell, "Sasha love big bed." I was so delighted that I nearly gave in right there. Instead, I assured her that big bed loves her too, but tiny bed is so cozy and loves Sasha, too. She relented, although ended up in beloved big bed later on last night.

She really gets into mimicking facial expressions and physical movements of people. She has a favorite They Might Be Giants video called, "Robot Parade" and she likes to mimic the hand movements of the guy singing. She'll also try out different expressions while looking in the mirror. Yesterday I was holding her in the bathroom and she was crying about something (probably something I wasn't letting her do) and I saw her watching herself in the mirror. I asked her if she was watching herself cry, and she totally cracked up and then made an exaggerated crying face and then laughed again. She's a funny girl!

Here are some of my favorite photos from the last few months:

Cuddlebug, I love you.

I don't know how she does it, but Sasha gets cuter every day. The constant acquisition of vocabulary and how she pieces together the words she knows amazes me.

The night before last, she made me the happiest I've ever been, perhaps aside from the moment I heard, "Kari, look at your daughter" and saw her pink and wriggling and taking her first gulps of air. She was sitting in my lap and I was putting on her pajama bottoms. She said, "Mommy? Mommy, wuv you." The. best. moment. ever.

This morning we were in the kitchen and she was pointing to a sticker on the refrigerator ("stickuh! stickuh!"). I peeled it off and handed it to her and she exclaimed, "Coooool!" Blew my mind. I mean, my daughter now thinks some things are "cool." Parenthood really allows you to step back and appreciate the little things.

Goodbye, Summer.

Today is the first day of the season that felt like a true autumn day in Seattle. The sky went from blue to rain and back again several times and the wind shook the turning leaves off of the trees. In honor of summer's end, I thought I'd post some of my favorite photos from what was an outstanding summer.

(...this photo was taken in August)



Sasha in the garden. She really got into digging holes (and pulling the leaves off of trees).















More digging.












Looking forward to Summer 2009!

At long last

I think I've met a new record for longest time between posts. Sorry about that, although I can proudly say we've been living life to the fullest and not spending too much time (any time) writing about it.

We took a family vacation at the end of June to Westport, which is little fishing community on the coast of Washington. We went with two other families and their daughters, who are both Sasha's age. Here is a great picture of Sasha playing in the sand with Hazel, Stefanie and Mike's daughter. Sasha and Hazel were born only a few days apart.

Spending a few days with two other families was a blast. There were plenty of adults to make dinner AND watch kids AND some adults left over who could (gasp!) relax or go get donuts and coffee for the adults who were doing the heavy lifting. All this communal task sharing made me think more seriously about the benefits of communes, kibbutzes, and polygamy. Well, until I started reading Under the Banner of Heaven, that is. Rosy images of having a few co-wives around the house have forever been banished.

While none of us are headed for communal living, we did all agree that the weekend was a success and we're ready to make another go at it in several months or so. We're thinking about Whistler in the winter maybe.

Sasha continues to grow at astronomical speed. She recently had her 18 month checkup and pretty much has the body and brain of a 2 year old. Yikes! I expect her to start to slow down at some point, but until then, we're running along just trying to keep up. The girl is packed full of energy and spirit and definitely has a strong opinion about most things, as is evident here:

When she's not telling us what's what, she loves to dance and sing and her moves are getting more evolved over time. She does this fantastic little head wobble that makes me think she has a future in Bollywood. She is eclectic in her musical taste, enjoying everything from alt country to dancehall reggae to jazz to gangsta rap.

Sasha also has a friend, Nadia, who she is quite fond of. Tonight, in fact, they had their first phone conversation which consisted of, "Bdasouwlere, Nadia!" "Sasha!" "Saoeruaeldfu, bye Nadia!"

Every one of our days is peppered with the name Nadia. Sasha even calls her Daddy "Nadia" when he walks in the door. Either she is very confused or just pretty sure that one of these days it actually will be Nadia walking through the door.

Here's Sasha and Nadia a month or so ago enjoying some kind of snack.

Billie, Nadia's mom, has a video she needs to edit and post of the two girls post-bath chasing each other around the house wearing nothing but hooded towels. They are pretty darn cute together (and apart).

Sorry to make it so short after not posting for so long, but my evenings are brief these days. I'll try to do another one soon.


In the meantime, I leave you with a final image:

Something to lighten the mood

Sasha in her "Girl Power" T-shirt.

Oh Mother, Where Art Thou?

I'm not sure where my mother is. More accurately, I don't know exactly where my mother is. I know she is in Florida. I know she is most likely in St. Petersburg. I know she is living on the streets. I know she is alive, as of last week when she called my aunt and uncle in Vermont. Apart from that, she is like this loose thread that begins at my heart and travels out from there until I can no longer see the end of it, but it catches on me as I move throughout my day and I am reminded of the vague absence of her.

My relationship with my mother has been unraveling (again, those loose threads everywhere) for quite some time. The reasons are complicated, having to do with the old and familiar stories of alcohol and abuse and all the burdens they bear.


This Mother's Day was beautiful, for all the reasons I mentioned in my previous post, but there came with it a weight. I couldn't call my mother, or even write to her, to tell her how much I love her. To let her know, despite any pain her troubles have caused me, that she is my mother and without her I am missing a part of myself. I want to share with her my own journey as a mother and I can't do that. I want to thank her for the ways in which she gave her love to me pure and true. I want to tell her I remember the nights she sang to me on her guitar. I remember the time she took, despite being a single mother working full-time, to make me special breakfasts each morning. The journeys she took with us to the mountains, the ocean, the desert - the ways in which she showed us the world and made it beautiful.

I want to take the little girl in the picture and smother her with kisses, lift her up in my arms and hold her close to me, as I do my own daughter. I don't know what happened to that little girl. Whether the pain and illness to come was inevitable or self-inflicted or inflicted upon her, or all of the above.

I hope she can feel my love wherever she is. I hope that somewhere the other end of my thread is tugging at her heart. That even though her thread unravels off into a somewhere she can not see, she knows that it's my heart attached to the other end.